“You are a university-level instructor working to ensure images in your online course materials conform to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines at Level Double A. You need to accommodate for disabilities and impairments such as blindness, low vision and color vision deficiency to ensure equitable access to module content for all students. 

"You will be provided with an image. Please return a succinct title, alternative text (alt text), and a long description. You will also separately list verbatim all words that appear in the image.

"The alt text should be no more than two sentences and should briefly describe the meaning conveyed by the image.

"The detailed description may be one or more paragraphs and must describe the image in great detail so that anyone who does not see it can gain a full understanding of everything in the image. Please format the detailed description such that it will be easily scannable. Use headings, paragraph breaks, and lists as appropriate. Use active voice.”

Prompt created by Purdue University and adapted by Matthew Deeprose (Southampton University)

Whether you're preparing your first Ultra course or updating existing content, the latest features released in August are designed to streamline your teaching experience. 

The Ultra Document is the centerpiece of the Ultra course, providing a place for preparing and delivering engaging content including text, lists, tables, links, images and media, or third-party tools. The Content Designer is a significant enhancement to the Ultra Document, providing new and robust options that support mobile friendly and responsive columns. Instructors can still embed files, images, and HTML content. To resize a block or move it on the Ultra Document page, simply drag and drop the block. All content is moveable with a mouse, keyboard or tab.

Image 1: Example of redesigned Ultra Document with new column display

Releasing content for different needs in a course is a critical part of an instructor’s toolkit -- whether that content is distributed by date, performance, or group using different criteria. The latest update to Ultra features advanced release conditions allow faculty to create multiple rules for release conditions using AND and OR criteria. For example, if a course consists of undergraduate and graduate students, each group may have different requirements to access certain content in the course. Rules and criteria will copy from Original adaptive release conditions with the exception for attempts and marked reviewed, which are not yet supported in Ultra.

Image 2: Example of Release Conditions page

The Ultra Assignment is also redesigned for August, removing the underlying engine that powered Tests. Now a separate instructions box is available for instructors to specify expectations for completing a graded activity. There are no options to add questions; if this is essential for an assessment, a Test must be used instead. The settings panel is updated to provide options that are only relevant to Assignments. Most importantly, when students access the Assignment, a blank attempt is no longer created, which helps reduce confusion and frustration for both learners and instructors alike. Students can access the Assignment as often as they need to before submitting their actual attempt. 

Image 3: Example of new Assignment page

Instructors have long desired for the ability to subscribe to discussions in Ultra. In August, this is now possible with the new Follow Discussions setting, which allows any user in a course to re-engage with a discussion as updates occur. The first version of this feature will distribute notifications through the Activity Stream, which users can customize according to personal preference. In October, the follow notifications can be received via email.

Image 4: Example of Discussion with Follow notification enabled

Finally, when an Original course is converted, undeployed tests from the Tests, Surveys, and Question Pools area will now be converted to question banks. This will help to declutter both the course content page and the gradebook, making it easier for instructors to manage their course materials. NOTE: During the conversion process, any random blocks, question sets, and linked questions included in undeployed tests will be removed as Question Banks do not support those features. However, the resulting question banks will preserve original questions without duplication.

Additional updates for August include:

• Instructors can now collect anonymous submissions in Forms.
• Instructors can quickly navigate between submissions using the Next Student and Previous Student buttons in Flexible Grading. 
• Image generation process will leverage DALL-E to produce higher resolution images for learning modules, Documents, announcements, assessment questions, and journal prompts.
• The response time when creating a math formula in the text editor is reduced to help instructors can process formula requests more efficiently.
• Students can send a group message from the members page of a group space, which encourages collaboration on content that they have been assigned.

To learn more about these updates, and other features from the last six months, please join our What's New in Ultra for Teaching & Learning webinar on August 16.

Faculty should see the latest updates in their Ultra courses around August 8-9, 2024. The next update to our Ultra test environment will take place on August 13, 2024; release notes are posted to the What's New in Ultra that same week. Faculty who are interested in test driving new features before they are released to production should open an RT ticket to request early access. Please watch the FAQs, including the What's New with Ultra page, and myUMBC for additional information about Ultra.

Blackboard course shells for FA2024 were created on May 13, 2024 per our previous announcement to support faculty preparation for Ultra in advance of the fall semester. Student enrollments, as well as course shells that were not created in May, were processed on July 31, 2024. 

Ultra will be the default in Blackboard with nearly 70 percent of all UMBC courses using Ultra since spring 2024. If COEIT or CNMS faculty wish to “roll back” their Fall 2024 Ultra shells to Original, they can do soby RT ticket for this semester only; the last day we will support Blackboard Original is December 31, 2024. DoIT strongly recommends faculty request a roll back before the first day of classes to ensure sufficient time for course preparation. Please review the conditions for requesting a roll back.

Training & Support for Ultra

• Attend an upcoming August training to prepare for the fall semester.
• Request a consult from our staff Ultra “office hours” or download our 8-step migration guide.
• Explore our Panopto folder for a wide variety of recorded webinars on various instructional technologies available at UMBC.
• Have a question about Ultra? Askan Ultra Ambassador!

Plan your accessibility and Universal Design for Learning strategy before students begin working with course materials. Ally, an accessibility tool, is 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 theaccessibility indicators on course content and alternative formats, or attend a training session. Use Ally’s new AI alt-text generator to add alt text to course images. 

About Course Creation

Bb shells for FA2024 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. 

• 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

For employees enrolled in the MD State Retirement & Pension system, the schedule of Pre-Retirement seminars and webinars is available for August - December 2024.

These pre-retirement seminars are a valuable planning tool for all eligible members and their spouses, provided by the MD State Pension Agency via the Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC). Employees who attend should be within 8 years of retiring.

All seminars and webinars run from 9:00am - 4:00pm. The same topics will be covered in both formats.

Webinar Dates (virtual):

• August 8 (CRN 32641)
• September 13 (CRN 32642)
• October 2 (CRN 32643)
• November 26 (CRN 32646)
• December 17 (CRN 32648)

IN-Person Seminar dates and location:

• September 19 – CCBC Catonsville (CRN 32512)
• September 26 – Harford Community College (CRN 32662)
• October 11 - Salisbury University (CRN 32663)
• October 24 - Hagerstown Community College (CRN 32664)
• November 7 - Department of Agriculture, Annapolis (CRN 32666)

To register for a seminar or webinar, please register online here OR call 443-840-5059. Please provide the course number when registering.

If you have any questions or need assistance with registration, please contact Sarah Moore at scullip@ccbcmd.edu.