Blackboard has introduced an improved text editor with the newest Blackboard Learn 9.1 release.  This new release will be applied to our environment on November 5th. Adding content has been simplified, and it works better on both hand-held devices and larger screens. There are several improvements for accessibility and some new features, too. Here are…

Beginning Spring 2021 faculty and programs can sign-up to enable Blackboard Ally for their courses. What is Ally? Blackboard Ally is a course accessibility tool with multiple features that can help instructors, students, and the institution. It can provide alternative formats,  feedback, and accessibility reports. How does Ally help? Alternative Formats. Out of the box,…

Guest Writer: Lisa Ferris, Ed.S., Instructional Designer (OED) Seven Copyright Best Practices for Online Teaching If a video, photo, or document is on the internet, is it OK for faculty to freely use it in their course materials? Answer:  It depends!  Follow these seven best practices to help you legally use resources for your online…

The online environment enables us to use powerful tools for teaching and learning.  Asynchronous and synchronous eLearning strategies have benefits and limitations and they complement each other. Asynchronous eLearning is related to activities taking place when participants are not present online at the same time. Synchronous eLearning happens when participants who are not located in…

Starting with June 1st, 2020  Blackboard assignments will be gradable inline with a new tool called Bb Annotate.  This tool will replace the Box tool. Old Box tool   New Bb Annotate tool Instructors can access information about Bb Annotate here .  A video tutorial is included in the documentation. After Bb Annotate becomes available, Box annotations…

Over the last few weeks, we all have been working hard to effectively deliver instruction online. We have added course materials, videos, lectures, and more to our courses in attempts to mimic our face to face interactions. With all of the content being added, it’s important to monitor our content collections and specifically, our course…

Extended closures or one-time class cancellations can occur for a variety of reasons: inclement weather, natural disaster, unexpected events, etc.  It is important to have a contingency plan which will help you continue course work successfully.  Blackboard provides faculty with a multitude of tools to assist with keeping courses live. All official UAMS courses have…

Blackboard Collaborate is a web conferencing software that can be used to host meetings, guest speakers, virtual office hours, and lecture/presentation recordings. Blackboard has announced that the Classic/Original version will be discontinued on December 31, 2020. On the UAMS campus, there are two versions of Collaborate available: Classic/Original and Ultra. The most recent and preferred…

Respondus 4.0 is a powerful tool for creating and managing exams that can be printed to paper or published directly to Blackboard and other eLearning systems. To learn more, you can visit Respondus 4.0 Resources. You can type test questions in Word, import them to Respondus 4.0, and publish them to Blackboard.  The reverse process…

During the Christmas/New Year holidays (Dec. 23, 2019 – January 1, 2020*), UAMS Blackboard Learn 9.1 will be updating to switch from managed hosting to SaaS. SaaS (software-as-a-service) is a cloud technology that will give us a single version of Blackboard that is continuously updated. Advantages of SaaS deployment are fast releases with zero scheduled…

Dear Faculty,   Adobe has announced December 12th, 2020 as the end of life date for the Flash Player browser plugin. Once this date passes, it will be difficult for students to access Flash content.  Flash content could be in the form of Flash videos or some interactive learning modules. The eLearning team strongly encourages…

You can use the Blackboard Grade Center as your ally in order to manage your class and help your students succeed. First, the Grade Center must be set up to include all gradable activities posted in the Syllabus.  Any gradable items you set up in your Blackboard course will have a respective Grade Center column. …

As we are gearing up for the upcoming semester, eLearning would like to offer a few tips to help you prepare your Blackboard courses. Tip 1: Make sure your course is available At the start of the semester, your Blackboard shells must be made available to students so that they can access the course content.…

Blackboard provides a multitude of reports and data analysis.  One of the newest tools is Course Analytics.  This Blackboard tool can help instructors to oversee student progress and provide support. Instructors can access Course Analytics reports in Control Panel/Evaluation area of the course navigation menu. Before we describe the reports, we need to address a…

Collaborate Ultra is a web conferencing tool that is widely used across the UAMS campus for lecture capture, virtual office hours, meetings, and much more. Collaborate now offers several new features that can be used to make sessions more interactive. Use custom polling to interact with participants.   Polls are a feature that allows participants…

SafeAssign is a Blackboard tool used by instructors and students to review the originality of assignments. SafeAssign compares submitted assignments against a database of academic papers and identifies overlap between the assignment and existing works. SafeAssign reports the originality of the assignment with a score. Both instructors and students can use the report to review…

StudyMate Campus is a Respondus tool located within Blackboard that instructors can use to create study materials and other learning activities. Studymate Campus is the latest version of Studymate. What are the benefits of using StudyMate Campus? One of the greatest benefits of using StudyMate is that it is available in your Blackboard course shell.…

The beginning of the semester is a very busy time for all UAMS faculty. It takes a lot of commitment to set up a course for the new term. One pain point we’ve noticed is that it takes a lot of time to change the multitude of due and availability dates within a Blackboard course.…

Beginning Spring 2019, UAMS instructors have access to the Blackboard Attendance tool. What does it do? The Attendance feature allows instructors to track attendance on a single page within their Blackboard course. From this page, an instructor can mark students as present, late, absent, or excused. Instructors can do this from their classroom workstation computer…