Identified issues in Ultra during Course Activation Project

During deployment of Ultra, a number of technical issues have been identified and investigated.

Last updated: 4 April 2025

Top priority issues affecting Ultra courses

Issue 1: Text columns not available in Gradebook.

Resolution: Can use a marking schema to display text while awaiting the new Gradebook text column to be released in a future update.

Issue 2: Automatic announcements created for self-enrol group sets.

Resolution: Announcement can be deleted prior to the enrolment start date to avoid announcement going out to students. Vote for the improvement on the Anthology Idea Exchange: Self enroll groups: make creation of announcement (and mail) optional.

Issue 3: Instructor roles don't have the ability to delete files/folders from the content collection in Blackboard Ultra.

Resolution: Vendor advises the following:

We're trying to minimize the need for instructors to need to go into Content Collection. Having to manage the front-end and back-end of a course opens the door for human errors. Content Collection has been plagued with orphaned files and increasing the sizes of courses. Recently, we made a change that when you delete a file or replace a file in Ultra, it also deletes it in Content Collection. We would like to continue moving towards that direction where you can do all of your management within the course without having to also manage the Content Collection.

Vote for the improvement on the Anthology Idea Exchange: Content collection management from within the course

Ultra issues under investigation by vendor

Ultra issues to be fixed by vendor in a future release

Issue 1: Issue with downloading files while using the Blackboard Learn mobile app

Resolution: Identified as an issue within the mobile app and will be fixed by the vendor in an upcoming monthly update.

Issue 2: Document content not appearing to students after conversion from an original course.

Resolution: This issue is caused during the conversion from an Original Course to an Ultra Course in instances where Adapative Release rules applied to the item in the Original Course. Recreating the item has worked as atemporary workaround. This has been identified as a system issue within Ultra and will be fixed by the vendor in an upcoming monthly update.

Issue 3: Unable to send messages to individual students from the class roster.

Resolution: Identified as a system issue within Ultra and will be fixed by the vendor in an upcoming monthly update. Current workaround is to directly email students using their email address.

Issue 4: In Ultra Courses staff are unable to send Email Reminders for Gradable Items when release conditions are set for assessments such as Turnitin assignments, Blackboard tests etc.

Resolution: Identified as a system issue within Ultra and will be fixed by the vendor in an upcoming monthly update.

Issue 5: Slow loading of learning modules when they are edited in quick succession.

Resolution: Identified as a system issue within Ultra and will be fixed by the vendor in an upcoming monthly update.

Issue 6: Edited file names in an Ultra Test aren't sticking; they are reverting to the original uploaded file name.

Resolution: Identified as a system issue that randomly affects some uploaded files within Ultra Tests; no current workaround. This issue will be fixed by the vendor in an upcoming monthly update.

Issue 7: Students are receiving daily notifications that new marks and feedback are available when assessment has not been marked.

Resolution: Identified as a system issue within Ultra and will be fixed by the vendor in an upcoming monthly update. Current workaround implemented by eLearning Systems and Support was to disable automatic notifications to students that marks and feedback have been released.

Issue 8: Ultra assignment submissions taking long time to load and then you receive a no results found message. After another few moments the assessments then appear.

Resolution: Identified as a system issue within Ultra and will be fixed by the vendor in an upcoming monthly update. Current workaround is to wait a little longer and the assessments will appear.

Issue 9: Ability to disable the Books and Tools option for students.

Resolution: Currently this is not something that can be disabled for students. Changes to the Details & Actions side bar (which includes Books and Tools) is expected in a future release.

Issue 10: Extra spaces added before first character in tables that were converted from an Original Test to an Ultra test.

Resolution: Identified as a system issue within Ultra and will be fixed by the vendor in an upcoming monthly update. Current workaround is to manually remove additional spaces in tables on Ultra tests (only applies if students will be copying data into excel to complete formulas)

Issue 11: A display until date was set in the students exception which caused the Quiz link to be hidden which stops the student accessing the feedback. Unable to remove due to the due date being in the past.

Resolution: Identified as a system issue within Ultra and will be fixed by the vendor in an upcoming monthly update. Current workaround is to reset the exceptions for the student including the due date.

Issue 12: Unable to reply to student messages (that are automatically sent as emails) from staff email accounts as it they have a no reply address.

Resolution: Workaround is to look up the student's email address and send a new email. The vendor is due to release functionality to allow staff to reply student messages directly in a monthly update.

Issue 13: Slow loading of learning modules when they are edited in quick succession.

Resolution: Identified as a system issue within Ultra and will be fixed by the vendor in an upcoming monthly update.

Ultra issues that have been resolved

Issue 1: OHS tool not available in Ultra.

Resolution: ITS to update the OHS tool for compatibility with Ultra courses. Released by ITS in February 2024

Issue 2: Unable to create additional Total/Weighted Total calculation columns in Ultra courses.

Resolution: Ultra courses is restricted to one overall calculated column, ability to add additional Total/Weighted Total calculation columns will be added by the vendor in an upcoming monthly update. Released by vendor in January 2024 version 3900.82

Issue 3: Allocate+ groups not coming through for all Ultra courses.

Resolution: ITS to implement fix for Allocate+ groups to ensure they flow through to Ultra Courses. Fix released by ITS in February 2024

Issue 4: Class roster is available to students.

Resolution: Class roster to be disabled from student view. Resolved by eLearning Systems and Support in February 2024

Issue 5: Results from Macmillan publisher tool not recorded correctly for students.

Resolution: Issue self-resolved after automatic updates of results from the Macmillan publisher tool.

Issue 6: Turnitin due date wouldn't update after changing it in Ultra course

Resolution: Investigated and resolved by eLearning Systems and Support on 28 April 2024

Issue 7: Hotspot question marking issues

Resolution: Identified as a system issue within Ultra and will be fixed by the vendor in emergency update. Resolved by vendor in April 2024

Issue 8: Unable to make course reading list available to students.

Resolution: Course reading list tool updated after courses created and required updated link to be added to Ultra courses. Resolved by eLearning Systems and Support in February 2024

Issue 9: The overall mark in Gradebook is displaying a colour overlay depending on student performance. Due to global setting for colour overlay we are unable to edit the colours or the percentage boundaries for the colour overlay.

Resolution: Setting disabled by eLearning Systems and Support in February 2024.

Issue 10: SI-merge tool and Direct upload to SI-net tool not working with Ultra.

Resolution: ITS are updating these tools to ensure compatibility with Ultra courses. This update is on track for release prior to the Semester 1 exam period. Released 28 May 2024

Issue 11: Self-enrol group sets automatically assign students at the sign-off end date even if this is not desired.

Resolution: Working as designed. A toggle for the auto assigning of remaining students will be added as a feature of self-enrol group sets in an upcoming monthly update. Released by vendor in June 2024 version 3900.93

Issue 12: A single student result on a marked Ultra Assignment has not recorded in Gradebook.

Resolution: This was identified as a data caching issue with the students attempt causing marks not to be automatically calculated and applied. This issue requires a manual override of the mark in Gradebook.

Issue 13: Error message displayed for embedded EchoVideos that was recently uploaded

Resolution: Error message is display when the video upload is still processing, once processed the video will display as expected. Resolved by vendor by changing the message to inform users the video is still processing April 2024.

Issue 14: Learning Pathway in Ultra does not have the option to be displayed as the landing page.

Resolution: The vendor is continuing to work on Learning Pathway and an update will be released to allow for Learning Pathway to be the landing page. Released 8 July 2024.

Issue 15: SI-merge tool and Direct upload to SI-net tool not working with Ultra.

Resolution: ITS are updating these tools to ensure compatibility with Ultra courses. This update is on track for release prior to the Semester 1 exam period. Released 28 May 2024

Ultra issues that require change management

During the Ultra Course Activation Project we have identified a range of issues related to process changes between Original courses and Ultra courses. To ensure a smooth transition between Original courses and Ultra courses, a targeted communication strategy will be developed to assist staff with the process changes.

Issue 1: Students unable to message members of their group.

Resolution: Course coordinators have been advised to setup Group Discussion boards to enable communications between group members. This adds transparency to the conversations between group members while providing useful data to course coordinators when assessing a group's effectiveness.

Issue 2: Turnitin assignment results released to students before course coordinator was ready.

Resolution: In Ultra courses the release of Turnitin results in Gradebook are automatically controlled by the Feedback Release Date within Turnitin. During the setup of Turnitin assignments the Feedback Release Date needs to be set to allow adequate time for assessments to be marked and reviewed before results are released

Issue 3: Students are unable to review feedback on quizzes even though the feedback settings are set to release feedback.

Resolution: The link for Ultra Tests needs to be visible to students in order for them to access any of the feedback.

Issue 4: Submit on behalf of a student to Ultra assignment

Resolution: In both Original and Ultra courses, staff are unable to submit to the assignment tool on behalf of a student. This functionality is expected to be added to Ultra in a future release.

Issue 5: Document viewer failed to render document correctly.

Resolution: Some documents that are uploaded to Ultra courses are not correctly rendered by the inbuilt document viewer. In the event that the document does not load correctly in the document viewer, staff can set the document to be download only.

Issue 6: Student claims that the displayed due time is different to actual due time for an assessment.

Resolution: Advise international students that device needs to have its timezone set to AEST (Brisbane) so that times are displayed correctly on their device. Students should also be encouraged to disable any browser add-ons that could impact browser functionality.

Issue 7: How to access the Mark history report for withdrawn students.

Resolution: Remind staff of the Withdrawn Student tool that will re-enable a withdrawn student in your course site so that a Mark history report can be extracted for the student.

Issue 8: Student unable to submit multiple attempt to Ultra assignment.

Resolution: The submission process has changed slightly from Original to Ultra and students are sometimes unsure on how to complete their submission. Increased communications to students about AskUs support and inclusion of student guides can assist with these issues.

Issue 9: Students submission date/time not updating from Turnitin for subsequent submissions from inside their Ultra course.

Resolution: When a student clicks on a Turnitin submission link in their Ultra course and they complete a submission it recorded the date and time inside Ultra, however if the student submits again it does not update the date and time of submission in Ultra (or Original). Students and staff should refer to the Turnitin inbox for the exact date and time of submission.

Issue 10: Gradebook won't load past a certain student while using Safari

Resolution: Recommend all staff and students use Chrome browser on both PC and MAC. Staff and students should also ensure they are performing regular updates of both their Operating System (OS) and also their Browser to ensure compatibility with systems. Regular clearing of browsing history and browser cache is also recommended to minimise issues.

Issue 11: Students claim they were unable to submit to Turnitin assignment after due date from link in Ultra course.

Resolution: Process for submitting to Turnitin in Ultra course has changed slightly from Original courses. Students will often use the changing/updating of a system as an excuse for not being able to submit assessment. Staff to ensure they have included student guides and contact details for the AskUs student helpdesk to assist students with submission.

Issue 12: Students confused about submissions to Ultra assignment after the due date.

Resolution: The Ultra assignment submission interface is different to Original and can be a little confusing for students after the due date. Improvements will be made to student guides to further clarify the submission process for Ultra assignments.

Issue 13: My Gradebook download includes "Ready to post" for marks that have not been posted to students.

Resolution: The SI-net merge tool has been updated for use with Ultra and is designed to export your Gradebook as an excel file in the correct format with the "Ready to post" tag removed.

Issue 14: Unable to attach a rubric to a column in Gradebook.

Resolution: Ultra Gradebook columns do not have the ability to attach a rubric to them like in Original. Instead this option is completed via an offline submission Ultra assignment.

Issue 15: Marker feedback included as part of a Gradebook mark upload not displaying for group assignment to students or staff.

Resolution: Recommendation to mark directly in group assignment rather than marking offline and uploading results via a spreadsheet. Workaround if a spreadsheet must be used is to create a separate Gradebook column and upload the marks and feedback to this column which is not attached to the group assignment.

Issue 16: How do I make a copy of an Ultra quiz/test.

Resolution: Process for the copying of any content within an Ultra course has changed from Original courses. For step-by-step instructions, refer to the Copy Content guide by Blackboard

Issue 17: How do I upload grades to SI-net in Ultra Gradebook

Resolution: The location of the Upload grades to SI-net and the SI-net merge tool have changed in Ultra courses and are now found in the View course & institution tools link located under Details & Actions on the Content screen.

Issue 18: Error message displayed to students for EchoVideos

Resolution: Error messages are display for EchoVideos when using the Student Preview tool. The Student Review tool does not work with EchoVideo in both Original or Ultra.

Issue 19: How to turn off the message icon next to staff in the Course staff list.

Resolution: This functionality is not available. UQ and other universities have requested this functionality from the vendor and it is under consideration.

Issue 20: Slow responses for Ultra tools

Resolution: Ultra requires an up to date browser version to ensure responsiveness.

Issue 21: VOB video files do not play in Ultra.

Resolution: Staff should convert the files to another video format and upload to EchoVideo.

Ultra issues that the vendor were unable to replicate in order to provide a solution

The following are a list of issues that were investigated by the vendor and they were unable to replicate the issue in order to provide a solution.

Issue 1: Attendance tool view glitching between staff and student view.

Resolution: Unable to replicate so no further action taken

Issue 2: Student result on test is incorrectly recorded in Gradebook as Zero.

Resolution: The vendor has been unable to replicate this issue and has not received any previous reports of a similar issue occurring from any client, it will continue to be monitored for future occurences. Workaround was to manually enter the student result into Gradebook.