About the project

WHY CHANGE TO BLACKBOARD ULTRA NOW?

Because students urgently need a mobile-friendly, more accessible learning management system (LMS). When the pandemic forced schools online, it exacerbated a known issue: students were struggling accessing courses on their mobile devices because our current LMS was not up to the task. Now, more than 70% of students are accessing their courses on mobile devices. Blackboard Ultra will resolve many of these issues and serve our students better.

WHAT'S THE EXPECTED TIMELINE?

The Move to Ultra started in May 2021 and is slated to end August 2022. It is being rolled out in the following four phases:

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS IN DOING THIS?

• Ultra is mobile friendly, more accessible, and more modern.

• The Ultra Course Experience is more learner-centered, and easier to navigate and locate content.

• The design of Ultra means a consistent course experience for everyone.

• Blackboard Ultra is easier to learn and easier to use for instructors and students.


WHAT DO I NEED TO DO TO TRANSFER MY COURSES?

  • First, September will focus on preparing your Winter courses for conversion. The first step for everyone will be to locate the best existing version of each course in Original and create backups of the files you want to keep.

  • Second, you will need to make a decision about which of the two approaches described on this site you want to take to move each course into Ultra.


CAN’T I JUST EXPORT AND IMPORT MY COURSE INTO ULTRA?

  • The pilot showed us that this is not possible for a successful conversion. Doing so breaks many things and there is no way of tracking the issues. Plus many of the old courses are bloated in size and will max out the 2.5Gb Ultra course cap.

  • Instead we will be using the Blackboard Ultra Course Preview conversion tool to help. You will need to do some clean up on the old courses before using the tool, but the tool tracks conversion exceptions so you can know what to fix in your converted course.


WILL I BE COMPENSATED FOR THIS WORK?

Yes there is compensation. You must speak with your Associate Dean for clarity on how this applies to you.


WILL TRAINING BE AVAILABLE?

  • Yes, there will be many training sessions offered throughout this process. If you can't attend scheduled training, session recordings will be available.

  • You can access the training schedule and session recordings on the Blackboard Ultra Training page.


WHERE WILL I GO WITH MY QUESTIONS AND SUPPORT NEEDS?

  • For questions about the courses you should transition, compensation or workload, we recommend you speak with your AD.

  • For questions about Blackboard Ultra and converting your course:

    • this website is the first stop - we will use this website throughout the project.

    • the Virtual Instructional Support Studio will continue offering Blackboard support.

    • you can also subscribe to the BB HUB where we post updates about Blackboard.


HOW MANY COURSES WILL I NEED TO CONVERT?

You will ultimately need to convert all your courses. However, you should start with your Winter semester courses so you are prepared to teach in Ultra in January. When you finish converting your winter courses, you can move on to your Summer and Fall courses.


HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE TO CONVERT A COURSE?

Each course will take a different amount of time to convert due to various factors such as how much cleanup is required, course complexity, and familiarity with Ultra. The first course you convert will likely take longer as you learn the process and tools. As you attend training and become familiar with the work, the process will become more familiar and quicker.


WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO MY OLD COURSES IN ORIGINAL?

We plan to close Blackboard Original in Spring/Summer 2022. At that time, you won’t be able to open old Original courses. Once Blackboard Original is closed, other feature of Ultra will be enabled. We will delete all old Original courses according to our regular course purge policy.