One of the great new enhancements that we’ve got in Blackboard Ultra is the ability to embed collaborative documents.
For those of us who did much of their teaching online during the Covid pandemic, you will recall us espousing the benefits of loading a collaborative document in the chat. We’ve now been working to enable this on our Blackboard Courses and we are pleased to say that they are available for you to use on your 2023-24 courses.
This means that your students will be able to collaborate together outside the classroom, on Blackboard in their own time. There are 3 types of document available for students to collaborate on:
Word
Excel
PowerPoint
We’re going to be using the collab docs for blog and wiki alternatives. But, if you want to maybe get your students to mind map, generate ideas, or build on each other’s notes, take a look at the collab docs. You could also use it to get students to sign up to groups. You can use the group feature in Ultra courses to limit the item to a specific student or group of students.
In summer 2022 we moved to a new version of Turnitin. As support for our previous version of Turnitin has now ceased, the historical version (known as Turnitin Building Block) will be retired on 31 August 2023.
This means that any marked assignments will no longer be accessible to staff and students.
Staff should contact the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit (elearning@aber.ac.uk) if they still need to access Turnitin assignments in the Building Block for marking purposes.
Even though access will be removed, the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit will still be able to request marked assignments via Turnitin support. If you require this after 31 August 2023, please contact the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit (elearning@aber.ac.uk).
This post outlines the solutions that the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit are working on for Blog activities in Blackboard Ultra. Once these solutions have been tried and tested, we will work on providing guidance for colleagues.
Background
Blogs are a collaborative tool used for a number of assessed and unassessed activities at Aberystwyth University.
The tool is not currently available in Blackboard Ultra (despite our enhancement requests) and is not on Blackboard’s roadmap of development.
The unavailability of the Blog tool has been included in all parts of the decision-making process to highlight it as a risk in the move to Blackboard Ultra.
In their very nature blogs offer students the opportunity to reflect on their learning, organise their thoughts and ideas chronologically, and comment on each other’s posts.
Whilst there aren’t blogs in Ultra, there are two fully-integrated participation and engagement tools that will offer alternatives: Journals and Discussions.
Option 1: Use the Journal tool
Whilst blogs don’t exist in Blackboard Ultra, the journal tool does remain. Journals are used in a similar way to blogs but they are private between course tutors and students. If the activity can function without making student’s posts visible to all, we recommend using this tool.
If the activity requires an interactive element between students then we recommend using the discussion tool. Here you can create a thread, organise your discussions via folders, set the discussions to be graded, encourage student participation by not viewing the thread until students have completed their initial post.
For an idea as to how discussions work, take a look at this demonstration video.
Even though our discussion board tool has changed, our principles on discussion board design and engagement still remain the same. Take a look at our discussion board design blogpost for some tips and questions for you to ask yourselves in the design of the activity.
Option 3: Use WordPress blogging tool
Whilst we recommend that discussion board activity remains in Blackboard so that student engagement and assessment can take place, there is another blogging tool supported by the University: WordPress. If you think that WordPress is the only option for you then we recommend that you get in contact with us first to discuss your activity and so we can advise further (elearning@aber.ac.uk).
On 1 and 2 March, LTEU met with Departmental Directors of Learning and Teaching to update on the Blackboard Ultra project and discuss our plans for training, ways in which we can address challenges, and the support required for the Ultra project.
The slides from the session can be downloaded from this link.
The slides include an update on the project timeline, what academic colleagues will have to do, and an overview of our training approach.
Summary of discussions
Support contact – if you are having any difficulties with using e-learning tools then do contact elearning@aber.ac.uk and we will be happy to help you out.
Adding Reading List and Panopto Link – Staff members will have to add links to these in their modules. There is currently no way of doing this automatically, but we will continue to investigate ways of doing so.
Departments will be able to choose whether they have an in-person training session or an online training session.
LTEU will continue training on using Ultra over the summer and into the new academic year
Academic colleagues will be able to access and copy materials from historical modules – the current retention period is 5 years + current year.
Where possible, colleagues should use Blackboard text editor features to ensure that their content is as accessible as possible.
A checklist will be produced so that colleagues can check that they’ve done everything required in building their modules.
Colleagues would like a consistent message from Information Services about the project.
Training sessions will be offered to all Registry teams as well as external examiners and franchise campuses.
Communications and approach will include the benefits of the move to Ultra and a list of new features.
Where possible, video materials will be created.
If you have any questions, concerns, or want to speak to us about something specific in your course, then contact us on elearning@aber.ac.uk.
Now that the templates have been confirmed we have created an individual Ultra Practice Course for all staff members.
This practice course is private to you and has no students enrolled on it. You can use this course to create content and try out the new Ultra course interface.
You will find your practice course by going to Organisations on the left-hand side menu:
The course has been created with the bilingual AU course template. For further information on course templates, see our previous blogpost. They will be named your name Cwrs Ymarfer Ultra / Ultra Practice Course.
To help prepare you for Ultra courses next academic year, try the following:
You’ll notice that you can drag and drop content much more easily in Ultra. Additionally, you can choose where you add content (without newly created content defaulting to the bottom of the page).
As Ultra is much more fluid than Blackboard original, your approach to content organisation is essential to help students navigate the module. Make sure that you use the preview features so that you can get an idea of how the content looks to students:
It might be that you want to discuss content organisation with colleagues to see if there’s departmental approach that you want to take.
We will be using these practice organisations for training purposes over the coming months. Keep an eye on our blog and webpages for additional information as further guidance is produced.
We’ll be blogging additional tasks over the coming months for you to try in your Ultra practice course. In our next blogpost of this nature, we’ll be taking an in-depth look at the Grade Book, Assignments, Turnitin, and Blackboard tests.
If you’ve got any questions about the move to Blackboard Ultra, please contact the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit (elearning@aber.ac.uk).
Want a way to automatically schedule meetings with colleagues and students without going back and forth?
Bookings has been enabled on Office365 accounts. You might want to use this to schedule personal tutor meetings, dissertation supervision sessions, or appointments with professional services staff.
Bookings allows you to schedule meetings and appointments and automatically integrates with your Office365 calendar based on yours and your attendees’ availability.
You can specify your available booking slots, when your meetings are scheduled, whether they’re taking place online, and publish a webpage with a link to share with others or put in your email signature.
Take a look at our FAQfor further information on how to set this up.
Contact Information Services (is@aber.ac.uk) if you have got any questions about using Bookings.
Following the meeting of Academic Board, we can confirm that Phase 1 of the Ultra project, Ultra Base Navigation (UBN), will take place between 3 and 6 January 2023.
During this time, you will notice changes to the landing pages of Blackboard. Whilst UBN offers a new feel to Blackboard, course functionality and content will remain the same. We aim to maintain user access to Blackboard throughout this time, but it should be considered at risk for this period.
Further updates about UBN will follow to help prepare staff and students for this change to the landing page.
Once Phase 1 is complete, the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit will move to Phase 2, preparing for Ultra Courses in September 2023.
We are blogging throughout the project and key messages will be communicated via the Weekly Bulletin and IS news.
We will provide FAQs and have a dedicated webpage which will develop as the project progresses.
If you have any questions, please contact the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit (elearning@aber.ac.uk).
In its most recent update, Teams made available its new translation channel for online meetings. Now, you can allocate a translator to your meeting and attendees can tune into their interpretation. This solution has been developed in collaboration between Microsoft and Welsh Government.
If you’ve got any questions about using Teams, please contact is@aber.ac.uk.
In line with the statutory requirements of the Welsh Language Standards and the University’s internal policy on the use of Welsh, the Centre for Welsh Language Services provides a Simultaneous Translation service at meetings (virtual, hybrid and in-person).
Simultaneous Translation allows attendees to use their preferred language (e.g. Welsh/English) completely naturally and easily at meetings, committees and events for example. For further information please contact the Centre for Welsh Language Services tlustaff@aber.ac.uk.
The Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit is starting to work on our next project: the move to Blackboard Ultra. Over the coming months we’ll be using our blog to communicate project progression as well as important information.
Over the next year or so, you’ll probably hear the following phrases:
Ultra Base Navigation: the name given to the new design and navigation within Blackboard, before you enter a module or organisation.
Ultra Course View: a more modern design and easy-to-use interface for modules with some new tools that are not available in the Original Course View.
Original Course View: the design and interface we are currently using for modules and which Blackboard is retiring.
LTI (Learning Tools Interoperability): the external tools integrated into Blackboard such as Turnitin and Panopto.
There are advantages to using Ultra:
More intuitive course design and content creation.
Increased compatibility with mobile and tablet devices.
Benefits from Blackboard’s continuous updates and support.
Updated aesthetic.
Whilst we recognise these benefits, the change may be disruptive for colleagues and students but we will be working hard to ensure the rollout is as smooth as possible.
For colleagues, we’ll be running training sessions next year so that you are as prepared for this change as possible.
In this first blogpost, we’ll provide a summary of our first stakeholder engagement meeting which took place on Friday 16 September. Your departmental directors of learning and teaching along with other stakeholders were invited to the meeting.
Our client support colleagues from Blackboard gave attendees a tour of the Ultra interface from an instructor’s perspective and a day in the life of a student.
We have made the meeting available for everyone via Panopto.
Following the stakeholder meeting we will be working on the following areas:
When can we enable Ultra Base Navigation?
What will the course creation and copying process look like for colleagues?
How does Blackboard Ultra manage Welsh and English content?
Keep a lookout for further updates. If you have got any questions, do let us know (lteu@aber.ac.uk).
