Recording Archives

Ultra Essentials 

• Introduction to Blackboard Ultra 

Are you new to Blackboard Ultra? Join this 60 minute session to review Ultra navigation, key features for building content, assessments, grading, and communicating with students. This session is ideal for instructors who are adopting Ultra in an upcoming term.

• Ultra Essentials: Course Content & Organization 

This webinar focuses on the essentials of using Ultra for content creation in your course. Topics include creating folders and learning modules; creating documents with embedded files, links, tools, and external media; applying descriptive information; uploading files and linking to Google resources; and controlling the release of content.

• Ultra Essentials: Engagement & Communication Tools 

This webinar focuses on the essentials of using Ultra for communication and engagement in your course. Topics include facilitating communicating using course messages and announcements; creating and replying to discussions or conversations; creating and managing groups; using the course calendar; updating personal notifications and name pronunciation settings; and accessing web conferencing tools.

• Ultra Essentials: Assessments, Tests & Assignments 

This webinar focuses on the essentials of using Ultra for tests and assignments. Topics include creating individual or group assessments (test or assignment); importing question banks and creating question pools; enabling and checking SafeAssign for plagiarism; setting exceptions for due date, availability, and attempts; creating an offline assessment; and identifying test proctoring options.

• Ultra Essentials: Grading & the Ultra Gradebook

This webinar focuses on the essentials of using Ultra for grading. Topics include creating rubrics using points or percentage; copying rubrics from other courses; accessing student work to grade; grading work with a rubric or embedding feedback; creating an overall grade for the course using a weighted total, points, or advanced formula; tracking student performance using embedded analytics; and reviewing student progress using available reporting tools.

Track Student Progress & Elevate Learner Outreach

The success of students in a Blackboard course is often dependent on their level of engagement and their ability to stay on track with course content and assignments. As an instructor, it’s crucial to have the tools and resources to monitor students’ progress and ensure they are staying engaged and motivated throughout the course. Join Instructional Technology in this 45-minute webinar to review the available Blackboard Ultra progress tracking tools that support progress tracking and communication with students.

It’s Week 1: Do You Know Where Your Online Learners Are? 

It’s week one of the semester and following your daily log-in to Blackboard, you notice that several students have yet to log in, access the syllabus, view the welcome video, or post an introduction. You have not received an email or message from these students asking for technical support or clarification. Now what? You likely will send an email to the missing students, reminding them what needs to be accomplished this week and encouraging them to respond. But have you considered how Blackboard’s student tracking tools could support your ability to monitor students’ progress, receive alerts if they fall behind, and efficiently schedule outreach?

Grounded in evidence-based practice research, peer review, and collegiality, Quality Matters (QM) is used by more than 40,000 educators and instructional designers worldwide to strengthen online and blended course design. In particular, QM’s General Standard 1: Course Overview & Introduction, offers researched-backed effective practices for orienting students to the course and your expectations for communication, grading, feedback, and use of Blackboard.

QM Standard 1: Orientating Your Online Learners

Did you know the Blackboard Ultra course shell has been designed to help all courses meet QM General Standard 1: Course Overview & Introduction? Whether or not you are familiar with Quality Matters or the rubric, please join us for this interactive workshop where participants will be able to recall QM General Standard 1 as it relates to orienting online learners to your course and identify best practices for getting started in Blackboard