The latest AI Design Assistant feature has been enabled in Blackboard.
AI Conversations provides a chat bot for students to interact with as part of a learning activity.
There are two AI Conversation options:
Socratic questioning
This encourages students to think critically through continuous questioning prompts
Role play
This allows students to play out a scenario with the AI persona designed and created by the instructor
Once set up, students can engage in these activities to further their knowledge and understanding of the topic.
Students type a response to the questions posed by the AI chat bot. At the end of the activity, students respond to a reflective question to outline how the conversation helped with their understanding of the topic.
We will be showcasing AI Conversations at our online Mini Conference on Wednesday 18 December. Further information is available on our blogpost.
Our E-learning Enhanced: Introduction to the AI Design Assistant training has also been updated to include AI Conversations. You can book your place on the course on the Events and Training booking system.
Blackboard Original Practice Organisations will be removed on Thursday 9 January 2025.
These Practice Organisations are in Original, the old version of Blackboard.
All staff have an Ultra practice organisations with the naming convention First Name, Last Name Ymarfer Ultra / Ultra Practice Course (Ultra_username) which can be accessed from the Organisation tab on the lefthand menu.
Content from the Original Practice Organisation can be copied over to the Ultra Practice Organisation. See our FAQ for further information.
Further information on the move of Organisations from Original to Ultra is available on this blogpost.
Please contact elearning@aber.ac.uk if you have got any questions regarding this process.
The Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit is pleased to announce its final event of the year.
On Wednesday 18 December (10:00-14:30), we will be hosting an online Mini Conference looking at Exemplary Blackboard Presence.
We’re delighted to be joined by two external presenters.
Carol Chatten is from the University of Edge Hill and will be showcasing their Medical and Education Course. This course recently won Blackboard’s ECP.
Robert Farmer from the University Northampton will be sharing their course on Critical Thinking which also won Blackboard’s ECP.
Also joining us to share their winning courses are School of Education’s Panna Karlinger and Law and Criminology’s Lauren Harvey. Both entered our internal Exemplary Course Award last year.
We’re hoping that this event will inspire attendees and give colleagues ideas as to how they can develop their courses ahead of Semester 2.
We’re also using this event as a springboard to start thinking about an enhanced Blackboard presence.
And finally, we’ll be sharing the latest AI Design Assistant tool that we’re looking to enable in January: AI Conversations. This builds on the other AI Design Assistant tools that we already have enabled in Blackboard.
Colleagues can book for this half day event via the online booking system and a Teams invitation will be sent out.
We are delighted to announce that the Exemplary Course Award for 2024-25 is now open.
The ECA is judged across 4 categories:
Course Design
Interaction and Collaboration
Assessment
Learner Support
Applicants are asked to introduce 3 standout practices for their Course to help frame their application before self-assessing their course – this can be a 1,000 word narrative or an 8-minute Panopto recording.
Following the self-assessment, the courses are assessed by a panel of experts.
The changes to this year’s form include:
The addition of 1.13 criteria: a Blackboard Ally score of 85% or more.
The ability to request reports on your course (Student Engagement and Course Summary). These reports can be requested from the Digital Education Group (elearning@aber.ac.uk).
To help prepare for applications, two workshops are being run by the Digital Education Group on:
The IS User Survey gives you an opportunity to tell us what you think about our services and how we can improve them. It is also a chance to win one of two £50 vouchers for 10 minutes of your time!
Aberystwyth University uses Vevox, a Polling Tool, that allows you to get real time information from people in your teaching sessions or those in your meeting.
We’ve been using Vevox for over 3 years now and were pleased to see it being used in Welcome Talks offering students the opportunity to ask anonymous questions.
We’re the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit. Based in Information Services, we work with staff across the university to support and develop learning and teaching. We run a wide range of activities to do this.
Each module has its own dedicated course in Blackboard. These courses contain online content, such as reading lists, and teaching staff details. This is the main point of information for your students for any given module, including access to lecture recordings and assignment submission. The University has a Blackboard Required Minimum Presence policy for all modules. Please see our staff guide for further information.
Lecture Capture: Panopto
When teaching in person, be aware that all lectures (that is, teaching where the focus is on information being transmitted from staff to students) should be recorded using Panopto, our Lecture Capture software. See details of our Lecture Capture Policy.
E-submission: Turnitin and Blackboard Assignment
At Aberystwyth University, students must submit all text-based and word-processed work electronically as outlined in the University’s E-submission policy. For this, we use our e-submission tools: Turnitin andBlackboard Assignment. Turnitin provides an automatic text matching functionality.
Polling tool: Vevox
Vevox is Aberystwyth University’s polling tool. Polling can be used in learning and teaching activities as well as meetings to make the session interactive and collaborative with many different possibilities for use.
Resources and further help
We have a number of Guides and FAQs to help you use our software.
Training Provision
To support all staff with their teaching, the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit runs a series of training sessions. These include:
practical sessions to familiarise staff with the different elements of the VLE,
the Active Learning agenda,
assessment and feedback,
accessibility,
presentation skills, and more.
artificial intelligence
We also offer a range of events and training programmes. You can find details of our annual CPD programme and book your place to attend via our Book a Course page. We deliver some sessions ourselves, while others are delivered by university staff whose teaching features good practice in those areas. Look for (L&T) in the session title.
Events
The Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit runs a range of events, including the Annual Learning and Teaching Conference, Mini-Conferences, Mini-Fests, and Academy Forums. All of these are great opportunities to meet people from across the university and discuss Learning and Teaching issues and developments.
A warm welcome to new students joining us and those who are returning to study at Aberystwyth University.
In this blogpost, we will outline the changes that have been made to your digital learning environment, Blackboard, ready for the start of the academic year 2024-25.
If you need help using Blackboard, see our Student Guide which contains all kinds of useful information.
We’ve also got FAQs available for the other tools that we support, including Turnitin for e-submission and Panoptofor lecture capture.
Updated Template
All courses have been created this year using a slightly different template.
Module Information and Assessment and Feedback have been replaced with Learning Modules. Learning Modules are a more visual way to organise and arrange content.
In Module Information you can expect to find items relating to the administration of the course.
In Assessment and Feedback you can expect to find your submission points, assignment briefs, and marking criteria.
You might find that your lecturers have also used Learning Modules for your Learning Materials.
Progress Tracker
Another change is that Progress Tracker has been turned on by default on all content on your course. This allows you to track your progress through the course by marking tasks as complete. Blackboard’s guidance provides further information.
Blackboard Ally
A reminder that we have Blackboard Ally enabled on all your courses. Blackboard Ally allows you to download content into different formats. This includes .mp3 files, immersive readers, and electronic Braille. For help, look at Ally guidance.
Blackboard Assignment
We will be running a series of pilots with some courses across the University using Blackboard Assignment. For those of you used to submitting via Turnitin, Blackboard Assignment offers similar functionality. We have a dedicated student FAQ on how to submit using Blackboard Assignment.If you have any difficulties submitting please contact Information Services (is@aber.ac.uk) and your academic department.
Departmental Organisation
Lastly, the final stage of our Ultra project was to move Departmental Organisations onto Ultra. Organisations are similar to Courses but they are not modules that you can take. Organisations are used to provide you with useful information about your Department. They are also used for training and test purposes, such as the Referencing and Plagiarism quiz. You can access your Organisations from the left-hand menu in Blackboard.
If you have any questions about using Blackboard, please contact Information Services (is@aber.ac.uk).
