AI Initiatives

The Division of Information Technology’s AI site will help the UMBC community with information on using artificial intelligence (AI), especially generative AI (GenAI), to support UMBC’s Administrative, Instructional, and Research efforts. This site has been created to help employees advance their use of GenAI. We recommend that our UMBC community begin by visiting GenAI Tools, this page will highlight what free resources are available to use and what options exist to use GenAI while safeguarding UMBC institutional data safely.

For staff providing support, we encourage people to look at Administrative AI, as a starting point. Our goal is to save folks time and improve the quality of their work, thus increasing productivity. We highlight some tools that DoIT is providing for support.

Additionally, we have launched an AI-supported search bar called myUMBC Answers.  We are seeking partners to work with DoIT to expand myUMBC Answers. The key to your office leveraging myUMBC Answers is providing validated and accurate content, such as FAQs or a handbook produced annually.

For faculty, we encourage you to also explore instructional AI and research AI. An excellent resource in the College of Engineering is the UMBC Center for AI.  You can follow news about the UMBC Center for AI on social media through its sites on LinkedIn, Bluesky, X, and Facebook. Members of the UMBC community can subscribe to the UMBC AI Group to receive email about AI-related news and events. If you have news to share with the UMBC AI community or suggestions or comments on the site, please send them to umbc-ai@cs.umbc.edu.

 

AI News

Showing items tagged ultra-experience. Show All

Self-Enrolled Groups Introduced to Ultra in September

Needs grading filter also available to Ultra gradebook

Group management is an invaluable resource in a Blackboard course, especially one with large enrollments. UMBC is closely monitoring the evolution of this important tool in Ultra as we continue...

Posted: September 4, 2019, 2:10 PM

DoIT Expands Ultra Faculty Ambassador Program

Nominate a peer expert today!

Are you passionate about teaching with technology? Do you have an Ultra course adoption story to share with other faculty? Would you like to be part of a growing community of Blackboard...

Posted: August 13, 2019, 9:54 AM

Submit your Bb class to the Ultra Course Redesign Challenge

Win a Kindle Fire!

The Ultra Course Redesign Challenge offers faculty an opportunity to share their redesigned courses using the new Ultra interface for a chance to win a Kindle Fire.  The challenge is open to any...

Posted: August 9, 2019, 1:58 PM

Publisher Integrations Updated in Blackboard for FA2019

Cengage & Wiley fully supported in Ultra courses

Several publisher integrations will be updated at the end of summer to leverage modern infrastructure functionality, which will change the way faculty access those tools. Both Cengage Mindtap...

Posted: August 6, 2019, 8:06 AM

Increased Test Randomization Available in Ultra in August

Organizations also come to Ultra next month

In the August update to Ultra courses, faculty can create question pools to help build assessments quickly and better support academic integrity. Instructors can add questions to from all existing...

Posted: July 30, 2019, 11:21 AM