Free Coursera MOOC - Learn the Basics of Developing an Inclusive & Accessible Course
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A core feature in an Original Blackboard course, Student Preview is used by faculty to review the content and tool functionality in a virtual environment before releasing to students -- and it is coming to Ultra courses in May.
Instructors can also import question banks exported from Original courses and publisher-created test banks to their Ultra courses. Once imported, these questions are available for immediate use and reuse across all assessments in the Ultra course. As with any conversion from Original to Ultra, question types that are not yet supported are dropped during the processing of the imported file.
Other enhancements coming to Ultra on May 3 include:
Instructors can leave feedback for individual group members and for the group as a whole for a graded activity
The link to the Course Room will be renamed to Blackboard Collaborate
Initially deployed to Ultra courses in SP2019, the new accessibility tool Ally will be available to all new courses beginning with summer 2019. Ally automatically scans course content and performs a series of steps to make that content more accessible. Ally is one part of a broad investment to support accessibility, hybrid and online learning, and instructional technology in DoIT. Moreover, this strategic investment extends the timeline for Ultra and provides a $100 stipend to faculty to convert a course to Ultra.
While many features released each month benefit Ultra courses, all users can now share Blackboard calendars with external calendar services such as Google.
The next update will be posted to our test site around May 14th and pushed to production around June 6th. Faculty who are interested in test driving new features before they are released to production should open an RT ticket to request early access.
As always, if you have any questions, please consider the following options:
Follow the Instructional Technology & DoIT myUMBC groups
Request a consult with instructional technology staff
Blackboard course shells for SU2019 were created on April 26, 2019.
The Ultra Course Preview setting is again enabled in SU2019 courses to allow faculty adoption. The Ultra Course Preview tool allows faculty to convert an existing Original course and see what it looks like in Ultra. Blackboard provides a conversion log with a list of Original features and functions that change in Ultra or those that won't carry forward if you choose to convert the course to Ultra. Faculty may also choose to use the Ultra Course Preview sandbox, which was provided earlier in the FA2018 semester, to review a course or develop one in Ultra.
About Course Creation
Bb shells for SU2019 are available for all courses (designated as lecture, lab, field or discussion) listed in the UMBC Schedule of Classes (SOC), provided that there is an instructor of record listed. As new course sections and/or instructors are added to the SOC by Department Scheduling Coordinators, corresponding Bb shells are automatically generated overnight.
Instructors who teach multiple sections of the same course will find those enrollments merged into one Bb course shell. These sections may be split upon request by an RT ticket, which we recommend submitting at least one week before the semester starts, if not as soon as courses are created in Blackboard.
Student enrollment in Bb mirrors the official registration in SA and updates hourly. However, courses are not accessible to students by default until the instructor of record makes them available.
As always, if you have any questions, please consider the following options:
The National Center on Accessible Education at CAST, Inc. is sponsoring a free webinar on accessibility.
Free Webinar: Accessibility of Course Materials & Your University
Thursday, May 9, 2019
3:00 - 4:00 pm ET (Find out when the webinar starts in your time zone)
Presenters: Cynthia Curry, AEM Center; Joanne Benica, Director of Disability Services, University of Southern Maine; Eric Moore, UDL and Accessibility Specialist, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville; and Mark Nichols, Senior Director of Universal Design & Accessible Technologies, Virginia Tech
The Quality Indicators for the Provision of Accessible Educational Materials (AEM) can be used by faculty, IT, instructional designers, administrators, and others at higher ed institutions to self-assess and map improvements of course material accessibility. Join a discussion with a panel of higher ed professionals who have experience with many of the Critical Components of the Quality Indicators. To get the most out of the webinar, please review the Quality Indicators and the Higher Education Critical Components.
Unable to attend the webinar? No worries! A recording will be available on the webinar's Event Page approximately one week after the webinar. An announcement will be sent when the recording is available.
Click on this link to Register Now!
]]>I am pleased to announce that Dr. Susan Biro has accepted UMBC’s Online Learning Coordinator position in the Division of Information Technology (DoIT). She will start full-time on Wednesday, May 8, and serve as the primary point of contact for DoIT’s collaboration with the Division of Professional Studies (DPS) in developing hybrid and online applied master’s programs as part of the new, strategic investment in instructional technology.
With more than 17 years of experience in distance education, Susan brings expertise in many facets of designing, developing, implementing, and administering online programs. In her most recent position as Executive Director of Teaching and Learning Technologies at Prince George’s Community College, she was responsible for planning and coordinating the eLearning and technology training teams in their support of online/hybrid courses. Prior to that role, Dr. Biro served as the Director of Distance Education at Carroll Community College where she was responsible for not only ensuring effective use of the learning management system in developing and delivering online, hybrid, and onsite courses, but also ensuring comprehensive administrative services were in place to support online faculty and students. Finally, as Dean of the Online Campus at Berkeley College of New York and New Jersey, Susan served as the chief academic officer for online programs where she mentored full time and adjunct online faculty, managed the planning and creation of programs to enhance online student retention, and assisted in creating institutional standards for credit-for-prior-learning and portfolio development.
Susan earned both her Doctor of Education with a specialization in Leadership in Higher Education and her Master of Education in Adult Education from Widener University and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from Delaware State University.
Please join us in welcoming Susan into the UMBC family. We look forward to her future contributions to UMBC.
Sincerely,
Sherri Braxton
Senior Director
Instructional Technology
UMBC Division of Information Technology
Earlier this week the Provost and Deans agreed to a DoIT proposal to go forward with a broad investment in instructional technology support staff, software tools and training stipends for faculty. As part of this effort, DoIT will also be delaying the date for moving all courses to Blackboard Ultra, originally announced and planned for the start of Fall 2019, and extending to Fall 2021.
Specifically, DoIT and the Division of Professional Studies (DPS) are investing in four instructional technology positions to be on board by the start of summer, and recently purchased Blackboard’s Ally software for improving accessibility. Also, DoIT will increase the number of Blackboard Ultra ambassadors from 15 to 32, and provide more opportunities for on-site and online training workshops, including “lessons learned” from colleagues who’ve already switched. Finally, DoIT and the Provost’s Office are partnering to offer one-time, $100 stipends to all faculty who 1) attend or participate in any Ultra training, and 2) complete the process of migrating their existing course(s) by the new phased rollout summarized below, based on the “Blackboard Use by College” report (requires myUMBC login with ad\ before username):
Term Start | College/School/Division | SP19 Bb Courses * |
Fall 2019 | DPS, Erickson, SOWK, UAA | 37, 22, 31, 28, respectively |
Spring 2020 | CNMS | 150 |
Fall 2020 | CoEIT | 275 |
Spring 2021 | CAHSS | 831 |
To be clear, any faculty member from any college, school, department or division can switch to Ultra now -- as 145 courses have done this term already and since we piloted Ultra in Spring 2018. But within each organization above, DoIT will also focus on supporting each instructor based on a course’s “archetype” of prior Blackboard usage at UMBC, which we’ve seen is different from most institutions Blackboard hosts on its “cloud” or Software as a Service (SaaS) system. Note: UMBC moved to the Blackboard cloud in 2017.
“The move to Blackboard Ultra presents a real opportunity for DoIT to work with faculty to improve overall course design, accessibility and effective practice,” says Jack Suess, Vice President for IT and Chief Information Officer. “In some departments, this is working with faculty to provide training to develop online or hybrid courses, especially in collaboration with applied graduate programs. In other departments, faculty may be interested in deepening student engagement or outcomes.”
As part of the broader e-Learning strategy, DoIT will continue or expand support for the following:
Course Design: DoIT first introduced Quality Matters and online/blended teaching workshops to the campus through the DPS-supported Alternate Delivery Program (ADP) for summer & winter programs. Drawing on more than a dozen years of experience working with over 75 faculty, DoIT refined the ADP model in 2015 to include skill builder, course designer and quality booster workshops (and stipends) to participating faculty teaching in Fall and Spring courses, too.
Accessibility: DoIT is now supporting Ally, a new tool by Blackboard designed to identify and help address inaccessible course content. Currently, it is only available for Ultra courses.
Assessment & Academic Integrity: We’ll continue to offer training and support in effective practices with Adaptive Release, which DoIT has found is associated with higher use of course content by students, as well as SafeAssign and Respondus Lockdown Browser.
Learning Analytics & Student Success: We’ll continue to leverage analytics to help identify historically high-enrollment courses that have also reduced high DFW rates, to perhaps reverse-engineer effective practices that could be used in other courses.
Academic Continuity: We’ll encourage all faculty to become familiar with and use core Bb functions (e.g., announcements, gradebook, discussions, Collaborate video conferencing) that can support academic continuity in the event campus is closed for an extended period of time.
While there have been delays in some functionality not yet available in Blackboard Ultra (e.g., group management, specific publisher integrations, some gradebook calculation options, etc.), recent reviews by UMBC faculty also suggest Blackboard is heading in the right direction overall. For many reasons, including a more streamlined user interface, responsive design to support mobile device usage, and enhancements to improve content accessibility, Ultra is an improvement over the core 9.1 version release of Blackboard we’ve been using since 2012.
DoIT appreciates all of the good will and effort by faculty who have switched to Ultra as well as the feedback we’ve received over the last year. In addition to contacting anyone on the DoIT Instructional Technology staff, if there are questions, concerns or suggestions, we encourage people to also contact UMBC’s Bb Ultra Ambassadors, the Bb Faculty Advisory Group or Faculty Senate Computer Policy Committee (CPC).
For more information, visit umbc.edu/go/ultra.With raised awareness and accessibility laws emerging around the world, understanding what inclusive access to the Web means is becoming necessary knowledge for anyone who produces digital content. Much of the current information on Web accessibility requires some technical understanding, and may be difficult to consume for the average person. This course will “interpret” the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0), to make it easier to understand for a general audience. You will have an opportunity to experience barriers firsthand, then experience that content with the barriers removed, developing a practical understanding of web accessibility.
Key topics to be covered in this course include:
The deadline to submit a proposal for the Maryland Open Source Textbook (M.O.S.T.) initiative 2019 High-impact OER Mini-Grant Program has been extended by one week to Friday, March 22, 2019. Learn more about the Mini-Grant Program below, review the planning document and application questions, and submit a proposal through the online application.
M.O.S.T. is pleased to announce the call for proposals for the 2019 High-impact OER Mini-Grant Program to strategically support Maryland public higher education institutions’ efforts to increase access, affordability, and achievement for students through the incorporation of open educational resources (OER) into teaching practice. This year, the Mini-Grant Program will support projects in the following categories:
Watch a recording of the informational webinar and learn more about the program and previous recipients here.
Please share this information with interested faculty and staff. If you have any questions, please reach out to us at MOST@usmd.edu.
Thank you for your support in advancing OER adoption across your institution and across the state.
To support UMBC’s ongoing commitment to a more inclusive campus, DoIT is pleased to introduce a new tool called Ally into Ultra courses to help improve the accessibility of course content in Blackboard.
Ally automatically scans course content and performs a series of steps to make that content more accessible. Faculty who use Ultra courses will notice color gauges next to course files. Click on the Ally indicator to read detailed feedback about what the accessibility issues are with the file, why they matter, and how to fix them. Ally will not change how anything works in an existing course, and it won’t affect any course files. These Ally indicators are not visible to students.
Improving the accessibility of your course content will not only help ensure students with different abilities can access your materials, but it will also improve the learning experience for students who use mobile devices as well as those who want to engage with the material in a different way. Ally automatically generates alternative formats of your course files, and makes them available to you and your students. The alternative formats do not affect your original file, but they do allow students to access an HTML version for their phone, an ePub version for their tablet, an MP3 version for audio, and electronic braille for braille readers.
Both Instructional Technology staff and the Office of Accessibility & Disability Services (ADS) staff have been trained to support Ally questions. ADS is also available to assist in document remediation and other accessibility questions. Finally, the Ally FAQ collection is available for reference.
As always, if you have any questions, please consider the following options:
Follow the Instructional Technology & DoIT myUMBC groups
Request a consult with instructional technology staff
Free Coursera MOOC - Learn the Basics of Developing an Inclusive & Accessible Course
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On Friday, March 1, 2019, DoIT's Instructional Technology Team held its 4th annual TechFest. As part of TechFest, participants were asked to complete evaluation surveys for each of the three presentation sessions and the escape room and a final survey evaluating the event as a whole. For each completed survey, participants were automatically entered into a raffle. We are pleased to announce the winners of the TechFest raffles:
Session A Winner: Deborah P. Webb, Assistant Director of Supplemental Instruction, Learning Resources Center - Amazon Echo Dot
Session B Winner: Stephanie Lazarus, Accessibility Manager & ADA Coordinator - Amazon Echo Dot
Session C Winner: Jessica McMurtrie, Program Management Specialist, Human Resources - Amazon Echo Dot
Escape Room Winner: Aieda Solomon, Senior - Amazon Echo Dot
Deep Dive Evaluation Winner: Cassie Hoddinott, LRC Director, Learning Resources Center - Amazon Echo Dot
Since the beginning of the Fall 2018 term, faculty have had the option to adopt the Blackboard Ultra Experience for their courses. All faculty who opted into the Ultra course interface in the Fall 2018 and Spring 2019 terms were automatically entered into a raffle for an Amazon Fire HD Tablet. The winner of the Early Adopter raffle is Mariajose Castellanos, Lecturer and Undergraduate Program Director in Chemical, Biochemical and Environmental Engineering!
Congratulations to all of our winners!
