The State Wellness Program is here to motivate, inspire, and educate employees through monthly wellness webinars (live and on-demand), healthy challenges, guided meditations, wellness coaching, and much more. 

Let us support you as you embark on your heart health 2025 Thrive Journey!

Fridays Special Heart Awareness webinars!

Friday, 2/14, 11:30 am - 11:45 am: Healthy Heart

A healthy heart is essential to a healthier life. During this presentation, Nurse Kathleen will explain the importance of making certain healthier choices known to improve heart health.

Register for 2/14 Healthy Heart

Friday, 2/21, 11:30 am - 11:45 am: Understanding Heart Disease

Nurse Kathleen will share the signs and symptoms of heart disease, the risk factors that contribute to developing heart disease, and how to support your heart health.

Register for 2/21 Understanding Heart Disease

Friday, 2/28, 11:30 am - 11:45 am: Heart Healthy Nutrition

The DASH (Dietary Approach to Stop Hypertension) eating plan is a healthy way to nourish your body and prevent cardiovascular disease. The DASH plan may even lower your cholesterol in as little as two weeks! Join Nurse Kathleen to learn how to make heart healthy eating fun, delicious and affordable by incorporating the DASH plan.

Register for 2/28 Heart Healthy Nutrition

These financial webinars are open to all Faculty and Staff, regardless of your retirement plan or vendor. 

Classes can be postponed (or canceled) due to inclement weather, utility and infrastructure breakdown, widespread illness, or other emergencies. By preparing a Go Online (GO) Kit, you’ll be ready to transition seamlessly when in-person classes aren’t an option. Here are five steps to help you stay on track.

1. Stay connected and up-to-date on issues impacting whether your class might get canceled or postponed.

• Sign up for UMBC Emergency Alerts to receive text notifications about closures, delays, or campus-wide emergencies.
• Follow Campus Announcements on myUMBC to stay up to date on any university-wide decisions affecting classes.

2. Identify instructional technologies you can use to support content distribution, active learning, and assessment.

• Familiarize yourself with instructional technologies that support academic continuity using online teaching strategies and tools,
• Blackboard for content distribution, assessments, and discussions.
• Web conferencing tools (Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Webex) for live class sessions.
• Panopto and VoiceThread video recording for asynchronous lectures.
• Cloud storage (Google Drive, Box, or OneDrive) for large file sharing.
• Other instructional technologies
• Test your setup in advance -- check your internet connection, explore Blackboard and other instructional technologies, and practice using web conferencing tools so you can troubleshoot issues to minimize disruptions when switching to online instruction.

The February update for Ultra features enhancements to support content creation, improved file rendering, assessment security, and grading workflows. Additionally, updates to the AI Course Design Assistant provides increases flexibility for test question and learning module generation. Let's explore this month's update!

Content Creation & Management

• With a simple click, instructors can now change a top level folder to a learning module, and quickly enjoy all the benefits of using learning modules. This includes thumbnail images, navigation, sequencing, and progress bars -- a very popular feature reported by UMBC students!
• Instructors can use the new image block in Ultra Documents to upload their own images, use the AI Design Assistant to generate images, or select images from Unsplash.
• Files uploaded by instructors to Blackboard now retain their original formatting and characteristics wherever instructors can upload files. Student files will also display with the exact same formatting as when they were submitted. 

Image 1: Example of the new option to change a folder to a learning module in the dropdown menu.

AI Course Design Assistant

• Instructors can now set the number of questions generated for tests and question banks to a maximum of 20, which reduces the chance that similar questions will be generated. 
• Instructors can exclude descriptions from learning modules when generating these elements.

Reporting

• IP addresses are now in the student activity log for assessment submissions and drafts.

Image 2: Example of the new IP address column that’s included in the student activity log.

Assessments

• Assignments will be converted to the new interface, which was launched in August 2024. An assignment is an assessment without individual questions (e.g., multiple choice, essay, etc.). Tests will NOT be converted.
• The Tests Settings panel was updated to remove assignment specific options (e.g., collect submissions offline, peer review, grading rubric). 
• Instructors must add at least one question to a test to make it visible to students or to add release conditions.
• When an instructor or exam proctor enters an access code for an assessment on a student's computer, the code is masked (*******) to ensure enhanced security. 
• Students can now be confident that their files are successfully attached, received, and stored for assessments. They will be notified immediately if there are any issues with their file submissions including timed assessments.

Grading & the Gradebook

• The Grading interface is updated to provide more space to instructors.
• Instructors can enter discussion and journal grades directly in the Grid view or Grades & Participation page with improved accuracy and consistency.
• Grades and feedback for assignments, journals, and discussions are mapped to the corresponding attempt or submission whenever possible.
• Instructors can choose to exclude attempts that they do not intend to grade. Excluded attempts are removed from the Needs Grading workflow and any gradebook calculations.

Image 3: Example of the newly designed grading interface

Faculty should see the latest updates in their Ultra courses around February 6-7, 2025. The next update to our Ultra test environment will take place on February 11, 2025; 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.

Save the Date!

Monday, April 21 - Friday, April 25, 2025

Join Human Resources & Strategic Talent Management (HRSTM) for a week dedicated to celebrating, learning, and engaging together.

There will be various in-person and virtual events for all to enjoy! 

Stay tuned for more details on myUMBC!

New dates announced for 2025!

MSRP/Nationwide webinars are open to all Faculty and Staff. 

Click here to Register. All webinars are approximately 45 minutes in length.

Mind Over Money: Make Smarter Investment Decisions

Explore the fascinating field of behavioral finance and learn practical strategies to stay disciplined, make rational choices, and avoid costly investment mistakes.

My Income & Retirement Planner

Learn how the My Income & Retirement Planner (online tool) can simplify financial planning and help you make informed decisions about your future. Whether you're just beginning your retirement journey or have more complex needs, this planner can adapt to your evolving financial goals.

February 18th at 11am
February 27th at 11am

Walk Me Through: Online Enrollment Tutorial

Let's Enroll Together! Enroll in real-time in a Maryland Supplemental Retirement Plan, i.e. 457(b), 401(k), or 403(b). During the webinar, a Nationwide representative will walk you through, step by step, explaining how you can easily enroll in approximately 10 minutes.

You must have your 6-digit payroll code (360231) and payroll type (University of Maryland) to enroll.

February 4th at 11am
February 4th at 1pm
February 25th at 11am
February 25th at 1pm

MSRP Basics: Building Your Financial Foundation

This is a comprehensive overview designed to help you take full advantage of the State of Maryland’s Supplemental Retirement Plans. Whether you’re a new employee or looking to refresh your knowledge, this session will cover how these plans work, their benefits, and how you can start building a secure financial future.

February 11th at 1pm
February 19th at 11am

Beyond the Basics: MSRP Strategies for Every Stage of Your Career

As a State of Maryland employee, you have access to exclusive savings opportunities through the Maryland Supplemental Retirement Plans. This webinar provides an in-depth look at practical and effective strategies to help you maximize these benefits at every stage of your career.

February 13th at 11am
February 20th at 1pm

Click here to Register.  All webinars are approximately 45 minutes in length.

In early January, the Ultra updates features improvements to course settings, content management, grading, and the AI Course Design Assistant, providing increased flexibility for faculty in managing their courses.

Course availability moves away from the Details and Actions side menu to the Course Settings, in the top right corner. Available course statuses include 

• Open: Content is available to students.
• Closed: Content is not available. Students can see the course listed, but they cannot access it. (previously called Private)
• Complete: Read-only content. No changes can be made by students OR instructors. Use with caution.

At the top of a course, there is now an indicator that displays whether a course is Open, Closed, or Complete. Instructors can access Course Settings from the Courses page. 

Image 1: Example of course availability indicator at the top right of an Ultra course.

Learning pathways are structured, personalized sequences of activities or content that guide students through a course based on their progress, performance, or choices. For example, an instructor might release resources only after a student completes specific assignments, or offer different content tracks based on quiz results to address varying levels of mastery. Ultra can now support releasing content based on submission attempt in addition to date/time, grade, and user/group membership.

Image 2: The new Attempt submitted option is in the dropdown menu for a gradable item in the Release condition panel.

• Direct Grade Entry: When grades are entered directly from the Grid view or Submissions page, Ultra will no longer display "Needs Grading" to instructors when grades were already completed.
• Show/Hide Gradebook Columns: Instructors now have the ability to show or hide columns in the gradebook. While hidden columns offer a more organized workspace, these do not apply to the student view since that visibility is controlled by the assessment settings.
• Automatic Zero Defaults: The default setting for automatic zeros is now set to off, giving instructors the flexibility to decide whether or not to enable this feature based on their grading policies. (This applies to newly created courses in the system after Jan 10.)

Additional improvements in January include:

• The AI Course Design Assistant will work faster and generate more complex outputs for assignments, discussions, test questions, learning modules, and AI Conversation avatars.
• Instructors can generate more realistic images faster with the AI Course Design Assistant and the resulting image files require less storage space. 
• The output languages available for AI workflows now include Greek, Catalan, Croatian, Irish, and Slovenian. For a list of all languages available for AI outputs, refer to AI Design Assistant for Instructors. 
• The Achievements tab is now hidden from students until the instructor creates and posts Achievements for students to earn. 
• With the new Mastery Gradebook, instructors can align goals to assessments and view how learners are performing in the course. Moreover, they can also control whether they want students to see their own performance.

Faculty should see the latest updates in their Ultra courses around January 9-10, 2025. The next update to our Ultra test environment will take place on January 14, 2025; 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.

Curious about the all latest features in Ultra? Join our What's New in Ultra Courses for Teaching & Learning SP2025 webinar on January 17, 2025.