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.
If you are stuck for ideas for the alternative text on your images, the Ally AI Alt Text Assistant can give you suggestions.
You should always check the suggestion provided by the AI Assistant as it may not always provide an accurate description of the image. You can edit any the AI generated suggestions.
Have a look at the accessible learning material guidance to find out why Alt Text is important. The Poet training tool provides guidance on how and when to use Alt Text as well as online tools to practice creating useful Alt text for images (please note that the Poet web site is an external site and is not available in Welsh).
Instructors can now print tests that include questions from Question Pools. An answer key will also be printed with the corresponding test. This ensures that Instructors always have an answer key that matches the test. Blackboard generates the answer key and prints it ahead of the test. The answer key is also clearly labelled to ensure awareness.
The system generates a different version of the answer key and test each time a test is printed when the test:
Randomizes questions or answer options
Includes Question Pools
Instructors can use the print option to save the answer key and test as a PDF.
To help with resizing blocks that are vertically tall, Blackboard have modified the resize handle. Now, instructors can resize a block by selecting the vertical edge of a block. It is not necessary to place the mouse directly over the handle.
“Change dates to a specific date and/or time” is the most popular option used in Batch Edit to change dates in a batch, so it is now the default option. This change simplifies the process for users and helps instructors to prepare courses for teaching and learning even faster.
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:
Creating questions is time consuming. Instructors now have the option to generate questions in a question bank. Generating question banks from course materials provides inspiration and saves time.
To generate a question bank, select the Auto-generate option from the + on the Question Banks page.
Image 1. Auto-generate a question bank
From the menu, instructors can select content items. These content items provide context for the questions. Instructors can further refine the questions they ask by entering a description of the learning objectives or topic.
Image 2. The context picker for creating new questions
Instructors can select the type of question to generate, such as multiple choice or fill in the blank. The complexity of the questions can also be adjusted. Instructors choose which questions to include in the question bank.
To encourage participation in discussions, Blackboard have expanded notifications to include email. Emails are sent when users opt for Email me right away notifications.
Key Enhancements:
User Notification Settings: New notification options allow users to manage their emails for discussions they follow. To help with consistency, these settings align with the user’s settings for their activity stream.
Activity on my responses
Activity on responses I have replied to
Responses from instructors
Responses for followed discussions
Replies for followed discussions
How to access your Email notification settings:
In Blackboard go into your Profile
Under Global Notification Settings click on Email notifications
Email notifications highlighted under Global Notification settings
Adjust your settings as you prefer
Image 2. An example of an email for discussion activity
A big thank you to all the staff who have signed up to the Blackboard Assignment with SafeAssign pilot. There’s still time to volunteer if you are interested (email elearning@aber.ac.uk).
Since the last blog post, we have made SafeAssign available for use in Blackboard Assignments. We have also held the first two training sessions. More training sessions will be organised for semester one – visit the Events and Training page to book a place.
We’ve been exploring some of the options for marking in Blackboard Assignment that staff might find useful:
Delegated marking allows staff to mark essays by group. If you divide up marking in your modules between several members of staff, then delegated marking will help you.
Parallel marking allows two staff to mark a piece of work independently without seeing each other’s comments or marks.
Anonymous comments. By default, marking comments in Blackboard Assignment contain the name of the staff member marking. If this is not appropriate for your marking, you can make them anonymous (see below).
Please note that deleted Blackboard assignments can be recovered for up to 30 days after deletion. If you need deleted assignments restored, please contact elearning@aber.ac.uk as soon as possible, providing details of module and the assignment name.
Anonymous Comments
When you create a comment, click on the anonymous marking icon
You can edit existing comments to make them anonymous by clicking on the comment. Click on the three dots in the top right-hand corner of the comment and then click on Anonymous.
To help your students use Blackboard Assignment to submit their work and find their feedback, we strongly recommend that you include the following FAQs in Assessment and Feedback Learning Module in your Blackboard course:
The September Blackboard update includes enhancements to the Course Content Page, introduces Knowledge Checks in Documents, changes to assessments, feedback & grades hidden using Release Conditions, and an Overview tab in the Grade book to aid grading.
Course Content Page enhancements
The September update to Blackboard sees enhancements to the course content page.
The enhancements include:
Greater visual depth
Changed Content Page layout
Differentiation among course elements
Greater visual depth
The new design incorporates:
Subtle gradients and softer edges
A more cohesive colour palette with inviting, warmer tones
More intuitive navigation, which reduces cognitive load and increases focus on the content
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.
