November 2024 Instructor News from The Center for Instructional Technology

Greetings from your Center for Instructional Technology! CIT provides training, support, and consultations for UA’s instructional technologies and technology accessibility. Visit cit.ua.edu to find step-by-step guides with pictures, discover upcoming workshops and webinars, or book an appointment. You can also reach us at cit@ua.edu or 205-348-3532 or visit us in A203 Gordon Palmer Hall.​

This month’s CIT Instructor News features information and resources to support teaching and learning needs: Blackboard Ultra updates, technology and tool highlights, news from CIT’s technology accessibility team, OIT announcements, and upcoming learning opportunities.

Teach with the new Blackboard: Blackboard Ultra

‌‌Blackboard Ultra Course View (“Ultra”) offers a simple, modern, intuitive, and consistent interface across devices and a more streamlined experience for instructors and students. All Blackboard courses will be designed and delivered in Ultra by Spring 2026, and instructors of non-OTIDE-supported courses can teach with Ultra now (OTIDE-supported courses are designated as OL or OLM). Visit the CIT site to learn more about Ultra and UA’s plans, join or watch a recorded demonstration/information session, or request a practice course: Blackboard Ultra Course View

Ultra Good Features

Check out these recent additions.

Award Course Badges with Achievements

The October release introduced Achievements, a new capability for Ultra courses to help keep students motivated and congratulate them for their participation in a course.  Course Badges are available to UA users. Now, Instructors can:

  • Create, publish, and delete course badges
  • Select a badge image from a badge library
  • Set performance criteria for one or more assessments in the course
  • Preview how the course badge appears to students
  • View the recipient count for each course badge and review details about the recipients, including the date and time they earned the course badge.

Ultra Achievements

Instructor view of the new course badge screen. You can set the title, description, badge image, and earning requirements.

Email notifications for followed discussions

Also with the October release, Discussion notifications were expanded to include email. When users select Email me right away notifications, they can receive email notifications for:

  • Activity on my responses
  • Activity on responses I have replied to
  • Responses from instructors
  • Responses for followed discussions
  • Replies for followed discussions

Email notification settings

Email notification settings with Email me right away and Email me once a day options. When Email me right away is selected, notification options for followed discussions appear.

Quickly access items that need grade reconciliation

With parallel grading, multiple people can share grading responsibilities for a course. For example, an instructor can divide up the grading tasks among teaching assistants and other graders. The designated reconciler reviews all grades and feedback to determine the final grade.

A Needs reconciling section now appears on the gradebook Overview tab. In this section, reconcilers can easily access all items ready for reconciliation.

Gradebook Overview tab

Reconciler’s view of the Needs reconciling section on the gradebook Overview tab. Graders can select Reconcile now to open the Submissions tab for the item. They can then review grades and feedback from others before determining the final grade.

The November release is scheduled to arrive on UA’s production system on November 7. We’re especially looking forward to these enhancements.

Improvement to Resizing Blocks in Documents

This release includes an improvement to resizing blocks in Ultra documents. To help with resizing blocks that are vertically tall, the resize handle has been modified. Now, instructors can resize a block by selecting the vertical edge of that block. It is not necessary to place the mouse directly over the handle.

Resize handle in a Document

Resize handle in a Document

Print Tests with Questions from Question Pools and Other Improvements

Having cheered the test and answer key printing capabilities introduced in previous releases, we’re happy to share that, as of the November release, instructors can now print tests that include questions from Question Pools!

Print an assessment

  1. From the gradebook, open a form, test, or assignment with questions.
  2. Select Content and Settings. To print without answers, select Print, Questions only. To print with answers to create an answer key, select Print, Questions with answers.
  3. Choose your printing options and then select Print.

 

Ultra assessment Print menu

Instructors can choose to print questions only or questions with answers. They can also use the print option to save the answer key and test as a PDF.

Discussions

Blackboard reports they are “improving the usability and appearance of discussions. Areas of focus include navigation, clearer calls to action, updating UI elements, terminology updates, and others.” They note “We’ll release small changes in several releases to benefit users as soon as we can make them available.”

To start, to better distinguish between responses and replies, they’ve added indentation.

Ultra assessment Print menu

Indented replies in an Ultra discussion

Another recent change to Discussions is the removal of the delete option for the discussion topic. Instructors can edit discussion topics as needed by selecting the Edit option.

Edit option for Discussion Topic

Edit option for Discussion Topic

CIT Technology and Tool Highlights

Blackboard

  • Blackboard Scheduled Downtime 12-21-24 UA’s Blackboard will be unavailable to all users during this 6 hour maintenance window.
  • The Blackboard Learn App is now the Blackboard App – As part of Anthology’s ongoing rebranding, the Blackboard Learn App is now known simply as the Blackboard App. An icon update was released in October.
  • Digital Teaching Symposium – Join Anthology’s full day of free, peer-led virtual sessions on digital teaching strategies, held Thursday, November 14.

Simple Syllabus

Turnitin

As of October 15th, Turnitin has released a new student view of the Similarity Report. View the dedicated Similarity Report Resource Center with educator and student-focused tutorials, webinars, demos, and expert tips. You’ll find everything you need in one place to help you and your students get the most value from this upgrade. Here are a few resources that will be especially useful in helping your students get familiar with the new report:

News from CIT’s Technology Accessibility Team

Title II Conversation with Dr. Judith Risch

On November 12 at 9AM, please join us online for a conversation and Q&A with Judith Risch, J.D. Ph.D. about the ongoing changes to Title II requirements for all web and mobile information and services. Registration is required. More UA-specific information is coming soon about the Title II changes.

Accessing Higher Ground Accessible Media, Web and Technology Conference

We are hosting the virtual conference sessions from Accessing Higher Ground November 13, 14, and 15 in our Gordon Palmer Annex second floor spaces. Please plan to join us to view and discuss these sessions. Registration is not required. Select topics include accessible math, the intersection of accessibility and universal design for learning, how to make sure procurement processes address accessibility, and more!

News from OIT

These Office of Information Technology updates are of particular interest to instructors.

  • Microsoft Week – November 11-15 – OIT is thrilled to launch our first-ever Microsoft Week, a celebration of our incredible partnership with Microsoft. All students, faculty, and staff have access to free Microsoft 365 subscriptions—a powerful suite of tools to boost your productivity, creativity, and collaboration. Join us for a week of workshops, giveaways, and exciting opportunities to learn how Microsoft 365 can transform your academic and professional journey. Don’t miss out on this chance to elevate your skills and connect with the latest in tech! Register for Microsoft Week
  • Change to OneDrive Storage Limits – OIT is reducing OneDrive storage capacity from 5TB to 250GB per user for new accounts and those who are currently using fewer than 250GB..

Upcoming Learning Opportunities

Learn with us! CIT regularly hosts workshops and webinars on UA instructional technologies and technology accessibility. We are also pleased to offer individual consultations and group instruction by request.

11.6 LockDown Browser and Respondus Monitor: Protect the Integrity of Online Tests (partner event)

11.6 Panopto Basic Training Webinar (partner event)

11.7 Panopto Weekly Q&A (Office Hours) (partner event)

11.8 Meet the New Blackboard: Blackboard Ultra Demo & Info Session

11.12 LockDown Browser and Respondus Monitor: Protect the Integrity of Online Tests (partner event)

11.13 Live Workshop from Turnitin (partner event)

11.13 Panopto Advanced Training Webinar (partner event)

11.14 Anthology’s Digital Teaching Symposium (partner event)

11.14 Blackboard Learn Ultra User Group (partner event)

11.14 Panopto Weekly Q&A (Office Hours) (partner event)

11.19 Getting Started with Panopto webinar

11.19 Meet the New Blackboard: Blackboard Ultra Demo & Info Session

11.20 Respondus 4 and the Test Bank Network: Quickly Create Online Exams (partner event)

11.21 LockDown Browser and Respondus Monitor: Protect the Integrity of Online Tests (partner event)

11.21 Panopto Weekly Q&A (Office Hours) (partner event)

11.26 Teaching with Turnitin: Turnitin Basics webinar

11.28 Blackboard Learn Ultra User Group (partner event)

11.28 Panopto Weekly Q&A (Office Hours) (partner event)

About This Message

All UA instructors of record are automatically subscribed to updates about Blackboard and other instructional technology. UA community members who would like to be added to the communications list for CIT news can contact us.