To ensure that courses look and work exactly as faculty have intended, the eLearning Technologies team is unable to convert courses from Classic into Ultra.

• Faculty are encouraged to consult with their eLearning liaisons or watch this video on different strategies for copying or importing existing Classic content into new Ultra courses.
• To help faculty prepare for this process, a number of training opportunities are available to learn how to use Ultra Course View. 
• Faculty will need to plan ahead so that their courses are converted by the next time they are offered.
• Those who want to begin working on their courses early—including faculty preparing for Fall 2023 or later—can request a template course site. Fall 2023 courses will be created during the week of July 10, 2023.

Fall 2023 course sites will be created the week of July 10, 2023. Those who want to begin working on their courses early can request a template course site.

Many faculty don't realize they can always request a "template course site." Unlike each semester's courses, these template sites do not disappear. Like your practice test course, they are always available. They serve as a great place to work on building your courses over time, as well as a great place to keep track of resources or ideas that you might use in the future. Once a new semester arrives, the content from your template site can be copied into the new term's site.

If there's a particular reason to, you can even have additional template sites (e.g. for courses that get team taught, different template sites for an online versus face-to-face course).

You can use this Service Portal request form to request as many template sites as you need. The form will also ask you to identify other faculty that might need shared access to your template. 

• YES. Faculty can copy content, but we have some suggestions…
• Before you move forward, consult with your eLearning liaisons
  • They can review your course structure and provide guidance on the various ways to copy or export/import course content.
  • Review this video on how to export/import and course copy between Classic and Ultra.
  • Faculty who wish to download all their files can also refer to this article on steps for downloading files from the course content collection.
• If you do copy content from a Classic course into an Ultra course, you will most likely receive a message at the top of your window explaining that errors occurred during the copy process. You can examine each error individually to learn more.

All Blackboard Classic courses will follow the existing policy on course availability. Courses will remain available within Blackboard for one academic year plus one semester. After that point, courses enter an archive where they remain for three full academic years. Courses can be temporarily restored from the archive by completing this Service Portal ticket.

eLearning Technologies is providing a variety of training opportunities with varying time commitments for faculty to learn the new Ultra Course View.

• Every instructor has been enrolled in a "Blackboard Learn Ultra Self-Paced Training" site. You can find the course under the Professional Development category when logged into Blackboard.
• A variety of webinar-style trainings are available in both shorter and longer formats. You can learn more about the opportunities by visiting the eLearning webinars page.
• Need individualized help or would like to request an opportunity for your department to participate in a group training? Please submit a consultation request in our service portal or reach out to your eLearning Technologies liaison. Please include your college, course title, number, and any course specific and/or technical questions so that we can direct your requests to the appropriate team member.

The GVSU IT team has created a form for Department Chairs and PSS to request temporary Blackboard accounts to be used before the GVSU network account is created. Instructions for requesting a temporary Blackboard account are available in this Knowledge Base article found on our service portal.

Blackboard organizations that are used for personnel purposes will stay in Blackboard Classic through May 1, 2024. Organizations will not be asked to convert to Ultra, but any new organizations that are created will be Ultra organizations.

For student-centered organizations (i.e. Health Compliance), we have begun to reach out to leaders about converting their sites to Ultra to lessen student confusion on the different formats. Our current focus is on organizations that have new cohorts starting in Fall 2023.