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 online-learning. Show All

Quality Matters Impact Program - Call to Participate

Faculty can apply now for Spring/Summer Cohorts

As an extension of the award-winningPIVOT program, the Quality Matters Impact program is a new initiative to formally recognize courses that meet Quality Matters standards and demonstrate...

Posted: January 28, 2022, 1:29 PM

5 reasons you should open your Blackboard course early

Benefits help students and instructors

At UMBC, courses are created in Blackboard about four weeks before a new semester begins, providing time for faculty to transition instructional materials and assessments into a new site for...

Posted: January 20, 2022, 11:01 AM

Creating Consistency in Course Sections with Ultra Templates

Templates available for course or department Ultra adoption

Since Fall 2018, the default Blackboard course template has had the Ultra Course Preview setting enabled, which allows faculty to convert a new Original course to see what it looks like in Ultra...

Posted: December 15, 2021, 1:55 PM

Tips for Choosing Instructional Technologies for a Course

Take Advantage of Approved LTI Tools in Blackboard

A wide range of technologies and resources are available to faculty at UMBC to support teaching and learning in various online or hybrid modes within Blackboard. Trends and tools evolve quickly,...

Posted: December 15, 2021, 8:45 AM

7 Tips to Wrap Up Your Blackboard Course for the Semester

Checklist to close out your course as the semester ends

Ease stress during the final weeks of your semester with our closing checklist. Leverage these Blackboard course tools to complete helpful and simple tasks for a successful semester conclusion....

Posted: December 7, 2021, 9:46 AM