Learn Ultra FAQs

Once you've created/restructured your course content within the Sandbox environment, it's crucial to signal your readiness for the next step. Please complete the Ultra Conversion Confirmation form. This form acts as a green light, informing us that you're satisfied with the materials developed in the Ultra Sandbox and are prepared to transition them to a live course shell. Once the official semester shells become available, we'll leverage this confirmation to initiate the conversion from your existing Original shell to the Ultra format. Following the conversion, we'll copy the content you've created and refined within the Ultra Sandbox, ensuring a seamless transition into your active course for students.

GovState is set to transition to Ultra for all future courses, commencing in Fall 2026. All previous terms, including coursework and content from semesters prior to Fall 2026, will remain accessible within the Original format and will not need to be converted to Ultra by Instructors

GovState courses will be archived for a period of up to five years. After this five-year period, courses will no longer be readily accessible.

The Original experience will remain accessible until December 31, 2026. After this date, a transition period will begin: from January 1, 2027, all courses previously held in the Original format will become read-only, preserving them for reference until December 31, 2027. Following this, on January 1, 2028, Blackboard Learn Original will be permanently decommissioned and will no longer be accessible.

We highly recommend using Learning Modules first, then you may add folders and other content within the Learning Module to organize as needed. While Learning Modules are highly recommended, you may prefer to use folders to organize your course content. Folders can also be effective, especially if you have a large amount of diverse content that does not fit neatly into a module structure.

Yes, you may send a copy of the message to email. The option to Send and email copy to recipients is available when creating a new message within a course. However, students may not send the email back to the Messages in Blackboard. Students would either have to change the sender email address or click the button in the email to open Blackboard Messages within Blackboard.

Blackboard Learn Ultra offers seamless integration with a wide array of publisher content, amplifying the learning experience and providing students with direct access to high-quality resources. This integration streamlines workflows for both instructors and students; instructors can easily embed publisher materials like textbooks, simulations, and assessment tools directly into their courses. Students benefit from a centralized access point for all course materials, promoting a more focused and efficient learning environment. Furthermore, this integration often includes features like automatic grade synchronization between the publisher platform and the Blackboard gradebook, saving instructors time and ensuring accurate record-keeping. The availability and specific features of publisher integrations can vary depending on the publisher and GovState’s agreement with the publisher.

Open the Faculty Blackboard Learn Ultra Content from External Sources web tutorial to learn more.

You may either add your Outlook calendar to Blackboard or Share the Blackboard calendar to Outlook. Those options are available in the left navigation Calendar menu settings.

Open the Add an External Calendar text tutorial or Share Blackboard Learn calendar text tutorial to learn more.

You can use gradebook settings to customize your gradebook to match your teaching style and course goals. Select the Settings button to open the Settings panel and select Manage Grade Schemas to create and view available schemas within your course.

Open the Manage Grading Schemas web tutorial to learn more.

You can download the full gradebook or selected columns from your courses to work with in another program outside of Learn, such as Microsoft Excel to do statistical analysis. You can also make changes to exported grades in another application and then upload them back into Learn. The download option is available near the upper right corner upon opening the gradebook.

Open the Download Grades from Gradebook web tutorial to learn more.