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Today marked the third annual Learning Technology Symposium—a chance for our team to come together and explore emerging technologies in the age of AI. This year we took a slightly different approach, with three teams of three people working collaboratively to build a content, utilizing NILE’s built-in AI design assistant (AIDA) and Copilot.
Course Building
As most of the team were involved in the university-wide Copilot pilot programme, we have access to Copilot embedded throughout the Microsoft Office suite of tools, and at time of writing, the AIDA tools are as follows:
- Course structure suggestions
- Discussion generation
- Journal generation
- Rubric generation
- Assignment prompt generation
- Test question generation
- Question Bank generation
- Insert or generate images
- AI Conversations
- Generate Document layouts
At UON, all instructors can access these and benefit from the time saved as they build their NILE courses.
Attendees of the symposium worked on building a fictitious training package, which can later be populated and potentially used as a self-serve training in line with the University’s 5-year strategy.
Gamification
As well as the role of the trainer designing a course, we had the opportunity to experience the role of the trainee by engaging in a fully gamified session.
In three groups of three people, the element of competition was introduced. One of the learning packages will be chosen as the winner, and teams reviewed and voted on each other’s. This helps encourage certain personality types to strive for excellence and stay engaged.
Game Mechanics & Progression were implemented via a game board and activity cards. Each team had one dice, one counter and two sets of cards with activities on. Participants used the dice and counter to advance along the path on the board, if they landed on a blue square they drew a blue card, a pink square a pink card, and purple square was a wildcard. This provides a structured and visual way to track progress. Creates randomisation and chance, and —if cards were face-down— the element of surprise. It also meant that people had some freedom to decide how long to spend on activities. And although cards were identical, different teams were likely to be working on different things at any given time.
For autonomy & personalization the wildcard element empowers participants by giving them freedom in choosing their own task. The wildcard tasks carried their own competitivity, with the chance to win, by showing creativity and skill with AI tools. The idea was for teams to choose a task using an AI with one person in the team of three showing the others something new. A winning entry would have viewers questioning, “How did you make that?”
Individuals also had the chance to play a Hidden Objects game, looking for certain items in an image. These were placed into Microsoft Whiteboard and we all had fun pointing out the hidden items with the laser pointer. The images had been created with AI and could be used as an icebreaker at the start of a session. For instant feedback (another important key in gamification) H5P’s multiple hotspot feature can make the image interactive.
Variety of Technology
The event was also a great opportunity to use and experience a selection of the different technologies we have available to us at the University of Northampton. In the running of the session, we used MS Loop; for instructions and help guides, MS Whiteboard for collaborative activities, anonymous voting and affinity diagram. PowerPoint for the running order, and MS Forms for the feedback survey.
For the activities we used NILE tools including Padlet, Copilot, and a couple of other AI tools, which people had log-ins for or didn’t require a log in.
Data and Digital
Time was also spent as a team reviewing the University of Northampton’s Digital and Data Strategy 2025–2029, which outlines a vision for transforming how we work, teach, and support students. It was a chance to reflect on the important and strategic role the Learning Technology team plays in helping achieve these goals by 2030. From embedding digital literacy and promoting continuous learning, to supporting automation, data governance, and personalised learning experiences, our work is directly aligned with the strategy’s focus areas. It was encouraging to see how the tools and approaches we explored during the symposium neatly contribute to building a digitally empowered, inclusive, and forward thinking university that we can be proud to work for.
Conclusion
The AI Symposium 2025 was a brilliant mix of creativity, collaboration, and curiosity. It gave us the chance to explore new tools, test out ideas, and experience learning from both the trainer and trainee perspective. Whether it was building courses with AIDA, experimenting with Copilot, rolling dice on a game board, or enjoying Kelly’s delicious home-baked brownies, the day was full of energy and innovation.
If any of this has sparked your interest please do reach out to your Learning Technologist. We’re always happy to chat, share resources, or help you get started.
Staff who are interested in finding out more about learning technologies and NILE are invited to join the Learning Technology / NILE Community Group on the University’s Engage platform. The purpose of the community is to share information and good practice concerning the use of learning technologies at UON. When joining the community, if you are prompted to login please use your usual UON staff username and password.
By joining the Learning Technology / NILE Community you will receive calendar invitations to our regular live community events:
Community Update: A monthly meeting to update members about what’s new in NILE, including discussion on how these new features might best be used. These meetings will also include opportunities for questions about the new features and will allow time for community members to discuss their use of NILE, including features that they would like to see in NILE in the future. These meetings will normally take place on or near to the update schedule of the main virtual learning environment platform, Blackboard Learn.
Community Matters: A bi-monthly meeting focused on a particular topic of interest to the community. These will be announced at least a month in advance and will take cues from members on each theme chosen for discussion.
Once you have joined, please consider subscribing to the community by email so that you receive notifications of upcoming events direct to your inbox.
Blackboard’s AI design assistant, launched last December, has quickly proven to be a helpful tool for developing content within NILE courses. Our early data shows that while most users create tests independently, the AI design assistant is especially popular for test and quiz creation. Senior Lecturer in Nursing, Julie Holloway, shares her positive experience using AI to support her pharmacology students in a prescribing program.
“We are using AI to help generate new exam questions, particularly in relation to pharmacology content,” Julie explains. Due to the parameters of professional regulation within independent prescribing, she’s unable to provide students with past exam papers for their revision. Instead, AI has allowed her to create supplemental revision questions directly linked to each pharmacology lecture, providing students with valuable practice material aligned with their coursework.
One notable feature in the AI design assistant enables users to select existing course materials for the AI to draw from when generating content. Julie has leveraged this by selecting specific pharmacology materials, allowing her to create questions that closely reflect the lectures and give students an efficient tool for self-assessment. “The process was easier than I originally thought,” she adds.
As well as helping with efficiency, Julie also noted the AI’s capacity to inspire new ways of phrasing questions. “Exam questions can become repetitive,” she says, and the AI’s suggestions help with this and enhance the student experience by supplementing their revision.
In thinking about the limitations of using AI to create test questions, Julie points out that the AI occasionally generates questions that aren’t entirely relevant. However, she highlights, “I think this will improve as we get more experienced with working with AI and search terms, etc.”
Would she recommend this approach to other educators? “Absolutely,” she says, encouraging colleagues to explore the tool themselves. “Just give it a try—it’s not as scary as you think!”
If you would like any support using any of the AI Design Assistant tools in NILE, then please contact your Learning Technologist. If you are unsure who this is, then please select this link: https://libguides.northampton.ac.uk/learntech/staff/nile-help/who-is-my-learning-technologist
For more information on the AI Design Assistant, then please select this link: https://libguides.northampton.ac.uk/learntech/staff/nile-guides/ai-design-assistant
Last week, we highlighted Fix Your Content Day, where staff were encouraged to take small steps towards improving the accessibility of their module sites. Today, we’re excited to share a success story from Deborah Gardner, a Lecturer in Business Management, who took part in the initiative and saw significant improvements in her module’s accessibility.
When Deborah checked her module site’s accessibility report, she found it at 88%. While this was a decent score, she knew there was room for improvement. “I went through the steps the report suggested,” she explained, starting with adding alternative text to diagrams in her PowerPoint slides and correcting low-visibility text. These changes quickly raised her score to 99%, and with a bit more effort, she soon reached the perfect 100%. “Some of the corrections were a little time-consuming, but the effort paid off when my overall score hit 100%,” she shared.
Key Learnings
Deborah’s experience highlighted a few valuable takeaways:
Custom ALT Text: One of Deborah’s recommendations is to write your own ALT text descriptions for images, rather than relying on automatic suggestions. “When I asked to use the suggested [ALT text], it didn’t really describe the image that well,” she noted. Crafting accurate and meaningful descriptions ensures that students using screen readers fully understand visual content.
Tackling PDFs: For Deborah, the most time-consuming task was correcting PDFs, but the improvements were well worth the time. Ensuring all content is accessible, even documents, can have a huge impact on student inclusion.
A Habit of Accessibility
Deborah encourages her colleagues to get into the habit of reviewing their accessibility reports regularly: “The first step is to check your report. Quite often, it will just involve a few tweaks, so it won’t be too demanding on your time. Get into the habit of checking it once a week to ensure your site remains accessible.”
She also suggests incorporating accessible practices from the very beginning: “It helps to get into the habit of providing descriptions for any images in your content right from the start—they’re less likely to flag up in the report that way.”
Next steps
While Deborah has seen firsthand the benefits of improving her module’s accessibility, she hopes to work with colleagues across the programme to adopt similar practices. By sharing her experience and success, she would like to help others to do the same, creating a more inclusive learning environment for all students.
Accessibility doesn’t have to be overwhelming, and as Deborah’s story shows, even a few small steps can make a big difference. For more tips and support, check out our original blog post here and don’t hesitate to reach out to your Learning Technologist for guidance.
At the University of Northampton, we’re committed to creating an inclusive learning environment for all students. As part of this commitment, we’re happy to celebrate the Anthology Fix Your Content Day on Thursday, October 3rd, 2024. This 24-hour event is designed to create more accessible and inclusive digital learning content using Blackboard Ally. So, why not join us in making NILE more accessible?
How do I get involved?
If you’d like to take part, simply email your Learning Technologist with the code of your NILE module. On the morning of October 3rd, email them a screenshot of your current Ally Accessibility score, then spend the day making improvements to your module content. By 8 PM, submit another screenshot of your final Ally score and you might just get a special mention in Unify, along with the satisfaction of knowing you’ve created a more accessible learning environment for your students.
In previous years, tutors like Jean Edwards and Charlotte Dann embraced this challenge and made fantastic progress using the Ally module accessibility reports to guide their changes. Their work helped create more inclusive NILE modules, making a real difference for their students.
What do I need to do on October 3rd?
Here’s a guide to getting involved in the Anthology Fix Your Content Day 2024:
- Use this guide to find your Module-Level Ally score and identify areas for improvement.
- Use Blackboard Ally to assess the accessibility of your materials. Ally provides feedback and suggests improvements, helping you prioritise changes that will have the greatest impact.
- Review Your Documents: Ensure that your PDFs, Word documents, and presentations use clear headings and tags that can be easily navigated by screen readers.
- Add Alt Text to Images: Include descriptive alt text for any images in your materials. This ensures that students using screen readers can engage with the visual content.
- Check your Captions: Accurate captions support not just students with hearing impairments, but also those studying in noisy environments or those who are non-native English speakers.
We hope you’ll join us on October 3rd and make NILE more accessible. However, even if you can’t engage on the day, consider trying something new this semester – whether that’s adding clearer captions, using shorter filenames, or creating an Ultra document. Even small improvements can significantly transform the learning experience for all students.
Contact your Learning Technologist if you have any questions.
At the University of Northampton, we are committed to fostering an inclusive learning environment. That’s why we’ve introduced the AI-powered tool in Blackboard Ultra that automatically generates alternative text (alt text) for images. This feature offers instructors the support they need to generate meaningful alternative text (alt text) for images quickly and efficiently.
The Challenge of Creating Alt Text
Writing descriptive and meaningful alt text isn’t always straightforward. Many times, instructors need a bit of inspiration to find the right words. Enter Ally’s AI Alt Text Assistant—a tool designed to take the guesswork out of writing alt text by automatically generating suggestions. This not only saves time but also enhances the accessibility of learning materials for visually impaired students.
How Does the AI Alt Text Assistant Work?
Integrated directly into the Ally Instructor Feedback interface, the AI tool empowers instructors to address images without alt text more efficiently:
- Auto-Generate Description Button: When an image lacks a description, instructors can simply click the “Auto-Generate Description” button. The AI Alt Text Assistant will provide a concise and accurate suggestion based on the image’s content.
- Instructor Review and Control: Importantly, the AI does not automatically apply these suggestions. Each description requires instructor review, ensuring that the final text aligns with the course content and the image’s educational purpose. You can easily edit, refine, or remove the suggestions to suit your needs.
This combination of automation and instructor control guarantees that the alt text meets both accessibility standards and the specific context of your course materials.
Key Features and Benefits
- Time-Saving Automation: With just one click, you can generate accurate alt text suggestions, saving time while ensuring your materials are accessible.
- Instructor-Centred: The AI Alt Text Assistant empowers instructors by providing helpful suggestions, but leaves the final decision in your hands, giving you full control over the descriptions.
- Seamless Integration: This feature works within the existing Ally Instructor Feedback workflow, making it easy to fix accessibility issues as you work through your content.
Why Is This Important?
Creating accessible content isn’t just about meeting legal standards—it’s about ensuring that every student can engage with your materials. By incorporating alt text for images, you’re helping students who use screen readers to fully participate in the learning experience. Ally’s AI tool simplifies this process, helping you make your course content more inclusive with minimal effort.
Start Using the AI Alt Text Assistant Today
The new AI Alt Text Assistant is available now in Blackboard Ultra. Whether you’re updating old materials or creating new ones, this tool will help you maintain accessibility standards while saving valuable time.
For more information or guidance on using this new feature, check out our Ally guidance and get in touch with your Learning Technologist if you have any questions.
By leveraging this tool, you contribute to making learning at the University of Northampton a more inclusive experience for all.
The new/improved features outlined below are available from Saturday 7th September 2024.
- Inline Knowledge Check questions within documents
- Course content page enhancements
- Gradebook overview improvements
- Enhanced Student Activity Log
- Wiris and math editor update
Inline Knowledge Check questions within documents
Building on last month’s new layout options within an Ultra document, instructors will now be able to add multiple choice and multiple answer questions directly to a document and include automated feedback for students.
Students receive immediate feedback on whether their answer is correct and can submit an unlimited number of attempts.
Instructors can keep an eye on student participation via detailed metrics, including:
- Number of students participating
- Total number of attempts
- Average number of attempts to reach the correct answer
- Maximum number of attempts to reach the correct answer
- Level of difficulty metric
- Percentage of students selecting each answer option
More information about Knowledge Checks in Blackboard Learn can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtuFUPaKLSw
Course content page enhancements
There have been design changes to elements, colours, and layout of the course contents page. Most notably, the details and actions menu can now be found on the right hand side when viewing with a large screen.
Gradebook overview improvements
A new indicator has been added that appears next to the gradebook heading in the course menu when there are new submissions available to grade. An overview page will now show a summary of those items which need grading or are yet to be posted.
Enhanced Student Activity Log
Student activity has been upgraded to report on various interactions in great detail. Instructors will be able to view student actions within the course over the past 140 days. Any information older than that won’t be stored. The log can take up to 20 minutes to update from the last time a student performs an action.
Wiris and math editor update
The Wiris engine and equation editor has been updated to improve performance, in particular the rendering of subscript and superscript formulas.
More information
Please get in touch with your learning technologist if you would like any more information or support using the new features available in this month’s upgrade: Who is my learning technologist?
Assignment submission time is always stressful for students. There are the well-known issues that students face of decoding assignment briefs, managing multiple assignments, plus all the work that goes into completing assignments, getting the quotes and references right, and then the anxious wait to get the marks and feedback.
However, one potentially stressful stage that sometimes gets overlooked is the process of actually submitting the assignment. While this might seem like a minor stage in the process, it is a very important one, and is something that some students do struggle with, especially if it’s their first assignment, or uses a new/unfamiliar submission process, e.g., a video assessment. Additionally, and contrary to the popular myth, young people are not ‘digital natives.’ Many students come to university with low levels of digital ability and confidence, and for a lot of our students NILE will be the first VLE they’ve ever encountered, and the process of electronic assignment submission will be entirely new to them.
An excellent way to pre-emptively de-stress the assignment submission process is to adopt the view that it’s best to teach your students how to do all the things that you want them to do, including how to submit an assignment, and that’s exactly what the ITT (Initial Teacher Training) team do. In this guest post, Helen Tiplady, Senior Lecturer in Education (ITT Science), shares her approach to supporting students with the assignment submission process.
Here’s Helen:
Supporting students to submit their digital assessments correctly.
It may be due to our Primary school training backgrounds, but tutors in the Initial Teacher Training (ITT) team often share ‘What A Good One Looks Like’ with our students – otherwise fondly known as a ‘WAGOLL’.
One example I’d like to share with you was from a Level 4 science module (ITT1042) where students needed to complete a digital assessment piece. The premise was that they were planning a talk to a group of governors or sharing ideas at a staff INSET training day. The students needed to create a PowerPoint presentation along with their ‘speech’ written in the notes section. They then converted this to a PDF and uploaded this to the Turnitin submission point.
Although we have detailed, ‘step-by-step’ notes accompanied with screenshots for the students to follow as part of our assignment guidance, we have found that the most effective way for our students to upload their digital assessments correctly is through practice.
We offer a bespoke time during one of our learning events when students can observe the tutors demonstrate the steps to a successful submission (See Figure 1 below). We then ask the students individually to do a draft submission while the tutors are available to support and help with any issues. Finally, we ask the students to ‘teach each other’ on how to upload their assessment correctly to Turnitin.
This final step is crucial as this will allow the students to recall the steps more successfully at a later date. After all, Confucius is famous for saying “I hear, I forget. I see, I remember. I do and I understand.”
| Step 1 – Model: Show the students the stages to submit their digital assessment correctly. |
| Step 2 – Practice: Let the students submit a draft submission. |
| Step 3 – Tell: Ask the students to tell someone the stages they have learnt. |
Figure 1: How to support students to upload digital assessments successfully
So, in summary, try and find some ring-fenced time in one of your classes for the students to do a trial run of submitting their digital assessments. Find a time when the stakes are low and there is no pressure of a looming deadline. And remember, the more the students feel prepared, the easier they will find it to submit their digital assessments correctly the first time.
We are delighted to announce the new V7 video player across all Kaltura content within NILE and on the MyMedia platform. This update introduces a variety of new features designed to enhance both teaching and learning experiences.
What’s New with the V7 Player on NILE?
The V7 player offers several improvements over the previous version, making it easier and more effective to use video content within your courses on NILE:
Interactive Searchable Transcript: One of the most significant new features is the interactive searchable transcript. This allows students to quickly search for specific keywords within the transcript and jump directly to that point in the video. This functionality makes it much easier for students to locate and review specific content, thereby enhancing their learning experience.
Downloadable Transcripts: In addition to being searchable, the transcripts are also downloadable. This feature supports our commitment to being an accessible university, as it enables students to keep a copy of the transcript for offline review or study. This is particularly beneficial for students who may need to access content in different ways, supporting diverse learning needs.
Improved User Experience
The new V7 video player introduces a range of enhancements, including the exciting Pop-Out Player feature. This allows users to detach the video into a resizable, floating window, perfect for multitasking. Whether you’re taking notes or browsing other NILE content, the pop-out player ensures you remain engaged with the video without interruption.
Streamlined Interface
The player’s sleek, modern design makes navigation intuitive. Key functions like playback speed, volume control, and full-screen mode are easily accessible, enhancing the overall user experience.
Faster Load Times and Improved Playback: The V7 player is optimised for faster load times and smoother playback, ensuring that your video content plays seamlessly across all devices, whether students are accessing it from a desktop, tablet, or smartphone.
Enhanced Accessibility: With built-in support for closed captions, subtitles, and transcripts, the V7 player is designed to be fully accessible. It complies with web accessibility standards, making your video content more inclusive for all students, including those with visual or hearing impairments.
What This Means for You
Simply continue to use NILE as you normally would, and you’ll see the new V7 player in action. We’ll update our guides but I’d encourage you to jump in and explore the new capabilities, particularly the interactive and downloadable transcript, which can significantly improve the way students interact with your video content.
We believe these enhancements will be a valuable addition to your teaching toolkit, making video content more accessible, engaging, and effective for your students. If you need any support, don’t hesitate to contact your Learning Technologist and we’ll be happy to help.
With the exception of the enhanced Ultra document design option, which will be added on the 12th of August, the new features in Blackboard’s August upgrade will be available from Friday 9th August. This month’s upgrade includes the following new/improved features to Ultra courses:
- Enhanced Ultra document design and Word/PDF/PowerPoint to Ultra document conversion option
- Improvements to AI Design Assistant image generation
- Advanced options for release conditions
- Improvements to Blackboard assignments
- Anonymous responses in Blackboard forms
- New option to follow discussions
Enhanced Ultra document design and Word/PDF/PowerPoint to Ultra document conversion option
The August upgrade includes two significant improvements to Ultra documents. The first improvement is the ability to create advanced multi-column layouts. By using multiple content blocks and making use of columns, staff can create documents with different layouts. When students view pages with multi-column layouts on a mobile device, the pages will respond by re-flowing the content into a single column so that the content remains viewable.
The second improvement to Ultra documents is a new option to convert Word, PDF, and PowerPoint files to Ultra documents. Documents can still be uploaded and kept in their original formats, and Word, PDF, and PowerPoint documents can still be displayed inline in the browser, but, where possible, converting them to Ultra documents is preferable as it allows them to be more easily viewed on mobile devices.
More information about creating Ultra documents and converting Word, PDF, and PowerPoint files to Ultra documents is available from: Blackboard Help – Create Documents
Improvements to AI Design Assistant image generation
After the August upgrade, the AI image generation process will use DALL-E 3 rather than DALL-E 2. This change will allow staff to generate higher quality, higher resolution images in the following places:
- Learning Module images
- Document images
- Announcement images
- Assessment question images
- Journal prompts images
More information about using the AI Design Assistant’s image generator is available from: Learning Technology Team – AI image generator & Unsplash image library
Advanced options for release conditions
August’s upgrade will allow staff to create more complex release conditions, based on date, time, and grade range performance criteria. Additionally, the new release conditions options will allow staff to use multiple rules, and to create different sets of rules for specific individual learners, groups, or for all members.
More information about using release conditions is available from: Blackboard Help – Content Release Conditions
Improvements to Blackboard assignments
Prior to the August upgrade, when setting up a Blackboard assignment there were a number of options available that were relevant for Blackboard tests, but not for assignments. After the August upgrade, when setting up a new Blackboard assignment, staff will notice the following improvements:
- A new instructions box where staff can use the content editor to write assignment instructions.
- There are no longer options to add questions to an assignment, as these are only relevant for Blackboard tests.
- The assignment settings panel now includes only options relevant to assignments.
- Blank attempts are no longer created when students view assignment instructions. The system only creates an attempt when students add content to the file drop zone / content editor. However, group and timed assessments will continue to create attempts when students view the instructions.
Additionally, the student experience of using Blackboard assignments has been improved, and it is now much more straightforward for students to upload their files by dragging and dropping a file into the file drop zone.
More information about setting up a Blackboard assignment is available from: Learning Technology Team – Ultra Workflow 2: Blackboard assignment
Anonymous responses in Blackboard forms
Following the August upgrade, staff will be able to set Blackboard forms to receive anonymous responses. Blackboard forms function almost identically to Blackboard tests, the main difference being that forms can be ungraded/unmarked, whereas tests cannot be, therefore forms only have question types that are appropriate for ungraded responses, but they do include a Likert question type which is not available in Blackboard tests. With the introduction of anonymous responses in forms, this tool can now function effectively as an anonymous survey tool within each NILE course. Staff who used the surveys tools in Original courses, will find that forms now replicates in Ultra all the functionality of surveys in Original.
When select anonymous submissions, these settings are enabled by default:
- Due date
- Prohibit late submissions
- Prohibit new attempts after due date
- Complete/incomplete is selected as the grading schema for non-graded forms
- If the anonymous form is graded, the submission earns all the points assigned; you can’t edit or override the points earned.
Additional important details to note:
- Anonymous forms cannot be administered to groups.
- Class conversations are not supported when anonymous submissions is selected.
- To ensure anonymity, student activity, exceptions, exemptions and accommodations are not supported.
- To ensure anonymity, student progress/statistics are not captured.
- Modifications to form questions and settings are not permitted if the form has submissions and the due date has passed.
More information about Blackboard forms is available from: Blackboard Help – Forms
New option to follow discussions
August’s upgrade will introduce the option for staff and students to follow discussions, which has been a much requested feature. However, please note that this initial release is somewhat limited as notifications for followed discussions will appear in the activity stream, but will not be sent as emails or push notifications to mobile devices for Blackboard app users.
Staff and students can follow or unfollow particular discussions via the selector in the discussion forum, and new responses and replies to followed discussions will be shown in the activity stream.
More information about setting up and using discussions is available from: Blackboard Help – Discussions
More information
As ever, please get in touch with your learning technologist if you would like any more information about the new features available in this month’s upgrade: Who is my learning technologist?
