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

Blackboard Courses Scheduled for Server Retirement in FA21

Courses Before Summer 2018 to be Retired

During the Summer 2021, DoIT staff and Blackboard will archive our entire instance of Blackboard, which will save individually backed-up copies of every course and organization through SP2021....

Posted: May 12, 2021, 4:24 PM

Test Scoring Moving to Akindi Bubble Sheets

Print or scan a test from any local computer

Beginning Fall 2021, UMBC will employ Akindi for paper-based, bubble sheet assessments. Akinidi is a Scantron alternative that allows instructors to print and score bubble sheets from any local...

Posted: May 12, 2021, 1:58 PM

Faculty prioritize grading & assessments for Ultra’s future

About 76% of current & planned Ultra aligns with Original

When Ultra was first introduced at UMBC in SP2018, four adventurous faculty opted to use a newly redesigned Blackboard course interface in their courses. Ultra represented a new phase of...

Posted: May 11, 2021, 11:27 AM

SU2021 Courses Created in Blackboard on April 27, 2021

Blackboard course shells for SU2021 were created on April 27, 2021. The Ultra Course Preview setting is again enabled in SU2021 courses to allow faculty adoption with anupdated support schedule...

Posted: April 28, 2021, 10:11 AM

12 Effective Practices for Delivering Blackboard Tests

Get ready for final exams with these test prep tips

Online tests and assignments are an effective and convenient way to assess students in the virtual environment. Throughout the semester, faculty can leverage many different options and settings...

Posted: April 26, 2021, 12:38 PM