Create Content
Your course creation starts on the Course Content page. You'll find it's easy to discover features and complete actions.
To add content, select the plus sign wherever you want to add content. You can also expand or create a folder or learning module and add content. Create new content, upload something you already have, or add content from external sources or from another course.
See the Create Content help page or watch the Add Content to the Course Content Page video for information on creating, copying, and uploading content in your Blackboard course.
Release Content (formerly called Adaptive Release)
When you customize the release of content, you create a course that's more interactive and tailored to the needs of individual students. In the Ultra Course View, you can use the release content features to show the appropriate content, to select individuals, at the appropriate time.
Instructors can release content based on dates, performance, in sequential order or by users or groups.
See the Release Content help article for more information.
Reuse Content
You can copy an entire course, import course content, share content with other instructors, or save your course as an archive. In addition, instructors now have access to the status of all the course tasks that they start. This includes:
- Copy
- Convert to Ultra
- Archive
- Export
- Import
- Restore
Logs are available for all course tasks. Instructors will be able to view the conversion report, view/filter, and download logs. These logs will help instructors triage any issues that may arise.
See the Reuse Content help article for information on importing course packages, copying content from courses, copying complete courses and exporting and archiving courses.
Copy Content from Other Courses
Creating content for your courses takes time and thoughtful planning. If you teach multiple courses that use similar content, you may want to copy content items and folders between courses to help save time. In the Ultra Course View, you can copy content from other courses you teach so you don't have to start with a blank slate.
You can quickly build your list of content to copy from another course. You can choose to copy multiple pieces of content across your courses, including all content in your courses. Get started from the Course Content page.
See the Copy Content from Other Courses help article for information on copying content, supported content types and issues and exceptions with copying content. You can also watch the Copy Course Content from Original to Ultra video for an introducton on how to reuse Original course content for a Learn Ultra course.
Copy Courses
Learn Ultra allows instructors to duplicate course content from within the Ultra courses they're teaching. This feature lets instructors or anyone that create or add content to Ultra select individual course items or entire folders. The ability to copy content items and not recreate content from scratch provides a time-saving solution for instructors building their courses.
See the Copy Courses help article for instructions on how to copy course content as well as a list of items that can be copied.
Export and Archive Courses
You can export your course content for use in the future. This content is included in an export/archive package:
- Course content
- Rubrics associated to assignments
- Calendar events, including office hours and course schedule
- Discussions
- Gradebook settings
- Manual gradebook items
- Goals alignments
- Attendance for archives only
- Course announcements
Export and archive packages are downloaded as compressed ZIP files and are imported or restored in the same format. Don't unzip a package or delete files from the package, as then the contents can't be imported correctly.
If you want to share your course content with other instructors, you can send them the ZIP file. Instructors can import the ZIP file into one of their courses or an administrator can restore an archive package. All content is hidden from students so that you or another instructor can set visibility.
See the Export and Archive Courses help article for instructions to export or archive your course.
Import Course Packages
You can import a course package from a previous course or from another instructor. When you import content, the content comes over in bulk—all of the content comes over at once. This information also applies to organizations.
You can also import ZIP files of question pools or other question resources into your Ultra course. The Original course's question pools appear as question banks after conversion.
Export/import creates an attendance column that you can't delete, but no attendance data is added.
See the Import Course Packages help article for instructions.
Batch Edit
Content management is a time-consuming part of course setup and maintenance. Instructors spend valuable time to carefully organize content and assessments and release it for students to access at certain times.
In the Ultra Course View, you can use Batch Edit to update common settings across all content, such as visibility and due dates. You can also use the tool to delete a group of selected course content. With Batch Edit, you can control content settings in one place and all at once.
See the Batch Edit help article or view the Batch Edit in Ultra Course View video for more information.