Service announcements and essential information from the Digital Education Office
Qwickly have informed us that they they will be undertaking maintenance on Saturday August 12. During the maintenance period, features of Qwickly Attendance and Qwickly Course Tools may be unavailable for use.
Updates on the maintenance, including when it begins and when it’s complete, will appear on: https://www.goqwickly.com/support/.
The annual “rollover” of Blackboard courses has been carried out, and the 2023/24 Blackboard courses are available to access. We are now working on building “parent” courses, where these are needed, and they should be ready by the end of the week.
The courses are copies of the previous year’s courses, where those exist, including any template. New units, or units that have had a change of unit code, will be generated as copies of the school’s template, or as a generic template if your school does not have its own template. Copied courses will need to be refreshed for the new academic year.
Students are automatically enrolled onto the courses for the programme and units that they are registered for in SITS. Instructor enrolments are copied from the previous year’s courses; instructors will need to be manually enrolled onto any new courses. Please contact your school office if you need to be added to any new Blackboard courses.
Programme-level courses and organisations are persistent and do not roll over.
The Assessment, Submission and Feedback areas of the new courses will be cleared of assessments, along with the Grade Centres, ready for the coming year’s assessments. Guidance on setting up assessments can be found on BEAM.
If you have any questions or concerns, please email digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.
When you would need to create a Deep Link
Staff and students must be logged into Blackboard to open direct links to Blackboard courses or organisations. Our Deep Link Generator adapts these direct links to prompt users to log in prior to accessing a page.
Deep links are intended primarily for short-term use; for example, emailing links to specific areas of Blackboard to students and staff. If you are planning to use them more extensively, please contact the Digital Education Office for advice.
It is not necessary to use deep links within Blackboard (eg linking from a course to an organisation), as the user will already be logged into Blackboard. You can use direct links within Blackboard, or use Course Links. (Please note: direct links will need to be updated each year, as they do not automatically update when the courses are rolled over.)
Changes for 2023/24
Prior to the 23/24 academic year, each page of a Blackboard course or organisation had a unique URL, so it was possible to link directly to a specific page. However, the navigation within Blackboard Ultra Base Navigation will only display the URL for the ‘entry page’ of a course or organisation (usually the Announcements or Welcome section).
If you need to direct users to a specific section of a course or organisation, we recommend creating a deep link to the entry page and then providing guidance on where to find the section within the site.
Any deep links created prior to the upgrade to Blackboard Ultra Base Navigation will still direct the user to the correct page in Blackboard; however, the navigation away from the page will not be visible, and the user will have to go to www.ole.bris.ac.uk to access other areas of Blackboard.
How to use the generator
To create a deep link, copy the URL from the address bar of the page that you want to link to:
Go to the Deep Link Generator page, paste the URL into the box, then click on the ‘Encode’ button:
The updated URL can now be copied and shared as needed.
The DEO has a new case study to share, available here on our case studies page. 
Creative Assessment Submission – Video, Audio and Zines
Dr Rosie Nelson from SPAIS shares their work with Martin Nutbeem and the rest of the DEO to develop a digitally supported, decolonized approach to teaching and assessment on their Queering Sexuality and Gender unit in the School of Sociology, Politics, and International Studies (SPAIS). The assessment involved students creating and submitting media in the form of video, audio or a ‘Zine.
Thanks to Dr Nelson for writing this case study. If you are looking for inspiration for developing your own assessments, this case study or one of the others on our site provides a great starting point. If you’d like support in developing digitally supported assessments, please contact the Digital Education Office.
This information is relevant if your school uses Turnitin to run similarity checks on PGR theses (practice, submission and re-submission).
PGR students who submitted work to a Turnitin submission point in Blackboard before September 2023 will not be able to access their theses in Blackboard after August 2023. This is due to the supplier ending support for the older Turnitin integration with Blackboard.
As we have communicated to schools directly, the DEO has been working with AQPO and representatives of administrative and academic staff to update the Blackboard Organisations for PGR Turnitin Submissions.
Please take the following actions by 31 August 2023:
Please also note that, from 1 September 2023, staff who need access to the older theses will need to contact the DEO.
The Blackboard upgrade to the new Ultra Base Navigation has been successfully completed. You will see the new-look Blackboard the next time you log in. Your courses haven’t changed, but the way you navigate around Blackboard should now be easier and more intuitive, whatever device you’re using.
“I really like the ease of navigation of the updated Blackboard.”
– University of Bristol student
You can find more information and guidance in our Blackboard Ultra Base Navigation guide.
If you have any questions, please contact digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.
The Blackboard upgrade on Wednesday July 5 is moving to slightly later in the afternoon. We will be carrying out the upgrade starting at 3.45 pm, with a projected finish time of 6 pm. All other details remain unchanged. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused.
If you have any questions, please contact digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.
Each year, the Digital Education Office delivers a summer plan of work on our digital education environments and systems. This plan includes any significant system changes or software upgrades, but also includes more minor changes to systems and processes, ensuring everything works well for the next academic year.
We regularly update the Service Improvements Page over the summer, documenting and advertising expected and completed work. If you are interested in keeping up to date, it is worth bookmarking this page. Any major changes will also be announced via other channels, such as this blog.
This year, many of these improvements have been prompted by outputs from the ongoing Digital Learning Environment (DLE) Review. Staff, students and professional services colleagues have been asked to share their experiences of using the digital education environment, as well as work with us to imagine the teaching and learning of the future. To find out more about the DLE review, please visit the DLE SharePoint page for staff.
On July 5, we’re updating Blackboard to use the new Ultra Base Navigation. This update will give Blackboard a modern look and feel and provide easier access to important information.
Ultra Base Navigation has a modern, intuitive navigation menu that sits outside of courses and is always available.
Your courses will not change. They will look and operate exactly as they do now.
The benefits of Ultra Base Navigation include:
To enable Ultra Base Navigation, Blackboard will be unavailable for a short time on the afternoon of July 5, between 3.45 pm and 6pm. After this, you will see a redesigned login page for Blackboard and can use the new navigation as soon as you log in.
You can find more information, with screenshots, on the project webpage: Blackboard Ultra Base Navigation. If you have any questions, please contact digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.
The interface for Blackboard submissions such as essays, some timed assessments and some exams is changing on June 2, 2023. There is no change to functionality.
After June 2, if students need to upload a submission, this option will be contained within a ‘concertina menu’. This makes the interface less confusing, allowing them to select the options they need without having to navigate the options they don’t.
Below are three images: one showing the current interface and two showing the new interface.
