The emails that were inadvertently quarantined earlier today have been restored to all accounts. 

If you have any questions or would like additional information about what occurred or any other part of the restoration process, please don’t hesitate to contact either me at damian@umbc.edu or Stacy Cahill at string1@umbc.edu. I would also like to thank the staff in DoIT who worked this afternoon to make sure every email was restored as quickly as possible and nothing was lost. 

Again, we are very sorry for the inconvenience and appreciate everyone's patience as we restored the emails.

Damian Doyle

Deputy CIO and Senior Associate VP

DoIT

The UMBC Instructional Technology Update is provided by the Division of Information Technology for students, faculty and staff. If you have questions or need help, please consult the Blackboard Help FAQs or directly at www.umbc.edu/blackboard/help.  You can also contact the Technology Support Center at 410.455.3838 or submit an RT (Request Tracker) ticket via the myUMBC Help Menu or directly at my.umbc.edu/help.

HEADLINES

What’s New

• Fall 24 Bb Courses to Use Ultra by Default
• 4 Reasons to Use Copy Content to Prepare an Ultra Course
• Ultra Courses to Support Additional Level of Nested Folders
• Ultra Adoption by Faculty Eclipses Original for SP2024
• Google Jamboard to Retire in Fall 2024
• Learning Analytics Mini Grants CFP Due 6/7/24
• Enhancing Media and Accessibility Using Panopto
• Panopto Mandatory Recorder Upgrade for Mac Users
• Blackboard Courses Created: SU2024 (April 22, 2024) & FA2024 (May 13, 2024)
• AY20-21 Blackboard Courses Scheduled for Server Retirement
• DoIT’s Susan Biro Selected to QM Academic Advisory Council
• 19th UMBC Course Earns QM Certification with New 7th Ed. Rubric

Training & Professional Development (recording archive | view upcoming events)

• Ultra Quick Start Series: 30 minutes to get you started
• Copy Content into Blackboard Ultra (5.15)
• Content Release and Visibility Settings (5.16)
• Create New Content in Blackboard Ultra (5.20)
• Create Assessments in Blackboard Ultra (5.28)
• Optimizing Course Quota (5.30)
• Blackboard Ultra's AI Course Design Assistant Tool (5.17)
• 30 Minutes: Check Course Accessibility with Bb Ally (5.21)
• Ultra Boot Camp: Kickstart Your First 2 Weeks (choose morning or afternoon on 6.4 or 6.6)

In Case You Missed It: Recordings & Tips

• Learning Analytics: Community of Practice SP2024 Series Recordings
• Selecting Course Materials and Tech Tools For Upcoming Terms
• Course Prep Checklists
• 8 Steps to Migrate Your Course to Ultra 
• Tips to Wrap Up Your Blackboard Course for the Semester 
• Effective Practices for Delivering Blackboard Tests
• Tips to Get Your Blackboard Course Ready for Next Semester

Other DoIT & UMBC News

• Why & How Getting Help is Changing @ UMBC
• Stacy Cahill '01 Joins UMBC as the New CISO
• Track Attendance in Poll Everywhere (Beta Release)

DoIT launched a new Help site, help.umbc.edu, the week after spring break. After sharing it with different stakeholders on campus and getting some feedback, we wanted to provide more context about why and how Getting Help is changing.

Why?

The way we work and learn has shifted, with students and staff demanding easy access to online support systems anytime. Given these new post-pandemic realities, as the campus began looking at new service management platforms, it became clear that a new campus-wide help experience was needed. myUMBC Help’s phone number and link-driven page was very helpful when most students were visiting offices in person or calling for support; post-pandemic, these services are expected to be online, searchable, and easy to find and use. This user-focused redesign began with engaging stakeholder offices around campus and students. DoIT employees and stakeholder offices changed their focus of help from what office you visit to what function you want to perform. The new help.umbc.edu prioritizes tasks over departments, offering comprehensive online support for all student, academic, administrative, and computing needs.

Pictured left -  myUMBC Help, prior to March 2024	Pictured right - help.umbc.edu, launched in March 2024.

How?

The new framework for help.umbc.edu allows us to tie together disparate systems, including the campus knowledge base at umbc.edu/faqs, many of the service request forms that are part of Request Tracker (RT), DocuSign forms, and direct links to PeopleSoft or cloud systems. The help categories use keywords to find the right support action, and context-sensitive search allows us to show FAQs that may match your search criteria. The use of knowledge and FAQs is being integrated on every level including search, the support category, and increasingly the support forms themselves. We’ve published an FAQ on navigating the new experience if you have any questions about using these new features.

A cross-functional team of employees within DoIT came together to make the vision a reality. This included staff experts on the programming, design, content, and stakeholder outreach necessary to make this project successful, including: 

• Ally Hepp, M.P.S ’22, technical management - IT Project Coordinator 
• Jacob Lutz ’17, computer science - IT Developer
• Andrea Mocko ’12, psychology, M.S. ’18, human-centered computing - Manager, Technology Support Center
• Ken Schreihofer, M.S. ’15, information systems - Director, Business Systems
• Vy Nguyen ’26, computer science - DoIT Student Employee

While we are excited to share the benefits of the new help.umbc.edu experience, we know that once users start using it they will have feedback to improve this. We welcome any questions or feedback that you may have. This is the first step, and future improvements will be coming soon. 

We also want to acknowledge the contributions of Asst. Vice President Joe Kirby ’85, information systems management, who led the original help system development that has served UMBC well. Joe’s involvement with the help system has a long history. His article “Beyond the IT Helpdesk” (2013) in the EDUCAUSE Review was one of the first explorations on delivering a holistic help system at scale across an institution. Joe served as a consultant and mentor to the help.umbc.edu project team. The campus may also want to revisit Joe’s 30th-anniversary service award and digital story here.