Blackboard

Blackboard is the University's centrally-supported online learning environment. It has a range of tools for communication, collaboration, assessment, feedback, reflection and content management, and provides an online space for activities to support student learning. Additional tools integrate with Blackboard, including Re/Play (lecture capture), Turnitin (text comparison and marking) and the Library resource lists tool (Talis Aspire).

A strategic project is currently underway to move from the current, Original version of Blackboard, to the latest version, Blackboard Ultra.

Ultra Guidance

The vast majority of taught units use automatically created sites in Blackboard, on which registered students are automatically enrolled.

Blackboard is upgraded monthly in order to add new features, enhance existing functionality, and fix bugs and issues.

You can use Blackboard to:

• Provide students with improved access to course activities and materials – Blackboard courses, organisations, and materials can be accessed at any time of the day, from any location that is web-enabled.
• Enhance opportunities for student-to-student and student-to-faculty communication.
• Enable student-centred teaching approaches, eg by allowing the provision of learning materials in a range of media that support different learning preferences.
• Reduce time spent on administrative support for learning, for example through re-use of key administrative materials like forms or handbooks.

Support

• The Login and home pages feature a variety of supporting resources, including internal and external links to guides.
• Contextual help within Blackboard – just click the Support questionmark at the bottom right of any Blackboard page.
• Request a Blackboard test course (email: digital-education@bristol.ac.uk) and then use it to practice editing, following the instructions in our Blackboard Course Design guide.
• Our blog contains useful information for both students and staff, including service announcements. The blog allows you to sign up to receive email summaries of new posts.
• We offer Blackboard workshops, that can be modified or amended to align with discipline or practice requirements. If there is not a workshop scheduled, please contact us and we will try to arrange something for you.
• Email our helpdesk: digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.