The Blackboard Ultra Base Navigation is a change in the menu and tools available and organized outside of your respective Blackboard course sites. Blackboard Ultra Base Navigation creates a fixed menu to the left that keeps the most important tools and activities easily accessible. Additionally, new features such as the Activity Stream and holistic Grades create a way to view your entire workload in one area.
On this page, you will learn more about the following Ultra Base Navigation features that are important for faculty.
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Landing Page/Institution Page
The first page to open is the Institution Page. Faculty/Staff resources are located here. Occasional system announcements for scheduled system outages will also appear here. Take note of those and adjust your assessments and due dates accordingly.
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Navigation Panel
Blackboard Ultra Base Navigation introduces a simple left navigation menu for easy access to your courses, grading, activity stream, your profile, etc. The left menu replaces the box modules on the Blackboard Learn landing page.
You can easily return to the menu from wherever you are, even from within a course. The menu peeks from behind the other layers you have open. Simply click the "x" in the top, left-hand corner of your course to exit and return to the main navigation.
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Your Name
The Profile page will be listed with your name. Customize your profile and global navigation settings.
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Activity Stream
Blackboard notifies users about due dates, grades, submissions, and more information through the activity stream. This is a list of what has occurred in the past, what is happening now, and what is coming up in the future for all your courses in one place.
You can filter your stream by Show All, Assignments and Tests, or Grades and Feedback. Click on the gear icon beside Filter to customize your Stream Notification Settings.
NOTE: Assessments will only appear here if due dates are used on the assessments. Item postings such as articles to read or videos to view will not appear here. Encourage your students to go into the course and consult your syllabus for all necessary activities.
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Course Pages
Within Blackboard Ultra Base Navigation, you can view the Courses page as a list or tiles.
To change the course view: from your Navigation Panel on the left side of the page, select Courses, then click in the top, left hand corner to toggle between options.
Inside the Courses area, you have the ability to:
- filter and search your course list
- browse by term (change term using arrows or dropdown menu at top of page)
- view your favorited courses
- and manage the access to your course
In tile view, instructors can also edit the Course Image shown on the tile by clicking the three dots in the top right of the course tile and selecting "Edit course image". The image must be at least 1200 x 240 pixels. Images with text do not scale well. This tile image will also be displayed as the banner within the course.
List View
Tile View
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Organizations
Organizations will default to the organizations in which you are enrolled (in any role).
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Messages
On the messages page, you will see a list of all your courses. Clicking on a course will take you directly to the Messages tool within that course.
Note: these are course messages that are internal to Blackboard. This is not the Blackboard Email tool, those messages will go to your EVMS email.
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Grades
This page will allow a summary of grades for each course. Faculty will see how many grades to post and an average course grade for each class. Students will see a list of their recent grades and their overall grades for each course. This allows both sets of users to easy access grade information for all courses in a centralized location. Access to grades within the individual course sites is still available.
If you see an assignment, quiz, exam, etc. needs grading (eg., "2 to grade"), simply click the assignment name and begin grading.
Clicking on a course will take you directly to the Grade Center within that course.
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Assist
Assist helps students when and where they need it with personalized support from institutional resources, Blackboard solutions, and third-party educational services. Assist is a repository for the best online and campus resources to help students and faculty succeed in school and life. Our previous resource pages, Student Success Resources and Faculty Success Resources, are now located within Assist.
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Tools
The Tools page displays the additional tools Blackboard supports.
