Rollout
Ultra Courses are now available through the Blackboard Course Generator to create for the fall 2024 term.
We encourage faculty to start creating their courses early. Even though we are still in the Blackboard LMS, Ultra Courses are very different from your Original Courses. You will need some time to review your copied content or create a new course. To help you get started we have a Getting Started Guide (pdf) available to walk you through the process.
Timeline
The timeline below helps give you an overview of the transition process for enabling Ultra courses within our current Blackboard LMS.
| Term | Development | Impact |
|---|---|---|
| Fall 2023 | Ultra Courses used by Law School for credit bearing courses | All Law School has transitioned to using Blackboard Ultra courses. When creating courses through the Blackboard Courses Generator the Law School template course is applied. In fall 2024, faculty will be able to choose existing Ultra Courses to copy from through the Blackboard Course Generator or create the blank Law School template course. |
| Start of Spring 2024 | Pilot Courses being taught in Ultra Courses | Several instructors from different disciplines have completed training and teaching with Ultra for the spring. They are working with IT Academic Technology for support and helping to determine training needs for the rollout of all courses using Ultra in fall 2024. |
| Spring 2024 - Summer 2024 | Training and Resources Available | All users that have access to the Blackboard Course Generator will be able to create a Non-Academic Ultra Course to use as a sandbox course for training and development. Instructors are encouraged to adopt Ultra Courses early. Training will be available through the entire transition process with online and on-campus training opportunities. Training information can be found on the Ultra webpage. |
| Summer 2024 | Instructors can opt-in to teaching with Ultra Courses | For the Summer 2024 term, Blackboard courses, by default when using the Blackboard Course Generator will be in the Ultra Course view staring in mid-April. If you are teaching in the summer and wish to keep your course in the Original format, it is advised to create before the mid-April timeline. If you need help, please contactsupport@wm.edu with questions. |
| Late Spring 2024 -Fall 2024 | All new Non-Academic Courses will be created as a Ultra Course | Non-Academic Course creation through the Blackboard Course Generator will be in the Ultra Course View. Original Non-Academic Courses in the system will remain in Blackboard and can still be accessed in the users account under the Courses tab. User can choose to move over Original course content to a new Non-Academic course if desired through the Ultra course copy content feature |
| Late Spring 2024 -Fall 2024 | Dossier and Tenure Course Creation | All Dossier and Tenure courses that are created through the Blackboard Course Generator will remain as an Original Course. Dossier and Tenure are created with a template that has been approved via the Dean's Office. All copies of the Dossier will remain as an Original Course and can be accessed in the Blackboard Course Generator under the Dossier section. |
| Fall 2024 | All W&M Academic Courses offered in Ultra Course View | Transition to Ultra Courses complete for Academic Courses. All newly created courses will be taught in Ultra. Instructors will retain access to past Academic and Non-Academic Original Courses per W&M retention policy. Instructors will have access to copy Original Courses to Ultra Courses through the copy content process within the Ultra course. The Blackboard Course Generator will only allow instructors to choose an Ultra course to copy from in the listing. |
Training and Support Resources for Moving to Ultra
Documentation and Communication ArchiveReaching faculty and communicating the importance of preparing for this change has been a critical aspect of this transition. View an archive of past messages. |
Live Support MeetingsThroughout the transition, IT will be hosting office hours regularly via Zoom and on-campus. Hours will be posted on the IT website and Digest. If you are interested in hosting a Department Office Hour for your faculty, please contact IT Support at [[support]] to schedule a date and time. |
Sample Course (Student Experience)Do you want to experience an Ultra Course as a student? Self-enroll in the Ultra template course. |
Past Events and Training
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Visit the Blackboard Ultra website to access training videos
What faculty are saying about Ultra
"Embracing the Ultra Course in Blackboard has been a surprisingly painless experience. With minimal training, I found myself navigating and designing my course with surprising ease and autonomy. The platform uses a more user-friendly interface, a marked improvement over the traditional Blackboard. What truly enhanced this journey were the concise, yet informative training videos that the Blackboard IT Team created to support the transition to Ultra. These resources proved invaluable, offering quick solutions to any challenges I encountered. They also helped me to focus more on enriching my course content and less on technical hurdles. I am confident that anyone who used Blackboard in the past will experience Blackboard UItra as a much-improved tool."
"Overall, I found the creation of the Ultra course fairly easy. The biggest mistake I made was transferring content from the previous class and then having to go in and fix everything that didn't transfer correctly. I believe it would have been much faster to start from scratch and manually transfer items over. I spent a great deal of time trying to fix an item that transferred when it would have been less time consuming to just have created it. There were also items that I could not fix. For example, I had two items in one module that showed up as visible to students in my Bb view but students said they couldn't see them. I couldn't figure out why and had to delete/replace. Some of my assignments show up twice in gradebook, but I can't figure out why. So, there are still things I need to figure out. But the look and ease of use overall is much better."
"I have found using Bb Ultra to be very easy. Setting up items and uploading documents is a snap. My old Bb course ended up transferring over to Bb Ultra quite effectively, although I definitely have to watch for embedded documents in transferred items that don’t show up in the student view. I like the way the new Bb looks. It is much more attractive and student-friendly."
