As the spring semester concludes, the May update to Ultra brings several enhancements to assessments, grading, engagement, and content creation.
Test questions are some of the most valuable resources in a course. Instructors invest significant time and effort creating and refining banks of test questions. These banks help instructors create dynamic, robust assessments or easily reuse questions across various assessments. In the May update, instructors can copy questions from existing assessments into questions banks with the Reuse Question option in the Question Bank. Questions can also be copied from question bank to question bank using this method.
Image 1: Example of notification when questions are copied into a question bank
When tracking student submissions on an assessment, instructors may need to send timely and contextual outreach. In this update, instructors can sort submissions by type and select students to send a message. For example, an instructor may wish to send a message to students who haven't submitted the assignment yet. Selecting these students will craft a message interface for instructors to create a custom outreach. Selecting "send as email" ensures the message is sent external to Blackboard. Messages are confidential so students don't know who receives the communication.
Image 2: Example of filtering student list by No Submission and selecting those students to send a message.
Grading improvements include updates to rubrics and exemptions. To streamline grading, performance levels and criterion feedback are now hidden by default. However, a quick toggle can easily reveal these longer descriptions when grading. Additionally, when using the rubric, instructors can now quickly navigate using the tab key or up/down arrows. Finally, instructors can access the exemption feature within an by clicking on an individual cell in the gradebook grid view. Exemptions can also be applied from the submissions page and student detail view.
Image 3: Example of how to add or edit an exemption from the gradebook grid view.
Content improvements include faster file uploads and specifying how links open. Instructors and course builders who need to upload many resources into a course may find the new drag and drop folder to upload files to be an efficient way to quickly bring content into a course. Instructors should be mindful of quota and file format limitations. Opening links in a new window is generally considered best practice, especially for external websites to avoid browser security features blocking content from loading. However, there may be situations when an instructor or course author prefers linked content to open in a panel in the Ultra course. Instructors can now specify how a web link opens.
Additional updates to Ultra for May include:
- Managing multiple submissions introduces some complexity for instructors. Blackboard added an attempt selector on the grading page that displays the most appropriate attempt based on the "grade attempts" setting.
- Instructors may prevent backtracking in paged tests to ensure that students progress through the pages of an assessment in a predetermined sequence.
- A new dedicated space on the Student Overview for instructors to take private notes about students in each course. The notes do not travel with the student from course to course and only the instructors or higher roles can access them.
- Two new features were added to the hotspot question (Zoom In/Out and Full-Screen view) to define areas more precisely.
- Instructors can edit gradebook columns for third-party graded activities without assigning them to a category.
Faculty should see the latest updates in Ultra courses around May 4-5, 2023. Please sign up for our latest What's New in Ultra for Teaching & Learning webinar on May 17, 2023 to learn more about these and other exciting new features coming to Ultra.
The next update to our Ultra test environment will take place on May 9, 2023. 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.
As always, if you have any questions about teaching, learning, and technology at UMBC, please consider the following options:
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