Blackboard Original and Ultra Feature Comparison

This document is intended to capture some of the primary differences between Blackboard Ultra and Original Course view. It is focused on features that have historically be available to Syracuse instructors in original course view but might not be ready or planned for ultra course view. 

New Tools

Discussion Analysis

Embedded Insights

Grade Center Filter and Search

Changed Tools

Some feature in Ultra Course View are worth noting as significantly different than those in Original Course View. This list is not exhaustive but highlights some key differences between Ultra and Original Courses.

• Text editor — the text editor is newly built and no longer relies on a third-party as in Original Course view. Instructors should expect differences in the tools they find they and a new user interface. As it's being developed, there may be features that are currently missing that will be added.
• Accommodations — there are new tools in ultra courses to give accommodations at the level of the student rather than at the level of the test or assignment
• Folder nesting depth — 
• Unsubmitted work — Unsubmitted work counts as zero in ultra courses

Common Tools 

These are tools commonly used by Syracuse University instructors that are not yet available in ultra courses. For some of them Blackboard is planning to eventually add them to ultra course view while other features will no longer be available in ultra courses by design.

Planned for Inclusion in Ultra Courses

Course Builder role

Course Links

Course Survey

Grade Exemptions

Question Types — Ultra does not yet support the full array question types that original courses do. The currently available question types are:

• Essay
• Fill in the Blank
• Matching
• Multiple choice (single and
  multiple correct)
• True/False
• Calculated Formula

Not Planned for Inclusion in Ultra Courses

HTML Editing including embeds — Ultra courses included more tools for natively embedding content from other websites but it is no longer possible to edit the page code to insert <iframe> code.

Flickr Embedding

Slideshare Embedding

Lesser-used Tools

Planned for Inclusion in Ultra Courses

Not Planned for Inclusion in Ultra Courses

Glossary

Lesson Plans

Tasks

Wikis