What’s New

DoIT Expands Ultra Faculty Ambassador Program

Nominate a peer expert today!

Are you passionate about teaching with technology? Do you have an Ultra course adoption story to share with other faculty? Would you like to be part of a growing community of Blackboard...

Posted: August 13, 2019, 9:54 AM

DoIT Welcomes 3 New Staff to Instructional Technology

It is my pleasure to both introduce and welcome the three newest members of the Instructional Technology team in DoIT: Chimaobi (Mobie) Nwaokomah (pictured at left), Laura Wyatt, and Collin...

Posted: August 12, 2019, 11:06 AM

Join the M.O.S.T. Regional Open Educational Resource Forum

Discuss OER accessibility, quality, student success

Are you new to open educational resources (OER) and interested in learning how to adopt or scale OER in your course or across your institution? Register to join the Maryland Open Source...

Posted: August 12, 2019, 10:01 AM

Submit your Bb class to the Ultra Course Redesign Challenge

Win a Kindle Fire!

The Ultra Course Redesign Challenge offers faculty an opportunity to share their redesigned courses using the new Ultra interface for a chance to win a Kindle Fire.  The challenge is open to any...

Posted: August 9, 2019, 1:58 PM

Publisher Integrations Updated in Blackboard for FA2019

Cengage & Wiley fully supported in Ultra courses

Several publisher integrations will be updated at the end of summer to leverage modern infrastructure functionality, which will change the way faculty access those tools. Both Cengage Mindtap...

Posted: August 6, 2019, 8:06 AM

Increased Test Randomization Available in Ultra in August

Organizations also come to Ultra next month

In the August update to Ultra courses, faculty can create question pools to help build assessments quickly and better support academic integrity. Instructors can add questions to from all existing...

Posted: July 30, 2019, 11:21 AM

FA2019 Courses Created in Blackboard on July 28, 2019

Blackboard course shells for FA2019 were created on July 28, 2019. The Ultra Course Preview setting is again enabled in FA2019 courses to allow faculty adoption during the phased roll-out of...

Posted: July 30, 2019, 11:19 AM

Access to UMBC Google Drive Comes to Ultra in July

Learn what’s coming to Ultra & Collaborate next month

This month’s update to Blackboard will provide access to UMBC’s Google Drive. Faculty, staff, and students will be able to view their Google cloud storage from their Ultra courses, user profile,...

Posted: July 3, 2019, 12:30 PM

Panopto Users: Please Install 6.0 Recorder

Mandatory Client Upgrade

As announced in April, please be sure to upgrade to the Panopto 6.0 recorder by July 18. You can download the recorder directly from our instance of Panopto. Please Note Panopto for Windows...

Posted: June 25, 2019, 9:27 AM

Delegated Grading, Import Calendars Come to Ultra in June

Learn what’s coming to Ultra & Collaborate next month

The June update to Blackboard brings delegated grading to Ultra courses. Renamed “parallel marking” in Ultra, this feature is designed to minimize bias when paired with anonymous grading. Parallel...

Posted: May 30, 2019, 1:25 PM