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Showing items tagged blackboard. Show All

13 Tips to Get Your Blackboard Course Ready

Checklist to optimize your course before the semester starts

The week before the semester starts can feel like a sprint: A full inbox, a syllabus that still needs one more edit, and a course shell that isn’t quite ready for students yet. Before the scramble...

Posted: August 12, 2026, 10:00 AM

Blackboard's August Update Redesigns Grading, Navigation, and Group Tools

A quick rundown of what's new for faculty & students

Blackboard's August update is one of the bigger releases we've seen in a while, touching grading, navigation, assessments, and course workflows all at once. Here's what's changing, organized by...

Posted: August 7, 2026, 3:31 PM

Level Up Your Course: Join Us for Blackboard Week (August 10th–14th)

Daily webinars to optimize your Fall courses

As we gear up for the FA2026 semester, Instructional Technology is hosting Blackboard Week from August 10th to August 14th. Whether you are completely new to Blackboard or a seasoned pro looking...

Posted: July 28, 2026, 10:00 AM

Blackboard Launches New Gradebook on August 7

Same grades, less clicking.

After a year-long redesign with faculty feedback sessions – including on-site at UMBC – Blackboard will launch a new gradebook starting August 7, 2026. The redesigned gradebook grid view will...

Posted: July 20, 2026, 10:00 AM

FA2026 Courses Created in Blackboard on July 15, 2026

Reminder: New Course Creation & Student Enrollment Process

Blackboard course shells for Fall 2026 were created on July 15, 2026. All Fall 2026 courses listed in the UMBC Schedule of Classes (SOC), regardless of designation as lecture, lab, etc, or...

Posted: July 16, 2026, 8:00 AM

Streamline Grading and Feedback with Gradescope

Pilot in Blackboard Begins Fall 2026

In partnership with the Math and Physics Departments, the Division of Information Technology is pleased to announce a pilot for Gradescope, a feedback and grading platform that integrates with...

Posted: July 14, 2026, 11:30 AM

July Update Brings Rubric Evaluation Report to Ultra Courses

Discussion descriptions, AI conversation timers, course favs

This month's Ultra update provides a new report that gives instructors class-wide rubric data at a glance, and a dedicated field that separates discussion context from prompt. Paired with clearer...

Posted: July 2, 2026, 10:29 AM

7 Accessible Practices for Creating and Sending Email

Accessibility starts before you hit send.

Email is one of the most universal communication tools we have at UMBC, and one of the most commonly overlooked places where accessibility breaks down. Whether you’re sending a department update,...

Posted: June 16, 2026, 12:30 PM

A human figure with outstretched arms inside a circle of two curved arrows, suggesting movement. Below the figure are two words: digital accessibility.

Ally's New Auto-Tagging Feature Takes the Hard Work Out of PDF Remediation

Accessible PDFs, now with less manual work.

If you've ever run an Ally course accessibility report and found a long list of untagged PDFs, you know the feeling: the problem is clear, but the path forward is time-consuming. Tagging PDFs for...

Posted: June 11, 2026, 2:41 PM

5 Tips for Creating Clear and Accessible Links

“Click here” doesn’t tell anyone where they’re going.

Links are everywhere -- in syllabi, announcements, email, assignments, websites, and Blackboard pages. They’re one of the most useful tools for connecting students to resources and one of the most...

Posted: June 9, 2026, 1:20 PM

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