FAQs: Ultra Courses Activation Project

An 'Ultra Course' provides several enhancements and new features that are not available in an 'Original Course'. This includes the ability to add stimulus material to test questions, progress tracking, and 'Conversations' that can be enabled for each content item, along with inline Discussions. Certain features have been revamped to increase accessibility and improve workflows. However, please note that some features (e.g. Wikis and Glossary) have been discontinued. Other features, like Blogs, are planned for future vendor releases.  

No. Courses will be individually converted to an Ultra Course.Will there be a lot of work involved in updating my course from Original to Ultra?

Courses will be converted to Ultra and 'tidied up' by the eLearning team. The effort required to update a course by teaching staff for the new semester will be minimal (i.e. comparable to what staff have previously experienced). However, teaching staff will need to familiarise themselves with the new modern interface and content creation features. Once staff are familiar, we anticipate even less time required to update course content moving forward due to more efficient workflows.

Faculty conversion

Course coordinators who elect to have the faculty complete the conversion 'tidy up' work will have the course requested by the faculty. The effort required by course coordinators is predicted to be 6-8 hours which might include attending an Ultra workshop, or using self-directed resources, checking the conversion and completing standard semester updates.

Standard semester updates

The standard semester updates however, will take longer than usual as teaching staff will need to familiarise themselves with the new modern interface and content creation features. Once staff are familiar with Ultra, we anticipate even less time required to update course content moving forward due to more efficient workflows.

Self serve

Course coordinators who elect to complete their own conversion tidy up are required to either request a new site or a copy of a previous course site and complete the required 'tidy up' work themselves. The effort required is predicted to be 10-20 hours which might include reorganising course materials using the Convert your course to Blackboard Ultra guide, attending an Ultra workshop, or using self-directed resources and completing standard semester updates.

By policy ITS will maintain both Blackboard Oriignal and Ultra course sites online for up to four years from the start of the course teaching period. In practice ITS is currently maintaining courses from 2017 onwards.

Courses must remain available to student by policy for 12 months following the completion of the course semester/teaching period.

The Deputy-Vice Chancellor (Academic) requested ITaLI develop a proposal to update UQ's Learning Management System (LMS) with the least amount of impact and maximum benefit, noting UQ's Online Learning Platform is currently highly regarded by students according to National QILT student experience surveys. The Ultra course activation proposal was approved by the Digital Learning Subcommittee on 6 June 2023 and the Digital Learning Program Management Steering Committee on 22 June 2023.

Core tools integrated into Learn.UQ (Blackboard) including Blackboard assignments, Blackboard Tests, and Grade Centre will be updated. All other UQ developed and third-party tools (i.e. Turnitin, H5P, Echo360, UQ Extend, Inspera, Buddycheck, Ed Discussion Board, Gradescope, Course Insights, RiPPLE and Learning Pathway) will remain unchanged.

The Ultra Champion's role as a recent adopter is to be a local touch point for other academics who might want to ask a peer about the adoption experience. The role is not about providing support on Ultra or explaining the project but rather to be available to offer insight into the experience from the academic point of view, because academics sometimes like to hear from a peer. Some champions choose to talk or present at local school or faculty meetings on their experience but this is optional.

Semester 2 courses can be requested Semester 1 Week 3. Summer Semester and Semester 1 courses can be request Semester 2 Week 5. This is due to the standard practice of ITS creating course "shells" 6 months in advance when accurate course data is available from SI-net.

Blackboard Assignments, Blackboards Tests, Grade Centre and content tools in Learn.UQ (Blackboard) will have enhanced functionality. All other UQ developed and external eLearning tools connected to Learn.UQ (Blackboard) may be accessible from a slightly different location, however there will be no changes to the tools themselves (i.e. Turnitin, Inspera, Ed Discussion Board and Learning Pathway).

A course activation approach will be decided in consultation with Associate Deans (Academic). For instance, Ultra may be rolled out by year group, program, or another approach.  Individual courses can be converted to Ultra while other courses continue to use 'Original' course sites.

Ultra Course sandboxes are now available for staff to explore Blackboard’s most recent look and functionality for course sites. To request a sandbox course, email help@elearning.uq.edu.au with the subject line Ultra Course sandbox.

Yes, courses can be copied as normal and then converted to Ultra, although a minor tidy up will be required.

Most question types will be available in Ultra courses, but some types will be discontinued (File Response, Jumbled Sentence, Opinion Scale/Likert, Ordering, Quiz Bowl). An enabling project may be required to convert question types that are no longer available to a different format.

There will be no changes to how Allocate+ integrates with Ultra and the Course Profile link will still be available, just accessible from a different location in the course.

All course material can either be copied over from a previous semester or created from scratch within a blank Ultra course copy.

The default of three content levels (i.e. two folders plus a content level) was initially available in Ultra to maximise accessibility and limit clicks to ease navigation. In 2024, based a on request from faculties this was increased to four levels to suit the preference of some course coordinators. It was agreed that the use of three content levels is recommended and preferred to improve accessibility and ease of navigation in courses.

While Ultra has been available for a number of years UQ has been careful to monitor the maturity of the product in order to gauge the optimal adoption time, based on balancing advantages against any potential disruption to teaching. Ultra was judged to be ready from 2023 onwards.

Detailed guides are made available to tutors in support of the marking process. Minor changes to Blackboard Assignments, Journals, Tests and Gradebook, may affect the marking process, at about the same level of impact as regular tool updates. There are no changes to marking in tools external to Ultra (i.e. Turnitin), although the method of access may be slightly different. Course Coordinators can choose to book a 30-minute eLearning custom workshop to be presented during a pre-scheduled tutor marking or orientation meeting, or direct tutors to the online guides.

While there currently is no text column functionality in Ultra courses, the vendor (Anthology) has informed us that this functionality is due in a future release.

Quick Enrol functionality is not currently available in Ultra courses, however we hope the vendor (Anthology) will implement this functionality in the future and encourage staff to vote for Quick enrol for Ultra courses on the Anthology Ideas Exchange.

Extra time (Accommodations)

Accommodations in Ultra courses are set for individual students and then apply to all timed assessment items within the course. Accommodations can include adjusting or overriding time limits. For more information, refer to the Accommodations for timed assessment guide.

The following table shows the additional time required as a percentage of an hour for accommodations.

Due date extensions, time-zone adjustments or additional attempts (Exceptions)

Exceptions in Gradebook allow instructors to make a one-time change to assignment settings for an individual student, such as:

• extending the due date for students with an approved extension
• customising the 'Show on' or 'Hide after' date/time for students in different time-zones
• allowing an extra attempt to account for personal circumstances

For more information, refer to the Grant Exceptions and Exemptions guide.

Two main conversion processes were considered for the main Ultra deployment. 

Conversion Approach 1 (Recommended): Ultra the Ultra Template

Courses are flagged to be created as Ultra courses using the Ultra template. Content is generated using the copy and convert method.

• Creating course shells as Ultra, rather than converting Original course shells resulting in courses being more technically robust. 
• Control of the level of folders that are copied, resulting in less conversion clean-up work. 
• Faculties determine which courses are transitioning to Ultra before ITS creates the course shells, i.e., O'Week Semester 1 for Semester 2 courses, Week 2 Semester 2 for Summer Semester and Semester 1 courses. 
• Ultra course template would be adapted for use as part of the first delivery, which would mean no additional clean-up work will be necessary in the second delivery of the course. 
• Template also includes folder with student technical instructions for different assessment submissions with updated links. 
• Reduced course site file size, as only linked items are copied from previous offering. This reduced course file size improves the responsiveness of courses.  
• The reduced course file size also has technical benefits. Courses over 4GB can not be restored by the eLearning team if there are technical issues. It is also not possible for the vendor to copy the site to conduct a technical investigation if it is needed. 
• All three other Australian unis who have transitioned to Ultra used this copy and convert approach.

Conversion Approach 2 (Not Recommended): Using Conversion Tool 

Course can be flagged to be created as Original. Making use of Instructor Choice the conversion tool is used to migrate content. 

• The POC determined the conversion tool appeared to have technical issues resulting in obscure "bugs" for course coordinators that took weeks to resolve during the POC. 
• Does not leverage the Ultra template (with guidelines etc) for the first delivery of the course. The Ultra template will get implemented for second delivery, but then require additional clean-up work. 
• Does not allow for control over the level folders are copied at, resulting in additional clean-up work.  
• Allows for the determination of what courses will be transitioned to Ultra during the course request timeframe (17 weeks). 

Central non-invigilated Learn.UQ (Blackboard) end-of-semester exams are being discontinued from Semester 1, 2025. For further information, refer to the Teaching and assessment updates | Semester 1, 2025 page by ITaLI.