Category: Technical Updates

Vevox Update: March 2025

WordPress User [jbw] Polling Software, Technical Updates, Vevox Leave a comment

There are some new features available in the latest Vevox (Polling Tool) update that we wanted to draw your attention to.

For those unfamiliar with Vevox, the polling software can be used to ask students questions and for them to respond live using their mobile devices. For information on how to use Vevox, see our webpage.

The update includes:

If you are using Team polls and quizzes, you can now set up a Leaderboard. This enhancement is great for end of term or revision style activities.

If you create questions on a spreadsheet, you can upload them from an excel template.

This feature was introduced in the last release but there are some improvements to the workflow. You can conduct a demographic poll to gather key information or characteristics for your responders, before asking further questions to disaggregate the results.

The AI quiz generator now can create 10 questions at a time.

The updated PowerPoint add-in includes improvements to LaTeX and KaTeX rendering, rich text options for question formatting, and improved Pie Chart and numeric poll updates.

Take a look at Vevox’s latest product update: March 2025 for the full update.

If you have any questions on using Vevox please contact us (elearning@aber.ac.uk).

Panopto: Automatic Speech Recognition Captioning

WordPress User [jbw] Accessibility, Panopto, Technical Updates Leave a comment

We are pleased to announce that Panopto Automatic Speech Recognition Captioning was approved at the recent Quality and Standards Committee.

This means that for the academic year 2025-26 and beyond, automatic captions will be applied to your Panopto recordings.

Viewers see the captions appearing at the bottom of the screen or can download a transcript:

Screenshot showing a Panopto recording with captions

Whilst captions will appear automatically next academic year, colleagues can already apply automatic captions to all the recordings in a Panopto folder. Consult Panopto’s guidance on how to do this.

We have been working to enable automatic captions for several years, so we welcome this development. As part of this work, we have taken mitigating steps to address some of the challenges and concerns, including:

  • Inaccuracies of automatic captions
  • Clear expectations for staff and students
  • Managing multi-language courses

Automatic Captions are applied to all recordings on the site once we enable this feature. The default language that will be applied to module folders is English. Modules delivered 100% through the medium of Welsh will have their folder settings manually updated to generate Automatic Captions in Welsh.

We have also undertaken an Equality Impact Assessment to address some of the challenges posed by Automatic Captioning which is available by request (elearning@aber.ac.uk).

To facilitate the enabling of automatic captioning, the Lecture Capture policy has been updated. We review all of our policies (Lecture Capture, Blackboard Required Minimum Presence, and E-submission) annually. We will release further communications regarding these updates in due course.

We will now start work on updating Panopto to enable Automatic Speech Recognition captioning for 2025-26.

Blackboard Achievements

WordPress User [jbw] Blackboard, Technical Updates, Uncategorised Leave a comment
Screenshot of the Achievements tab and associated badges in a Blackboard course

We have enabled a new feature on Blackboard called Achievements.

Achievements allow instructors to link student achievement to badges to help recognise their accomplishment or proficiency.

See Blackboard Help for an overview of achievements. The help site will give you advice on the types of activities they can be used for as well as how to set them up.

To create a badge, you need to associate it with a Gradebook column – such as a test, assignment, or Turnitin. You can specify a certain level that needs to be attained to generate the badge. 

Students can then view their achievements on the course or organisation from the Achievements tab. We’d welcome working with colleagues to explore how achievements could be used at a scheme or department level.

Vevox Updates

WordPress User [jbw] Polling Software, Technical Updates, Vevox Leave a comment
Screenshot of Numeric question with Word Cloud output

Vevox, the University’s preferred polling solution, has some great new features from its September 2024 and December 2024 release.  

For colleagues unfamiliar with Vevox, it can be used to make your teaching more interactive, and to help decision making in meetings. Participants use mobile devices to engage in real-time polling, but there are also options for asynchronous Surveys and Q & A boards.

All these updates are available on this YouTube recording and via these release notes:

1. Q and A labels

Session hosts can define labels that are now visible and usable by participants. This means that participants can optionally tag their Q&A messages with a  pre-defined label. For example, you may wish to have a label for Assessment to allow students to link their questions to a tag.

2. Compare poll results in your session

This is a useful activity to measure the impact of a teaching session. Ask students one question at the start of the session to gauge their level of understanding and then ask them the same question at the end of the session to see if their understanding has changed. See the Vevox update for instructions on how to achieve this.

3. Downvoting options

By default, the Q and A board allows participants to upvote questions. This means that you can order questions by those which the majority of participants want to ask. Vevox has introduced a Downvote setting which you can toggle on to allow your participants to downvote questions. You can change these settings in the Q and A setting interface.

4. Alternate result display

Responses to MCQ poll questions can now be displayed in different ways. You can use the traditional bar graph but you can now choose to display your output as a pie chart. You can change the view in real time by having the Vevox admin panel open on one screen in the lecture and having the presenter window projected.

5. Number cloud question release

The number type poll now gives instructors the option to display how the output is shown with a new Word Cloud style interface. You can choose to have this as an output from the poll question interface.

6. Text walls formatting

Results for the answer style question now show in a more streamlined fashion when publishing the results. Rather than showing the output in full, the first couple of sentences display. The instructor can click on the comments they want to highlight and it will show the full response.

7. PowerPoint real time results

The PowerPoint integration has been updated to be able to show WordCloud, Pie Chart, and Number Cloud results live. Further information on using the Vevox PowerPoint integration is available on their webpage.

8. Rich text options for question formatting

Bold, italics and underline are now options in the question formatting.

9. Attendance tracking

For identified polling, you can run attendance information from the data reports. You can then see when participants joined the session and let the session.

10. Custom profanity filters

As account administrators, we can add words to the custom profanity filter. This will be applied to polls, surveys, and q and a features. If you have a word that you would like included in the profanity filter, please contact elearning@aber.ac.uk.

Further information and support is available on our webpages: Polling Tool  : Information Services , Aberystwyth University.

Previous updates and case studies are available on our blog.

NEW: AI Conversations in Blackboard

WordPress User [jbw] Blackboard, Generative AI, Technical Updates, Training and Support, Ultra, Ultra Leave a comment

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.

For further information, see Blackboard’s AI Conversation guidance.

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Blackboard Original Practice Organisations to be removed

WordPress User [jbw] Blackboard, Technical Updates, Ultra Leave a comment

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.

Welcome to the Academic Year 2024-25: Updates to Blackboard for students

WordPress User [jbw] Blackboard, E-submission, Information for Students, Panopto, Technical Updates Leave a comment

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 Panopto for 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).

Vevox Polling: Summer 2024 Update

WordPress User [jbw] Polling Software, Technical Updates Leave a comment

The University has a subscription to Vevox Polling. You can run polling activities in your classroom with participants using mobile devices.

Vevox’s update for summer 2024 includes some new functionality that we wish to draw your attention to.

New question type: Rating scale Poll

This question type allows you to set a rating scale from 1 to the highest value. You can rename the bottom of the scale and the top of the scale and add multiple items to the rating.

This question type would be useful for activities such as muddiest point or identifying topics for revision.

You can replace the rating scale with a star rating instead.

To use the rating scale question, select create new and choose Rating Scale from the question type menu.

Images as choices in multichoice polls

You can give your respondents the option to choose an image as a selection in the multichoice style question.

Rather than entering text, images allow you to create a more visual response to the question type.

You can use the Unsplash image library to help you find images relevant to your questions.

Question specific settings

Previously the settings that you applied to your poll applied to all questions. Now there’s functionality to choose different settings for different poll questions.

You can choose to amend:

  • The display of real-time results
  • The display of results on poll close
  • Different countdown timer music selection
  • Automatic countdown timer

To amend settings on individual questions, choose Use custom settings for this poll in the question interface.

Multiple Survey/ self-paced quizzes

For colleagues who make use of self-paced quizzes and surveys, it’s now possible to run more than one at a time. This means that you can embed them across different modules.

Shuffle Survey questions

If you want to randomise the order in which survey questions appear, select Shuffle question order on the Survey interface.

Image history

Vevox will now save images that you upload to use in Polls. This will help save time with uploading and recreating questions.

See our support pages for using Vevox. You can also read previous updates on the blog.

Vevox run regular webinars on how to use the software. Sign up for these online.

If you have any questions, contact the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit (elearning@aber.ac.uk).

Blackboard Learn Ultra: Enhancements to Documents

WordPress User [jbw] Blackboard, Technical Updates, Uncategorised Leave a comment

The Blackboard Learn Ultra August update included enhancements to the creating and editing functionality of Blackboard Learn Ultra Documents.

For those unfamiliar with Documents, they are an easy way to create content in Ultra, ensuring compatibility with mobile devices and Blackboard Ally. As this update to Documents is a significant change to content organisation, we are producing this separate blogpost. You can read about other enhancements in the August update blogpost.

The latest update gives instructors more power and control over how content appears. It functions as a webpage, with a variety of block types that can be used to create and organise content. These blocks can be moved around to give instructors more options over the layout of their content.

In summary:

  • Images can be brought in-line with text
  • Bilingual content can be arranged more easily
  • Headings can be used to aid with navigation
  • Files can be uploaded and converted into an Ultra Document, retaining the original formatting

An example of a Document created using the new content editor can be seen below:

Full view of an enhanced Document with blocks filled with text and images

For all instructors, the biggest change is that the content creator appears at the top of the page. You can still use the + icon to create content which will then give you the menu that you see below:

Image of content creator block in Ultra Documents

The convert a file option is new functionality that allows you to upload a file. This will convert it into an Ultra Document retaining the formatting of the original file.

Selecting Content will take you to the usual content editor.

This allows you to add content and resize.

You can easily move content around bringing images in line with text.

As you work with re-organising and re-arranging content, we recommend that you save your work as you go to ensure that changes remain.

For further information on creating and using documents, see Blackboard Help Guidance.