Overview
Ultra is the new course view in Blackboard that we’re moving to at UAA. We are currently in a multi-year process of transitioning fully to Ultra course view. Courses continue to be within Blackboard, and you will still access your courses by logging into classes.alaska.edu. The difference comes with how the course appears and functions once you’re inside of the course.
For the 2025-26 Academic Year, it’s up to you whether you want to try Ultra or keep teaching in Original course view. You can preview Ultra before you choose whether you want to teach in Original or Ultra course view. Also, since this is a course-by-course choice, if you’d like to try it for one course, but not all of your courses yet, you can choose which view you want to use for each individual course. This article will walk you through how to preview Ultra for your courses. You can also follow along by taking a look at this short, 1-minute video to see how to try Ultra.
In this article:
Preview Ultra course view
When you open your course, you may see a pop-up prompting you to Try the Ultra Course View. If you see this pop-up, click “Try the Ultra Course View” to preview Ultra.
If you don’t see this pop-up, follow these steps to preview Ultra:
- Make sure your course is unavailable by clicking the lock in the top right corner to turn it red.
- Click the pencil next to it and choose "Experience the new Learn".
- Choose “Try the Ultra Course View” to preview Ultra.
You should then see a pop-up within Blackboard that your course is being converted. Your course name will be grayed out and inaccessible while it is being converted, which should only take a few minutes. You may need to refresh the page. After your course finishes converting, open it and you’ll see a bar at the top showing you that you’re in Ultra Course Preview. You can navigate around in the course, add content, and use Student Preview to inform your decision about if you’d like to teach in Ultra.
Warning
Warning: It’s best to wait to build out your course until you’ve decided which course view you want to use, as some features (i.e. blogs, wikis) are not available in both views yet, and some tools (i.e. publisher integrations) can cause issues when converting between Original and Ultra.
Revert to Original course view
If after you preview Ultra you decide you’d like to continue teaching in Original as you have in the past, follow these steps:
- Click on the Back to Original course button in the bottom right.
- Your course will convert back to Original and once the conversion is finished, you can build out your course as you normally would in Original course view.
Confirm and use the Ultra course view
If after you preview Ultra you decide you’d like to teach in Ultra:
- Click Use the Ultra Course in the bottom right.
- Click again on the dialog box that comes up to confirm that you want to use Ultra.
Need more information?
On the Faculty Success Blackboard Ultra page, you can learn about using Ultra, the UAA timeline for transitioning, comparing Ultra and Original course views, and more.
Though completing the Ultra training is no longer required to teach in Ultra for Fall 2025 and beyond, it is still a great resource! We encourage you to register for the Ultra course conversion training. We have compiled helpful walkthroughs, videos, and instructional design materials into an asynchronous training that you can complete at your own pace. Completing the training course doesn’t require you to teach in Ultra, so it is a great opportunity to explore and determine when you want to make the transition to Ultra.
You can also contact the Faculty Success Instructional Design team (uaa_design@alaska.edu) to request a workshop or presentation for your department.