Anthology, the parent company of Blackboard, has announced that they will retire Original courses and organizations on December 31, 2026. At this point, all Original content in courses and organizations will be placed in a read-only state, which can be viewed by those respective enrolled users, but not edited by instructors or leaders. This change reflects the broader shift to Ultra, now adopted by nearly 80% of school and universities worldwide (Bb Office Hours, May 28, 2025).

What this means for UMBC

While UMBC finalized its migration to Ultra courses at the end of 2024, the retirement of Original content means that any active organizations running on Original will be impacted. All Blackboard Original organizations must migrate to Ultra or be archived by our internal deadline of October 31, 2026, to ensure that org leaders have ample time for:

• Migration and content transfer
• Training and support on Ultra
• Any necessary redesign of organization content

Content that is not migrated to Ultra will be locked in the Original “read only” state by the end of 2026, and automatically converted to Ultra by the end of 2027 by Anthology. This includes both Original organizations and any remaining Original courses, whether term-based or development shells. (Original content may be copied until it is archived or converted.)

Next steps for organization leaders

Instuctional Technology staff will proactively reach out to leaders of active Original organizations in the coming weeks to provide details information about your options:

• Convert the organization to Ultra
• Redesign the organization to leverage Ultra’s new tools
• Archive content, especially for legacy organizations over 7 years old, in a Blackboard export package or exported file attachments
• Auto-archive if orphaned, unused, or not updated in 7+ years in a Blackboard format

Instructional Technology is here to support Original organization leaders with training, resources, and personalized assistance.

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

Thumbnail-image: Ultra news update

As part of UMBC’s data warehouse migration to HelioCampus, the Data Management Committee’s “Training & Outreach” working group has published a brief (8 min) video orientation on why and how to explore analytics @ UMBC. 

Developed, in part, as a response to the 2006 Middle States Self Study, UMBC’s Report Exchange (REX) data warehouse was designed to help collect, integrate, report on, analyze and (importantly) act on data from a variety of campus systems such as Blackboard, PeopleSoft, and myUMBC. Not surprisingly, the current 2025-26 Middle States Self Study and UMBC 3.0 Strategic Planning initiative will also focus on continuous improvement through curated, campus-wide data to inform decision making.

In addition to the migration to HelioCampus, which constitutes REX 2.0, the orientation video also describes:

• New and (likely) soon-to-be-required training on the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) to access campus systems like PeopleSoft and REX itself.

• How to find and use free training videos about Tableau’s “viewer” role, which will be used to access predefined (“canned”) reports largely migrated from REX 1.0 that used Microsoft Reporting Services (RS) reports.

• A new “Analytics @ UMBC” Blackboard community where anyone can learn more about REX, “actionable intelligence,” and (eventually) even do some hands-on, self-paced data analysis with dummy data and AI.

• How to get involved with UMBC’s analytics community of practice, including the REX developers’ and users’ groups.

If it's been a while since you've checked out REX, or wonder why and how you should start, please check out the orientation and refresher video or resources above.

The Division of Information Technology (DoIT), in partnership with the Office of the Provost, invites UMBC faculty members to submit proposals for the 2025 Learning Analytics (LA) Mini Grants. These grants aim to support projects that enhance student success and retention through innovative, data-informed instructional practices.

Grant Overview
Award: $2,000 professional development award, renewable annually, transferred to your department’s PeopleSoft chart string.

Focus Areas

• Student Success and Retention: Projects exploring relationships between activities or learning in one course and outcomes in other courses, particularly critical progression points, low-success courses, or foundational skills.
• Faculty Development and Support: Proposals that leverage institutional data (via REX and Tableau) to inform instructional practices, contributing insights to the LA Community of Practice.

Eligibility

• All UMBC faculty and staff members (including adjunct faculty, lecturers, and tenure-track faculty) interested in improving student outcomes using learning analytics are eligible.

Expectations for Grant Recipients

• Engage actively with the UMBC Learning Analytics Community of Practice (LA CoP).
• Produce and present a final report or scholarly product (conference presentation, external grant proposal, or publication).
• Consider leveraging results to apply for the prestigious Hrabowski Innovation Fund award.

Application Components:
Proposals must include:

• Brief Abstract: Suitable for publication on UMBC’s website (maximum 200 words).
• Research Project Proposal: Clearly outlining objectives, methodology, expected outcomes, and relevance (maximum 3 pages).
• Signed acknowledgement of support: Department Chair (through DocuSign)

Timeline

• Proposal Deadline: Friday, June 6, 2025
• Notification of Awards: Early July 2025
• Grant Period: July 2025 – June 2026

Support and Resources

• REX Data Warehouse (available to all faculty)
• Tableau training and support provided by DoIT’s Analytics & Instructional Technology group
• Access to prior workshops and resources to inform proposal development.

Please submit proposals here. For proposal guidance, questions, or further information, please contact:

Robert CarpenterAssociate Provost for Analytics & Deputy CIO
bobc@umbc.edu

John Fritz
Associate Vice President, Instructional Technology
fritz@umbc.edu

Tom Penniston
Coordinator of Learning Analytics
penniston@umbc.edu

The May 2025 Ultra release delivers several meaningful updates that improve how faculty assess student work, support engagement, and manage course tools. From expanded rubric options to accessible grading workflows, these changes are designed to align with effective teaching practices and support a more inclusive, student-centered experience.

Qualitative, No-Points Rubrics

Instructors can now create and use no-points rubrics in Ultra, a powerful option for qualitative evaluation. These rubrics allow instructors to provide rich, criterion-based feedback without assigning numerical values -- perfect for assignments focused on reflection, creativity, process, or formative assessment. In addition, faculty can leverage the AI assistant to generate descriptive evaluation criteria for no-points rubrics.

Image 1: Example of no-points rubric creation screen

Text-Based Columns in the Gradebook

A new Gradebook feature allows instructors to create text-based columns (up to 32 characters). These flexible columns are not restricted to text-only input and can include a description for context. Instructors can control student visibility, sort values in Grid view, and download the data. This update is especially useful for organizing students, tracking informal feedback, or adding flexibility to the Gradebook without tying everything to a numeric score.

Image 2: Inserting a text-based column in the gradable items tab

Test Submission Review – View Once

A new test setting, “View submission one time,” allows students to review their test responses and feedback just once after submission. Instructors must first enable the “Allow students to view their submission” setting, after which this option becomes available. This strikes a balance between transparency and academic integrity, offering students a chance to learn from their errors while reducing the risk of content sharing.

Image 3: Selecting the one-time view submission assessment setting

Enhanced AI Conversation Tool

The AI Conversation tool has been upgraded to optionally generate three key elements: a conversation title, a persona, and a reflection question. Instructors can further refine the suggestions by adjusting complexity, providing additional context, or pulling from course materials. This makes it easier to create rich dialogue prompts that encourage critical thinking and metacognition.

Gradebook Accessibility Enhancements

The Gradable Items view in the Gradebook has been redesigned to improve accessibility and navigation for users relying on screen readers or keyboard-only navigation. The new table-based layout provides more intuitive movement across cells using arrow keys and includes proper header and row announcements. These enhancements help ensure all instructors and teaching assistants, regardless of ability, can manage course grading with greater ease.

Discussion Board Improvements

Several updates make Ultra Discussions more intuitive and user-friendly. Terminology has been streamlined, replacing “responses” with “posts” for clarity, and the input field now prompts users to “Post a response to the discussion.” Instructor posts are clearly labeled, reply boxes are directly below the topic for better flow, and unnecessary interface elements, such as avatars and large banners, have been removed or simplified. These changes reduce cognitive load, improve mobile usability, and create a smoother, more accessible discussion experience for both students and faculty.

When you can expect the update

Faculty should see the latest updates in their Ultra courses around May 1-2 2025. The next update to our Ultra test environment will take place on May 6, 2025; 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.

Curious about the all latest features in Ultra? Join our What's New in Ultra Courses for Teaching & Learning SU2025 webinar on May 12, 2025.