University of Maryland, College Park, the host institution for the Scholarship in Teaching & Learning umbrella IRB protocol, is transitioning to a new IRB management system. To accommodate the transition, they will pause the acceptance of new IRB protocols under this umbrella from December 1, 2024, to December 1, 2025. Existing SoTL IRB protocols will continue to be managed by College Park. New SoTL IRB protocol applications may be filed directly through UMBC’s IRB Kuali submission process.

Blackboard course shells for WT/SP2025 were created on November 22, 2024. All courses now use Ultra per our earlier announcement. 

Course Materials Publisher Integration Updates in December

Blackboard integrations for VitalSource, Cengage, Pearson, and Macmillan publisher tools will be updated on December 19, 2024. Please do not link any VitalSource, Cengage, Pearson, or Macmillan resources in your Winter 2025 or Spring 2025 courses until December 20th. 

Training & Support for Ultra

• Attend an upcoming January 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? Ask an Ultra Ambassador!

Create an Inclusive & Accessible Course Environment

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 the  accessibility indicators on course content and alternative formats. Use Ally’s new AI alt-text generator to add alt text to course images. Training will be offered on January 24, 2025.

Instructional Technology also offers resources for creating accessible content including three webinar recordings:

• Digital Accessibility Guidelines Checklist
• Creating Accessible Documents (44:51)
• Creating Accessible Presentations (31:24) 
• Creating Accessible Instructional Videos (45:19)

About Course Creation

Bb shells for WT/SP2025 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.

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