Blackboard courses for the new academic year (2021-22)

Posted on by Hanrahan Highland

Shortly after the University’s central systems switch over to the new academic year, on August 1, new Blackboard courses will be created for the 2021-22 taught units. These will generally be a copy of the previous year’s course, where that exists, with the summative assessments and Grade Centres cleared ready for the coming year’s assessments. The copies will include the course template structures that were adopted last year by most schools, but the content will need refreshing and resetting for the new academic year. In particular, staff should make sure to remove any of the exam “packages” that were added for the summer assessment period, to avoid confusion.

Students across the University really liked the structure, clarity and consistency provided by the Blackboard course templates, and said how much these helped them with their studying. Carrying this structure forwards, with refreshed content, will help to continue this enhanced student experience of learning.

If you have any questions, please email digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.

Mentimeter Pro online polling now available to staff

Posted on by Naomi Beckett

Mentimeter allows you to create polls, quizzes, word clouds and Q&As to be used in live or asynchronous settings. Polling is anonymous and students can download the app, or complete polls from their browser on a laptop, PC or mobile device.

Mentimeter Pro is now available to University staff. The pro version allows poll results to be downloaded, as well as giving you more colour and layout options, introducing the option of creating and sharing presentation templates, and more. Take a look at our Mentimeter page for information on creating your account, or upgrading your free account. If you have any questions, please email digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.

Important changes to Re/Play videos in Blackboard

Posted on by Pete Herbert

As part of essential work to ensure the security of our systems, the authentication for Re/Play recordings is changing. This security update will break links to videos embedded using the Re/Play embed code in Blackboard courses. 

For content added before 19 July 

The DEO and IT Services are undertaking remedial action to change existing embedded Re/Play videos into links to ensure that students retain access. This work will take place on 19 July. 

For content added after 19 July 

See options for adding videos to your course. 

If you have any questions, please email digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.  

Blackboard migration summer 2021

Posted on by Hanrahan Highland

This summer, our Blackboard system will be migrated onto cloud servers. Blackboard will be performing this work, supported by IT Services and the Digital Education Office, between 9 pm on Friday 30 July and 9 am on Tuesday 3 August. Our Blackboard system will therefore be unavailable during this time, and we apologise for any inconvenience this will cause.

The cloud migration will move our Blackboard system from its current location on Blackboard’s servers in Amsterdam onto a ‘cloud’ infrastructure based in Frankfurt, provided by Amazon Web Services. This will allow our system to automatically scale to meet demand and will also enable us to receive bug fixes and upgrades regularly throughout the year, rather than having to wait for the summer upgrade. Consequently, you may occasionally see small changes to Blackboard during the academic year, but the DEO will test these before they go live and provide supporting materials and guidance in advance of any changes. Finally, the migration will also eliminate the need for any scheduled downtime in the future, as upgrades and fixes can be performed without taking our system down.

For further information, please see our project page for Blackboard developments or email digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.

Questionmark scheduled maintenance 17 July 09:00-15:00

Posted on by Roberta Perli

Dear colleagues,

Questionmark Scheduled Maintenance: 17 July 2021 09:00-15:00

The purpose of the maintenance is to deploy system updates to ensure the ongoing reliability, security and up time of the platform.

During this time all users may experience service disruptions. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

If you have any questions, please email digital-education@bristol.ac.uk

Reusable comments – new feature for marking in Blackboard

Posted on by digitaleducation

As part of this summer’s Blackboard upgrade, a new feature will be available for marking in Blackboard. The Content Library, part of Bb Annotate, allows individual markers to save time by having a bank of reusable comments.

You can keep a master comment bank, use these when marking in any of your Blackboard courses, and edit individual comments once added to assignments, if required.

Screenshot of reusable comment tool in Blackboard

The Blackboard upgrade will take place between 9 pm on Friday 30 July and 9 am on Tuesday 3 August.

More information about summer 2021 Blackboard developments.

If you have any questions, please email digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.

Teams for teaching update

Posted on by hilary

Teams will be part of our supported digital learning environment in 21/22. Teams offers tools for collaboration, discussion, teamwork and community building and will complement Blackboard. Blackboard remains the appropriate location for teaching materials, reading lists, learning activities, assessment activities and assessment-related information and data.

Through interviews, a short survey,focus group and our new project advisory group DEO and IT Services are establishing requirements for Teams in 21/22 and future years.

For 21/22 the project aims to create Teams:

  • for each taught unit, with students added from SITS. The spaces will be unavailable to students by default, with the option for Team owners to make them available.
  • with teaching staff added. Team owners will be able to add additional UoB staff as owners and guest users external to the University.
  • with a simple integration between Blackboard and Teams. We will work with schools to ensure this link aligns with their plans for Blackboard template and course development.

We are working with an advisory group made of of academic and professional services staff, to prioritise and deliver these requirements for Teaching Block 1, while also collating additional requirements to continue to develop and extend Teams for teaching. Examples of requests for longer-term development include functionality to:

  • enable staff to include students in addition to those enrolled from SITS (eg for co-taught units).
  • automatically create Teams for Programmes(for example for year group or all years on a programme).
  • better support activity groups (e.g. for a tutor group or other teaching activity).

As part of the project we will develop training and support materials for staff and students, as well as case studies and exemplars.

For further information, please see our project page  or email digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.

Re/Play developments summer 2021

Posted on by Pete Herbert

This summer, for security reasons, there will be an important change to the way Re/Play videos are embedded in Blackboard. If you wish to embed any new video content in Blackboard, please use the Mash-up Tool.

The DEO will also be working with IT Services over the summer to improve Re/Play for the coming academic year. The improvements will include:

– New manual recording app – we are updating the manual recording functionality in our equipped rooms (replacing the old Ad Hoc app), this will allow for full use of in- room camera equipment.
– Enabling live streaming – to support a move to hybrid teaching, we will be enabling a service for live streaming from our equipped rooms.
– Replacement of the Desktop Recorder – the current recorder is no longer supported, so we will be deploying the new recorder, ‘Mosaic’.
– An improved user interface for browsing and selecting recordings – videos will be displayed in Blackboard as screenshot tiles rather than in a list.

Further details and user guides will follow soon. If you have any questions, please email digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.

Blackboard developments summer 2021

Posted on by Hanrahan Highland

This summer, our Blackboard system will be developed in two significant ways: the software will be upgraded to the latest version, and the whole system will be migrated onto cloud servers. Blackboard will be performing this work, supported by IT Services and the Digital Education Office, between 9 pm on Friday 30 July and 9 am on Tuesday 3 August. Our Blackboard system will therefore be unavailable during this time, and we apologise for any inconvenience this will cause. The developments will bring several benefits, which are outlined below.

Software upgrade

The software upgrade will bring many incremental improvements and bug fixes, along with big changes to the Content Editor – the ‘text box’ tool that you see whenever you are creating or editing an item in Blackboard. These enhancements include better copy-and-paste from external sources, improved accessibility, easy text wrapping, and the ability to display computer code snippets.

Additionally, a new feature in Bb Annotate, the Content Library, will allow individual markers to have a bank of reusable comments for marking assignments in any of their Blackboard courses.

Cloud migration

The cloud migration will move our Blackboard system from its current location on Blackboard’s servers in Amsterdam onto a ‘cloud’ infrastructure. This will allow our system to automatically scale to meet demand and will also enable us to receive bug fixes and upgrades more quickly. Finally, it will eliminate the need for any scheduled downtime in the future, as upgrades and fixes can be performed without taking our system down.

For further information, please see our project page for Blackboard developments or email digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.

Teams for teaching – current plans and how to get involved

Posted on by Suzi Wells

Microsoft Teams will be part of our core set of supported digital education tools in 21/22. The DEO is working with IT Services to scope and implement a simple way for Teams to be used in programmes and units with minimal administrative overheads. We are working closely with users and stakeholders to shape the service. 

The project has enjoyed an enthusiastic engagement with existing and potential users of Teams for teaching. Many thanks to all those who have contributed. Through surveys, interviews, and a well-attended focus group, we are refining use cases for: 

  • Synchronous teaching through Teams meetings   
  • Engagement, discussion and community-building at a class or group level 
  • Staff- and student-led teaching and groupwork. 

Student membership of unit and programme Teams will be synchronised with SITS data – if students join or leave a course, that will be reflected in the membership. The space will be linked to the relevant Blackboard unit. Programme spaces will be available on request. 

Group activity can be achieved by creating public or private channels within a unit or programme Team. Staff and students can continue to create their own Teams for other groupings but will need to maintain membership manually.  

For more information, or to get involved, look at the Teams for teaching project webpage or contact digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.