RT - NEW tagging option for tickets
RT ticket tagging
Whether it's a blog, a wiki, or even Twitter, when you have a system with a lot of information, some method of tagging that information with easy-to-remember words or phrases makes it much easier to find. RT (Request Tracker) already provides a large amount of metadata to categorize and find tickets including the queue they are in, various dates associated with ticket activity, status, and content like the subject and correspondence. But often you want some way to categorize tickets within a queue into sensible groups.
You can add custom fields to track well-defined attributes and many users add multiple fields to fully describe and categorize tickets. But in some cases a defined drop down list may not be flexible enough. You can allow free-form entry, but that can result in many different variations on what are really the same value, like bug, bugs, issue, and defect all to categorize a bug ticket.
BestPractical, our RT vendor, has released a new extension for tagging which DoIT has applied. This new extension will provide a simple tagging mechanism that solves both issues. It provides free-form entry, but with autocomplete so as you start typing you can see similar values that may already exist. If you do need a new value, just type it in and RT will recognize that it's new and add it to the list so other users will now see it via autocomplete in the future. And once the values are added, they become links making them available for search and reporting.
Please note that tags are only available to support staff for the queue. It is an optional entry but if you do chose to add a tag it is delimited by a space. For example CamelCase would be a single tag whereas Camel Case would be considered two tags. Below is an example of tags being added to a ticket.
For your convenience I am including the faq's already in place for RT below.
Please contact me if you have any questions or suggestions.
Joe Kirby
AVP DoIT Business Systems
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Whether it's a blog, a wiki, or even Twitter, when you have a system with a lot of information, some method of tagging that information with easy-to-remember words or phrases makes it much easier...
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Wed, 18 Dec 2019 06:22:33 -0500
Wed, 18 Dec 2019 06:25:01 -0500
Students like Ultra design, organized courses
User surveys reveal consistent satisfaction with Ultra style
More than 70% of 606 student survey respondents who took a course that used Ultra during the FA2019 semester said they were satisfied with the experience. When asked, students described Ultra as easy to use and visually appealing. “It’s new and fun,” said one respondant. “I love the sleek format. Ultra is neat, colorful, and polished,” said another student. Many appreciate the aggregated calendar of due dates and seeing grades posted to their activity stream.
Ultra was initially piloted in SP2018 with four courses. Over the last 18 months, Ultra adoption has increased considerably, but student feedback was not recorded until a larger population of users was available in FA2019 to provide insight. Recent feedback from students is consistent with survey responses following the pilot and with feedback from faculty who have responded to surveys in SP2019 and FA2019.
Figure 1. Student satisfaction with Ultra
Both faculty and students like Ultra for its interface and usability. Faculty find the streamlined tools easier to use in a clean and modern interface. Students generally like the look of Ultra and the ease of finding instructional materials, especially in a well-designed and organized course. About 79% of students were able to find course content and files, and more than 82% said their courses flowed in a logical way.
About 61% of students who completed the survey said they wished more of their courses were using Ultra, citing the flexible environment and convenient structure brought by the redesigned infrastructure. These students may be happy to hear that more than 80% of faculty who have used Ultra over the past year indicated they might or would use Ultra again for their courses.
Despite this insight, qualitative feedback from student surveys suggests a challenging paradox for faculty. Wherever students were concerned about potential lag when opening folders or perpetual scrolling, they generally observed it was due to poor course organization and excessive file load or links in the course. Students who enjoyed opening several folders on the page at one time said consistent course design helped identify where content was located.
In observing how Ultra courses were organized, students wondered if faculty had access to or participated in sufficient training and support for Ultra. Poor organization in a course “makes the exchange of information more difficult,” said one student. DoIT offers multiple training options to faculty who are teaching with or preparing to use Ultra -- boot camps, webinars, customized department workshops, and more. More than 52% of faculty, however, prefer to teach themselves, and more than 47% request support via RT.
Figure 2. Faculty preference for training (purple) compared to preference for support (orange). Click to enlarge.
While FAQs and videos offer the “button-ology” of how an application works, facilitated training (in person and virtual) provided by instructional technology staff includes both technical and pedagogical perspectives to ensure faculty have essential information about how Ultra works and what best practices may optimize a course design.
As DoIT extends its support model for Ultra into SP2021, its instructional technology staff will continue to offer many of these resources while also introducing new options including 30-minute Coffee Break webinars, half-day boot camps on Ultra and supporting technologies, and more self-paced resources focused on best practices. The FA2029 end of semester sprint, an exciting and popular support model, will be repeated at the beginning of SP2020.
The FA2019 surveys provided reasonable and justified criticisms of Ultra, which DoIT has provided to Blackboard and the Ultra developers. Groups, gradebook, and tests are our top priorities for continued enhancement. In an ongoing effort to maintain transparency and momentum for innovation, UMBC has accepted Blackboard’s offer to meet quarterly with Ultra product managers, and continues to meet monthly with Ultra designers and weekly with other Ultra early adopters. Such communication is critical to ensuring Ultra meets the needs of UMBC faculty and students.
As always, if you have any questions, please consider the following options:
A new VPN system, named GlobalProtect, is now available to the campus to enable access to restricted services from off-campus. Global Protect is scheduled to replace the current VPN, PulseSecure, in January 2020. The GlobalProtect VPN is fully operational and users are encouraged to migrate to the new client ahead of the January date.
The GlobalProtect VPN has the same access and permissions as our existing VPN, and the client works with the latest versions of Windows, Mac, and Linux, as well as iOS and Android mobile platforms.
For more information on getting started with GlobalProtect please see the FAQ here.
Ray Soellner
rays1@umbc.edu
Associate Director Telecommunications
DoIT - UMBC
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A new VPN system, named GlobalProtect, is now available to the campus to enable access to restricted services from off-campus. Global Protect is scheduled to replace the current VPN, PulseSecure,...
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Tue, 03 Dec 2019 15:47:38 -0500
New group enhancements scheduled for December Ultra update
Ungraded assignments also coming this month
Managing large numbers of students and groups is an important tool in Blackboard. In the current version of Ultra, faculty had to create assignments and discussions before they could create and attach a group to the graded activity. With the December update, the Groups Set tool is enhanced to allow faculty to create groups before attaching them to assignments.
An additional enhancement to the groups tool will also allow faculty to assign students to a group if they are not already in one or move a student to a different group. This setting addresses an important need when students join a class after a group activity has started or if they do not join a self-enrolled group by an appointed deadline.
Note: Group Sets still do not have a bulk student enrollment option. We have reported this as a priority need to the Ultra developers. Self-enroll is not available for Group Sets.
With the December update, faculty can create ungraded assignments. The existing workaround required using a zero-point test question; the upgrade to assignments now allows faculty to set the entire assignment to zero points.
The next Blackboard Learn update will be posted to our test site around December 10th and pushed to production in early February 2020. Faculty who are interested in test driving new features before they are released to production should open an RT ticket to request early access.
As always, if you have any questions, please consider the following options:
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Tue, 17 Dec 2019 10:13:31 -0500
DoIT Adjusts Support of Bb Ultra Rollout
All faculty still decide when to migrate before FA21
Based on new analysis of how Blackboard (Bb) Ultra has been adopted across campus, DoIT has decided to modify its approach to faculty support across colleges.
Specifically, DoIT will focus on supporting the College of Engineering and IT (CoEIT) in Spring 2020, and the College of Natural, Mathematical and Natural Sciences (CNMS) in Fall 2020. In addition, the rollout period for all colleges and focus areas will extend across two terms (not one, as previously announced). There are no changes in DoIT support focusing on the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (CAHSS) in Spring 2021. Also, DoIT still plans to discontinue support of Blackboard Classic prior to Fall 2021.
To be clear, this change is solely focused on how DoIT organizes its own support of faculty, who still make the final decision of when to switch to Bb Ultra. However, DoIT still recommends all faculty check their Ultra Course Preview and/or Sandbox well before doing so.
Why DoIT is Adjusting its Support Approach
Basically, we've learned some things we didn't know on April 4 when we first announced the phased rollout by college. Specifically, CAHSS has adopted Ultra far more than any other college (61% of all 270 Ultra courses to date), which was not expected since we slated it to go last because it typically has the greatest number of courses (about 850 per term). Also, CNMS, which typically has the fewest Bb courses (about 150 per term), actually has the highest amount of student usage based on average logins, interactions and duration per student across all courses. Reflecting on both facts, we thought it best to adapt how DoIT supports all faculty moving to Ultra.
To stay current on the latest Ultra developments, including what’s new or recently released functionality, visit umbc.edu/go/ultra.When DoIT announced the phased rollout of Blackboard (Bb) Ultra on April 4 of this year, we did so based on the number of courses typically using Bb in each college as of Spring 2019, starting with least to greatest, to afford more time to colleges using Bb the most. To date, 270 courses have moved to Bb Ultra in Fall 2019, nearly doubling the 147 who did so in Spring 2019.
However, of the 270 Fall 2019 Ultra courses, 61% are from the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (CAHSS), which was not expected, followed by 11% from the College of Engineering & Information Technology (CoEIT), and 3% from CNMS. The Division of Professional Studies (DPS), Division of Undergraduate Academic Affairs (DUAA), Erickson School and Social Work collectively represent 65 courses (24.5%), which was DoIT’s priority focus for Fall 2019.
Interestingly, while CNMS typically has fewer courses than any other college each term, average student use of Bb (e.g., logins, interactions, duration, etc.) is typically much higher than any other college.* DoIT has determined this is due to relatively more CNMS courses using assessments, which research by UMBC and others has shown is related to higher student use of a learning management system (LMS) generally.
As such, given how the campus has typically used Blackboard in the past -- and particularly in CNMS -- DoIT decided to focus more on courses that suggest they are ready for Ultra next term. We think that means some high-enrollment courses making heavy use of groups and assessments might be better suited staying with the traditional Blackboard classic for another term. Currently, there are relatively fewer such courses in CoEIT than CNMS, so DoIT has adjusted its Ultra support approach accordingly.
At the same time, we recognize some courses in any college may have similar usage profiles, which is why DoIT will also be notifying any instructors of such courses of our findings and recommendation prior to Winter & Spring 2020 courses being created after Thanksgiving.
Finally, we have shared our findings & recommendations with Blackboard’s Ultra Development team, which was here on campus last spring to meet with UMBC’s Ultra faculty and ambassadors, and continues to monitor UMBC’s experience as an early adopter and valued client institution. We are also conducting a survey of students in current Fall 2019 Bb Ultra courses (results to be shared at the end of the term).
* See UMBC Report Exchange (REX) “Blackboard Use by College” report(requires myUMBC loginwith ad\ before username).
More Information
By John Fritz
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When DoIT announced the phased rollout of Blackboard (Bb) Ultra on April 4 of this year, we did so based on the number of courses typically using Bb in each college as of Spring 2019, starting...
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