Blackboard course shells for Summer 2024 were created on April 22, 2024.

UMBC is committed to providing a consistent learning experience for everyone. The Ultra Course Preview setting is enabled in SU2024 courses, which allows faculty to preview OR convert a new Original course to Ultra. The recommendation, however, is to create a new course to optimize the design.

• Please review the release notes for the latest updates as well as feature parity charts -- more than 200 new updates were added over the last year! 
• Discover What's New in Ultra for Teaching & Learning on May 8th
• Have a question about Ultra? Ask an Ultra Ambassador!
• For all other resources about Ultra, please visit: umbc.edu/go/ultra 

Many departments have opted into Ultra into Ultra to ensure a consistent approach for their students, which means those courses will start with Ultra by default rather than Original -- please check with your department as this list has grown.

Ally, an accessibility tool, is always enabled in all course shells. Ally automatically scans uploaded and created course content, then performs a series of steps to make that content more accessible. Please review the Ally FAQs for more information about the accessibility indicators on course content and alternative formats.

About Course Creation

• If you are an instructor, and your name is not associated with the course you are teaching in the SOC, please see your Departmental Scheduling Coordinator to resolve the issue. Once you are listed in the SOC, your Bb course shell will be created automatically. 
• If you and your Department Scheduling Coordinator believe you are correctly assigned as the instructor of record in the SOC and you do not see your course shell in Blackboard, please submit a Request Tracker (RT) ticket via my.umbc.edu/help.
• If you need a Bb shell for a research or independent study course, please submit a new course request.

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. NOTE: Courses should not be split after student grade data and engagement activity is recorded since it will be purged as part of the separation process.

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.

Connect with Instructional Technology

As always, if you have any questions about teaching, learning, and technology at UMBC, consider the following options:

• PIVOT | Academic Continuity | Student Technology Resources

• What's new in Ultra? | Known Issues 

• Open a ticket via RT

• Follow the Instructional Technology & DoIT myUMBC groups

• Request a consult with instructional technology staff