Are your course materials accessible? Where would you go to check? Could you easily remediate your files for your current or future students?

Meet Ally, an accessibility tool that automatically scans your Blackboard course content and performs a series of steps to make that content more accessible. Ally provides you with an overall accessibility report for your entire course as well as tagging individual content items. Use the overall report to quickly identify easy issues to fix or urgent content that needs to be fixed.

Ally automatically generates alternative formats of your course files and makes them available to you and your students. The alternative formats do not affect your original file, but they do allow students to access an HTML version for their phones, an ePub version for their tablets, an MP3 version for audio players, and electronic braille for braille readers.

Improving the accessibility of your course content will not only help ensure students with different abilities can access your materials, but it will also improve the learning experience for students who use mobile devices as well as those who want to engage with the material in a different way.

Learn more about Ally by attending an orientation webinar or reviewing the Ally FAQs. 

As always, if you have any questions, 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
• Review your course content with Ally

Are you passionate about teaching with technology? Do you have an Ultra course adoption story to share with other faculty? Would you like to be part of a growing community of Blackboard influencers at UMBC? 

If so, consider applying to the Ultra Faculty Ambassador Program!

Faculty engagement throughout the transition to Ultra is an invaluable component of UMBC’s Blackboard innovation roadmap. With the increased investment in support for Ultra and instructional technology, we’d like to invite five faculty to join our Ultra Faculty Ambassadors.

What makes a good Ultra Ambassador?

• User-friendly - You are collegial and share best practices, resources & information with peers.

• Learned - You seek opportunities to acquire new knowledge & skills.

• Transformative - You perceive change as an opportunity.

• Responsive - You pass constructive feedback back to Instructional Technology staff.

• Accomplished - You stand out as an expert in using Blackboard for teaching.

Throughout the transition to the new course interface, Ultra Faculty Ambassadors communicate information to departments and college peers, respond to basic questions about using Ultra, coordinate training for their peers as needed, and provide feedback to the Instructional Technology team about any concerns or functionality requests. 

All Ultra Faculty Ambassadors are required to attend a full-day of customized training to better prepare for their important role and receive a $300 stipend and additional support for their own Ultra course conversion or redesign.

Submit your nomination with this online form.

As always, if you have any questions, 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

• Review your course content with Ally 

It is my pleasure to both introduce and welcome the three newest members of the Instructional Technology team in DoIT: Chimaobi (Mobie) Nwaokomah (pictured at left), Laura Wyatt, and Collin Sullivan. They round out the team that added Dr. Susan Biro in her new role as Online Learning Coordinator in early May of this year. These new staff members add depth and breadth to the existing team as DoIT continues its investment in Instructional Technology.

Chimaobi (Mobie) Nwaokomah joins the team as an Instructional Designer. Mr. Nwaokomah graduated with a Master of Public Administration from the University of Baltimore and completed his Master of Arts in Instructional Systems Development from UMBC in Spring 2019. He also completed graduate certificates from UMBC in Instructional Technology and Distance Education. He previously served as an Instructional Designer and LMS System Administrator at the University of Baltimore, and an e-Learning Specialist at that same institution.

Laura Wyatt also joins the team as an Instructional Designer. Ms. Wyatt graduated with an M.S. degree in Curriculum and Instruction from McDaniel College. In her most recent position, she served as the Associate Director of Instructional Technology at McDaniel College and previously served as their Learning Management System Administrator. 

Collin Sullivan joins the team as a Learning Management System (LMS) Support Specialist. Mr. Sullivan earned both his Bachelor of Science in Information Systems and his Bachelor of Arts in Economics here at UMBC in May 2019.  He served as an intern in the Instructional Technology office from 2015-2018 where he demonstrated his technical skills and abilities, giving him the foundation to thrive in his new role and support UMBC’s migration to Ultra.

Please join us in welcoming these three dynamic individuals into the UMBC family. We look forward to their future contributions to our community and the institution.

Sincerely,

Sherri Braxton

Senior Director

Instructional Technology

UMBC Division of Information Technology

Several publisher integrations will be updated at the end of summer to leverage modern infrastructure functionality, which will change the way faculty access those tools.

Both Cengage Mindtap & Aplia as well as WileyPLUS will be available in Ultra courses for FA2019. McGraw-Hill Connect will be piloted in Ultra during the FA2019 semester in preparation for full deployment in SP2020. Pearson’s Revel will be supported in Ultra courses, but the Mastering and MyLab series is not yet available.

The updated integrations will allow faculty to deep link to publisher content and synchronize grades on an intermittent cycle. New FAQs will be available to guide faculty in using the integration of publisher content in both Original and Ultra courses.

Since the existing tools must be disabled so the upgraded versions can be activated, faculty should plan to review any student submissions in their publisher integrations and export grades by August 15. 

As always, if you have any questions, 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

• Review your course content with Ally 

In the August update to Ultra courses, faculty can create question pools to help build assessments quickly and better support academic integrity. Instructors can add questions to from all existing tests, assignments and question banks in their courses, and those question pools will distribute different sets of questions to students.

Additionally, Ultra courses will now support a much needed feature in assessments: Hiding answers on a test while it is in progress. Faculty will be able to check a setting to show or hide the correct answers on a test. At this time, instructors must disable the setting after all students complete the test if they want students to later see the correct answers.

Organizations and communities may now adopt Ultra after the August update. Please consult the Instructional Technology office to determine whether converting or redesigning is best for your organization.

Course shells for FA2019 were created on July 28, 2019. Both Ally and the Ultra Course Preview tool are enabled in all courses, allowing faculty to review course materials for accessibility and to explore and adopt Ultra during the phased roll-out of Ultra.

The next Blackboard Learn update will be posted to our test site around August 13th and pushed to production around September 5th. 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 

• Open a ticket via RT

• Follow the Instructional Technology & DoIT myUMBC groups

  • Sign up for a webinar & other training 

• Request a consult with instructional technology staff

Review your course content with Ally

This month’s update to Blackboard will provide access to UMBC’s Google Drive. Faculty, staff, and students will be able to view their Google cloud storage from their Ultra courses, user profile, and the Tools page. In later versions of this new integration, users will be able to create and collaborate on Google documents -- all within the context of an Ultra course.

Additionally, Collaborate moderators will be able to share files with one or more breakout groups when that service is updated later in July. Files uploaded to a Collaborate session can be renamed within the live session and files shared in breakout rooms can be transferred back into the persistent content for the main Collab session.

Course shells for FA2019 will be created at the end of July. Both Ally and the Ultra Course Preview tool will be enabled in all courses, allowing faculty to review course materials for accessibility and to explore and adopt Ultra during the phased roll-out of Ultra.

The next Blackboard Learn update will be posted to our test site around July 16th and pushed to production around August 8th. 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 

• Open a ticket via RT

• Follow the Instructional Technology & DoIT myUMBC groups

• Request a consult with instructional technology staff

• Review your course content with Ally 

The June update to Blackboard brings delegated grading to Ultra courses. Renamed “parallel marking” in Ultra, this feature is designed to minimize bias when paired with anonymous grading. Parallel marking is a valuable tool for high stakes assessments, allowing faculty to evaluate student submissions with two graders and reconcile the results for a final grade.

A new enhancement to the Courses page provides users with an option to view courses in list or grid mode. Stock images randomly display for each course card when grid mode is active. The banner image can be replaced by faculty who would prefer to personalize the course visual. While image does not yet appear in the Ultra course itself, it is an early step toward course personalization.

Other enhancements coming to Ultra on June 7 include:

• The Organizations page will provide better tools to access content including list and grid view, favorites, and filters. Leaders will be able to upload banner images to organization cards to personalize the community experience.

• During the SP2019 semester, the calendar tool was updated to allow sharing content with external services. In June, users can import external calendars, such as Google, to their Blackboard calendar.

As a separately hosted service, Collaborate will be updated about one week earlier. The June release will feature a session inactivity reminder. If attendees in a session are not active after a time, the session ends. This includes activity such as using audio, raising a hand, sharing content, and so on. Inactive attendees in the session see and hear a reminder that the session is open and will close in a minute before they are removed. Additionally, moderators will be able to share files with one or more breakout groups.

The next Blackboard Learn update will be posted to our test site around June 11th and pushed to production around July 11th. 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
• Review your course content with Ally

Using Open Educational Resources (OER) is not just about inexpensive textbook alternatives, it is about advancing student retention, grades, and graduation rates. Given UMBC’s Mission and Vision to “advance knowledge, economic prosperity, and social justice,” OER is a movement well situated to do just that.

With the OER movement declared by EDUCAUSE as a key strategic priority in 2019, and now one in ten faculty nationally reported as using OER, there is an increase in quality OER textbooks and course materials available to review and adopt.

In the recent Student Textbook and Course Materials Survey in Florida, researchers found that students used a variety of cost saving methods to avoid paying the full price of course material costs, such as renting copies for the semester and sharing with a classmate. When students were asked about the academic impact of textbook costs, 64.2% reported not purchasing the required course materials, 42.7% enrolled in fewer courses, 35.6% “earned a poor grade because they could not afford to buy the textbook,” and 22.9% dropped a course due to textbook cost (Florida Virtual Campus, 2019, pp. 13-14).

While lowering course material costs is certainly a goal of the OER movement, the greater purpose is to ensure student academic success. Researchers at the University of Georgia (Colvard, et. al. 2018) who examined student performance from 2010 to 2016 in eight undergraduate courses with both OER course sections and non-OER course sections found that student grades in the OER sections increased for all student populations considered (full-time, part-time, white, non-white, and Pell-grant recipients). At the same time, the rate of students who received grades of D, F, or W (Withdrawal), decreased for part-time, white, non-white, and Pell-grant recipients in the OER sections. It is significant to note that traditionally underserved student populations (non-white, part-time and Pell-grant recipients) showed the greatest increases in grades and decreases in DFW with the OER adoption. The findings indicate that “OER is an equity strategy for higher education: providing all students with access to course materials on the first day of class serves to level the academic playing field in course settings” (Colvard, et. al., 2018, p. 273).

• Want to learn more about OER? Feel free to check out the OER online guide: lib.guides.umbc.edu/OER

• Interested in OER training workshops or in joining an OER interest group on campus?  Please indicate on the OER interest google form: tinyurl.com/UMBC-OER

Erin Durham, MA, MM, MLIS

Reference & Instruction Faculty Librarian

410-455-3592 | edurham@umbc.edu