Thinking about adopting Ultra Experience for your course? Consider the tools you currently use in an Original course and evaluate how important they are to your transition to the Ultra course.
Low Priority Tools & Features
These tools & features are well supported in Ultra for a transition to a redesigned course experience!
Do you use points for calculating your course's overall grade? Ultra is right for you! The Ultra gradebook can be calculated with points, percentage, or advanced formulas.
Is Ultra right for me? 
YES: Use Ultra. The gradebook now supports a points-based system for calculating your overall grades. You can drop grades and set a running total to display to students.
Rubrics are available in Ultra courses in percentage and percentage-range formats. They are also limited to 10 rows and 10 columns. Points-based rubrics are in development and coming soon!
Is Ultra right for me?
YES: Use Ultra. Point-based and point-range rubrics are available in Ultra as of December 2021! The new point-based rubrics in Ultra offer customized options such as varying scales, ascending or descending ranges, and totals exceeding 1,000 points possible for an assessment. Most importantly, point-based rubrics created in Original courses will migrate to Ultra courses when content is converted, which provides faculty with ample time to review the new rubric format and prepare SP2022 courses for Ultra.
On an Original test, you can choose to grade all responses to a specific question. You can move through submissions, and view and score the same question for each student. At this time, however, Ultra test questions must be graded on a per student basis. Fortunately, there are plans to support this grading format.
Is Ultra right for me?
YES: Use Ultra.
Flexible Grading features grade by student or question. Instructors can easily move between student attempts and keep track of their grading process. Grading options include simple scoring, rubrics and inline commenting. Instructors can collapse panels to increase visible space, view SafeAssign originality reports, and post all grades when ready. Subsequent releases will include group submissions, anonymous grading, multiple grades per student, and peer review.
You can decide how assignments are graded (e.g., points, letter, percentage) and create up to 99 grading schema. You can also use a default complete/incomplete grading schema for formative assessments.
Is Ultra right for me?
YES: Use Ultra. This feature is available now! You also have a Complete/Incomplete grading scheme pre-built in all Ultra courses that will provide a checkmark or dash in the gradebook, depending on the inputted grade.
Ultra courses display the announcement as an overlay, requiring the student to dismiss the pop-up before they can access any course content. Announcements can be emailed and formatted. Students can find announcements in the Activity Stream or receive a daily digest via emaill.
Is Ultra right for me?
YES: Use Ultra. Students can get announcements in many ways, but the easiest is to click the Announcements link from the top navigation menu.
Original courses allow faculty and students to subscribe to the entire discussion board or to individual discussion threads. Ultra does not support discussion board subscriptions at this time.
Is Ultra right for me?
YES: Use Ultra. You can still get notifications for new posts to the discussion forum via the Activity Stream or a daily digest by email. A blue dot also appears next to the discussion board to indicate when there are unread posts.
Ultra courses offer the Ultra Document, which allows a variety of customization options. Native tools and new integrations provide easy options to add multimedia, interactive content, and customized designs to your Ultra course.
Is Ultra right for me?
YES: Use Ultra. You can embed media from YouTube, Vimeo, Spotify, Quizet, Prezi and other external sites. You can also add content or create HTML blocks in your Ultra course.
Items and Blank Pages are replaced with Ultra Documents. Items were text blocks that appeared immediately to students while blank pages required the student to click through to access. The Ultra Document combines both approaches into a robust digital resource for students.
Is Ultra right for me?
YES: Use Ultra. Your Ultra Document can contain a wide range of assets including text, images, web links, multimedia, HTML blocks, files, media widgets, and third-party LTI tools. If you want text to appear inline to students on the course outline page, such as an annotation or instruction, you can use the item description. Click the Ultra Document's gear icon to edit the description and enter up to 250 characters in plain text.
As with Original courses, the Ultra course view also offer folders. However, folders are limited two levels while Original folders can be nested to the point of excess.
Is Ultra right for me?
YES: Use Ultra. Although Ultra courses limit you to two folders deep, this increases support for students on mobile devices. We recommend rethinking your folder structure. Instead of loading all folders into Course Materials, consider placing your weekly folders or module folders at the top level for ease of access and organization.
Journals are available in Ultra courses. Both graded and ungraded options are available for courses with enrollments up to 1000 students.
Is Ultra right for me?
YES: Use Ultra. Journals in an Ultra course are compatible with Original. If your journals are deployed in Original content areas, they will even convert to Ultra!
The Groups tool in Ultra has come a long way from its early days! With a new tool to support batch creation and enrollment, and enhancements to the native platform for searching and sorting students, there's a lot you can do now with the Groups tool.
Is Ultra right for me?
YES: Use Ultra. You can create groups manually, let students self-enroll, or batch import group sets and memberships. Groups can work with discussions or assignments, or you can use groups to control how content displays to your course. You can use groups to filter your gradebook, too. While you can set multiple attempts for group assignments, once students start working on an attempt, you can't add any new members.
Group discussions are available in Ultra, but the workflow is different. You can either create the groups first and then assign the discussion, or develop the discussion and then create the group. Either way, the group discussion is available!
Is Ultra right for me?
YES: Use Ultra. While the workflows are different, including how you and students access the groups discussion, the tool is available for your Ultra course.
When you create an assessment in an Ultra course, you can use question pools to be sure each student receives a different version of the assessment. However, there is new terminology.
Ultra | Original |
|---|---|
Question pool | Random block & question set |
Question bank | Question pool |
Question analysis | Item analysis |
Is Ultra right for me?
YES: Use Ultra. The tool provides the same functionality as Original courses, just using new terminology.
Question banks can be created, edited, and managed within Ultra. You can copy questions from tests into question banks.
Individual tests cannot be imported into Ultra as archive files (zip) at this time. However, you can still bring individual tests into Ultra, import test questions and question banks, or create new tests using question banks. there are several easy wayyou can import test questions into a test using a plain text file. You can also bring individual tests from both Original and Ultra courses into a new Ultra course using course copy. These tests will appear in a hidden folder called "Undeployed Tests" on the Course Content page.
Is Ultra right for me?
YES: Use Ultra. If you're not sure what tests you want to use in your Ultra course, you can bring them over and leave them hidden, but if you have a lot of tests, this can get cluttered. You can import test questions via text file, copy test questions into question pools, or you can export your Original tests as question pools and then bring those into your Ultra course for reuse. Copied tests will appear in a hidden folder called "Undeployed Tests" on the Course Content page. Note: These will also appear in your gradebook.
Nearly all major publishers are available for Ultra courses now with very few exceptions.
Is Ultra right for me?
YES: Use Ultra. Check our list of third-party integrations for your publisher. If you don't see your publisher listed, contact your rep or technical integration specialist to inquire about LTI (Learning Tools Interoperability) support.
The Ultra course interface is redesigned for the mobile experience. There is no course menu to navigate. Tools exist the top and left, but these are fixed and determined by the application, not UMBC. You, the instructor, decide what content appears on the main page. The course outline now functions as your course menu.
Is Ultra right for me?
YES: Use Ultra. While it may take a little bit of time to adjust to the new course outline format, this structure is more mobile friendly and easier for students to navigate. It's far easier and faster to create content on the course outline: Just click the purple plus sign wherever you want to add content, and that's exactly where it will go!
In Ultra courses, you can send Messages to students. Messages replace the Send Email tool in Original courses. You can check a box to send the Message to students as an email. You can also send read-only messages to students.
Is Ultra right for me?
YES: Use Ultra. Messages are a reliable way to communicate with your students and retain that communication in your courses. Messages are automatically sent as email to students. Students can only reply using the Ultra Messages tool, which ensures the Messages become part of your course when it is archived.
Release Conditions criteria in Ultra courses are based on date/time, grade, or group/individual. There is no option for marking content as reviewed to release content. You can, however, create a Learning Module and enforce content to display in a sequential order. This means students must view Item A before Item B, and then Item B before Item C, and so on.
Is Ultra right for me?
YES: Use Ultra. Release conditions in Ultra offer a good foundation for releasing content to your students. With Progress Tracking enabled, students can visualize what is expected when they access a module.
Surveys are not available in Ultra at this time, but you do have options until they're formally added by the end of 2023.
Is Ultra right for me?
YES: Use Ultra. Although Ultra doesn't have a native survey tool, you could use Google Forms as a simple survey tool or Qualtrics if you need something sophisticated.
Blogs are not available in Ultra, but they might be one day.
Is Ultra right for me? YES: Use Ultra. Although Ultra doesn't have a native blog tool, you could use discussion boards, or Blogger under our Google platform.
You can specify test feedback in an Ultra course including when automatic feedback appears to students. You can also specify if/when students can see question scores and correct answers.
Is Ultra right for me? YES: Use Ultra. You can set up your assessment so students can only see their grades, but not their answers or the assessment questions. You can also add an access code to prevent students from viewing the test after everyone has submitted it. You can also use Respondus Lockdown Browser for extra test security to prevent screen captures.
Learning modules let students navigate from one content item to the next without distractions or extra clicks. In Ultra courses, learning modules can be open-ended or sequentially enforced. A learning module helps immerse students in the lesson or concept you're teaching.
Is Ultra right for me? YES: Use Ultra. Learning modules can be added to the main content page. Drag existing content into the module or add folders, Ultra Documents, files, tests, assignments, multimedia, website links, and other activities that promote interactive learning and collaboration. You can specify how and when students access learning modules using Release Conditions. The only differences between Original and Ultra learning modules are a missing table of contents and inline display.
Wikis are not available in Ultra. There are no plans to develop them for Ultra courses.
Is Ultra right for me? YES: Use Ultra. Although Ultra will not support wikis, you could use another tool like OneNote Class Notebook or a collaborative Google document.
Statistics tracking in an Original course lets you see the number of "hits" a student makes to content areas and items in your course. Ultra does not track "hits," but rather telemetry data to present a holistic engagement view of how, when, and where students are engaged in your course. These analytics are embedded within the context of an actual graded activity. Selecting the overflow menu (...) and choosing Student Activity will present the report for a specific discussion or a specific assessment. Content items are not tracked at this time.
Is Ultra right for me? YES: Use Ultra.
You can learn a lot about your students' engagement in your course using the Progress Tracking tools in your Ultra course. This allows you to see how students engage with course content. You can even see how an individual student has progressed through the entire course.
More importantly, while Ultra does not offer tools for you to track how and when students access your course content, UMBC regularly pulls all activity logs from Blackboard into REX, its extensive data warehouse and provides a variety of reports to faculty to monitor student engagement in their courses. Also available is the Question Analysis on your individual tests.
In the Ultra Course View, Delegated Grading is available in two forms: Parallel Grading and Delegated Grading (by groups). Delegated grading works with one grader per group of students whereas parallel grading works with multiple graders and therefore requires a reconcilement of grades by the instructor.
Is Ultra right for me? YES: Use Ultra.
Depending on your grading need, Delegated and Parallel Grading provide a variety of options for instructors.
Delegated grading:
Instructors assign one or more graders to groups of students. All available group types are supported. Each grader will only see the submissions made by students in the group(s) assigned to them. At this time, only individual assignment submissions are supported. Tests, group assessments, and anonymous submissions are not supported. Graders assigned to a group of students will only see submissions for those students on the assignment’s submission page and they can only post grades for their assigned group members.
Parallel grading:
Instructors assign two or more graders to student submissions. Graders can't see other graders' grades, feedback, annotations on student files, and rubrics. They grade in parallel and provide provisional grades. The default grading roles include instructors, graders, and teaching assistants. The instructor role is the default final grader or reconciler. The reconciler reviews the provisional grades and determines the final grades that students see.
Gamification provides creative opportunities for instructors to design classroom environments that enhance student involvement, learning, motivation, and recognition. The Badgr integration can be used to gamify a course, award badges, and display a leader board to engage students in friendly competition.
Is Ultra right for me?
YES: Use Ultra. New to Blackboard, the Badgr integration can be used in both the Original and Ultra courses.
Medium Priority Tools & Features
These tools & features are supported in Ultra or have alternate workflows to provide a good foundation for your transition to Ultra.
Several question types are not available in Ultra courses including:
File Response (use an Assignment)
Short Answer (use Essay question type)
Ordering (use Matching question type)
Jumbled Sentence
Some question types will be developed and brought to Ultra, or you can substitute another question type as indicated above.
Is Ultra right for me? 
MAYBE: If you don’t use these question types, you can use Ultra. You can also redesign your questions to utilize the currently available question types.
Peer Review can be enabled on Ultra Assignments to facilitate peer assessment. At this time, it only supports qualitative feedback, but quantitative scoring by peers is planned for a future release. Self-assessment is not yet available in Ultra courses, although it is planned.
Is Ultra right for me?
MAYBE: If you've used peer assessment for qualitative feedback, yes! However, if self-assessment or quantitative peer assessment is critical to your course design, you might use alternate formats such as Google Forms to collect feedback.
Please note: Original courses no longer support peer assessment.
High Priority Tools & Features
These tools & features are not yet supported in Ultra or have missing features, which could be challenging for a transition to Ultra.
Guest access allows you to add a user to your course to view content, but not interact with anything or take assessments. In an Original course, this is helpful role for waitlisted students. However, guest access is not supported in Ultra courses at this time.
This is in development and should be available late 2023 or early 2024.
Is Ultra right for me? 
Probably not. Guest access is in development, but it's not quite ready yet.
This page was inspired and adapted from Is the Ultra Course View Right for Me? by Northern Illinois University.