https://learn.bu.edu/ultra/course

Take the time to log in frequently during your course setup period to become familiar with the interface. Take advantage of BU’s training resources – there are a variety of workshops, office hour sessions, and trainings available to faculty who need assistance.

Blackboard Learn Ultra organizes courses into four key sections, each designed to help you manage your content and engage with students effectively:

• Content: This is where your course materials live. You can add, organize, and manage files, assignments, tests, and multimedia content.

• Gradebook: Your hub for grading and providing feedback. Track student progress, view submissions, and enter grades all in one place.

• Announcements: Use announcements to share important updates with all users in the course. Announcements appear prominently on students’ dashboards, ensuring they don’t miss critical information. They are ideal for course-wide updates, reminders, or motivational messages.

• Messages: Messages allow you to communicate privately with individual students or groups directly within the course. Messages should be tailored to the recipients based on your course’s group or section setup.

Start by organizing the course structure using one of the course layouts that are available. Once the structure is in place, you can work on creating or adding content.

Sort content into manageable sections rather than uploading lengthy documents. Use the built-in document feature, when possible, instead of uploading Word documents.

Create a welcome message with course navigation instructions and add your contact information prominently. Consider including a brief course overview, syllabus, important dates, and links to frequently accessed content.

Keep navigation simple – students should find important content in 3 clicks or fewer. Use consistent naming conventions for files and folders (e.g., “Week 1 Lecture Slides” rather than just “Lecture Slides”).

Preview your course as a student to ensure all content is visible and accessible. Take advantage of the announcement feature if you add new content to your course. Upload files in standard formats (PDF, DOCX, PPTX, MP4) for best compatibility and include alternative text for images to improve accessibility.

Announcements:  

Use announcements to communicate important updates to the entire class. Announcements are ideal for:

• Course-wide reminders (e.g., assignment deadlines, schedule changes).
• Highlighting resources or sharing motivational messages.

Key Features:

• Announcements appear prominently on students’ dashboards.
• They can be saved as drafts or scheduled to send at a specific time.

Messages: 

Use messages for direct communication with individual students or groups. This feature is best for:

• Providing personalized feedback or assistance to a student.
• Addressing a specific group of students (e.g., a project team or section).

Key Features:

• Messages are private and remain within the Blackboard platform.
• Unlike announcements, messages cannot be saved as drafts or scheduled to send.

Create Discussions in Blackboard for class participation and Q&A. Consider grading participation to incentivize engagement and organize groups for further collaboration.

The Gradebook offers four views to help you manage your grading tasks efficiently:

Overview:

• Lists tasks requiring action, such as submissions that need grading, grades that need posting, or items for reconciliation.
• Use this view to prioritize and manage your workload quickly.

Gradable Items:

• Displays all assignments, tests, and other graded activities.
• View due dates, grading status, and categories. Missing submissions are flagged in red.
• Select an item’s name to grade submissions or adjust settings.

Grades:

• A grid view showing each student’s grades for all assignments in columns and rows.
• Color codes help you quickly identify statuses:
  • Green: Posted grades
  • Red: Automatic zeros for missing work
  • Purple: New submissions

Students:

• Displays a list of all students, their overall grades, and their last course access date.
• Add accommodations or message students directly from this view.

• Reminders: Notify students of missing assignments directly from the Gradebook.
• Results Downloads: Save student grades or submissions as Excel or ZIP files for offline review.
• Learning Analytics: Analyze assignment performance with key metrics like averages, ranges, and medians.
• Rubrics: If a rubric is associated with the assignment, click on the Rubric button to grade each criterion and provide detailed, structured feedback.

• Grade anonymously: Enable anonymous grading to focus on the quality of work without knowing the student’s identity.
• Grade one question at a time: For quizzes and tests, switch to question-level grading to focus on one question across all submissions.
• Use the Mobile App: Grade submissions and provide feedback directly from your mobile device for added flexibility.
• Use the “Needs Grading” feature to quickly find new submissions and use batch download for assignments instead of opening each one individually.
• Use rubrics for consistent grading of subjective assignments.
• Set up automatic grade release for objective assessments.
• Set assignment due dates that appear on the calendar automatically.
• Provide audio or video feedback for complex assignments.

Delegated grading allows you to assign specific users, such as instructors, teaching assistants, or graders, to grade particular sets of student submissions. This feature distributes grading responsibilities, ensuring a more efficient and collaborative grading process.

For Graders:

• Graders can only view submissions and assign grades for the students in their assigned group(s).
• Graders cannot access submissions outside their assigned group.
• Graders can post grades, but only for students in their group.

For Unassigned Instructors:

• Instructors not assigned to a group retain full grading privileges and can view and post grades for all students in the course.

Keep the visibility set to “Hidden from students”. Only make it available when you’ve adjusted all settings and questions.

To make your course inclusive for all students and compliant with institutional guidelines, follow these steps:

• Use library reserves for readings first: Whenever possible, place course readings on reserve with the BU Library. This ensures compliance with copyright laws and guarantees that materials are accessible, with high-quality scans or digital formats available to all students.
• If uploading your own files, ensure accessibility: If you need to upload files directly to Blackboard and they comply with copyright laws, ensure they meet accessibility standards:
  • PDFs should have selectable text, not just scanned images of text.
  • Images should include alternative text (alt text) that describes the content.
• Check accessibility before publishing: Blackboard Ultra’s Ally tool scans your files and provides accessibility scores, along with step-by-step guidance to improve them. Use Ally to ensure new content aligns with accessibility standards before making it visible to students.
• Follow accessibility best practices: Use simple language, large enough fonts, and proper color contrasts to make your materials easy to read.
• Avoid deleting critical content: Be cautious when removing or replacing files, as students or linked activities might rely on that content.
• Test changes in student view: Use the student preview feature to see how changes will appear from a student’s perspective. This ensures the course remains navigable and functional for all users.

Accommodations are adjustments made to support students with documented disabilities, ensuring equitable access to course materials and assessments. These may include extended deadlines, additional time for quizzes and exams, or alternative formats for assignments. Providing accommodations aligns with institutional policies and accessibility standards, such as Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

Additional BU resources:

• Disability and Access Services (DAS): For institutional policies and additional guidance, visit the DAS website or contact your accessibility office.
• WCAG Guidelines: Learn more about creating accessible content at w3.org.

• Provide captions for videos: Ensure any new or replacement video content you use has captions or a transcript available.
• Provide transcripts for audio files: Ensure any new or replacement audio content you use has transcripts available.
• Encourage students to use accessibility features: Blackboard Ultra includes tools like High Contrast Mode and adjustable font sizes to support diverse learning needs. Let students know these features exist.
• Enable progress tracking: Activating this feature helps students stay organized and monitor their progress, particularly those with learning challenges.
• Double-check external resources: Verify that all linked articles, websites, and videos meet accessibility standards or provide alternatives if they don’t.

Use the Performance Dashboard to monitor student engagement and progress. Look for patterns of missed assignments or limited logins.

Create “Getting Started” modules with technology requirements and navigation guidance. Provide sample assignments so students understand expectations and consider creating a brief tutorial video showing how to navigate your specific course.

Blackboard Learn Ultra supports two popular tools for academic integrity: SafeAssign and Turnitin. These tools help faculty detect plagiarism and ensure originality in student submissions. Note that if you use one of these tools, it should be set up before the course launches and students submit work.

SafeAssign is a built-in tool that checks student submissions against a database of academic papers and web content. It identifies potential matches to ensure the originality of submitted work.

Turnitin offers advanced plagiarism detection and additional features like rubrics, inline feedback, and detailed originality reports.

Your choice may depend on program requirements or specific course needs:

• SafeAssign: Seamlessly integrated into Blackboard, ideal for quick plagiarism checks.
• Turnitin: Offers more advanced features for feedback and detailed originality analysis.

Yes, you can carry over content from past semesters. To copy from Original to Ultra, use the Blackboard Course Copy Tool. To copy from Ultra to Ultra, use the Copying Content in Ultra feature within your Ultra course interface.

Set release conditions for content to automatically appear to students based on dates or completion of prerequisites. This allows you to build the entire course upfront but reveal content progressively.

Clear your browser cache if you are experiencing display issues and use Chrome or Firefox for best compatibility. If problems persist, contact IS&T support early and document the steps that led to any errors.

Yes, keep copies of important content on your local computer as backup. Occasionally export your gradebook as well to have a secondary record of student progress.