The latest release of Ultra enhancements comes two weeks into the fall 24 semester, bringing formative knowledge checks to Ultra Documents, a redesigned course landing page, and a new learner engagement tool called AI Conversations. 

In the August release, the Ultra Document saw significant improvements to support robust flexible layouts that are mobile friendly and responsible. With this update, instructors can now create formative knowledge checks to enhance the learning experience, allowing students to engage with content and receive immediate feedback. Instructors can provide correct/incorrect feedback and access simple metrics about attempts. Knowledge checks are formative and do not pass to the gradebook at this time.

Image 1: Example of knowledge check question (animated)

As previously announced, Anthology will update the Ultra course landing page to focus content on the left and course actions on the right. Additionally, it will be easier to distinguish between content containers (e.g., folders, learning modules, other content types) to help improve course navigation for all users. Moreover, functional improvements with this redesign provide clearer options to create content throughout the course. 

Image 2: Comparison of old Ultra course page (left) and new Ultra course page (right)

The AI Conversation is a new engagement tool guided by AI, encouraging students explore their thoughts on an assigned topic. Currently available as a Socratic questioning exercise, the AI Conversation's persona is configured by the instructor (name, avatar, and personality trait) with options to test and preview for reliability. Additionally, a customizable reflection question allows students to share their thoughts on the activity and, if prompted by the reflection and instructor, lets them flag any bias or errors from the AI as part of Anthology’s Trustworthy AI Approach. On submission, the instructor can review the AI conversation transcript and the student's reflection. Future updates to this engagement activity in late FA2024 will include roleplaying and debate options.

Image 3: Example of student participating in an AI Conversation

Finally, a new activity log is available to instructors in the Ultra course, helping with decisions in academic disputes and aiding in troubleshooting. Events include course access, assessment start/save/submitted, discussion access/save/edit/reply, document access, LTI (tool) access, and journal access. The Activity log can be filtered by event type and can look to the past 140 days.

Additional updates for September include:  

• Instructors will find a new gradebook Overview tab to improve task orientation and grading efficiency.  This tab contains two sections: Needs Grading and Needs Posting.
• To help instructors stay on top of their grading workload, there will be a number in the Gradebook tab to indicate when there are new submissions to grade. 
• Ultra introduces a new student-facing submission review page for assignments that makes all instructor feedback on a submission more visible, even if the assignment is hidden by a release condition.
• The Wiris engine and equation editor is updated to improve the rendering of subscript and superscript formulas, providing a better experience for STEM courses.
• Ultra added a new option to help instructors remove submissions from the grading workflow without having to delete them. When grading a student, you can now select Exclude Attempt to remove it from the Needs Grading workflow.
• When enabled, the Automatic Zeros gradebook setting gives a zero score to students who haven’t made a submission by the due date. To help instructors find and grade late assessment submissions, they are now indicated as Needs Grading on the Grades and Gradable Items gradebook pages.  

Faculty should see the latest updates in their Ultra courses around September 5-6, 2024. The next update to our Ultra test environment will take place on September 10, 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.

Anthology has announced that in early September, the Ultra course landing page will be redesigned to focus content on the left and course actions on the right. This change emphasizes Anthology’s continued investment in a learner-centered design for Ultra courses, ensuring that students easily find and engage with course content while deemphasizing the menu associated with instructor-specific activities. Further enhancements to the page include clearer differentiation between content containers -- folders, learning modules, etc. -- to help improve course navigation for all users.

What does this mean for faculty and students? Per the examples below, when classes start on August 28, the Course Content page will display the menu on the left with your course materials, folders, etc. on the right. However, on September 6, the update to Ultra will flip the layout so the course materials, folders, etc. appear on the left while the menu shifts to the right. 

Here is a side-by-side view of old (left) and new (right) course layouts.

Image 1: Comparison of old Ultra course page (left) and new Ultra course page (right)

We realize this redesign may be a bit of a shift in the second week of the semester, but we believe the updated layout will not be too disruptive as the content itself does not change, only the focus of its placement (right instead of left). In preparation for this update, Instructional Technology will display this post as part of an internal outreach in Blackboard to remind faculty and students. 

For faculty, functional improvements with this redesign are the clear indications that distinguish between containers (folders or learning modules) and more contextual creation indicators so it's easier to place new content throughout your course. In the second screenshot, you can see the contextual Create (+) and its placement in each version of the course. In the updated course, the (+) will appear on the left) wherever you want to place content while in the current Ultra course, you have to hover to find the (+) and its placement is not as easy to identify within the container.

Image 2: Comparison of creating new content on old Ultra course page (left) and new Ultra course page (right)

From the student perspective, functionality changes are minimal with new visual indicators (e.g., lines) to connect content in learning modules. Additionally, for all users, when you hover over content, Ultra will highlight that content a light blue so you know exactly what you are accessing.

Image 3: Example of student view of forced learning module sequence with highlighted content selected

Throughout the spring and summer, Ultra courses were updated with new features and enhancements to improve assessment, grading, content creation, and learner engagement. Many of these features are welcome changes that strengthen the platform, providing opportunities for faculty to customize courses and leverage Ultra in new ways. Although the redesigned course landing page comes at an unexpected time, the additional improvements provide increased focus for student learning and improve faculty course preparation with easier navigation.

After many years of use, UMBC’s license for Class Collaborate (formerly Blackboard Collaborate) will end on July 31, 2025.

As one of our longest licensed tools, Collaborate provided synchronous support for Blackboard courses, serving more than 300,000 sessions over the last ten years. However, since it was acquired by Class Technologies in 2022, it is unclear if and how Collaborate will be supported and developed over the long term, given the company’s priority of its own synchronous platform based on Zoom. 

In Spring 24, we announced that we would standardize one version of Blackboard (Ultra) starting this fall. Ideally, we would also simplify the synchronous video conference platform used by courses; however, we recognize that students will likely use a variety of tools in their working lives after graduation. Therefore it is essential to expand access to licensed synchronous tools while we also still have Collaborate for another academic year. 

DoIT offers three synchronous meeting tools with robust functionality:

• Google Meet 
• Microsoft Teams
• Webex

To learn more about these synchronous platforms, please explore pedagogical and technical use cases in this comparison chart. If you have a specific use case not listed, please open an RT ticket for a consult.

Attendance Tracking 

While these synchronous platforms offer Blackboard integrations at varying levels, none support 1) attendance synchronization to the Blackboard gradebook and 2) groups synchronization between breakouts and Blackboard. All platforms, however, do provide attendance reports, which will be important for faculty who need to track student attendance as well as proposed regulatory changes for attendance in 100% online courses.

We welcome faculty feedback via this brief survey about synchronous platforms and attendance. 

Preparing for the Transition

Starting this fall, Instructional Technology will offer training sessions to familiarize faculty and staff with Google Meet and Microsoft Teams. Webex training is available upon request. These sessions will focus on both the technical aspects of using the tools and pedagogical strategies to enhance student engagement.

Users who wish to save Collaborate recordings will need to migrate them to Panopto by May 25, 2025. 

1. Download Collaborate recordings to your computer. 
2. Create a new folder in Panopto for Collaborate recordings in My Folder.
3. Upload Collaborate recordings to your new Panopto folder.

Collaborate recordings made before July 1, 2024 will be retired by October 1, 2024.

NOTE: Due to FERPA restrictions, the reuse of any recordings (Collaborate, Webex, etc.) is not permitted if those recordings feature audio or video of students without their express permission.

Key Dates to Remember

May 25, 2025 - Faculty and student access to Collaborate via Blackboard ends

June 15, 2025 - Access to Collaborate sessions outside Blackboard ends

July 31, 2025 - End of support for Collaborate, including DoIT access to the Collaborate system

“You are a university-level instructor working to ensure images in your online course materials conform to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines at Level Double A. You need to accommodate for disabilities and impairments such as blindness, low vision and color vision deficiency to ensure equitable access to module content for all students. 

"You will be provided with an image. Please return a succinct title, alternative text (alt text), and a long description. You will also separately list verbatim all words that appear in the image.

"The alt text should be no more than two sentences and should briefly describe the meaning conveyed by the image.

"The detailed description may be one or more paragraphs and must describe the image in great detail so that anyone who does not see it can gain a full understanding of everything in the image. Please format the detailed description such that it will be easily scannable. Use headings, paragraph breaks, and lists as appropriate. Use active voice.”

Prompt created by Purdue University and adapted by Matthew Deeprose (Southampton University)

Whether you're preparing your first Ultra course or updating existing content, the latest features released in August are designed to streamline your teaching experience. 

The Ultra Document is the centerpiece of the Ultra course, providing a place for preparing and delivering engaging content including text, lists, tables, links, images and media, or third-party tools. The Content Designer is a significant enhancement to the Ultra Document, providing new and robust options that support mobile friendly and responsive columns. Instructors can still embed files, images, and HTML content. To resize a block or move it on the Ultra Document page, simply drag and drop the block. All content is moveable with a mouse, keyboard or tab.

Image 1: Example of redesigned Ultra Document with new column display

Releasing content for different needs in a course is a critical part of an instructor’s toolkit -- whether that content is distributed by date, performance, or group using different criteria. The latest update to Ultra features advanced release conditions allow faculty to create multiple rules for release conditions using AND and OR criteria. For example, if a course consists of undergraduate and graduate students, each group may have different requirements to access certain content in the course. Rules and criteria will copy from Original adaptive release conditions with the exception for attempts and marked reviewed, which are not yet supported in Ultra.

Image 2: Example of Release Conditions page

The Ultra Assignment is also redesigned for August, removing the underlying engine that powered Tests. Now a separate instructions box is available for instructors to specify expectations for completing a graded activity. There are no options to add questions; if this is essential for an assessment, a Test must be used instead. The settings panel is updated to provide options that are only relevant to Assignments. Most importantly, when students access the Assignment, a blank attempt is no longer created, which helps reduce confusion and frustration for both learners and instructors alike. Students can access the Assignment as often as they need to before submitting their actual attempt. 

Image 3: Example of new Assignment page

Instructors have long desired for the ability to subscribe to discussions in Ultra. In August, this is now possible with the new Follow Discussions setting, which allows any user in a course to re-engage with a discussion as updates occur. The first version of this feature will distribute notifications through the Activity Stream, which users can customize according to personal preference. In October, the follow notifications can be received via email.

Image 4: Example of Discussion with Follow notification enabled

Finally, when an Original course is converted, undeployed tests from the Tests, Surveys, and Question Pools area will now be converted to question banks. This will help to declutter both the course content page and the gradebook, making it easier for instructors to manage their course materials. NOTE: During the conversion process, any random blocks, question sets, and linked questions included in undeployed tests will be removed as Question Banks do not support those features. However, the resulting question banks will preserve original questions without duplication.

Additional updates for August include:

• Instructors can now collect anonymous submissions in Forms.
• Instructors can quickly navigate between submissions using the Next Student and Previous Student buttons in Flexible Grading. 
• Image generation process will leverage DALL-E to produce higher resolution images for learning modules, Documents, announcements, assessment questions, and journal prompts.
• The response time when creating a math formula in the text editor is reduced to help instructors can process formula requests more efficiently.
• Students can send a group message from the members page of a group space, which encourages collaboration on content that they have been assigned.

To learn more about these updates, and other features from the last six months, please join our What's New in Ultra for Teaching & Learning webinar on August 16.

Faculty should see the latest updates in their Ultra courses around August 8-9, 2024. The next update to our Ultra test environment will take place on August 13, 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.

Blackboard course shells for FA2024 were created on May 13, 2024 per our previous announcement to support faculty preparation for Ultra in advance of the fall semester. Student enrollments, as well as course shells that were not created in May, were processed on July 31, 2024. 

Ultra will be the default in Blackboard with nearly 70 percent of all UMBC courses using Ultra since spring 2024. If COEIT or CNMS faculty wish to “roll back” their Fall 2024 Ultra shells to Original, they can do soby RT ticket for this semester only; the last day we will support Blackboard Original is December 31, 2024. DoIT strongly recommends faculty request a roll back before the first day of classes to ensure sufficient time for course preparation. Please review the conditions for requesting a roll back.

Training & Support for Ultra

• Attend an upcoming August training to prepare for the fall semester.
• Request a consult from our staff Ultra “office hours” or download our 8-step migration guide.
• Explore our Panopto folder for a wide variety of recorded webinars on various instructional technologies available at UMBC.
• Have a question about Ultra? Askan Ultra Ambassador!

Plan your accessibility and Universal Design for Learning strategy before students begin working with course materials. Ally, an accessibility tool, is enabled in all course shells. Ally automatically scans uploaded and created course content, then performs a series of steps to make that content more accessible. Please review the Ally FAQs for more information about theaccessibility indicators on course content and alternative formats, or attend a training session. Use Ally’s new AI alt-text generator to add alt text to course images. 

About Course Creation

Bb shells for FA2024 are available for all courses (designated as lecture, lab, field or discussion) listed in the UMBC Schedule of Classes (SOC), provided that there is an instructor of record listed. As new course sections and/or instructors are added to the SOC by Department Scheduling Coordinators, corresponding Bb shells are automatically generated overnight. 

• If you are an instructor, and your name is not associated with the course you are teaching in the SOC, please see your Departmental Scheduling Coordinator to resolve the issue. Once you are listed in the SOC, your Bb course shell will be created automatically. 
• If you and your Department Scheduling Coordinator believe you are correctly assigned as the instructor of record in the SOC and you do not see your course shell in Blackboard, please submit a Request Tracker (RT) ticket via my.umbc.edu/help.
• If you need a Bb shell for a research or independent study course, please submit a new course request.

Instructors who teach multiple sections of the same course will find those enrollments merged into one Bb course shell. These sections may be split upon request by an RT ticket, which we recommend submitting at least one week before the semester starts, if not as soon as courses are created in Blackboard. NOTE: Courses should not be split after student grade data and engagement activity is recorded since it will be purged as part of the separation process.

Student enrollment in Bb mirrors the official registration in SA and updates hourly. However, courses are not accessible to students by default until the instructor of record makes them available.

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