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 blackboard. Show All

October brings student receipts & bigger rubrics for Ultra

Tables also available in the Ultra content editor

Rubrics are grading tools that help instructors to assess student performance and give feedback in detail. Prior to the October update, rubrics were limited to 10 rows and 10 columns. Now faculty...

Posted: October 8, 2021, 9:15 AM

Bb Instructor Webinar Series: From Basics to Advanced

Free training opportunities for faculty, TAs, and staff

The Bb Instructor Webinar Series offers a set of free 45-minute webinars designed for instructors who are getting started with teaching using Blackboard, Ultra, and Collaborate. Click on a topic...

Posted: September 16, 2021, 11:45 AM

More UMBC students like Ultra and want Ultra courses

86% of UMBC students express satisfaction with Ultra

In a survey of 608 students taking Ultra courses during the SP2021 semester, 86% indicated satisfaction with Ultra, marking a 14% increase compared to the last survey in FA2019. Students again...

Posted: August 19, 2021, 9:04 AM

13 Tips to Get Your Blackboard Course Ready

Checklist to optimize your course before the semester starts

Prepare your Blackboard course shell for the new semester with our updated baker’s dozen checklist. 1. Review new tools & features in Blackboard. Our Blackboard site receives updates and...

Posted: August 17, 2021, 12:02 PM

FA2021 Courses Created in Blackboard on July 26, 2021

Blackboard course shells for FA2021 were created on July 26, 2021. The Ultra Course Preview setting is again enabled in FA2021 courses, which allows faculty to convert a new Original course to...

Posted: July 27, 2021, 10:06 AM