For Faculty
To-Do's
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Do you know how to complete a test, submit an assignment and check your grade in Blackboard? If not, 色花堂's Blackboard team can show you!
- See the and for working in Blackboard.
- Contact Blackboard for more help through towson.edu/blackboard.
See the start-of-semester checklist
Make sure you take care of faculty responsibilities and know how to get help if you need it. with a successful semester in Blackboard.
Using Blackboard
Be sure to review the Blackboard Procedures and Guidelines (PDF). See and search the , including settings and tools, and how to use them when working in and managing courses. The 色花堂 Blackboard team also maintains an with faculty-specific announcements, help and training schedules, forums and other resources.
Courses
Blackboard courses are like your own digital classrooms. They contain everything you need: lessons, assignments, and tools to interact with your students. If you need help with a course, check the or submit a service request.
About course sites
Blackboard courses are generated via PeopleSoft system. If you do not see a course you are teaching, please submit a .
Move a course online
All courses that exist in PeopleSoft can be found with enrollments in Blackboard. See Once you're all set up in Blackboard, use it to hold virtual class meetings. Need help? Contact the 色花堂 Blackboard Team.
Combine courses
To merge enrollments into one Blackboard course site please submit a request. Note: this request can take 2-3 business days to complete.
Update a shell course and copy to multiple courses
Shell courses allow instructors to populate a Blackboard course with class materials related to courses they teach every term. This allows a faculty member to update the shell course and then copy it each semester to multiple courses. Students will not access a shell course. For details and to request a shell course, submit a .
Make a master course and copy materials
Master courses allow a program coordinator to populate a course on Blackboard with course materials related to a program or particular course that, regardless of section, has the same course materials. This master course can then be copied to multiple courses regardless of the instructor. Students will not access a master course. For details and to request a master course, submit a .
Faculty Feedback
色花堂's Blackboard team wants to hear from you! You can tell us which features you'd like to see in Blackboard during or through . Your feedback helps shape Blackboard at 色花堂. Here are current ideas proposed by faculty:
Planning to implement
- Provide a Rubric Evaluation Report (as in Original Course View)
- Bring back dual grade display
- Adding term categorization and filtering to grades and messages ultra pages
- Ability to submit an assignment on behalf of a student
- Hide preview users from "add users" list
- Allow Course Image to be different than Banner image
- Bulk Change Question points in test
- Ability to bulk download group assignment submissions
- Allow color coding to course content folders
- Distinguish between multiple choice and multiple answer questions
- Support for a dark mode in Ultra courses
- Instructors can create internal course links in documents
- Improvements to anonymous discussions
- Allow instructor to view "in progress" attempts
- Use multiple rubrics on a single assignment
- Instructors can decide whether they will accept a submitted file or if the student can type into the textbox, or both in assignments, test, journals, and discussion boards
- Multiple due dates for discussions
- Hide Details & Actions menu items not being used
Future consideration
- When copying content do not make it unavailable
- Add Discussion description
- "Empty content" submission should get automatic 0 grade
- Add Grade Categories at Content & Settings
- Email alerts default to the assignments due over the next seven days.
- Make unavailable courses hidden from course list
- Instructor choice of alternate formats available to students
- Log course availability activity
- Delete multiple announcements
- Indicate dropped grades in the Gradebook
- Option to display overall grade as both letter and percentage
- preview assessment
- Improve gradebook drag-and-drop column reordering
- Ability to post an announcement to specific groups or merged courses
- Customize access code protected assessments
- SafeAssign integration with discussion boards
- Copy/paste & drag/drop images into the content editor
- Add a section for notes when inputting students accommodations in roster
- Ability to change the default setting for content visibility
- Provide an interface in Ultra for the Grade History
- Display Example Answer for essay question
- Ability to batch delete question banks
- Add ability to duplicate content items by clicking on the ellipse (3 dots)
- Allow students to reply to gradebook feedback
- Stop allowing duplicate names or titles for things in learn
- Remove the relationship between due dates and date/time release conditions
- Bring back the blue "in progress" button
- Change category of Calculation Item
- Allow Control C and Control V to be able to paste image directly into messages
- Content editor to descriptions
- Allow instructors to turn on/off Grade Pill Colors on a course-by-course basis
- Ability to support automatic penalty deductions in the gradebook
- Mark as incomplete instead of leaving blank
- Can't delete undeployed test folder because assessments contain questions used in question pools
- Let instructors choose ultra course color
- Choose language in ultra course
- Stop showing staff preview user students to students in the class roster
- Top line menu
- Child course ID in roster tool
- Allow students to share journals with their class
- Allow for a selection of exam essay questions
- Automatically close open folder when you open a new one
- Add rubric to Gradebook created column
- Include images in announcements
- Scheduled grade posting
- Bulk move content
- Text/Content editor should have HTML editing capability
- Images for folders
- Options to add images to new grade categories
- Add COUNT() to calculation formula
- Faculty override should mean that an attempt is graded
- Assignment reminders sent to ONLY those without grades
- Separate date column for announcement list
- Ultra document navigation pane
- Add an auto save function for Ultra documents
- Unused files - download all
- Clarify when student has made more than one attempt on submissions page
- Add option for students to download submission receipt at any time after submission
- Preserve group submission if student withdraws from course
- Run a report on how many students had looked at their grade and feedback
- Display Announcements on Course Content page
- Create Exemptions for journal assignments
- Download files according to applied filters
- Allow instructors to take a test without entering student preview mode
- Export option for Testbanks and Tests
- Ability to pin announcements
- Batch edit - renaming titles
- Multiple grades for discussions
- Merge multiple question banks
- Add gradebook item statistics for anonymous assessments
- Darker module outline for accessibility
- Enhancing Table Styling in Blackboard Ultra
- Test availability exceptions in Ultra for multiple students who need to take test at different times
- Creating something like grade history for content/activities
- Indicate to student their accommodation has been applied
- Enhance My Tasks module
- Instructors can set their own languages for their course
- Course Copy by pulling and pushing for other course
- Instructor can drag and drop gradebook items into new categories on overall grade page
- Assessments: allow instructors to define grace period for late submissions
- Create categories, and drag/drop assignments into categories all in the same screen via Gradebook
- Make it harder to delete a test or assignment with submissions/grades
- Ability to download detailed log after ultra course conversion
- Indicate date and time an item was graded
- Bring back blogs
- Warn that emailed messages won't have images
- Ability to unpost grades for student work
- Improve description of Discussion Board and Journal
- Improved rubrics management
- Instructors need ability to control what items/columns students see in their view of the gradebook
- Sort by LATE in assessments
- Download all parts of a graded assignment (incl. grade, submission, rubric and all feedback, inline, overall and rubric)
- Download student submissions for tests and assignments
- Data integration to Manage Goals
- Ability to enable/disable instructors from hiding/showing gradebook columns from themselves
- Move the SUBMIT button
- Display Child Course ID in Gradebook (and add to "Filters" options)
- Need letter input for Grades and Grade Schema
- Allow modification of grade pill thresholds, or switching off pill colors at the instructor level
Researching and/or unlikely to implement
- Make "oops something went wrong" error more informative
- When sorting students in the gradebook by last name, it should actually do that
- Improve the new search, terms and filtering of course lists.
- Allow reordering of terms
- Ultra course messages need subject line
- Make Performance Thresholds a transferrable field when doing a full course copy
- Increase number of records exported in Course Activity *.CSV
- Open Immersive Reader in a New tab
- Hiding Bananas: Hidden AI Prompts in Assignments.
Updates Completed
Here are some recent updates and their release date, resulting from your input:
- Ultra testbank needs to keep title option - Sept. 2025
- Add Jumbled Sentence question type - June 2025
- Gradebook bulk category change - June 2025
- No points rubric - May 2025
- Add a "View submission one time" assessment results setting - May 2025
- See if students have accessed feedback - Mar 2025
- Add 'download original file' in the alternative formats user interface - Mar. 2025
- Do **NOT** create an attempt when students view an assignment - Feb. 2025
- Preserve formatting in assignment files - Feb. 2025
- Instructors need ability to set item/column visibility in their view of the gradebook - Jan. 2025
- Faculty override should mean that an attempt is graded - Jan. 2025
- Allow "submitted" to be a trigger for release conditions - Jan. 2025
- Scheduled Announcements Send as Email - Sept. 2024
- Needs Grading - Sept. 2024
- Course Activity Log - Sept. 2024
- Advanced Adapative Release - Aug. 2024
- Anonymous response for Forms - Aug. 2024
- Floating Save Button - Aug. 2024
- Course Activity Log - Jul. 2024
- Add option 'weight items in a category equally' to weighted gradebook calculations - Jul. 2024
- Ability to Print Tests - Jun. 2024
- Grade tests by question and offer feedback by question - May 2024
- Set default point value for test questions to 1 vs 10 - Apr. 2024
- Grade by question without refreshing - Feb. 2024
- Release conditions on folders and modules affecting gradable items being seen in gradebook for student - Jan. 2024
- More compact view of gradebook grid - Jan. 2024
- Allow self-enroll via link (without course catalog) - Nov. 2023
- Multiple choice questions: unable to leave a question without any answer once you select one - Oct. 2023
- Be able to send reminder from gradebook - Oct. 2023
- Ability to unpost announcements in bulk - Sept. 2023
- Messages landing page should only list current courses where there is a message - Aug. 2023
- Relabel "view assessment" button to "view/begin assessment - July 2023
- Create a way to hide roster from students - March 2023
- Feedback for grade overrides in the gradebook - Feb. 2023
- Advanced Adaptive Release - Multiple Rules (feature parity Ultra) - Feb. 2023
See all .
INSTRUCTIONAL LEC色花堂RE CAP色花堂RE GUIDELINES AND RELEASE FORM
Guidelines
Faculty and staff who intend to use instructional lecture capture resources supported by 色花堂 are to adhere to the Instructional Lecture Capture Guidelines to ensure the FERPA regulations are not violated.
Release Form
If a faculty/staff member intends to reuse recordings where the image, voice or materials of students are captured, the Instructional Lecture Capture Release Form must be used. *Be sure to read the guidelines (above) first.