Staff teaching on Blackboard courses can use the Messages tool to send messages to their students, and these are often sent by email.
Because of the way that the Message tool works, all messages are sent from the e-learning support email address (bb-team@aber.ac.uk ), rather than the staff members’ personal email addresses. Replying to a Message sends it to our e-learning support staff.
Students – please don’t click the Reply button to respond to a Message. Instead, use the Forward option, adding in the relevant email address for the staff member. If you aren’t sure what their email address is, you can find it on the University Directory.
Staff – to help students get back in touch with you, we recommend including your email address in any Messages you send.
This is an example of a Blackboard Message sent via email
And the image below shows what happens when you click on the Reply button in your email – the To: box sends the message to bb-team@aber.ac.uk
We are working with Blackboard / Anthology and colleagues to resolve this issue, but in the meantime please check before replying to a message. This is especially important if you are sending personal information.
As leader of our PGCTHE programme, I keep an eye out for resources to help staff teach effectively. These include webinars, podcasts, online toolkits, publications and more. Topics include active learning, online/blended teaching, accessibility/inclusion, and effective learning design based on cognitive science. Below I’ve listed items that came to my attention in the past week. In the interest of clarity, our policy is to show the titles and descriptions in the language of delivery.
Online events and webinars
November
Ongoing through 12/2023 Teaching, Learning and Employability Exchange, AI Conversations Exchange (weekly series of webinars)
22/11/2023Brookes International HE Reading Group, Paper: Hannah Soong & Vihara Maheepala (2023) ‘Humanising the internationalisation of higher education: enhancing international students’ wellbeing through the capability approach’, Higher Education Research & Development, 42:5, 1212-1229, DOI: 10.1080/07294360.2023.2193730
29/11/2023 University of East London, Learning and Teaching Webinar Series, Un-ticking the box of peer observations (Mo Jafar, Dr Richard Buscombe and Hayley Nova, UEL)
Watkins, M. (17/9/2023), Automation Arrives in the Classroom, Blackboard’s AI assistant generates lessons and quizzes. What does this mean for labor?, Rhetorica
Monthly series European Network for Academic Integrity, ENAI monthly webinarsfree open webinars on various topics related to academic integrity.
Subscribe to SEDA’s mailing list for email discussions about educational development and emerging teaching practices. This is one of the sources I use when identifying useful material for the Roundup.
Follow University of Birmingham’s Higher Education Futures institute HEFi on Twitter for daily posts with links to pedagogical literature and more. This is one of the sources I use when identifying useful material for the Roundup.
Join the #LTHEchat on Twitter Wednesday nights for one hour of lively discussion about learning and teaching in HE. I often find out about good resources for the Roundup from the chat.
Please see the Staff Training booking page for training offered by the LTEU and other Aberystwyth University staff. I hope you find this weekly resource roundup useful. If you have questions or suggestions, please contact our team at lteu@aber.ac.uk. You may also wish to follow my Twitter feed, Mary Jacob L&T.
As leader of our PGCTHE programme, I keep an eye out for resources to help staff teach effectively. These include webinars, podcasts, online toolkits, publications and more. Topics include active learning, online/blended teaching, accessibility/inclusion, and effective learning design based on cognitive science. Below I’ve listed items that came to my attention in the past week. In the interest of clarity, our policy is to show the titles and descriptions in the language of delivery.
Online events and webinars
October
Ongoing through 12/2023 Teaching, Learning and Employability Exchange, AI Conversations Exchange (weekly series of webinars)
25/10/2023Brookes International HE Reading Group, Paper: Bamberger, A., Morris, P., & Yemini, M. (2019). ‘Neoliberalism, internationalisation, and higher education: Connections, contradictions, and alternatives’. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 40(20), 203–216. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2019.1569879
29/9/2023EmpowerED Webinar (topics covered include: accessibility, Generative AI, supporting international students, and podcasting for playful professional development)
15-17/11/2023 Architecture, Media, Politics, Society (AMPS), Teaching Beyond the Curriculum: Focus on Pedagogy 2023 Virtual: UK, USA, China, Call for proposals deadline 5/10/2023
22/11/2023Brookes International HE Reading Group, Paper: Hannah Soong & Vihara Maheepala (2023) ‘Humanising the internationalisation of higher education: enhancing international students’ wellbeing through the capability approach’, Higher Education Research & Development, 42:5, 1212-1229, DOI: 10.1080/07294360.2023.2193730
Monthly series European Network for Academic Integrity, ENAI monthly webinarsfree open webinars on various topics related to academic integrity.
Subscribe to SEDA’s mailing list for email discussions about educational development and emerging teaching practices. This is one of the sources I use when identifying useful material for the Roundup.
Follow University of Birmingham’s Higher Education Futures institute HEFi on Twitter for daily posts with links to pedagogical literature and more. This is one of the sources I use when identifying useful material for the Roundup.
Join the #LTHEchat on Twitter Wednesday nights for one hour of lively discussion about learning and teaching in HE. I often find out about good resources for the Roundup from the chat.
Please see the Staff Training booking page for training offered by the LTEU and other Aberystwyth University staff. I hope you find this weekly resource roundup useful. If you have questions or suggestions, please contact our team at lteu@aber.ac.uk. You may also wish to follow my Twitter feed, Mary Jacob L&T.
Click on the new folder and set the language for these recordings.
When you make your recordings, you must select the correct language folder before pressing record. This is because Welsh ASR captions cannot be added to recordings copied or moved from other folders.
Note:
There can be delay between changing the language on your folder and the option for automatic captions to appear. If this happens check back after an hour or so and you should see the option available.
The Welsh ASR captions are only available for content created after you updated the language setting on your folder.
The Welsh ASR captions cannot be added to recordings copied or moved from other folders.
If you regularly make recordings in other languages, ASR captions are available in other languages (see the Panopto website for the full list)
The Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit would like to highlight four enhancements to Instructors from the October Blackboard Learn Ultra.
1. Partial credit auto-distribution for correct answers for Multiple Choice questions
Multiple-choice questions with more than one correct answer are valuable assessment tools. Also known as multiple-answer or multiple-select questions, these questions assess comprehensive understanding. They also promote deeper learning and higher-order thinking skills.
Some instructors wish to award partial credit for these question types. This practice awards students who have a partial understanding. It also fosters a positive learning experience.
In the past, instructors had to enter a value for partial credit percentage for each option. Now, Blackboard will auto-distribute partial credit across correct answer choices. This distribution provides efficiency and saves instructors’ time. If desired, instructors can edit the values if some correct answer options warrant more or less credit. Values for correct answers must sum to 100%.
Image below: Question credit auto-distributes across correct answer options; values can be edited.
2. Send reminder from gradebook list and grid views
Instructors may want to send a reminder to students or groups who haven’t yet made a submission for an assessment. To make this easy, Blackboard have added a “Send Reminder” option to items in the Gradebook.
There are two views of the Gradebook that can be toggled between using the button. List view and grid view.
Image below: Use the list view and grid view button to toggle between views.
From the Gradebook list view, the option to send a reminder is in the overflow menu (three dots).
Image below: Send Reminder option from list view
Instructors may access the “Send Reminder” option in the grid view by selecting the gradebook column header.
Image below: Send Reminder option from grid view
3. Delegated grading distribution by group membership
Instructors sometimes distribute the grading workload for an assessment to multiple graders. This is a popular practice in larger classes. Instructors can assign graders to groups of students with the new delegated grading option. Each grader will only see the submissions made by students in the group(s) assigned to them.
Delegated Grading can be used with all available group types. This first release of Delegated Grading supports assignment submissions from individual students. Tests, group assessments, and anonymous submissions are not supported at this time. These will be released at a later date.
After selecting the Delegated Grading option, select the appropriate Group Set. Instructors can assign one or more graders to each group in the group set. If multiple graders are assigned to the same group, they will share the grading responsibility for the group members.
Graders assigned to a group of students will only see submissions for those students on the assignment’s submission page. They can only post grades for their assigned group members. Any unassigned instructors enrolled in the course will see all student submissions on the assignment’s submission page. They also post grades for all students.
Note: At least one Group Set complete with Groups must be present in the course before using the Delegated Grading option.
Image below: Instructor view of the assessment Settings panel with the Delegated Grading option enabled.
4. Sorting for manually added gradable items.
Sorting controls help instructors organize and find information in the gradebook. Instructors can now use sorting controls on the grades page for manually created items. The sorting controls enable sorting in both ascending and descending order. Instructors can sort the following information:
Student name
Grade
Feedback
Post status
The applied sorting order is temporary and resets when you leave the page.
Note: Sorting controls can be applied to one column at a time. When you sort another column, items will order according to the selected column.
Image below: Instructor view of sorting controls on the grades page for a manually added gradable item
As leader of our PGCTHE programme, I keep an eye out for resources to help staff teach effectively. These include webinars, podcasts, online toolkits, publications and more. Topics include active learning, online/blended teaching, accessibility/inclusion, and effective learning design based on cognitive science. Below I’ve listed items that came to my attention in the past week. In the interest of clarity, our policy is to show the titles and descriptions in the language of delivery.
Online events and webinars
October
Ongoing through 12/2023 Teaching, Learning and Employability Exchange, AI Conversations Exchange (weekly series of webinars)
25/10/2023Brookes International HE Reading Group, Paper: Bamberger, A., Morris, P., & Yemini, M. (2019). ‘Neoliberalism, internationalisation, and higher education: Connections, contradictions, and alternatives’. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 40(20), 203–216. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2019.1569879
29/9/2023EmpowerED Webinar (topics covered include: accessibility, Generative AI, supporting international students, and podcasting for playful professional development)
15-17/11/2023 Architecture, Media, Politics, Society (AMPS), Teaching Beyond the Curriculum: Focus on Pedagogy 2023 Virtual: UK, USA, China, Call for proposals deadline 5/10/2023
22/11/2023Brookes International HE Reading Group, Paper: Hannah Soong & Vihara Maheepala (2023) ‘Humanising the internationalisation of higher education: enhancing international students’ wellbeing through the capability approach’, Higher Education Research & Development, 42:5, 1212-1229, DOI: 10.1080/07294360.2023.2193730
Compton, M., Acar, O., & Haberstroh, C. (9/10/2023), Generative AI in Higher Education, King’s College London via FutureLearn (2-week MOOC, running through 31/8/2024)
W3C, Digital Accessibility Foundations Free Online Course, Web Accessibility Initiative, “This course will be available on the edX platform through at least December 2023. We expect an updated version of this course to be available long term.”
Other
Monthly series European Network for Academic Integrity, ENAI monthly webinarsfree open webinars on various topics related to academic integrity.
Subscribe to SEDA’s mailing list for email discussions about educational development and emerging teaching practices. This is one of the sources I use when identifying useful material for the Roundup.
Follow University of Birmingham’s Higher Education Futures institute HEFi on Twitter for daily posts with links to pedagogical literature and more. This is one of the sources I use when identifying useful material for the Roundup.
Join the #LTHEchat on Twitter Wednesday nights for one hour of lively discussion about learning and teaching in HE. I often find out about good resources for the Roundup from the chat.
Please see the Staff Training booking page for training offered by the LTEU and other Aberystwyth University staff. I hope you find this weekly resource roundup useful. If you have questions or suggestions, please contact our team at lteu@aber.ac.uk. You may also wish to follow my Twitter feed, Mary Jacob L&T.
When you next log in to Blackboard you may notice that the language of the interface has changed. The initial language you see in Blackboard is decided by the Preferred Language you have set in either ABW as staff or Student Record as a student.
If you have already set your Preferred Language to Welsh, you’ll see the Welsh language interface of Blackboard, and if you have set your Preferred Language as English, you’ll see the English language interface of Blackboard.
If you don’t see the Blackboard Interface in the language you prefer you can easily change it:
The new Blackboard Ally tool also gives you access to Welsh language audio versions of Welsh content in Blackboard courses. Any Welsh language documents, PowerPoints, PDFs etc can be read aloud using the Audio MP3 version. For more information on using Blackboard Ally, take a look at our staff or student FAQ.
This month saw the release of several further enhancements in Blackboard Learn Ultra.
Batch Editor enhancements
Batch editing streamlines making changes to multiple items at once in Blackboard whether that is editing visibility, release conditions or deleting. Blackboard have updated batch edit so that actions now apply to all items inside of Folders and Learning Modules.
All items are now visible on a single page. Blackboard have added the ability to expand and collapse Folders and Learning Modules.
As we covered in a previous blogpost, Instructors can now search the extensive Unsplash stock image library for high-quality, royalty-free stock images to use within Blackboard.
This month also saw us enable the Blackboard Ally accessibility tool that allows students to download alternative formats of content as well as accessibility checker for Instructors.
Vevox is the University’s polling software which can be used to make teaching more interactive, engage large groups, check knowledge and understanding, and receive feedback.
In addition to their training sessions, Vevox run a series of online webinars showcasing innovative ways in which polling is used at other institutions.
The next online webinar is from the University of South Wales, where Dean Whitcombe is running a session The Use of Vevox in Simulation-based Education and research. This session is at 2pm on 4 October.
On 11 October, at 2pm, University of Chichester’s James Wilson will be leading a session, Once upon a Time: Using Vevox for Interactive Storytelling.
You can sign up to attend these sessions on this webpage.
Aberystwyth University has run a series of webinars in the past for Vevox which are available on YouTube:
If Vevox is new to you, then take a look at our polling software webpage. Vevox run 15 minute Zero to Hero training sessions on Tuesday afternoons. You can sign up to them on the Vevox webpage.
Please contact the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit (elearning@aber.ac.uk) if you have got any questions.
![[Alt text: screenshot of a Blackboard Message sent via email]](https://wordpress.aber.ac.uk/e-learning/files/2023/11/image.png)
![[Alt text: Screenshot of the email message created when you Reply to a Blackboard Message]](https://wordpress.aber.ac.uk/e-learning/files/2023/11/image-1.png)
