Request your Spring Blackboard courses
Spring 2022 Blackboard courses are available for request through SPIRE. Don’t forget that each semester you will need to request Blackboard for the courses you are teaching.
For detailed instructions, see:
Request your Spring Echo360 courses
Echo360 course requests for Spring 2022 are available in SPIRE. Just like Blackboard, each semester you will need to request Echo360 for the courses you want to use it in. For step by step instructions, see Request Lecture Capture
Echo360 allows you to create recordings of your lectures to deliver to students. Students can access recordings to learn new content or review content to reinforce the information. The system also allows you to add interactive content and measure student engagement.
Echo360 Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) uses speech to text algorithms to create an interactive transcript for your recordings. After you do a little editing for accuracy, your students will be able to study for exams, find relevant information in recordings, and even turn on Closed Captioning for your media.
Once your Echo360 courses are ready, it’s easy to give students access to Echo360 recordings through Blackboard.
Automatically copy your Zoom cloud recordings to Echo360
You can connect your Zoom and Echo360 accounts, and have all cloud recordings copied into Echo360. If you enable this, you can even have a recurring Zoom meeting publish directly to an Echo360 course. Unlike Zoom recordings, which are kept for 120 days, Echo360 does not have a storage limit on your recordings.
Blackboard Tip of the Month: Use the Wiki to give students a collaborative space to work
The Wiki tool in Blackboard is used to create collections of collaboratively produced web pages in Blackboard. The activity begins with a start page (which the instructor can “seed” with content). Participants in the activity can then add and edit content, including linking to new pages. Wikis can be configured to allow editing by all course members, only a single individual, or a group of students. Uses for wikis can include:
- Group lecture notes or study guides
- Planning work or a meeting agenda
- Collaboratively authoring an online book
- Collaborative storytelling or poetry, where each participant writes a line or verse
- Personal journals for notes or revisions
Planned downtimes
There are no planned downtimes for Blackboard during February 2022.
You can check the status of Blackboard, Zoom, and other supported teaching technologies on the IT Services Status for Remote Teaching and Learning page.
Blackboard help and resources for instructors
To learn more about Blackboard or to get help, you can:
- Review our Blackboard Support Articles.
- Contact the Instructional Media Lab (instruct@umass.edu) with a question, or to set up a time for a one-on-one consultation.
- Join our Instructor Support Zoom room Monday-Friday between 10am and 3pm to meet with a staff member. Please note that wait times depend on the volume of requests.
- Contact the 24/7 Blackboard Helpdesk. The helpdesk can also assist students directly.