Blackboard Ultra Crash Course

Blackboard Ultra is Blackboard's new interface. While there are some technical changes from Blackboard Original, most of the changes have to do with the interface, settings, and workflow.

In this crash course, we'll take you through the main features of Blackboard Ultra so you can get the information you need.

Table of Contents

New to Ultra? Start Here

A Quick Tour

Blackboard Ultra Terminology

The Crash Course

1. Course Tour: What Could an Ultra Course Look Like?

2. The First Look at Blackboard Ultra

3. Building Assessments

4. The Gradebook

5. Groups and Accommodations

Also, please take a look at our What to do with your Converted Course Webinar and our article on Copying Ultra Converted Content Into an Empty Course Shell.

New to Ultra? Start Here

A Quick Tour

This short video covers the interface and takes a quick look at all the main components that make up the Blackboard Ultra interface.

Blackboard Ultra Terminology

For those who are experienced with Blackboard Original, there a number of new terms that come with Ultra. Blackboard’s resource Learn the Terms has a list of terms for instructors to be aware of. 

The Crash Course

In this series of webinars, we'll go through the vast majority of elements of Blackboard Ultra together. We'll start with a tour of what a Blackboard Ultra course could look like, and then dive into some instructional webinars. You'll learn how to build content and assessments, grade assessments, create groups, and set accommodations. Each video has time stamps so you can find the particular section you're looking for.

The webinars are:

• Course Tour: What Could an Ultra Course Look like?
• First Look at Blackboard Ultra
• Building Assessments
• Using the Gradebook
• Groups and Accommodations

View the YouTube playlist of all the webinars here.

1. Course Tour: What Could an Ultra Course Look Like?

Blackboard Ultra courses look quite a bit different than Blackboard Original courses. We'll have to adapt to the new organization and structure available to us. We're going to start this crash course with a tour of what a Blackboard Ultra course could look like.

This course is asynchronous and is built up mostly of modules, documents, and assessments. In the instructional webinars after this tour, you'll learn how to create all these learning items and more.

2. The First Look at Blackboard Ultra

In this video, an Instructional Designer from the Teaching & Learning Center dives into several introductory elements of Blackboard Ultra. The first half explores the menu and content areas, while the second half focuses on creating content: documents, folders, and modules.

The Topics Covered Are:

• The calendar
• Discussion Boards
• A Quick Look at Gradebook
• Messages
• The Class Roster
• Setting a Course image
• Announcements
• Books and Tools
• Creating Documents
• Folders and Modules
• Batch Edit

Use the timestamps to find the section you want, or watch the whole thing to get a good sense of Blackboard Ultra.

3. Building Assessments

Assessments work a little differently in Ultra than Original. In Ultra, tests and assignments are similar. You can make assignments with a series of short answer questions, or quizzes that have essay questions that use Safe Assign. Whether an assessment acts as a traditional test or assignment depends on how you set it up. Watch this webinar to explore the details of assessments in Blackboard.

The Topics Covered Are:

• How Students Access Assessments
• Question Banks and Pools
• Creating Questions in Tests and Quizzes
• Test and Quiz Settings
• Release Conditions
• Class Conversations and Student View
• Assignments and Settings
• Assignments from the Student View
• Grading an Assignment
• Journals

Use the timestamps to find the section you want, or watch the whole thing to get a good sense of assessments in Blackboard Ultra.

4. Using The Gradebook

Blackboard Ultra's gradebook looks a little different than Original, but has all the same features plus some additional quality of life improvements. For example, you are able to edit assessments from the Gradebook, you can control when grades are posted, and you can search for students or specific assignments easily. Watch this webinar to explore how to use the Gradebook in Blackboard Ultra.

The Topics Covered Are: 

• Gradable Items Page
• Grid View Overview
• Gradebook Settings (including automatic 0s and Grade Categories)
• Manipulating Items from the Grid View
• Overall Grade Setup
• Submitting Work as a Student
• Grading Student Work
• Student View of Gradebook

Use the timestamps to find the section you want, or watch the whole thing to get a good sense of assessments in Blackboard Ultra.

5. Groups and Accommodations

In this webinar, we take a look at how to create groups and assign them to assessments. We'll explore both manual and self enrolled groups. We'll also look at how you can set accommodations and exceptions. Watch this webinar to explore how to create groups and set accommodations/exceptions.

The topics covered are:

• Creating Custom Groups
• Assigning groups to an assignment
• Student view of groups
• Marking group assignments
• Creating self-enroll groups
• Student view of self-enroll groups
• Facilitating Group work
• Accommodations
• Exceptions

Use the timestamps to find the section you want, or watch the whole thing to get a good sense of groups and accommodations/exceptions in Blackboard Ultra.

Conclusion

The above series of webinars cover the vast majority of topics you need to know to successfully teach in Blackboard Ultra. Our Blackboard Ultra website contains a number of articles that cover all the topics from the webinars above plus more.

Reminder: Please take a look at our What to do with your Converted Course Webinar and our article on Copying Ultra Converted Content Into an Empty Course Shell.

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