Blackboard Sheffield: two universities, two different login routes

Looking for Blackboard in Sheffield? Start with your university: the University of Sheffield uses MUSE, while Sheffield Hallam uses MyHallam or SHUspace. Choosing the right institutional portal comes before troubleshooting a password, missing module or assessment.

Sheffield Blackboard: choose the right university

Blackboard is a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) for teaching materials, assessments and feedback. The two universities have different access routes; a search result containing “Sheffield” is not enough to identify the right one.

Institution	Access route	First step
University of Sheffield	MUSE → My services → Blackboard	Sign in with your institutional account.
Sheffield Hallam University	MyHallam or SHUspace → Blackboard	Use your Hallam institutional account.

Follow the authentication prompts, including multi-factor authentication where required. Students, staff and external examiners need the appropriate account and course permissions. For an external examiner, having an account does not replace enrolment on the relevant module.

Find the module before looking for the assessment

Open Courses, identify the relevant module and check its academic year. Within the course, look through Course Content and the assessment folders. Folder names and submission locations can differ, so follow the module’s own instructions rather than assuming every course has the same layout.

Think of access as three layers: university identity, module enrolment and assessment-tool permission. A successful login only confirms the first layer. If Blackboard opens but a module is missing, report a course-access problem; if the module opens but a portfolio does not, name the assessment tool. This distinction helps support staff identify where access breaks down.

For assessment review, Gradebook filters can narrow the view by student, group or markable item. External examiners should confirm which submission attempt or sample they are expected to review. Avoid changing live course content: changes may affect everyone enrolled and may not be undoable.

Match the submission to its assessment tool

The assessment instructions determine where to submit work or read feedback. The tools are not interchangeable.

• Blackboard Tests: question-based assessments, including multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank and calculated-formula questions.
• Blackboard Assignments: longer responses and submissions such as dissertations, videos or visual reports.
• Turnitin: Feedback Studio brings together comments, overall feedback and marks. Marks are usually displayed out of 100; Match Overview shows the percentage of text matching other sources, not a verdict on plagiarism.
• PebblePad: portfolio-style work, with guest-account access where arranged.
• Crowdmark: handwritten work, multiple-choice questions and typed free-text answers.

Missing content: separate access problems from archived courses

Contact your university’s technical support for authentication problems. For a missing module, assessment folder or submission, contact the teaching team or relevant school. Give the module name, assessment title, tool involved and the point at which access fails. Never include your password.

Older content may no longer be live. Sheffield Hallam’s Blackboard guidance states that module sites are removed from the live system 30 days after the last enrolled student completes the course, with archives retained for 5 years. Organisation sites from the past year are archived in mid-September and retained for 3 months before deletion.

Hallam describes normal availability as 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, except scheduled maintenance. An unavailable page therefore needs a different check from a missing historical course. External examiners should ask their school to confirm both enrolment and the location of the required work.