June features printer-friendly tests & new Courses page

Language support for AI course tools, grading enhancements

This June, Ultra users can look forward to updates that enhance user experience and functionality including a new language selector when generating content with the AI Course Design Assistant, printing capabilities for assessments, and an updated Courses landing page. Let's explore these updates and more.

Instructors can now select desired languages for generating course content using the new language selector in the AI Design Assistant. This new setting is available across all AI tools, allowing faculty who teach languages to generate test questions and rubrics (and more) in French, Spanish, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, German, Arabic, and a wide range of other languages. All AI tools are optional and the instructor is in full control of the settings with editing available to modify the output.

Image 1: Example of learning modules generated with Spanish set as the language

The Courses landing page is updated to remove the "carousel" approach for presenting courses by individual term. Instead, all users will find a term selector to use on its own or with other filters. Add text searches to further refine how the courses display on the page, but upcoming courses will only appear if you actually have courses scheduled in the future. You can even select "All terms" to see everything. Selections and filters are remembered automatically even after logging out or switching devices.

Image 2: Example of updated Courses landing page with new filter and search tools.

An exciting update to assessments allows instructors to print, supporting a variety of use cases including providing a paper test for accommodations or in-class testing if wifi fails. At this time, printing does not yet support question banks, answer keys, or mobile devices, but this is in development.

Image 3: Example of test in printer ready format.

Assessment & Grading Enhancements

Instructors can add private grading notes after scores are entered. Grader notes are not visible to students, and will be archived with the course.
A new filter helps instructors focus on ungraded submissions by default, streamlining the grading process.
When editing a question, instructors can now access and edit the point value field with just two clicks.

Student Assessment & Grading Improvements

A clear visual indicator for new grades helps students quickly see updates, while an adjustment in color for late submissions reduces anxiety.
Students can now return a true/false question to an unanswered state after choosing an answer. Students clear their choice by selecting the same option again.

Announcements & Groups Improvements

Instructors can now post announcements as part of the drafting and editing processes. This one-click improvement makes the process of creating and posting announcements faster.
Currently, at the end of the self-enrollment period, unassigned students are always distributed into groups. Instructors can now opt out of this behavior and manually add students to groups.
The list of students in groups is moved to a tab on the groups page rather than a peek panel. This tab includes tools for searching and sorting alphabetically.

Faculty should see the latest updates in Ultra courses around June 6-7, 2024. The next update to our Ultra test environment will take place on June 11, 2024; release notes are posted to the What's New in Ultra that same week. Faculty who are interested in test driving new features before they are released to production should open an RT ticket to request early access. Please watch the FAQs, including the What's New with Ultra page, and myUMBC for additional information about Ultra.

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As always, if you have any questions about teaching, learning, and technology at UMBC, please consider the following options: