A core feature in an Original Blackboard course, Student Preview is used by faculty to review the content and tool functionality in a virtual environment before releasing to students -- and it is coming to Ultra courses in May.

Instructors can also import question banks exported from Original courses and publisher-created test banks to their Ultra courses. Once imported, these questions are available for immediate use and reuse across all assessments in the Ultra course. As with any conversion from Original to Ultra, question types that are not yet supported are dropped during the processing of the imported file.

Other enhancements coming to Ultra on May 3 include:

• Instructors can leave feedback for individual group members and for the group as a whole for a graded activity

• The link to the Course Room will be renamed to Blackboard Collaborate

Initially deployed to Ultra courses in SP2019, the new accessibility tool Ally will be available to all new courses beginning with summer 2019. Ally automatically scans course content and performs a series of steps to make that content more accessible. Ally is one part of a broad investment to support accessibility, hybrid and online learning, and instructional technology in DoIT. Moreover, this strategic investment extends the timeline for Ultra and provides a $100 stipend to faculty to convert a course to Ultra.

While many features released each month benefit Ultra courses, all users can now share Blackboard calendars with external calendar services such as Google.

The next update will be posted to our test site around May 14th and pushed to production around June 6th. 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:

• Check our extensive FAQ collection

• What’s new in Ultra? | Known Issues | About Ultra

• Open a ticket via RT

• Follow the Instructional Technology & DoIT myUMBC groups

• Request a consult with instructional technology staff

I am pleased to announce that Dr. Susan Biro has accepted UMBC’s Online Learning Coordinator position in the Division of Information Technology (DoIT). She will start full-time on Wednesday, May 8, and serve as the primary point of contact for DoIT’s collaboration with the Division of Professional Studies (DPS) in developing hybrid and online applied master’s programs as part of the new, strategic investment in instructional technology.

With more than 17 years of experience in distance education, Susan brings expertise in many facets of designing, developing, implementing, and administering online programs. In her most recent position as Executive Director of Teaching and Learning Technologies at Prince George’s Community College, she was responsible for planning and coordinating the eLearning and technology training teams in their support of online/hybrid courses. Prior to that role, Dr. Biro served as the Director of Distance Education at Carroll Community College where she was responsible for not only ensuring effective use of the learning management system in developing and delivering online, hybrid, and onsite courses, but also ensuring comprehensive administrative services were in place to support online faculty and students. Finally, as Dean of the Online Campus at Berkeley College of New York and New Jersey, Susan served as the chief academic officer for online programs where she mentored full time and adjunct online faculty, managed the planning and creation of programs to enhance online student retention, and assisted in creating institutional standards for credit-for-prior-learning and portfolio development.

Susan earned both her Doctor of Education with a specialization in Leadership in Higher Education and her Master of Education in Adult Education from Widener University and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from Delaware State University.

Please join us in welcoming Susan into the UMBC family. We look forward to her future contributions to UMBC.

Sincerely,

Sherri Braxton

Senior Director

Instructional Technology

UMBC Division of Information Technology

Due to a recently published set of security vulnerabilities, UMBC’s Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) website at umbc.edu/faq  is no longer accessible outside of UMBC. DoIT is going to keep this restriction in place for the remainder of the week while we work to upgrade the software so that it is no longer vulnerable to these attacks.

The campus community can continue to access the FAQs while on campus, or off-campus through the Virtual Private Network (VPN) or Virtual Desktop Environment (VDE). There will be some downtimes needed later in the week to upgrade the services, and we will post those when we have more details available.

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns, and we appreciate your patience as we work to keep our systems safe and secure.

Damian Doyle

Assistant Vice President

DoIT

The DoIT Technology Support Center is looking to hire additional consultants to work during the Summer session and beyond. Please see our job description below and visit our job posting on UMBCWorks to apply. (Search for TSC Student Consultant.)

TSC Student Consultant Job Description

Technology Support Center (TSC) student consultants are the first points of technical contact for the UMBC community and those who do well often go on to work in other areas of the Division of Information Technology (DoIT). Minimally, consultants are expected to provide initial triage and support for a wide range of information technologies including accounts, hardware, instructional technologies, networking, software, telecommunications, and basic web development.

Responsibilities include, but are not limited to the following:

• Provide technical assistance to users by phone, online and in person;
• Answer TSC phones in a professional and courteous manner;
• Create, update and resolve tickets in the Request Tracker (RT) ticketing system;
• Create, update, suggest and recommend relevant FAQ articles to users (www.umbc.edu/faq);
• Provide direct assistance to users on technical issues they cannot easily resolve on their own;
• Complete in-person or online training about quality support as defined in umbc.edu/go/ticketrubric;
• Respond to all work-related communications in a timely manner;
• Escalate urgent problems to the Full-Time staff, as appropriate.

Required Skills and Experience

• Demonstrated ability to effectively communicate by phone or in person.
• Demonstrated writing ability.
• Demonstrated ability to achieve successful outcomes in handling difficult situations and customers.
• Demonstrated analytical and troubleshooting skills.
• Ability & willingness to learn coupled with a clear understanding of one’s technical abilities, so as to triage and escalate an issue that leads to an effective solution for the user.

The deadline for requesting software to be included in our physical labs, virtual labs, and classrooms is approaching. Software requests for Summer and Fall 2019 are due by May 1 (Summer deadline extended). All software requests must be renewed each semester. Please see our Wiki page for information about this process.

Requests for licensed software must include: (1)  Proof of purchase and license information, and (2) software media and installation instructions. Please contact us if you have questions about the appropriate license volume or type to purchase. Requests to install unlicensed software, software with license modes incompatible with our labs, or software with system requirements incompatible with our labs, may be rejected. DoIT will make accommodations for such requests to the extent they are practicable.

Software requests must be submitted via an RT ticket containing the required information. You can create a ticket at https://rt.umbc.edu/, or by contacting the Technology Support Center (TSC) at 410.455.3838, if you require assistance. Software requested after the deadline is not guaranteed to be made available. DoIT will notify the requestor when the requested software is available in the lab. The requesting faculty or instructor is responsible for testing the software to ensure it is working as expected.  

Software requests for one-time events:

If you need software installed for a one-time purpose (for example, a 2-day workshop in which all users need access to the software), the request should be submitted no less than six (6) weeks prior to the first lab reservation for that class. The software will be removed once you are finished.