Many of UMBC’s instructional technologies are hosted with redundant backups and stability: Blackboard, Collaborate, Panopto, VoiceThread, Respondus Lockdown Browser, Gmail, Google Drive, Box, Office 36 & OneDrive, Webex, virtual desktop.
Some services are hosted by UMBC: PeopleSoft, myUMBC, RT, FAQs, password authentication.
Review all available tools for your GO Kit ->
Digital Textbooks
VitalSource Helps offers free access to an expansive library of ebooks to students at disrupted semester-calendar schools. Students will get up to 7 FREE ebooks until Memorial Day weekend.
- Learn more about different publisher support for academic continuity
Accessing Blackboard
- Access to a Blackboard course requires instructor association in the Schedule of Courses (SOC). If you do not see your course, please contact your Department Scheduling Coordinator.
- Courses designated as “lab, lecture or discussion” and their enrollments are automatically processed into Blackboard.
- By default, courses are “unavailable” meaning students cannot access them. It’s up to the instructor as to when they would like their course to be made “available” to the enrolled students.
- Student enrollments are processed every 2-4 hours after an add/drop or change and completely refreshed overnight around 4 AM. Students who drop a course or withdraw from a course are disabled in the Bb shell.
- Learn more: Why can’t I see my Blackboard course as an instructor?
Multimedia content should be posted to Panopto:
- Blackboard, Box, and Google Drive are not streaming services.
- Panopto will optimize your video for different internet speeds and devices, which will be important if a power outage impact requires that your students access a course via a cellular device or mobile hotspot.
NOTE: If streaming media or live web conferencing tools are not feasible, consider VoiceThread, a collaborative, asynchronous tool that acts like a video conference over time (not at the same time) or a discussion board that allows you to hear and see others, not just read what they write. All participants can navigate at their own pace and leave comments about any added content via microphone, webcam, telephone, text or even another uploaded file.
Remember accessibility:
- Whenever possible, chunk your videos into 15-minutes or less and request captions. You can also edit the machine-generated captions provided by Panopto.
- Check the accessibility of your course materials with Ally. Use the quick fix tools to remediate your content and let students know about the alternative file formats.
- Set test time accommodations for individual students via Ultra course rosters.
For students accessing your course via mobile
During times when academic continuity is critical, mobile access via cellular network may be the only way students can connect to your course. At UMBC, students can view content from an Original course via the Blackboard mobile app. Ultra courses may be viewed on a mobile browser and the mobile app.
NOTE:
- The Blackboard app (orange icon) is designed for students.
- The Blackboard Instructor app (blue icon) is intended for faculty.
- Guide for mobile-friendly courses