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

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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

Gradebook filters, progress tracking, badges ready for Ultra

New course navigation & other enhancements coming in August

This upcoming FA2021 semester features new development in the Ultra gradebook, starting with gradebook filters. This function allows faculty to view data and content in the gradebook by multiple...

Posted: July 27, 2021, 8:50 AM

Akindi Bubble Sheet Training

Learn more about the Scantron replacement

Are you ready for the move? At the end of the Spring 2021 semester, DoIT announced that test scoring services were moving to Akindi, a Scantron alternative. During this transition, we will be...

Posted: July 7, 2021, 1:43 PM