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 Offers Free Virtual Conference July 21-22

Follow BbWorld 20 via live streaming sessions & recordings

Once a year Blackboard hosts the BbWorld conference over several days for faculty, students, administrators, instructional technology specialists, training professionals, developers, and system...

Posted: June 11, 2020, 7:41 AM

Basic Journals Arrive to Ultra Courses in June

Tweaks include assessment feedback, course copy improvements

Next month's Blackboard update brings a frequently requested tool to Ultra courses: the Journal! Journals are a personal space for students to communicate privately with instructors or to reflect...

Posted: May 29, 2020, 10:07 AM

Begin Designing & Preparing for Your Fall Bb Courses

Blackboard FA2020 Course Development Shells Available

In response to some faculty requests, DoIT’s Instructional Technology team will create Fall 2020 Course Development shells for all courses listed in the Schedule of Classes by close of business on...

Posted: May 29, 2020, 7:07 AM

New Bb Annotate refreshes inline grading tool for SU2020

Expanded functionality includes shapes, drawing, highlight

UPDATE: Bb Annotate has been staged back for deployment — US East Cost is slated for June 3rd. Available for summer courses, Blackboard’s new inline grading tool, allows instructors, teaching...

Posted: May 11, 2020, 12:33 PM

VoiceThread Offers Training on Creating Engaging Courses

From Basic to Blackboard Use Cases - Learn from the Vendor!

VoiceThread is a learning tool for enhancing student engagement and online presence. With VoiceThread, instructors and/or students can create, share, and comment on images, Microsoft PowerPoint...

Posted: May 7, 2020, 11:37 AM