Learn Ultra provides an opportunity to optimize your course and take advantage of new and recommended features. This document helps you walk through your options and become aware of key checkpoints when you create, copy, or convert your course.
Table of Contents
Additional Resources
Blackboard Support: “All you need is the help button” Blackboard Support links directly to the information you need based on your current task in Learn Ultra.
Ultra Course Preview
In Ultra Course Preview, you can see exactly how your content will convert before you decide to permanently switch to the new Learn Ultra. You can Preview courses that aren't currently available to students.
Converting a Course Shell
Converting a Master/Template
You'll receive an email notification when your course is ready to optimize.
The conversion process is under continuous improvement:
- Content items are converted to Ultra documents—some loss of formatting to text and files that you added in the editor may occur
- Folders limited to two sub-levels
- File attachments are grouped together in alphabetical order at the end of the content
- Assignments, including group assignments, are converted to Ultra assignments (attempt data, submissions, and grades removed during conversion).
- Note: Assignments with maximum points that contain decimal places, the points possible value is truncated and rounded down to the nearest whole number.
- Assignments with SafeAssign enabled
- Calendar due dates are converted
- Tests are converted with Calculated Formula, Essay, Fill in the Blank, Fill in Multiple Blanks, Matching, Multiple Choice, Multiple Answer, and True/False question types
- Unsupported question types and test options are removed
- Attempt data and submissions are removed during conversion
- Maximum points or question point values that contain a decimal are truncated and rounded down to the nearest whole number
- Original questions pools are converted to Ultra question banks and appear on the Reuse Questions page
- Existing tags added to questions in the Original course view appear on the Reuse Questions page
- Original question sets and random blocks are converted to Ultra question banks (see: Question Banks for the latest updates)
- Percentage-range and percentage rubrics are converted without descriptions
- All other rubric types are converted to percentage rubrics, such as points and point range
- All Original rubric settings are now set to the Ultra rubric defaults, such as display to students
- Discussions are flattened to four levels of threading—ability to view replies to replies—with some settings removed
- An Original graded forum that doesn't allow members to create new threads keeps the current behavior described above
- An Original graded forum that allows members to create new threads is converted to a graded discussion in Ultra and all of its seed child threads and replies are deleted
- Note: Group discussion boards, forums, and threads aren't converted
- Course announcements are converted with limitations:
- Rich text announcements are converted to plain text
- Some embedded images may appear
- No attachments and date restrictions included
- Course links may appear but won't take users to the content items
- Gradebooks are converted with some limitations
- Lesson plan content is organized into two sub-levels of folders
- Mashup links to the original content appear, if possible
- Web links are converted
- Course links to assignments and discussions only with limitations
- Goal alignments are converted for supported items in the Learn Ultra and made visible to students
- SCORM package attempt data is converted to Ultra, but the data is lost if you go back to the Original course view
- Learning modules content organized into two sub-levels of folders
- Journals: Original course view journals, prompts, and settings are included in course archives and exports and are converted in the Learn Ultra course view. Only journals from content areas in Original courses appear in Ultra courses on the Course Content page. At this time, comments and student entries aren’t included when you restore an archive.
- Course messages
- Course links to tools and content other than Assignments and Discussions:
- Blank Page content type
- Syllabus content type
- Textbook content type
- Module pages
- Lesson plans
- Surveys
- Tasks tool
- Wikis and blogs
- Groups not part of a group set don't appear on the Course Groups page
- Self-enroll signup sheets
- Group discussion boards, forums, and threads
- Self and Peer Assessments
- Delegated grading settings
- Unsupported test options and question types
- Achievements
- Guest access (coming soon)
Ultra Course Content
Evaluate your learning module and folder structure. You can create two levels of content to provide easier navigation and management on smaller screens.
Example: Create a folder to organize your Welcome, Meet the Instructor, Meet your Classmates, and required resources.
Recommendation: Your Syllabus (inline & downloadable) should be updated and available as a stand alone document for easy reference.
Example: Organize your content by week, module, topic, unit, and/or type.
- Create: A layer opens for you to choose the content type you want to add. Add learning modules, documents, links, folders, assignments, tests, discussions, and journals.
- Copy Content: Copy an entire course and/or select items from any of the courses you teach.
Recommendation: Review course content before you copy, determine if you want to copy all or part of the course content.
- Upload: Upload content from your local drive. You can also import from Cloud Storage, select from the Content Market, or your Content Collection.
- Content Collection: Your Content Collection is created as you upload files to your course. When you upload a file, what you see is a link to the file, the original file is stored in the Content Collection. You can use the Content Collection to organize, share, and reuse content.
Example: Provide supplemental materials based on student performance on a graded item to personalize the learning path.
Want to copy an entire Original course or import a course package?
Batch Edit visibility
Ultra Participation and Engagement
Note: Review course Announcement before you copy a course, if you do not want to copy the all Announcements, exclude them from your copy. You cannot bulk delete course Announcements.
Note: When creating discussions from the navigation bar, you have the option to include the discussion on the Course Content page. Discussions created inline on the Course Content automatically appear under the Discussions navigation menu. Take advantage of the the new Discussion Analysis to evaluate graded discussions.
Note: If you have course groups and group sets in your Original course view and convert to Learn Ultra course view, the group sets appear on the Course Groups page. Groups not part of a group set don't appear on the Course Groups page.If you used course group sets to create group assignments in your Original course, those group assignments convert.
Note: The initial release includes a basic grading workflow, grades are manually entered in the gradebook. Full grading functionality and support for course copy, conversion, and continued enhancements are on the roadmap.
Note: Ultra Announcements and Messages replace Send Email in Original.
Note: Participatory items are marked as complete when the student has made a submission or contributed to a discussion. Non-participatory content is marked as complete after the student has viewed it. Students can mark complete items like Documents, uploaded files, or links once they have opened them. For Assessments, Tests, Journals, or Discussions, the item will be automatically marked as complete once the student has submitted. When all items in a Folder or Module have been completed, the entire folder is automatically marked as complete.
Ultra Assessment
Create or copy assignments and tests for student assessment and take advantage of security, submission, and grading options.
Note: Check and add/edit Assignment settings such as Availability, Groups, Conversations, Due Date, Rubrics, Alignments, and Grade Categories.
- Test Options: You can provide automated question feedback and prevent cheating through features like question banks, access codes, timers, display, navigation, and randomization.
- NEW: Hotspot Questions
- Coming Soon: Import questions from a file
You can select from the following Test options:
- Maximum Points: The maximum points for the test will calculate automatically based on the total point value of your questions. You set the point value for each question as you create it.
- Attempts Allowed: When you set up a test, determine how many times learners will be able to take it. Currently, you can set it anywhere between one and 10 or it can be unlimited. You can control how the grade will be calculated when using multiple attempts (e.g., average score, highest try, lowest try, first graded, last graded)
- Time Limits: You can set a time limit for the test. Learners will be informed of the limit before they start the test, and they will see the timer as they take it. Once the time limit is reached, the teacher can choose to have the test submitted automatically or to allow learners to continue working on the test after the time limit expires. If extra time is allowed, questions answered after time expires are indicated in the system.
- Randomize Questions: When selected, the order of questions will be randomized. Selecting this option is useful when multiple attempts are in use. This feature cannot be used if you have added a text block or an attachment to your test.
- Randomize Answers: When selected, the order of the answers within questions are randomized. This applies to multiple choice and matching question types.
- Display One Question at a Time: When selected, the test is presented as one question at a time. Students use the navigation button to progress to the next question.
- Question Pools: Select a subset of questions from a larger set of questions. Each learner gets a slightly different mix of questions.
- Assessment Grade: When enabled, the assessment grade is automatically posted to the student upon submission. This applies only to assessment questions which are automatically graded by the system. To manually determine when to post an individual grade or to post all grades as the same time, do not enable this feature.
- Group Tests: You can create a group test. You will be able to grade for each group and can also change a group member's individual grade.
- Freeform Tests: You can create a test without questions but with text to which learners can respond. You could ask for attached files and/or a free-form response.
What happens to Original course question pools when converted to Ultra?
Your Original course's question pools appear as Ultra question banks after conversion. Unsupported question types are removed.
When you convert an Original course to Ultra, two decimal places carry over.
On the Question Banks page, can I import files from the Original Course View?
Yes, you can import these files:
- Course packages that contain question pools
- Only the question pools are imported and converted to Ultra question banks.
- Question pools exported from the Original Course View
- If you unpackage the file and change it, the import may fail.
On the Question Banks page, can I import files from the Ultra Course View?
Yes, you can import Ultra Course View packages that contain question banks. Only the question banks are imported.
On the Question Banks page, can I import files from a third-party or publisher?
Yes, you can import question banks from a third-party or publisher if the package is in a Blackboard Original or Ultra format previously listed.
What workarounds can I use?
If you have other types of files that work in the Original Course View, you can import the files into an Original course and export them on the Pools page. Next, import the ZIP files into your Ultra course on the Question Banks page.
You can also convert an Original course to Ultra to convert the existing question pools into Ultra question banks.
- If you download more than one submission, the files will be zipped with each submission saved as a separate file.
- If a learner submitted multiple attempts, the downloaded ZIP file will contain all files for that learner.
- If the learner submitted using the text editor, the submission will be downloaded as a TXT file.
Ultra Performance and Feedback
- Student Progress report for course content: You can view the path each student is taking on the course, content, progress with relevant date/time stamps and current visibility status of each item.
- Annotate: You can read files inline and annotate to provide feedback directly in the system. Supported document types include Microsoft Word (DOC, DOCX), PowerPoint (PPT, PPTX), and Portable Document Format (PDF).
- Course Activity: You can view how well your students are performing and how much they are interacting with your course.
- Question Analysis: You can review statistics on overall performance, assessment quality, and individual questions.
New: A flag appears for students with alerts in the Course Activity Report. Instructors can customize course alerts based on the number of days a student is inactive in the course and if a student’s overall grade falls below a specific percentage.
Ultra Gradebook
As you create gradable content (assignments, assessments, and discussions), corresponding gradebook columns are automatically generated.
- Grid View presents rows and columns similar to Original view.
- Student Grid view includes all of the learners and items. It is similar to spreadsheet with columns (items), rows (learner), and cells.
- You can search the Gradebook by columns and categories to check on the status for a single gradebook column or create a simple, filtered view of a specific gradebook category across all learners.
- You can search the submission list to find a specific submission or submission status for a specific learner.
- You can filter for individual consultations.
- List View allows you to sort items that need to be graded “Grading Status”, new Submissions are highlighted in purple.
- Gradable Items list is the default view listing all items in the gradebook. In this view, you can move the items to reorganize the gradebook. It does not include the names of learners.
- Students list students by name and Last Access, click to view the students submissions table including status, grade, and feedback.
- Student Activity: You can view student activity and details and visually compare student to the rest of the class.
Want to see what needs grading?
Filter by Grading Status: Needs Grading
Note: As needed, you can add a row/column for an item or calculation by selecting the plus sign that appears between existing rows/columns. Rearrange items in the row view, by pressing the Move icon in the row of the item you want to move and dragging the item to the new location.
Gradebook Settings
- Grading Schemas map percentages to letter grades or some other notation for reporting performance.
- Student Performance allows you to receive alerts in your Activity Stream about student performance and activity based on the number of days student is inactive and/or when a student’s overall grade falls below the indicated percentage.
- Assign Automatic Zeros for past due work.
- Overall Grade helps student keep track of their performance, you can select the gradebook items to include and to format to display (calculated by points, weighted, or formulas).
- Grade Categories group similar coursework, you can add custom categories to the gradebook.
New: Flexible Grading, Parallel and Anonymous Grading, Partial and Negative Credit, and Formative Assessment indicator