DoIT and Student Disability Services hosted a "Candid Conversation on Enhancing Accessibility" on March 15th. The session highlighted ways that course accessibility benefits all students and results in inclusive learning and working environments. Student Disability Services and DoIT's Instructional Technology team collaborate to provide resources and support to enhance course accessibility. Proactively designing and teaching a course with accessibility in mind not only supports students with documented accommodations, but also supports Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles and best practices in course design. In the session panelists shared several key recommendations and resources that are available:

Key recommendations for course design and delivery

• Use Blackboard Ally to check the accessibility of course content, get guidance on remediating content, and to access alternative formats of course materials.

• Videos about Ally

• Alternative Formats in Bb Ally 

• Which Alternative Format is Best to Use? 

• Student FAQ - How do I download an alt format file generated by Ally? 

• Use live captioning in online course meetings, either with Webex or Google Chrome browser live captioning enabled.
• Caption video recordings with automatic captions in Panopto or VoiceThread.
• Upload a Video to Panopto
• Add time limit and due date accommodations in Blackboard.

Accessibility Resources

In addition to the tools noted above, the following resources also support accessibility:

• Create accessible documents with Office 365.
• Review the Google Workspace guide to accessibility.
• Explore SDS assistive technology resources.
• Review assistive technology resources available at the AOK Library.
• Review SDS Information for Faculty.

Technology Highlight: Class

UMBC will be piloting Class, a synchronous web conferencing platform built on Zoom's infrastructure. Class provides support for the following:

• Live transcription. All students in a Class session can view captions.
• Multiple video displays while sharing content, including support for sign language interpreters with a dedicated Sign Language Camera.
• Notes, an upcoming Class feature, will allow students to highlight text from the meeting transcript and add notes.
• Screen reader compatibility and keyboard navigation.

Instructional Technology is pleased to offer the following Ultra workshops in March:

March 2 (12 PM) - Ultra Essentials IV - Tests & Assignments

March 7 (12 PM) Ultra Essentials V - Grading & the Gradebook

March 13 (12 PM) - Ultra Course Orientation for Faculty, TAs & Course Builders

March 17 (12 PM) - Deliver Effective Assessments with Ultra Question Banks

March 29 (12 PM) - Ultra Design Clinic

Note: This self-paced course has been retired due to changes in available resources from Blackboard. We encourage faculty interested in Ultra training to access the following resources:

• Attend an upcoming training

• Recordings in our Panopto training folder

• Please review the FAQs, including the What's New with Ultra page, and myUMBC for additional information about Ultra. 

• Connect with an Ultra Ambassador!

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In support of the final completion of the Ultra migration by SP2025, Instructional Technology is pleased to offer a self-paced course, Ultra for Instructors. 

This course is designed to introduce instructors to Blackboard Ultra, including general navigation, content management and creation processes, assessment creation and settings options, and gradebook management. Ultra for Instructors should provide a starting point to help you design your courses in Blackboard Ultra and offers opportunities to apply what you're learning as you navigate the course. 

The course includes reference materials, links to resources, videos, and "Try It" activities to apply in your own Ultra courses. Depending on faculty interests, available time, and needs, the course can be approached in one of the following ways:

• Complete all modules, beginning with the Welcome and sequentially completing Modules 1-7.

• Complete certain modules of interest.

• Complete selected units within particular modules.

• Refer to the course as a reference guide, as needed.

In support of a common learning experience for students and faculty, and in consultation with the Faculty Senate Computer Policy Committee (CPC) last semester, UMBC will complete the Blackboard Ultra migration by the start of the Spring 2025 term. Since Winter and Spring courses are typically auto-created by early December, this means Fall 2024 will be the last term in which DoIT plans to support Blackboard Original.

Also, given its current Ultra adoption of 70%, the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (CAHSS) has agreed to migrate all courses by the start of Fall 2024. DoIT will also seek feedback on our "last mile" Ultra migration efforts from CoEIT and CNMS (for Spring 2025). The Erickson School is already using Ultra. But migrating our remaining Bb courses will give all students the same learning management system (LMS) since our first Ultra pilot in Spring 2018, a common request from student surveys in the past (see below).

Increasingly, as Ultra is used by more UMBC Blackboard courses (50% as of Fall 2022), this two-year plan is based on four criteria:

1. Students should have a common learning experience.

Currently, students must juggle two separate course views: Ultra and Original, depending on what their instructors have selected. Ultra also provides a mobile friendly and accessible course environment for students as well as better tools to track their progress while fostering self-expression with name pronunciation. Ultra provides tools to support diverse pedagogical and assessment practices, which supports the student learning experience.

2. Students like and want more Ultra courses. 

In three separate surveys, students said they were satisfied with Ultra and indicated a preference for Ultra courses (FA2022, SP2021, FA2019). Students consistently praise Ultra's clean interface, aggregated calendar of due dates, and easy discovery of graded activities. Increased exposure to Ultra through IHU and ENGL 100 courses provides students with a strong foundation in using the platform. Also, combined with Ally, Ultra is designed to improve accessibility.

3. Ultra is compatible with Original in key areas.

Within the last year, more than 150 updates brought Ultra up to feature parity with additional updates expected to reach up to 95% by the end of SP2023. A deep focus on assessment and grading aligned to UMBC faculty needs, addressing key areas in assessment & grading, engagement & content, and user & course management. Ultra now supports extensive gradebook tools and rubrics, question banks, robust groups management, with exclusive features not available in Original. Still, for faculty who tried Ultra before the Pandemic and found it missing key features, DoIT is eager and willing to consult on any questions or concerns.

4. Original courses will be retired eventually by the vendor.

Anthology, the parent company that now owns Blackboard, has already retired Original courses in self-hosted and managed hosted environments. All major development occurs for Ultra courses, not Original, in part because Anthology has invested three times the resources for Ultra. Original may receive minor tweaks and patches, but it is an aging platform.

Training & Support

To complete the migration to Ultra, DoIT is available to work with each college to tailor our training and support plan. However, DoIT's Instructional Technology team already provides Ultra training from an extensive catalog and updates Ultra support documentation frequently. Monthly drop-in support sessions will be provided, and DoIT staff will offer instructional design training and support for departments through workshops and Design Clinics throughout the academic year.

Finally, to promote effective practices, identify areas for improved resources, strengthen opportunities for professional development, and partner in outreach and support for faculty and students, DoIT will announce ways faculty can offer feedback or request help, including a survey and/or virtual town halls.

Sincerely,

Mariann Hawken
Director, Instructional Technology

John Fritz
Associate Vice President
Instructional Technology & New Media

Over the last year, Ultra received more than 150 enhancements and new features to strengthen and improve the new course for faculty and students. At the first quarter roadmap for 2023, the Ultra developers presented extensive plans for the next six months, focusing on grading and assessment, engagement and collaboration, content and course organization, and learner analytics. 

In March, Ultra courses will receive improvements to multiple submissions, allowing faculty to quickly shift between student attempts for grading and comparison, as well as a downloadable PDF version of the SafeAssign report. More information about the March release is available on the What's New in Ultra FAQ with a forthcoming update expected to myUMBC before the Blackboard site is updated early March.

In April, we expect to see two improvements requested by UMBC faculty and one new feature:

• Multiple grading schema: Create more than one grading schema in your Ultra course including pass/fail or complete/incomplete.

• Import questions into Question Banks: Abandon those messy gradebook columns from unused tests and create question banks instead!

• Search course content: Quickly find course content by searching title and description. This feature will be available to students and faculty. Exclusive to Ultra courses.

These are not the only enhancements expected in April, but the most exciting to share.

Although Anthology also offered a roadmap for Original, the majority of development continues to center in usability, accessibility, security, and storage management. Most development described during the Q1 2023 Original roadmap centered on system admin tools, base navigation (e.g., the Blackboard dashboard), or global changes impacting both Ultra and Original courses such as tool integration and Bb Annotate. A few enhancements focus on usability such as streamlining the assignment submission process for students with a few improvements slated for long term development (e.g., more than six months). 

The Instructional Technology team tracks and shares monthly updates to its myUMBC group and presents a What's New in Ultra for Teaching & Learning webinar every semester. Blackboard's quarterly roadmaps are open to the public.