How to Use an Ultra Document

How to Use an Ultra Document

The documents tool within Blackboard Ultra is another way to add content to your course. Other than text, and images, Ultra documents also allow for uploading documents through cloud storage services, and other features. Another new feature is the ability to reorganize and add columns to your document with ease. Although the documents feature has been around for a while, it has recently received a massive update. This professional development training session is geared towards showing everyone what tools are available, as well as how to use them in Ultra.

Adding a Document to Your Course Content

  1. To add a document to your course content, first hover the mouse over any of the grayish black lines between your current content. The line should turn to purple once the mouse is hovering on the line.


  2. Once the line is purple, click the primary clicking button on the mouse. This will bring up a dropdown menu.

  3. From the dropdown menu, click the “Create” option. A panel on the right will appear.

  4. Click on the “Document” option.
  5. This will create a new document for you to work in.

  6. Remember to give the document a title!


Content

The “Content” option allows for you to type in or insert a wide variety of different things from general text, math formulas, tables, code, images, and videos. Text can also be edited from within the textbox. This allows you the ability to upload a variety of media options to help teach your class.

  1. Click on the “Edit Content” button on the upper right portion of the browser window.

  2. Click on the “Content” button on the left side of the tools bar.

  3. A text editor box will appear. Now you can start adding text and media to your course.

  4. Once you are done adding content to the text box, remember to click the save button in the upper right corner to save your progress.



HTML

The HTML option allows for you to insert HTML code into your course document. These are mainly intended to be used with iFrames, but you can include your own HTML code as well. Although this does not allow you to access a specific CSS document to add styles to your content and can include the style elements to add CSS to the HTML document. This is a great tool if you know how to use HTML, if not, have no fear. There are plenty of ways to replicate what can be done in HTML with the content editor.
 
  1. Click on the “Edit Content” button on the upper right portion of the browser window.

  2. Click on the “HTML” button on the left side of the tools bar, or the plus sign on the upper left side of the browser. Regardless of which route you take, click on the “HTML” button option.
    1.      
  3. An HTML editor will now appear before you.

  4. Now you are free to start adding HTML code to your document.
  5. When you are done, remember to click on the save button in the upper right corner.



Knowledge Check

The Knowledge Checker feature allows you to place questions throughout the document, to check to make sure that the students are reading the document’s material.

  1. To add a knowledge check, click on the Knowledge Check button.

  2. A new window will appear where you can enter in the knowledge check information.

  3. Now you can enter in the information into the knowledge check question builder.

  4. Click save when you are done typing the question. This saves the question and adds it to the document.


  5. Remember to click the save button on the upper right corner of the browser window to save your work.



File Upload

The file upload features allow you to upload just about any kind of file type that you would need to share with students.

  1. To add a file to the document, click on the “File Upload” button.
  2. This will open a file explorer window. From there, you will need to navigate to the document that you want to upload.
  3. A new window will appear, asking you to give the document a display name, set the alternative text, and set the file viewing options.

  4. Click on the save button when the information has been filled in.
  5. Remember to click the save button in the upper right corner of the document page.


Cloud Upload

The cloud upload button works in a similar manner to the file uploader, except instead of uploading a file directly from your computer, instead you are uploading a file from a cloud storage service.

  1. Click on the “Cloud Upload” button to upload a cloud document to the Ultra document.

  2. Now click on the cloud service that you would like to upload a document from.

  3. Connect to the cloud service.

  4. Pick the document that you want to upload.

  5. Once you have selected the documents that you want to upload, click on the “Select” button.

  6. Next a list of the selected documents will be shown to you. Now you can click on the “Import” button to add the files.

  7. Blackboard will import and convert the file. Now the only thing left to do is give the file a name and set the file options. Once that is done, click on the “save” button.


Content Collection

The “Content Collection” can best be thought of as your personal storage on Blackboard. Here you can store just about any file that you would like to, and then implement the file into any of your courses. You can also store other files here, as a backup cloud saving location. Generally, if you are going to store files here, they should be education related. Please do not save your tax returns here.

  1. First click on the “Content Collection” button. This will open a new panel to the content collection area.

  2. Now from within the Content Collection area, navigate to the file or folder that you need.

  3. Once you have found the file that you want to upload, click on the checkbox to the left of the file name.

  4. Once the files have been selected, click on the “Submit” button on the lower right of the browser window.

  5. After the “Submit” button has been clicked, the panel that appeared earlier will disappear, and a new pop-up window will appear. This window is asking you to give the file a display name.

  6. Once the name has been set, you can press the “save” button. This will save the content, which will now appear on the document as such.



Convert a File

The way in which the converter works is by taking a document that you have uploaded like say a Word document for instance and converts the document to something that will work with the content box, that way the file can be displayed natively, without the students having to say download the file.

  1. To use this feature, you need to click on the purple circle with a white plus sign in the middle of it. It will bring up the features menu. You will then need to click on the “Convert a File” button.

  2. This will open a file explorer window. From this window you will need to track down the file that you want to convert and add to the document.

  3. Once a file has been selected, Blackboard will go through the file, and convert it over to a “Content” box for the students.


  4. Now that the content box is ready, you can now click on the “Save” button on the upper right corner of the browser window.

    2. The result will look like a regular content box.



Moving Content Location

The description of this feature is exactly what it sounds like. This feature allows you to move content around the page with ease. Not only can you change the order in with which content appears on the page, you can also put content into columns.

  1. Enter the “Edit” document mode.
  2. Hover the mouse over the item you are trying to move. This will bring up different tools that are highlighted in purple.
  3. To move the content item up and down the page, click and hold onto the 6 white dots that are on the left side of the document.

  4. Now drag the content to where you want it on the page. Once the content is where you want it to be, release the mouse button. Now the content will exist in its new location.

  5. The other way to organize content is into columns. Blackboard allows up to 4 side by side columns on a document. In order to turn a piece of content into a column, first you must click and hold on the purple circle with the arrows pointing left and right on it.

  6. By holding the purple circle, and dragging the content left and right, you can choose how many columns you would like it to occupy.

  7. Once the content is the correct number of columns wide, you can release the mouse click, and the content will stay that size.
  8. To move content around from one column to another, you will need to grab the 6 white dots, and drag the content to the column that you want it in.

  9. Once you have the content in the area that you want it in, release the mouse click, and the content will stay in its new place.



Other Buttons

Each one of these buttons carries out a different function.

  1. The plus button will add content. You can click this button if you want to add something to the Blackboard document.

  2. Click on the Undo button if you want to have an action that was just completed undone.

  3. If you decided against an action and want to revert the document back to a previous state, click on the redo button.

  4. To use each button, merely click on the button that you want, and it will carry out its intended purpose.


Settings

Contrary to other settings options throughout Ultra, the settings in the document area is limited. Here you are allowed to enable class conversions about the document, set alignments, and add a description. Other than those 3 things, nothing else can be done.

  1. To use any of these settings, first you will need to click on the gear icon to open the settings panel.

  2. Next, you will need to decide on if you want to allow your class to be able to have a conversation over the contents within the document. If yes, then click on the checkbox. If no, then leave the checkbox blank.
    1. Yes: 
    2. No: 
  3. Now it is time to align the document with goals if there are any.

  4. After that, it is time to add a description for the document.

  5. After all of the settings have been set, you can now click on the “Save” button on the bottom right of the panel.



Visibility

The Visibility setting allows for you to set how, if, or when a student can view the document.

  1. To use this feature, click on the drop-down and determine if and or when you want your students to see the document.
  2. If you want to keep editing the document, leave the visibility set to hidden.
  3. If you want your students to be able to view the document right away, click on the “Visible to students” option.
  4. If you would like to set release conditions for the document, then select the “Release Conditions” option. From there you can implement your intended release conditions for your students to be able to view the document. 

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