Currently viewing the tag: "Updates"
The new features in Blackboard’s July upgrade will be available from the morning of Friday 7th July. This month’s upgrade includes the following new features to Ultra courses:
- Advanced scoring options in multiple choice and multiple option test questions
- Complete/incomplete grade schema and formative assessment option
- Resizing media option in Ultra documents
Advanced scoring options in multiple choice and multiple option test questions
Currently, when setting up multiple choice and multiple option test questions staff can select from the following options:
- All or nothing – students must select all the correct answer choices to receive credit. If a student selects one or more incorrect answer choices, they earn no points;
- Allow partial credit – students receive partial credit if they correctly answer part of the question;
- Subtract points for incorrect answers – students will have points subtracted for incorrect answer choices, although the overall question score will not be less than zero.
Following the July upgrade staff will have more control on the way that scores for each question are compiled, and will be able to:
- Define a positive percentage value to award credit for a correct answer;
- Enter a negative percentage value (up to a maximum of -100% ) to subtract credit for an incorrect answer;
- Allow a negative overall score for the question.
In the following example, it is possible to score from a maximum of 10 points (by selecting only the first and third answers) to a minimum of -30 points (by selecting only the second, fourth, fifth, and sixth options). A student selecting all six options would score -20 points.
More information about using tests in Ultra courses can be found at: Blackboard Help – Tests, Pools, and Surveys
Complete/incomplete grade schema and formative assessment option
Following the July upgrade, staff will be able to use a complete/incomplete schema when assessing student work that does not require a grade to be given. The complete/incomplete schema still requires an assessment to be given a point value, but any amount of points given, including zero, will result in the assessment grade awarded being ‘complete’.
When a value is provided, the mark shows as a tick to show that the assessment has been completed.
The July upgrade also includes the option to mark assessments as formative. When this option is selected, the word ‘Formative’ is displayed alongside the assignment in the gradebook. Staff have the option to display ‘Formative’ to students also.
The complete/incomplete schema and the ability to note assessments as formative can be used independently or together, and can be used with both Turnitin and Blackboard assessments.
The following screenshot shows the student view of the gradebook where two assignments have marked as formative and where the complete/incomplete schema has been used.
Resizing media option in Ultra documents
After the July upgrade, when adding an image to an Ultra document staff will be able to resize the media using the corner handles that appear when the document is being edited and the image is selected.
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: https://libguides.northampton.ac.uk/learntech/staff/nile-help/who-is-my-learning-technologist
The new features in Blackboard’s June upgrade will be available from the morning of Friday 2nd June. This month’s upgrade includes the following new features to Ultra courses:
- Announcements moved to the top navigation bar
- Ultra tests: upload questions from a file
- Journals – submission status filters available when using assessed journals
Announcements moved to the top navigation bar
Following the June upgrade, Announcements will move from the ‘Details & Actions’ menu to the top menu in Ultra courses.
Ultra tests: upload questions from a file
Prior or to the June upgrade, Ultra tests could only be created directly in Blackboard. After the upgrade, staff will be able to author tests offline in Excel or in a plain text editor (e.g., Notepad for Windows or TextEdit for Mac) and create tests questions in bulk in Ultra courses by importing the file. For more information about how to do this, please see: Blackboard Help – Upload Questions
Journals – submission status filters available when using assessed journals
Following the June upgrade, staff will be able to use filters in the Marks & Participation view in journals. These filters will allow staff to quickly view their students’ journal entries based on the status of their submissions.
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: https://libguides.northampton.ac.uk/learntech/staff/nile-help/who-is-my-learning-technologist
The new features in Blackboard’s May upgrade will be available from the morning of Friday 6th May. This month’s upgrade includes the following new features to Ultra courses:
- Drag and drop content into to Ultra courses
- Email non-submitters of Blackboard Ultra assignments
- Improvements to hotspot questions in Ultra tests
- Ability to prevent backtracking in Ultra tests with page breaks
- Ability to reuse questions in Ultra question banks
- Improvements to Ultra rubrics
- Grading attempt selector improvements
Drag-and-drop content into Ultra courses
Staff will be able to upload files into their Ultra courses simply by dragging a file or folder into the course content area of their Ultra course.
Email non-submitters of Blackboard Ultra assignments
Staff using Blackboard Ultra assignments will be able to quickly select and message students who have not submitted any work for assessment by setting the student status filter in the assignment inbox to ‘No Submission’, selecting all students, and choosing ‘Send Message’. When selecting more than one student as a recipient of a message, the recipients will be BCC’d into the message, ensuring that students’ identity and contact information remain confidential.
As well as being able to email non-submitters from an Ultra assignment inbox, staff can also use this functionality to send email messages to students based on other critera. By using the inbox filters and the sortable header columns, staff can quickly organise the inbox, and can also manually choose one or more students to send email messages to from the Ultra assignment inbox.
Please note that this ability to select and email students directly from an Ultra assignment inbox is only able to be used with Blackboard Ultra assignments, and is not available when using a Turnitin assignment in an Ultra course.
Improvements to hotspot questions in Ultra tests
Staff creating hotspot questions in Ultra tests will be able to zoom in to their image, and to view it full screen in order to more precisely define the hotspot area.
Ability to prevent backtracking in Ultra tests with page breaks
Prior the May upgrade, staff could only use the ‘prevent backtracking’ option in Ultra tests if the test did not contain any page breaks. After the upgrade, staff will be able to prevent backtracking in tests which contain page breaks. The ‘prevent backtracking’ option ensures that students progress through the pages of a test in a predetermined sequence, and will be helpful when later test questions provide hints or reveal answers to questions on previous pages.
As tests with page breaks may contain multiple questions per page, students who have an unanswered question on a page and try to navigate to the next page will receive a warning message prompting them that they have an unanswered question, and that they will be unable to answer it should they proceed to the next page.
You can find out more about setting up and using Ultra tests at: Blackboard Help – Create Tests
Ability to reuse questions in Ultra question banks
Staff will be able to copy questions between question banks by selecting the new ‘Reuse Questions’ option. Additionally, staff will be able to copy questions from existing tests directly into their question banks.
You can find out more about using Ultra question banks at: Blackboard Help – Question Banks.
Improvements to Ultra rubrics
When marking using Ultra rubrics the performance level descriptions will be hidden by default. This change streamlines grading for staff who are familiar with the performance level requirements. However, staff can quickly choose to display the performance descriptions if needed for grading.
Following the May upgrade it will also be possible to deselect a performance level (e.g., excellent, good, statisfactory, etc.) if choosing another level of performance isn’t appropriate. Prior to the May upgrade, once a peformance level was selected, it could be changed, but not deselected.
The May upgrade will also allow criterion feedback to be collapsed, allowing for a more streamlined view of the grading panel.
Finally, keyboard navigation of rubrics will improve following the May upgrade, introducing the ability to navigate between rubric criteria using the tab key, and to use the up/down arrows to select a performance level.
Grading attempt selector improvements
When viewing a student’s Blackboard Ultra assignment submission, if there are multiple submission attempts the assignment viewer will automatically choose the most appropriate attempt to present by default based on the ‘Grade Attempts’ setting and the grading completion status.
| Grade Attempts setting | Grading completion status | Default attempt displayed |
| Last attempt with a grade | Any | Most recent attempt |
| First attempt with a grade | Any | First attempt |
| Attempt with the highest grade | All attempts are graded | Attempt with the highest grade |
| Attempt with the lowest grade | All attempts are graded | Attempt with the lowest grade |
| Average of all attempts | All attempts are graded | Most recent attempt |
| Attempt with the highest grade | There are ungraded attempts | Oldest ungraded attempt |
| Attempt with the lowest grade | There are ungraded attempts | Oldest ungraded attempt |
| Average of all attempts | There are ungraded attempts | Oldest ungraded attempt |
Regardless of the settings, all attempts will still be available to view in the assignment viewer, and can be quickly accessed via the attempt selector.
For more information about setting up and using Blackboard Ultra assignments, please see: Ultra Workflow 2: Blackboard Assignment
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: https://libguides.northampton.ac.uk/learntech/staff/nile-help/who-is-my-learning-technologist
The new features in Blackboard’s April upgrade will be available from the morning of Friday 7th April. This month’s upgrade includes the following new features to Ultra courses:
- Ultra course content search
- Hotspot question improvements
- Multiple grading schemas
- Improved submission page sorting controls
- Discussion navigation improvements
- Quick access to student overview from multiple locations
- Ultra analytics improvement – deactivated students no longer show in the student progress reports
Additional features coming on Friday 14th April.
Ultra course content search
For the first time in Blackboard (this was never a feature in Original courses), after the April upgrade users will be able to search for and locate content in a course. The content search facility is available to both staff and students.
Hotspot question improvements
Following the April upgrade, staff will be able to define hotspot areas in Ultra tests using a circle shape selector, as well as the rectangle and polygon shape selectors.
You can find out more about using hotspot questions at: Blackboard Help – Hotspot Questions
Multiple grading schemas
Prior to the April upgrade, Ultra courses could only contain one grading schema. Following the April upgrade, Ultra courses will be able to contain multiple grading schemas. Schemas can be added and updated in the Ultra gradebook settings, via the ‘Manage Mark Schemas’ tool.
Improved submission page sorting controls
After the April upgrade, staff will be able to more effectively sort Blackboard assignment submissions in Ultra courses, and will be able to sort by students’ first or last names, ascending or descending.
Discussion navigation improvements
After the April upgrade, staff will be able to more easily view student activity, and marks and participation in Ultra discussions via the updated tab navigation in the discussions panel.
You can find out more about setting up and using Ultra discussions at: Blackboard Help – Discussions
Quick access to student overview from multiple locations
Prior to the April upgrade, selecting a student in the class register opened up the member information side panel which contains only limited information about the student.
Following the April upgrade, selecting a student in the class register will take staff directly to the student overview page for that student.
Staff can still access the member information panel in the class register by selecting the ellipsis ‘•••’ menu located to the right of the student’s name in the class register, and choosing ‘Edit member information’.
Following the April upgrade, the student overview page will also open when a student’s name is selected in an Ultra discussion or message.
Ultra analytics improvement – students with deactivated enrolments no longer show in the student progress reports
Prior to the April upgrade, students with deactivated enrolments (i.e., students who had been originally enrolled on a NILE course, but who subsequently transferred off the module, or withdrew from their studies) still showed up in the student progress report in Ultra courses
Following the April upgrade, the analytics tools in Ultra courses will no longer show students with deactivated enrolments.
Bb Annotate – improvements to commenting feature
Prior to the April upgrade, when using Bb Annotate to add comments to papers submitted to Blackboard assignments in Ultra and Original courses, comments could only contain plain text. Additionally, once saved, staff could delete their comments, but could not edit them.
Following the April upgrade, staff will be able to both edit and delete comments they have made. Also, comments will allow rich text features to be added, such as the ability to change the font colour, to make text bold or underlined, and to add hyperlinks.
You can find out more about using Bb Annotate to provide feedback and comments on student assessments at: Blackboard Help – Bb Annotate
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: https://libguides.northampton.ac.uk/learntech/staff/nile-help/who-is-my-learning-technologist
The new features in Blackboard’s March upgrade will be available from the morning of Friday 3rd March. This month’s upgrade includes the following new features to Ultra courses:
- Prevent editing or deletion of discussion posts
- Improved data and analytics in Ultra courses
- Improved attempt switching when grading student submissions with multiple attempts
Prevent editing or deletion of discussion posts
The March upgrade includes an important enhancement to discussions in Ultra courses, which allows staff to prevent students from editing or deleting their discussion posts while the discussion is ongoing.
At present, staff can choose to lock an assessed discussion on the due date, but cannot prevent students from editing and deleting their own discussion posts prior to the due date. Following the March upgrade, staff will be able to select ‘Prevent editing’ when setting up an assessed or non-assessed discussion, which will make all published posts permanent.
More information about setting up and using Ultra discussions is available at: Blackboard Help – Create Discussions
Improved engagement analytics in Ultra courses
Following the March upgrade, staff will be able to get a quick overview of their students’ engagement in their Ultra courses.
Under ‘Course Activity’ in the Analytics section of an Ultra course, staff will be able to see how much time students have spent in their Ultra course, along with the number of days since their last access. Both ‘Hours in Course’ and ‘Days of Inactivity’ will be sortable ascending and descending, and from this view staff will be able to select one or more students and bulk message them.
Improved attempt switching when grading student submissions with multiple attempts
When students make multiple submissions to Blackboard assignments in Ultra courses, after the March upgrade it will be quicker and easier to navigate the submissions.
Rather then having to choose which submission to view, staff will immediately be presented with the most recent submission, and will be able to switch between submissions directly inside the submission viewer.
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: https://libguides.northampton.ac.uk/learntech/staff/nile-help/who-is-my-learning-technologist
The new features in Blackboard’s February upgrade will be available from the morning of Friday 3rd February. This month’s upgrade includes the following new features to Ultra courses:
- Polygon shape tool available when creating hotspot questions in Ultra tests
- Sort items by grading status in the Ultra gradebook
- Students can see other members of their group in Ultra courses
- Ally alternative format views count towards progress in progress tracking
Polygon shape tool available when creating hotspot questions in Ultra tests
Since the November upgrade, staff have been able to create hotspot questions in Ultra tests. Initially, the hotspot area could only be rectangular, but following the February upgrade staff will be able to define complex hotspot areas in Ultra tests using the polygon shape tool.
More information about how to add and use hotspot questions is available at:
Sort items by grading status in the Ultra gradebook
Following the February upgrade, when viewing the gradebook in list view, staff can sort the gradebook by the grading status.
Students can see other members of their group in Ultra courses
After the February upgrade, students who have been assigned to groups will be more easily able to see who they are in a group with. However, they will not be able to see any information about groups that they are not a member of, nor will they be able to view detailed information about their other group members. All that will be disclosed when viewing other group members will be their name, their role in the course, and their profile image if they have uploaded one.
Ally alternative format views count towards progress in progress tracking
When documents are uploaded into NILE they are automatically made available in various additional accessible formats by Ally. Following the February upgrade, when students download and view one of Ally’s accessible versions of a document, this will be tracked by Ultra’s progress tracking tool.
You can find out more about Ally at:
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: https://libguides.northampton.ac.uk/learntech/staff/nile-help/who-is-my-learning-technologist
The new features in Blackboard’s January upgrade will be available from the morning of Friday 6th January. This month’s upgrade includes the following new features to Ultra courses:
- Prevent students from editing or deleting Ultra discussion posts after the due date
- Model answer question type supported in Ultra tests
- Improvements to Ultra test randomisation options
Prevent students from editing or deleting Ultra discussion posts after the due date
Prior to the January upgrade, students could continue posting to Ultra discussions after the due date had passed. This created problems for staff when grading discussions. Following this month’s upgrade, staff can automatically lock the discussion after the due date has passed. When ‘Stop discussion activity after due date’ is selected, students can’t create, reply to, or edit posts after the due date. Students with a due date accommodation can continue to create, reply to, and edit posts after the due date.
You can find out more about setting up and using discussions in Ultra courses at: Blackboard Help – Ultra Discussions
Model answer question type supported in Ultra test
Following the January upgrade, when adding an essay question to an Ultra test, staff will be able to include a model answer. The model answer will always be available for staff to view when marking the test, and staff can also configure the test settings to allow students to see the model answer once they have taken the test. As would be expected, regardless of how the test is set up, the model answer cannot be seen by students while they are completing the test.
The option for students to view the model answer is controlled by the ‘Correct Answers’ setting in the ‘Assessment results’ section of the Ultra test settings panel.
Please note that the essay question must be marked in order to display the model answer to students. Therefore, where staff are using model answer questions in a formative test in which students are required to judge their own response(s) against the model answer(s), a quick option for staff would be to assign 1 point per model answer question, and to award the point to everyone who submitted an answer, thus revealing the model answer to students who view their test results.
You can find out more about setting up and using Ultra tests at: Blackboard Help – Ultra Tests
Improvements to Ultra test randomisation options
Prior to the January upgrade, staff were not able to randomise test questions if the test contained text blocks, files, or images. Following the upgrade, staff will be able to enable randomisation when the test has text blocks, files, or images, as these non-question elements will be locked in place, and the test will randomise the questions between the non-question elements.
Staff will also be able to randomise questions in a test that contains page breaks, as the questions will randomise within their assigned page. If a page contains non-question elements, the questions will randomise between those elements.
When there are pages for the test, staff can also randomise page order. If staff randomise the page order, they can also choose to lock the first page into position. This is particularly important if the first page of the test is a cover page or contains test instructions.
You can find out more about randomising Ultra tests at: Blackboard Help – Ultra Tests: Randomising questions and answers
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: https://libguides.northampton.ac.uk/learntech/staff/nile-help/who-is-my-learning-technologist
The new features in Blackboard’s December upgrade will be available from the morning of Friday 2nd December, with the exception of the drag-and-drop and course links improvements, which should be available by Monday 5th December. The December upgrade includes the following new features to Ultra courses, some of which were specifically requested by staff in our ‘What new features do you want to see in your Ultra courses?‘ survey:
- Drag-and-drop content re-ordering improvements
- Course links
- Single student progress report
- Improvements for copying content
- Question banks descriptions and search
- Simpler exit actions for student preview
- Improvements to ‘needs grading’ count for Blackboard Ultra assignments
Drag-and-drop content re-ordering improvements
In response to feedback that the drag-and-drop content re-ordering function was clumsy and difficult to use, Blackboard have improved the way that it works. Following the upgrade, staff should find it easier to grab and move content items in their Ultra courses. Please also note that the location of the content re-ordering tool has moved from the right to the left-hand side of the content item.
Course links
As well as adding links to external web sites, etc., following December’s upgrade, staff will be able to add internal links to items already in an Ultra course. To create a course link, add a new link, and select ‘Create Course Link’.
In this initial release of the course link tool there are some limitations, but the functionality is expected to develop and improve over the coming upgrades.
Linking Exceptions
- In this release, staff cannot create course links using the content editor.
- In this release, staff cannot create course links to folders, learning modules, discussions, and web links.
- Course links to learning modules where force sequence is enabled cannot be created. This is because links could allow users to access something they should not yet access. If a course link to a learning module exists, it will not be possible to enable forced sequence.
Copying Content
When a course is copied into a new course, course links are updated to link within the new course. However, there are exceptions:
- In this release, staff cannot copy course links for documents and third-party LTI content, i.e., course links to anything originally added via the content market, e.g., Turnitin assignments, Kaltura videos, Leganto reading lists.
- When copying or converting from an Original course, the copy process will exclude course links for folders, learning modules, and web links.
Single student progress report
Following on from last month’s upgrade, in which Blackboard introduced the ability for staff to find out more about how their students were interacting with Ultra courses, December’s upgrade adds additional functionality to the course analytics options.
When in grid view in the Ultra gradebook, selecting a student’s name will open up the student grades overview page, which shows an overview of all of that student’s grades in the course. After the December upgrade, staff will be able to view a progress report for a student, as well as details of the last time that the student was active in the course, along with a student activity link.
Improvements for copying content
When copying content into an Ultra course, the copy content panel is quite narrow, which can make it difficult to navigate. December’s upgrade introduces a new, expanded copy content panel.
Staff can find out more about copying content into Ultra courses at: Blackboard Help – Copy Content from Other Courses
Question banks descriptions and search
Following December’s upgrade, staff will be able to add a description to a question bank. These descriptions may be useful for noting the topics or objectives the questions cover. The question bank description is displayed with the question bank title on the question banks page.
December’s upgrade will also bring in the option to search questions banks, with the search facility searching both the name and the description fields of the question bank.
Staff can find out more about using question banks at: Blackboard Help – Question Banks
Simpler exit actions for student preview
December’s upgrade will bring in simpler exit process when viewing a course in student preview mode, allowing staff to exit in two clicks, instead of three.
Improvements to ‘needs grading’ count for Blackboard Ultra assignments
In addition to the above improvements, December’s upgrade also improves the way that the needs grading count works, as it has sometimes provided an incorrect count of the number of items which required grading when assessing work with multiple attempts where ‘last attempt with a grade’ or ‘first attempt with a grade’ was selected in ‘Mark attempts’ in the assignment settings.
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: https://libguides.northampton.ac.uk/learntech/staff/nile-help/who-is-my-learning-technologist
Blackboard’s November upgrade will be available from the morning of Friday 4th November. The November upgrade includes the following new features, many of which were specifically requested by staff in our ‘What new features do you want to see in your Ultra courses?‘ survey:
- Hotspot questions in Ultra tests
- Course activity report under the analytics tab in Ultra courses
- Student course access data available in student grades overview
- Improved grade history report available in the Ultra gradebook
- ‘Sticky’ Ultra gradebook view
- Turnitin icon is displayed in Turnitin assignments in Ultra and Original courses
- All content market icons appear alongside the content item in Ultra courses
- Improvements to unread messages indicator
Hotspot questions in Ultra tests
Following the November upgrade, staff will be able to use hotspot questions in Ultra tests.
More information about how to add and use hotspot questions is available at:
Course activity report under the analytics tab in Ultra courses
Staff are keen to know more about student activity in their NILE courses, and October’s upgrade saw the introduction of student progress reports for course content items in Ultra courses.
Following on from this, the November upgrade introduces a new feature in the ‘Analytics’ section of Ultra courses, where staff can find out more about students’ activity in their courses.
From here, staff can view reports about their students’ course activity related to grades, and individual students’ course activity data.
More information about Ultra course analytics is available from:
- Blackboard Help – Course Activity Related to Grades
- Blackboard Help – View Individual Student Course Activity Data
Student course access data available in student grades overview
When in grid view in the Ultra gradebook, selecting a student’s name opens up the student grades overview page, which shows an overview of all of that student’s grades in the course. After the November upgrade, the student grades overview will include details of the last time that the student was active in the course, along with a ‘Student Activity’ link which, when selected, will provide more details of the student’s activity in the course over time.
Improved grade history report available in the Ultra gradebook
Following the November upgrade, staff will be able to able to download a more detailed grade history report in the Ultra gradebook. When downloading marks, staff will be able to:
- Select which gradebook items to include in the download,
- Include deleted items, and,
- Select timeframes to optimise the amount of information downloaded.
The download file report will include additional information
- Student username
- Grade category
- Submission receipt: The submission receipt number
- Submission attempt: The number of the submitted attempt
These changes will make it easier for staff to access and search the log of changes to student grades.
‘Sticky’ Ultra gradebook view
November’s upgrade will make the Ultra gradebook view ‘sticky’, meaning that Ultra will remember your last gradebook view, list or grid, and will always open the gradebook in that view. If you change your gradebook view, Ultra will then update your preference and open the gradebook in your new preferred view.
Turnitin icon is displayed in Turnitin assignments in Ultra and Original courses
Following the November upgrade, all new and existing Turnitin assignments in Ultra and Original courses will be more clearly identifiable as the Turnitin icon will be displayed to staff and students next to the assignment.
All content market icons appear alongside the content item in Ultra courses
Following on from previous item, all items selected from the content market and added to Ultra courses will, after the November upgrade, be displayed with their icons as shown in the content market. Existing items in Ultra courses which have been selected from the content market will be automatically updated to display the correct icon. This will make it easier for staff and students to identify and locate particular types of content in their Ultra courses.
Improvements to unread messages indicator
The current unread messages indicator does not quickly and easily indicate in which course the unread message is located. After the November upgrade, the unread messages indicator will be more prominent. In future upgrades, courses with unread messages will be automatically shown at the top of the messages panel in NILE.
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: https://libguides.northampton.ac.uk/learntech/staff/nile-help/who-is-my-learning-technologist
Details of this month’s upgrade, and all previous upgrades, are available at: https://blogs.northampton.ac.uk/learntech/category/nile-update/
Many thanks indeed to everyone who took the time to complete our ‘What new features do you want to see in your Ultra courses?’ survey that ran during August and September 2022.
The good news is that most features that staff wanted to see in Ultra are either already available or are in development. The University of Northampton, along with many other institutions worldwide who use Ultra, have been working with Blackboard to provide ideas and feedback about Ultra, and in response to this Blackboard have recently tripled the size of their Ultra development team and have substantially increased the rate at which Ultra is developing and improving.
Below are the responses that we received from staff about what improvements they wanted to see in Ultra, along with a response from the Learning Technology Team about whether the improvements are available or coming soon. Please note that where improvements are planned for one to three months, they are very likely to be implemented. Improvements planned for three to six months are in development, and is it fairly likely that these will be implemented. Improvements planned for six to twelve months are in the early stages of development and may be implemented, but this could change.
Also, did you know that new features are added to Ultra courses every month? Normally, Blackboard is upgraded on the evening of the first Thursday of each month, meaning that new tools are features are available on the first Friday of each month. The Learning Technology Team provide a summary of all the new features that are coming to Ultra courses, and you can keep up-to-date with each month’s upgrade at: https://blogs.northampton.ac.uk/learntech/category/nile-update/
Survey responses from staff and replies from the Learning Technology Team
Response 1. “Exportable Rubrics – I would like to be able to create a rubric in NILE Ultra and then download it as a document (PDF?) and then add that to the NILE section on Assessments so students can easily see the criteria. I’d also like the rubric window when assessing to take up more of the screen – currently it’s over to the right hand side in a really narrow space which can be difficult when giving longer feedback.”
Response 2. “Rubrics in a grid.”
Reply to 1 & 2: When a Blackboard Ultra assignment, test, discussion or journal is marked with a rubric, students are automatically able to view the rubric as many times as they like prior to submitting the assignment. Students can do this by selecting the assignment and choosing ‘This item is marked with a rubric’. This will open the rubric, but will not begin the submission process, so students can come back as often as they like in order to view the rubric.
Blackboard are also aware that the current view of the rubric is narrow, and there have been many requests to Blackboard for the complete rubric to be viewable in an expanded, grid, or pop-out view. Blackboard have added this to their roadmap for Ultra, and improvements to the ways that rubrics can be viewed will be available in a future upgrade, currently planned for release in the next six to twelve months.
Response 3. “Analytics: The ability to track student engagement with NILE sites. With the old NILE system, it was possible to see how engaged students had been with modules, e.g., if they’d downloaded items, looked at lecture slides etc. Not only was this useful to see if students were active on the course, but it also helped if they were claiming that they had been but this wasn’t the case. It was also sometimes a vital tool when there were submission problems, to be able to see if the student had actually been on the site and attempted to submit. It’s really important that module leaders are able to access this information quickly and easily.”
Response 4. “An ability or an easier ability to track student interactivity within the NILE sites – when they last came on and when they or if they have accessed certain files/information/content.”
Reply to 3 & 4: Following the October 2022 upgrade, when track progress is enabled, it is possible to view student interactions with many different types of content in Ultra courses. Once track progress is enabled, the student progress option is automatically enabled for content items for which student progress can be tracked.
Blackboard are also planning further improvements to the analytics that are available in Ultra courses, and have recently announced that a student overview tool will be included in an upgrade in three to six months’ time. The planned student overview tool is intended to provide a comprehensive overview of each student’s activity, performance, and progress in their Ultra course.
Response 5. “Leader boards.”
Reply to 5: Leader boards in Original courses were provided by a third-party supplier who has, unfortunately, chosen to discontinue work on this tool. This means that the leader board functionality is not available in Ultra courses, and will be also be unavailable in Original courses by the end of 2023 when Blackboard will remove the underlying technology (known as ‘building blocks’) that supported the leader board tool. At present, there do not appear to be any alternative tools that provide this functionality.
Response 6. “Sorting or ordering items without dragging.”
Reply to 6: A number of staff using Ultra have reported that drag-and-drop ordering and re-ordering of content is problematic, especially when using a laptop with a smaller screen. Blackboard are aware of this and are making improvements to the way that content is moved in Ultra courses, and which will be included in a future upgrade in approximately one to three months’ time.
Response 7. “Multiple level folder structures.”
Reply to 7: At present, a top-level folder (or a top-level learning module) can contain only one other folder. The rationale for this is that content is less likely to become lost in complex folder structures, and to ensure that, once students have opened the course, no content item is more than three clicks away. To better support students trying to find content in their Ultra courses, Blackboard have announced that a course content search function will be included in a upcoming upgrade in one to three months’ time.
Response 8. “Thumbnails for external videos.”
Reply to 8: When adding an external video from both Kaltura and YouTube to an Ultra document, a video thumbnail is now available.
More information about creating and working with Ultra documents is available from Blackboard’s Create Content Items or Documents page.
Response 9. “Hotspots questions.”
Reply to 9: Hotspot questions are currently in development for Ultra tests, and Blackboard have announced that these are planned for release in a future upgrade in one to three months’ time.
Response 10. “Groups on timed assignments.”
Reply to 10: A timed test cannot currently be assigned to a group or groups of students. It is not known when or whether Blackboard are likely to incorporate this into a future upgrade, but we have sent this idea to Blackboard via their Ideas Exchange platform. Currently the idea has been marked by Blackboard as ‘future consideration’ which means that they will consider implementing it in a future upgrade. This is a positive response from Blackboard, as ideas that they do not feel are viable are usually marked ‘unlikely to implement’.
Response 11. “Surveys.”
Reply to 11: Surveys, which were available in Original courses, are not currently available in Ultra courses. However, this functionality has been requested and Blackboard have announced that they are planning to implement surveys in Ultra courses as part of a wider upgrade that brings in other additional functionality around the use of formative and ungraded assessments, as well as surveys. The planned release time for the whole range of tools that support formative and ungraded assessments, and surveys, is three to twelve months.
Response 12. “Gradebook is a mess, confusing and difficult to navigate.”
Response 13. “Gradebook returned to old format GC [Grade Centre].”
Reply to 12 & 13: Blackboard have made a number of improvements to the Ultra gradebook, and have more improvements planned. The key improvements to the gradebook that are already in place are the ability to reorder gradebook columns, gradebook search, a gradebook filter which allows staff to apply filters the gradebook based on which assignments and/or which students they want to see, and a grid view of the gradebook which presents a view which looks much more like the old grade centre in Original courses.
A number of additional improvements are also planned for gradebook. Upgrades planned for the next one to three months will make the Ultra gradebook easier to navigate, and will allow staff to grade student work more efficiently by adding in features that allow quicker access to submissions that need grading, easier switching between multiple submission attempts, and reducing the overall number of clicks needed to grade and feedback on an assignment submission. Other gradebook improvement include features that will provide greater insights into student performance and activity, and a remembered gradebook view, in which the gradebook will remember your preferred gradebook view (list view or grid view) and will default to this each time that you access the gradebook. Future upgrades will also prevent undeployed tests from showing in the gradebook, which will improve the navigability of the gradebook for staff who have a lot of tests in their Ultra courses.
Response 14. “I would like to be able to add visuals to announcements. We work on a creative course and not to be able to use visuals is a problem.”
Reply to 14: When creating an announcement, it is now possible to add visuals using the attachment option (the paperclip icon) in the content editor.
If the attachment is an image file that can be displayed inline (e.g., a JPG or PNG file) then the image will be displayed along with the body text of the announcement. However, please note that when the announcement is emailed, the image will not be included in the body of the email – it will only be viewable when viewing the announcement in the Ultra course.
Response 15. “To be able to find contact details of students enrolled on the module site. This was really useful on the old NILE sites.”
Reply to 15: The ‘Class register’ in Ultra courses contains details of all the students enrolled on the course. Selecting the student from the class register opens a side panel which contains more information about the student, including their email address, which is visible under the account information section.
Response 16. “To be able to have a subject NILE site not linked to a specific module or year, in order to communicate across the subject area.”
Reply to 16: As well as module-level NILE courses, all programmes also have their own programme-level NILE course, which contains all students from all years studying the subject.
Response 17. “The option to have multiple submissions for group assessments.”
Response 18. “Group assessment multiple submissions.”
Reply to 17 & 18: Following recent upgrades, it is now possible to allow multiple submissions for group assessments when using Blackboard Ultra assignments.
Response 19. “Feedback on students’ individual test questions.”
Response 20. “The ability to do short answer questions – so with the Original site we could create a question, the students could attempt and answer and then after they submit we could provide a model answer- it was a quick and effective way to create a mock exam.
Reply to 19 & 20: Automatic feedback for both the correct and incorrect answers can now be included on a number of types of computer-marked test questions, including true/false, multiple choice, multiple option, fill in the blank, matching question, calculated formula, and calculated numeric. Students can currently answer short answer or essay questions in Ultra tests, but it is not possible to provide automatic feedback or model answers for this question type. However, Blackboard are aware that this functionality needs to be included in Ultra and have announced that the model answer question type is in development and will be included in a future release in approximately three to six months’ time.
Response 21. “The ability to send reminders to specific people about overdue assignments …”
Reply to 21: The ‘Email non-submitters’ function in Turnitin assignments is, unfortunately, now no longer available in either Original or Ultra courses due to a change in the way that Turnitin is integrated with Blackboard. However, Blackboard are planning to implement a number of improvements to the messaging tool in Ultra courses, including the ability to send messages (via email) to non-submitters. The improvements to the messaging tool are planned for inclusion in upgrades in three to six months’ time.
Response 22. “Remove a student preview – at the moment we test the site and then we are unable to remove the student preview ‘student’, so they stay on the NILE site and show up as late or not submitted.”
Reply to 22: Following a recent upgrade, this is now possible to do in Ultra courses. When exiting the student preview, staff will be given the option of keeping the student preview user, or of completely deleting it.
Response 23. “The ability to attach feedback or a mark sheet to a submission for e.g., a dissertation or an oral presentation. This has vanished from the old NILE sites and this is problematic. We used to be able to attach this in the Grade Centre [in Original courses].”
Reply to 23: When using Turnitin in Ultra courses it is not possible to attach an external document to the feedback. However, it is possible to do this with Blackboard Ultra assignments. Blackboard Ultra assignments can be used effectively for oral presentations, as the offline submission option means that a Blackboard Ultra assignment can be used even though students are not submitting any work. For more about this particular workflow, please see Ultra Workflow 5: Performance, Presentation, Viva, Artefact.
While Blackboard Ultra assignments currently do not allow for submitted work to be checked for matching text (as would be needed for a dissertation or other text-based assignment), Blackboard and Turnitin are working on an integration that will allow work submitted to a Blackboard Ultra assignment to be checked for matching text using Turnitin. This will create a ‘best of both worlds’ situation in which the grading and feedback tools in Blackboard Ultra assignments can be used (including the ability to upload external documents as part of the feedback), while also being able to check students’ work for matching text using Turnitin. This feature is scheduled for release in September 2023.
Response 24. “Grading notes. Vital for moderation & external examiners.”
Response 25. Private area for moderation / second markers comments. We do not usually enable students to see both markers’ comments, but a combined version. There is currently nowhere on Ultra to save second markers or moderators comments.
Reply to 24 & 25: The process of recording comments about the grading process, including internal moderation notes, is necessarily different in Ultra courses to the process used in Original courses. In order to enable staff to privately upload and store documents and information related to grading and moderation, each Ultra course has its own hidden folder called ‘Grading, feedback, and verification’ and this can be used to store all documents relating to assessment moderation.
More details about this process can be found on our Grading, feedback, and verification processes in NILE page.
More information
As ever, please get in touch with your learning technologist if you would like any more information about any of the features discussed in this blog post.
