Open Microsoft Teams (the desktop application is recommended - you can download it here: Download Microsoft Teams)

Select Calendar from the menu on the left-hand side.

Click the drop down arrow beside + New event.

Choose Class.

Fill in the meeting details:

• Suggested title: Course code, title, section, CRN.
• You do not have to add your students as attendees, but you can if you want to send a direct invite to their email.
• Enter the date and time of the first class.

• Set the recurrence. Click Make recurring. Enter the end date and click Save. If your meeting does not repeat, you can skip this step.

• You can leave the location field blank (unless students have the option to attend in-person OR online).
• Add a description if you would like.

Meeting options

There are a couple of meeting options that may be relevant to your class, and they are described below. For more information about the different meeting options, please see Meeting options in Microsoft Teams.

Click Meeting options.

• To avoid needing to “admit” students to the meeting who haven't logged in with their Georgian credentials and how joined the meeting as a guest, you can change the Who can bypass the lobby? setting to Everyone.

• When using the Class template, the meeting chat is set to in-meeting only by default. You can change this in the Participation section.

• When the meeting details and settings are as you would like, click Apply.  

Copy the meeting link

To copy the link for the meeting to share with your students, return to your Teams calendar and find the first scheduled class. Click on it. Then, click the dropdown arrow beside the Join button. 

Choose Copy join link. 

You should see a confirmation that the link has been copied at the bottom of your screen. The link is now copied for you to paste it in Blackboard, an email, etc. 

Add the meeting link to your Blackboard calendar

Open the calendar in your Blackboard course, and then click the + icon found near the top right-hand corner. Choose Edit Course Schedule. 

Click the + icon beside "Add the times this course or organization meets".  

The Nickname field will be pre-populated, but you can revise it if needed. Choose the start date, indicate how often it should occur and when the recurrence should end, and put the URL for your meeting in the Location field. Click Save. 

You can remove the session that occurs over study week by finding that date in the Blackboard calendar, clicking on that occurrence, and then the little trash can icon in the top right-hand corner. UNCHECK "Delete all events in the series" before clicking Delete.  

Your students will now have access to the meeting link in their Blackboard calendar, as well as within the course.