Microsoft discontinued the video discussion app Flip on 1 July, and it is now in view-only mode. If you wish to download your past Flip videos, you can do so until 30 September 2024.
The Flip camera has been integrated into Teams and is available in Classes. To create a Flip video in Teams Classes:
If you have any questions, please email digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.
The tool we use to provide pop-up support and guidance within Blackboard is changing on Thursday 1 August. This means that the pop-up messages you sometimes see in Blackboard may look a little different, but can still be easily removed by clicking on the ‘x’ in the top right-hand corner.
Please note that this also means you will no longer see ‘Eesysoft course reports’ within Blackboard. If you require additional data that was previously available within the course reports, please contact the Digital Education Office on digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.
Additionally, you will no longer see an option for “UoB support” within Blackboard. This previously appeared in the bottom right-hand corner of Blackboard when you clicked on the question mark in a speech bubble, which is shown below. You will still see the question mark and can access Blackboard’s help pages by selecting ‘Blackboard support’ and going into ‘Blackboard Help’.
Please refer to our online guides or contact digital-education@bristol.ac.uk if you have any queries.
Turnitin has released a new Turnitin Help Center. Users will be able to access past cases through the old support centre until 20 September 2024. After this date, access to the old support centre will no longer be available.
If you have any questions about this change, or would like to know more, please refer to Turnitin’s Frequently Asked Questions page, or contact us at digital.education@bristol.ac.uk.
IT Services will be carrying out essential maintenance on our Xerte server between 8am and 12pm on Tuesday 6th August. This is not an update to the Xerte authoring tool and will not bring any changes to the service.
The tool will be unavailable for periods during this time, we apologise for any inconvenience caused.
We will blog here when the service is available again for staff and students.
On Wednesday 31 July, between 09:00 – 11:00 BST, SafeAssign will undergo a maintenance update.
Learn clients will experience impacts for up to seven hours. All submissions during this time will be queued and will be processed at the end of the maintenance period.
This downtime is essential for a backend infrastructure update, as Blackboard is transitioning to a new infrastructure.
If you have any questions about this update, please refer to the Blackboard status page or email us at digital.education@bristol.ac.uk.
Turnitin has informed us that, from 16 July, two new improvements will be added to the AI writing report:
These changes apply to new submissions only and will not retroactively affect existing submissions.
If you have any questions about these updates, please email us at digital.education@bristol.ac.uk.
On 16 July, Turnitin will upgrade its AI writing detection feature to include a new paraphrasing detection capability. This enhancement will help identify instances where paraphrasing tools have been used to modify AI-generated text in student submissions. The detection will run automatically for all assessments submitted to Turnitin LTI assignments. Therefore, there is no need to update your reassessment submission points to have access to the AI paraphrasing detection tool.
Student-submitted content that may have been modified using an AI paraphrasing tool will be flagged as likely AI-generated in the AI writing report. The report will highlight text that Turnitin’s model predicts was likely written by an AI tool in a different colour from content that was likely AI-written and subsequently modified using an AI paraphrasing tool, to distinguish between them.
Turnitin will not differentiate between likely AI-paraphrased matches and likely AI-generated text in the AI writing report. However, as Turnitin continues to develop and improve this feature, their aim is to include such differentiation in the future.
Turnitin’s paraphrasing detection tool is not designed to target grammar-checking tools like Grammarly, which modify spelling, grammar, and punctuation, but rather other AI content written by large language models (LLMs) such as GPT-3.5.
The University has produced guidance that has been made available to students about Contract Cheating, Academic Integrity, and Using AI at University. Furthermore, it is important to reassure students that ‘Turnitin evidence is always interpreted by academics and used in context, to supplement judgement rather than to replace it’ (Turnitin’s artificial intelligence detector tool).
We will update this blog with additional information as soon as the supplier releases more resources. In the meantime, if you have any questions about this new development, please refer to the Turnitin AI Writing Detection Capabilities or email us at digital.education@bristol.ac.uk.
Turnitin has released additional resources to learn more about the new AI writing detection features in the classic report view:
The DEO has recently recruited and trained a team of Student Developers (SDs) to support the move to Blackboard Ultra. Our SDs are an important part of how we will support this move.
The overall objectives for the SDs are to:
In wave 1, SDs will be working with faculties and the project to establish how best to use SDs in the major move to Ultra planned for academic year 25/26.
Each of the six old faculties will be allocated two dedicated student developers, with two back-up developers who can be drawn on if demand or skills require it.
Each student developer can work up to 15 hours per week.
For wave 1, the project will trial two management approaches for SDs:
Allocation of back-up student developers will be managed by the project.
SDs will be able to:
They will also be asked to:
The Ultra project will:
Faculties and schools will:
The project will take steps to ensure that SDs are providing good, useful support but it is important that faculty staff check work undertaken by the SDs as part of their review/refresh of unit and programme courses before they are released to students.
It’s anticipated that faculty staff will engage in a dialogue with their SDs, to fine-tune the support offered. Any major suggestions, issues or concerns should be raised with the project in the first instance and not with the SD.
To support faculties moving to Blackboard Ultra for the 2024/25 Academic Year, the DEO and the Ultra project are establishing dedicated faculty liaison roles. The aim of these roles is to be a named contact in the DEO for Ultra wave 1 participants – someone who can direct staff to the support they need and ensure the project better understands faculty and school needs and any blockers or barriers. The role will advise on customisation of central training and guidance to better fit with local needs, encourage the dissemination of good practice, and provide guidance to Ultra student developers.
Faculties involved in wave 1 will be receiving more information on their faculty liaison shortly. For all general project enquiries, please contact blackboard-ultra@bristol.ac.uk.
We are aware that some users are seeing the error message ‘Invalid or missing state’ when trying to access Turnitin. This issue has been reported to Turnitin; the following workarounds should re-enable access.
If using Safari or Firefox, we recommend that users try accessing Turnitin via Chrome or Microsoft Edge in the first instance.
If the error persists, we ask that instructors edit their Turnitin assignments to open in the same tab as the Blackboard page. To do this:
If you experience any problems, please contact the DEO via digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.