Ultra Upgrade Planning

Blackboard Ultra Course View will benefit our students in many ways, as it has been designed with a more modern user interface and behaves more like other browser applications.  In addition, it is responsive across any device, so the Blackboard experience will be similar whether the student is using a phone, tablet, laptop, or desktop, etc.  Anthology, which bought Blackboard a year ago, is devoting their resources to developing more features and an application which meets the needs of teaching and learning.  Here are some of the Ultra benefits and new features: 

• Simpler, cleaner, more modern course format 
• Discussion analytics (not available in original Blackboard courses) 
• Ability to set global student accommodations, for example, setting up extra time for a student on all tests given in your class for that term 
• Ability to select preferred pronouns and record name pronunciation (spring 2025) 
• Newly posted course announcements pop-up, ensuring students see them  
• New writing analytics provide instructors with data such as the grade level of student writing, critical thinking skills, and word counts. 
• Learning modules include student progress tracking.  Students can monitor their own progress and mark items completed and instructors can also follow their progress. 
• Streamlined ability to assign group discussions to all groups – instructors no longer need to copy and paste to each group 
• Group assignments will have one Grade Center column instead of separate columns for each group member 
• Ability to embed quiz-like questions within assignments so students can submit files and also answer questions as part of an assignment 
• Ability to turn on ‘conversations’ for assignments, journals and other tools.  Students can ask questions or have discussions and the instructor can respond with just-in-time feedback. 
• Easily embed media from many websites and applications, such as PBS, TedTalks, YouTube, Cram, Quizlet and more 

For more on Ultra Course View, watch:

Spring 2023

• Informational sessions on Zoom
• Support for instructors who have been trained and are teaching in Ultra
• Regular communication and updates about Ultra
• Online resources available on the website
• Online Programs begin teaching in Ultra (instructors should email OLS@hartford.edu for support.)

Summer 2023

• Informational sessions
• Special intensive faculty training will be offered in June and August
• Support for instructors who have been trained and are teaching in Ultra
• Regular communication and updates about Ultra

Fall 2023

• Ultra training/available offered to all instructors, both virtual and face-to-face
• Regular communication and updates about Ultra

Spring 2024 - Fall 2024

• All instructors are invited to try out Ultra (their choice)
• Ultra training available offered to all instructors, both virtual and face-to-face
• Regular communication and updates about Ultra

Spring 2025

• All spring 2025 courses created in Ultra Format

Training Opportunities for Blackboard Ultra can be found here.

FCLD Training Guides

Building and Managing Ultra Courses (PDF)

Blackboard Ultra Roadmap 

Watch Blackboard Ultra Roadmap Webinar Recording 

Tutorials 

Blackboard Ultra Tutorials Playlist 

What do we need to know about converting our courses to Ultra Course View? 

Faculty should choose courses that are upcoming; they should never preview or convert live courses, as there is the possibility of losing student data, such as assignment submissions, grades, discussion posts, etc. We recommend you download or print out any student data that you might need. Do not convert any courses that have incompletes or are involved in grade disputes. 

Faculty should plan to attend Ultra training with FCLD staff prior to course conversion. Ultra Course View is essentially a new LMS, not just an upgrade, and works very differently than Blackboard Original Course View. Our assessment is that you cannot guess your way around Ultra. 

Unlike the Canvas to Ultra conversions done by Online Programs, FCLD will not be building Ultra courses for faculty; faculty will need to convert/rebuild their own if they are not part of the Canvas to Ultra conversions. There is no quick switch that converts courses. 

Once you decide to convert a course, it cannot be reversed. There is no way to return to Original Course View. 

Courses being transitioned will likely have to be rebuilt so faculty will need plenty of time to convert them, a few months at the very least, depending on how many they are trying to convert. 

You should consider how many conversions are feasibly possible if you are simultaneously teaching courses and participating in campus service activities. 

There currently is not a 1-1 feature parity between the Blackboard Original Course View and Blackboard Ultra Course View, for example blogs and wikis are still not available in Ultra, nor are certain test features.  

Given this, programs might want to consider an incremental conversion strategy, for example, implementing it first in all freshman courses (since they won’t have used Blackboard before), then moving up to sophomore classes for the next year, then junior year, etc.  This strategy is already being implemented by one program on campus. 

Steps for course conversion, estimating time to convert a course, best practices for conversions

Unlike the Canvas to Ultra conversions done by Online Programs, FCLD will not be building Ultra courses for faculty teaching face-to-face Blackboard courses or who aren’t part of Online Programs; faculty will need to convert/rebuild their own if they are not part of the online Canvas to Ultra conversions. There is no quick switch that converts courses, so there is some work involved, depending on the structure of the original course and the number of features that were being used. 

Faculty should choose courses that are upcoming; they should never preview or convert live courses, as there is the possibility of losing student data, such as assignment submissions, grades, and discussion posts.  We recommend you download or print out any student data that you might need.  Do not convert any courses that have incompletes or are involved in grade disputes. 
 
Courses that have deep folder structures - folders within folders within folders – might be better off starting from scratch, as Ultra only supports two folder levels deep. FCLD has tips that will help you through this process.  

Here are the steps for a course conversion, which begins with Ultra Preview: 

• Attend a training session with FCLD. 
• Email FCLD with the CRN of the course you wish to convert. 
• Make sure the course is set to unavailable (you cannot convert an available course). 
• Click the pencil icon in the upper right corner to preview the course. Evaluate the conversion.
• If there is a lot of content out of place, we strongly suggest you exit the preview using the Back to Original Course and use a copy process rather than the conversion tool.  It will save you time.  
• Otherwise, if you wish to permanently convert the course, click the Use the Ultra Course button in the lower right corner.  REMEMBER THERE IS NO GOING BACK! 

Here’s a video showing the Ultra Course Preview steps:  https://help.blackboard.com/Learn/Instructor/Ultra/Courses/Ultra_Course_Preview 

Blackboard Ultra courses cannot be copied into Original courses - the content will not copy correctly.

A Note About Discussions:

Discussion Forums in the Original Course View are an essential feature of online learning.  Instructors often create discussions in one of two ways:

1. Create a forum and students respond to the forum prompt by creating a thread; or
2. Create a forum with sub-threads and students reply to those threads.

To better support each of the two use cases above, Blackboard has updated the conversion process for Discussion Forums:

1. When the "allow members to create new threads" is selected, the Discussion Forum from Original Course View will convert directly to a Discussion Forum in Ultra Course View.
2. When "allow members to create new threads" is deselected, the Discussion Forum from Original Course View will be converted to a folder in the Discussions area in Ultra, and all threads within that Discussion forum will be converted to Discussions within that folder.

Once we flip the switch on your course, you will be given the option to preview the course in Ultra Course View. This will convert your course temporarily into the Ultra Course View format. You will then be able to make the change permanent if you choose to.   

NOTE 1: Any changes made while in Preview will not persist. 

NOTE 2: Once you commit to Keep the Preview – you will not be able to revert your course back to the Original Course view. It is recommended that before previewing and converting your course, you make a backup export of the course just in case. 

Simple Course with shallow folder structure:   Convert as is using the Ultra conversion tool, 1-3 weeks of work 

Simple Course with deeper (more than two levels) folder structure:  Convert combined with copy (FCLD can show you), cleanup afterwards using conversion exception list, 2-4 weeks of work 

Hybrid course or Online course that is fairly simple (e.g., mostly text, using only a few non-standard tools and features):  5-7 weeks of work 

Fully Online course that makes use of many features and customizations:  Design and build from scratch in Ultra, 7 weeks to full semester 

Q: I used to teach CapEd courses and they provided support for me as an instructor.  Who will support me now? 

A: Instructors using courses built and converted by Online Programs should continue to reach out to their helpdesk for any technical support, just as you did when the courses were on Canvas – Online Studies: ols@hartford.edu.