Updates

05/26/22 - Live Chat

Live Chat support for students and faculty taking part in the LMS review is now available as part of Tri-C's regular Live Chat service.  Just select the new "LMS Review" option to be connected with specially trained Tri-C Staff.

05/23/22 - Student Resources Page

A student-focused Student Resources page has been created. This page hosts a list of all the courses being taught using the LMS currently under review, as well as several links for student support and resources. To limit confusion for our students this page will only house information related to the LMS currently being reviewed - Blackboard Learn Ultra for summer 2022 - when the term ends and we move on to teaching with the next LMS, the page will be updated and previous information will be removed.

05/12/22 - Help for Faculty and Students

Separate help resources for students have been included in all LMS review Blackboard Learn Ultra course sites. Help includes a live chat available 7 days a week, a help desk form, video tutorials and a link to Blackboard’s help web pages. 

For faculty, they also have a live chat 7 days a week, the help form, video tutorials and a link to the Blackboard help pages. In addition, faculty in the LMS review program have been enrolled in Course Coach, Blackboard’s virtual coaching service. This program combines timely, regular emails with a series of drop-in office hours. The goal of the program is to guide faculty in making improvements to courses, and references both the mechanics of Learn Ultra and best practice in online course design and facilitation. The Course Coach program will begin on the first day of the semester. 

05/11/22 - D2L Brightspace News

• D2L Brightspace is finalizing URL and security certificates, work is continuing with Tri-C’s ITS, Network Security and OLAT on establishing the same Single Sign-on for the LMS review users.
• Within the D2L Brightspace environment super admin and standard admin accounts have been created, other roles privileges are being finalized.
• OLAT has reached out to a few of the high priority venders for documentation outlining the steps to integrate their product into D2L.
• Super Admins have been granted access to D2L’s Community and Datahub websites for training on using their datasets and insights reports.

05/10/22 - Blackboard Learn Ultra News

• Continuing work on identifying system waste (Non-CRN Sites) and improvements on data analytics.
• In preparation for the move to either LMS chosen, testing has begun on the conversion process from OVC to UCV. Original to Ultra first.
• Identifying a select number of resource heavy sites used by students and/or faculty that can be copied to give the conversion process the greatest amount of information.
• Basic Blank Template courses have been tested already.

03/29/22 

• Five LMS Review teams made up of five to six LMS Review faculty and an OLAT staff member have begun collaborating on summer course preparation.
• Blackboard Learn Ultra sandbox sites have been created for each faculty to add content for their summer course.
• Preparations have begun with Brightspace for the D2L review and LMS Reviewer training opportunities for Thursday afternoons in October are being discussed.
• A Help Desk Level 2 Knowledge Base has been created.

03/07/22 - Links to join the Blackboard Community, Submit a Product Idea, or become a Blackboard Ultra Insider have been posted to the Blackboard Learn Ultra page.

02/22/22 - An updated Training and Workshop schedule has been posted to the Blackboard Learn Ultra page.

02/02/22 - A Message from Blackboard:

The Blackboard Product Management team has identified multiple improvements that could be developed to improve the existing Messaging tool and Overall Grade calculation capabilities in Learn Ultra. We would like your help in determining the prioritization of the items included in these project below based off your experience managing Blackboard Learn Ultra and supporting users leveraging the platform.

Survey response close date: Feb. 9, 2022

Survey links:

Potential messaging improvements -  https://forms.office.com/r/S04GQ2ThuA

Potential overall grade display improvements - https://forms.office.com/r/qrAAYBnkic

If you, or any of your members have any questions about the project or the surveys, please reach out to Fredrik Klemming (fredrik.klemming@blackboard.com) who is cc’d into this email.

As always, thank you for your help and input.

01/27/22 -

• OLAT has begun researching "Mass Course Conversion" vendors to assist in course migration once a new LMS has been selected at the end of the LMS review process.
• An LMS assessment/evaluation tool has been created to be used by faculty, students, and staff during the review process.
• D2L/Brightspace has set up a cloud hosted environment. OLAT has begun researching the necessary functions that need to be initiated to fit our online environment.
• Initial talks with Canvas to set up a cloud hosted environment have begun.

01/26/22 - 

• OLAT Representatives have meet with Presidents Council to explain the LMS Review process
• OLAT will be meeting with Deans in March to discuss the LMS Review process
• OLAT Will be sharing the LMS Review process with College Wide Cabinet also in March

12/02/21 - Bb Ultra Training Session: Mastering the Gradebook

11/19/21 - Bb Ultra Training Session: Assessments

11/17/21 - Bb Ultra Training Session: Getting Started with Learn/Presenting Dynamic Content Combo

11/01/21 - OLAT started internally testing Blackboard Ultra courses.