Instructional Technology is pleased to announce the pilot of Qwickly Attendance Plus in Blackboard Ultra courses. Featuring mobile check-in and advanced reporting, Qwickly Attendance provides faculty with tools to identify student absences and send email notifications automatically. The Qwickly Attendance Plus pilot will take place November 4, 2024 through May 25, 2025. 

Qwickly Attendance was launched at UMBC in 2016, providing an easy tool to take attendance and synchronize points to the Blackboard gradebook. One popular feature of Qwickly allows faculty to set up attendance self check-ins -- in the upgraded version, a rapidly rotating QR code appears on the screen instead of a PIN, reducing the possibility of false attendance. Students can use the Qwickly Attendance mobile app to check in from their smart phone or check their attendance records on the go.

Another exciting new feature in Qwickly Attednance Plus will convert student activity in Blackboard to attendance records. When we consider attendance in an online course, login is often the first metric considered. However, proposed federal regulations for attendance in distance education suggest tracking student activity including LMS activity such as discussion posting and test taking. Qwickly Attendance Plus will automatically derive attendance status for students based on their engagement with specified course activities during a designated period and mark attendance accordingly. 

Additional features of Qwickly Attendance Plus include:

• Check-Out: Add an option for students to check-out at the end of a class meeting.
• Forgive Absences: Specify how many absences are excluded from grade calculations.
• Schedule Sessions: Create attendance sessions in advance for the entire semester.
• Hyflex Support: Create context for attendance location (in-person vs. remote).
• Location Confirmation: Specific locations create approved zones for attendance tracking.
• Concurrent Check-in for Groups: Take attendance for any or all groups in a single session.
• Updated Reporting: Review and identify attendance trends. 

We invite faculty to explore the new features during the pilot. Upon conclusion of the pilot, Qwickly is expected to revert to the normal attendance application. Faculty feedback will help inform future adoption of the upgraded features.

• Visit Qwickly Attendance FAQs for additional resources. 
• For technical support, please submit a ticket to Instructional Technology.

• Check our extensive FAQ collection 
• What's new in Ultra? | Known Issues 
• Open a ticket via RT
• Follow the Instructional Technology & DoIT myUMBC groups
• Request a consult with instructional technology staff
• PIVOT | Academic Continuity | Keep On Teaching | Student Technology Resources

This month's update to Ultra increases support for assessment, accessibility, learner engagement, and course management.

Instructors can now choose roleplaying as an option for AI Conversations, providing another active learning opportunity in a simulated environment. For example, students can role play a doctor speaking to a patient (played by the AI persona) and practice diagnostics or other soft skills in a safe environment. As with Socratic questioning, the instructor can review the AI conversation transcript and the student's reflection on the experience. All AI tools in Ultra courses are optional to use. Faculty can learn more about the AI Conversations at a webinar on November 4 before the go-live date of the latest feature.

Image 1: Example of decision tree in AI Conversation set-up. Instructors must choose between a Socratic Questioning exercise or a Role Play exercise.

Another helpful update for instructors is the option to print tests that include question from Question Pools. This feature supports just the test or the test with the answer key. Note: The system will generate a unique version of the test and/or test with answer key each time a test is printed when the test has randomized questions/answers and when the test includes question pools.

Image 2: Example of printing a test with questions from Question Pool

Discussion formatting improves to better distinguish between responses and replies including indentation. Additionally, the delete option for discussion topic is removed, and instructors can edit instead. Future changes to discussions will include better navigation, improvements to terminology, updated interface, and clearer calls to action.

Batch edit is a helpful course tool in Ultra courses, and the change dates is the most popular function. As such, it is now the default option to simplify the process for faculty and help prepare courses.

In support of accessibility, Blackboard added a second skip link to the Course Content page. In addition to the current skip link to tab directly into course items, users can now press the Tab key again to skip to course information. If users don’t use either skip link, they will tab into the course features. 

Additional updates for October include:  

• Instructors can download the Student Activity Log as a CSV. All filters applied to the log also apply to the CSV. 
• To help with resizing blocks that are vertically tall, Blackboard modified the resize handle. Now, instructors can resize a block by selecting the vertical edge of a block. It is not necessary to place the mouse directly over the handle. 
• To prevent issues when uploading multiple files, students will now be required to wait for the first upload to completely before attaching additional files. 
• A message will display if a file exceeds the permitted size limit. 
• In the unlikely event of a student attempts to submit a corrupted file, a message will notify them of the issue, and the system will alert the instructor.

• The mobile app will now be known simply as the Blackboard App, aligning with Anthology's rebranding. In addition to an updated name, the app has an updated splash screen, icon, and description.

Faculty should see the latest updates in their Ultra courses around November 7-8, 2024. The next update to our Ultra test environment will take place on November 12, 2024; release notes are posted to the What's New in Ultra that same week. Faculty who are interested in test driving new features before they are released to production should open an RT ticket to request early access. Please watch the FAQs, including the What's New with Ultra page, and myUMBC for additional information about Ultra.

Update @ 6:37 PM: After a rolling restart was performed, course menus appear to be consistently stable and content is available. Users also report the error messages are no longer appearing. 

At approximately 10:00am on October 29th, UMBC users began reporting error messages upon attempting to access Blackboard courses. Instructional Technology staff opened a ticket with Blackboard Support and are continuing to monitor the service disruption.

As of 11:15am, this issue remains under investigation with Blackboard support.

Users may observe missing items from course menus including attendance, announcements, groups, and messages. Users who are able to log in courses may experience degraded performance and difficulty accessing course content and assessments. Most users are able to log into Blackboard itself and the issue is not system wide at this time.

Clearing the browser cache may offer temporary relief for the issue. 

If you encounter an issue when accessing a Blackboard course, please open an RT ticket and provide the session debug code, if available. The unique error id can be shared with Blackboard support to help clarify the errors observed in your course(s). Screenshots are also helpful.

This post will be updated with additional information as we receive it.

• Check our extensive FAQ collection 
• Open a ticket via RT
• Follow the Instructional Technology & DoIT myUMBC groups
• Request a consult with instructional technology staff
• PIVOT | Academic Continuity | Keep On Teaching | Student Technology Resources

With the October update to Ultra, instructors can gamify their courses or spark learner engagement and motivation using course achievements. Built on performance criteria (e.g., graded items), achievements are visible to students from the main navigation bar. This exciting update provides support for self-directed pathways, offering increased flexibility for assessment and student learning outcomes.

Image 1: Example of badge creation screen in Ultra course

Note: Achievements will be enabled on our production site by October 7.

With the release of the AI Course Design Assistant, instructors benefit from time-saving support for test question creation among other tools. This month's update provides the option to generate test questions directly in a question bank. Refining questions is provided either by entering a description of the learning objective(s) or topic or by selecting course materials, such as Ultra Documents or course files (e.g., readings, handouts, presentations). As with generating test questions directly in a test, instructors can specify the question type, complexity, number of questions, and output language.

Image 2: Example of auto-generating questions in a question bank

Improvements to the student submission review page will make it easier for students to access instructor feedback, including additional labels and other indicators, to help students easily find the information they need. Students now have a Read more option for overall and attempt feedback. 

A new Mastery tab in the Gradebook will allow instructors and students to see how their activities align with institutional and/or program goals. Based on the goal performance scale set by UMBC, the tab displays the mastery of each alignment (e.g., Distinguished, Proficient, Foundational, etc.). The Mastery tab enables instructors to view the level of mastery per alignment for each student and how each student is performing against those alignments. Note: UMBC is planning to launch the Mastery tab for SP2025.

Image 3: Example of instructor's view of student's mastery of program goals in a course

Additional updates for October include:  

• A Needs reconciling section now appears on the gradebook Overview tab. In this section, reconcilers can easily access all items ready for reconciliation. 
• Blackboard expanded discussion notifications to include email. Emails are sent when users opt for "Email me right away" notifications. 
• Blackboard made several usability improvements to Ultra Documents including inserting files from the Content Collection. 
• Instructors will experience faster loading when scrolling in the Student list, posting grades, and viewing rubrics in Flexible Grading.
• For larger classes with more than 2000 enrollments, the Flexible Grading page loads 25% faster.

Faculty should see the latest updates in their Ultra courses around October 3-4, 2024. The next update to our Ultra test environment will take place on October 8, 2024; release notes are posted to the What's New in Ultra that same week. Faculty who are interested in test driving new features before they are released to production should open an RT ticket to request early access. Please watch the FAQs, including the What's New with Ultra page, and myUMBC for additional information about Ultra.

After five years of a phased migration, more than 99% of all available Blackboard courses for the fall semester are now using Ultra. This marks a significant milestone in our transition from Blackboard Original with only seven courses still using the legacy system until December 31, 2024.

“I want to thank the Deans, all faculty and students, and especially DoIT’s instructional technology team, for their collaboration, patience and hard work,” says John Fritz, Associate Vice President for Instructional Technology. “I know this was a lot of work over a long period, including the pandemic, but I’m thrilled we’ll all be able to focus on supporting one version of Blackboard and helping the campus community make the best use of it.”

Image 1: Rate of Ultra adoption since Spring 2020

UMBC began using Blackboard Ultra in 2018 with a small pilot involving four faculty members. Since then, adoption grew slowly, but steadily. By Spring 2024, nearly 70% of available courses were delivered in Ultra. DoIT announced that all courses for the fall term would be created in Ultra with a one-time rollback option for COEIT and CNMS (CAHSS had agreed to do so a year ago). More than 125 faculty attended Ultra training in August to prepare for or refresh their Ultra courses.

Instructional Technology continues to work closely with faculty and departments to ensure a smooth transition before the end of Original deadline. For more information about Ultra, please visit the Instructional Technology group on myUMBC or umbc.edu/go/ultra.

Connect with Instructional Technology

As always, if you have any questions about teaching, learning, and technology at UMBC, please consider the following options:

• Check our extensive FAQ collection 
• What's new in Ultra? | Known Issues 
• Open a ticket via RT
• Follow the Instructional Technology & DoIT myUMBC groups
• Request a consult with instructional technology staff
• PIVOT | Academic Continuity | Keep On Teaching | Student Technology Resources

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UMBC is committed to providing a consistent learning experience for everyone. The last day we will support Blackboard Original is December 31, 2024. Please check out our training and support: umbc.edu/go/ultra

Thumbnail-image: Ultra news update

At 6:40 PM on September 22nd, Blackboard reported a system performance issue affecting clients in the US East region. This disruption may prevent users from accessing the Blackboard platform. Users who are able to log in may experience degraded performance and difficulty accessing course content and assessments. 

As of 11:00 PM, system performance issues remain unresolved.

Blackboard engineers are working to address the issue as quickly as possible. Instructional Technology staff opened a ticket with Blackboard Support and are continuing to monitor the service disruption.

Update: 

As of 3:15 am on September 23, Blackboard reports that this incident has been resolved. Please open an RT request for any continuing concerns related to system performance.

This post will be updated with additional information as we receive it.

• Check our extensive FAQ collection 
• Open a ticket via RT
• Follow the Instructional Technology & DoIT myUMBC groups
• Request a consult with instructional technology staff
• PIVOT | Academic Continuity | Keep On Teaching | Student Technology Resources