Blackboard Ultra Notifications and Activity Stream

This is a guidance that's been put together by Jordan and Kamila but may needs checking.

This resource provides an introduction to Blackboard Ultra Notifications and Activity Stream.

We will cover:

What are notifications
Notification types
Customising your preferences
Using the Activity Stream
Helping students with notifications

What are notifications?

Notifications are alerts that automatically generate in Blackboard Ultra when events occur in your modules, helping you and your students keep up to date with newly added content, assignments and announcements.

Types of notifications include:

Stream Notifications: these appear on your Activity Stream page.
Email Notifications: You will receive notifications by email either immediately or as a daily digest.
Push Notifications: Messages pop up on your mobile device if you have the Blackboard app for students installed.

Stream Notifications

Stream notifications appear on your Activity Stream page. The activity stream breaks these down into Important, Upcoming, Today, and Recent notifications.

The Important category shows any overdue notifications or events that have passed in your calendar. You can remove these notifications using the dismiss button.
Under Upcoming you will see your top five notifications from your calendar.
Today will show you any events in your calendar for the day.
Recent section includes notifications from the last seven days that were previously in the Today section.

Email Notifications

Email Notifications will be sent to your University email account. As well as choosing which categories of notification you want to receive by email you also have the option to reduce notifications into a daily digest or receive them as soon as they are released. In the notifications panel select the envelope icon to adjust which notifications you will receive by email.

Push Notifications

Push Notifications pop up on your mobile device if you have the Blackboard app installed. In the notifications panel select the bell icon to adjust which notifications you will receive via the app.

Notification Preferences

This video shows you how to customise your notification preferences.

By default, all notifications will be enabled but you will have the ability to turn each of the categories of notifications off for Stream Notifications, Email Notifications and Push Notifications.

It is worth spending some time to understand the different types of notifications and which ones are useful to you - this will help you decide what settings to apply.

https://cardiff.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=17609dfe-5901-46a2-b9bd-af2c00a31000&start=0.116665

Accessing Course Actions via the Activity Stream

The up-to-the-minute activity stream lets you jump directly into course actions. You don't need to dig through the system, search for deadlines, or miss assignments and tests. Remember, actions you deploy on your module will appear in your students activity stream

The following video shows how to access the activity stream and which items appear.

Activity stream items are grouped into four categories to make the list easier to scan:

Important: See overdue assignments, tests, and graded discussions. If you dismiss an item in this section, you won't be able to view it again (from the activity stream) even if you sign out and sign in again.

Upcoming: View your top five events that will happen in the next seven days. Select Show More for a complete list. This section doesn't appear if no upcoming events are available.

Today: See everything happening and due in the next 24 hours. If you add an announcement (as an instructor) they appear here or in the Recent section.

Recent: View stream items from the last seven days.

Activity stream Blackboard video

Helping Students Manage their Notifications

Introduction

Unfortunately, currently it is not possible to entirely prevent students from receiving notifications. When you make changes to a module, students receive a notification. It is helpful to bear this in mind when updating your modules.

For example: If a student is enroled on 5 modules in the first semester, and each module makes 3 changes to the module in a week, the student (depending on their preferences) will receive 15 notifications via email and on their activity stream. This can be overwhelming for a student but also limit the impact of each notification.

We also know that current notification system is imperfect, particularly around assignments, and can lead to students receiving alerts that are not completely relevant to them.

The following tips for individuals and schools can help ensure students are kept up-to-date without feeling overwhelmed or panicked by the notifications.

Adaptive release

Students receive notifications for upcoming assessments or new activities in their module. To avoid students receiving notifications for content not relevant to them, or assessment such as an extension or resubmission, you could use adaptive release criteria for individual students or a group of students

Announcements

Module announcements is a great way to share important information to a cohort. When creating an announcement you have the option to send as an email as well as posting to the module. Consider if all announcements need to be sent as an email and consider the frequency of your posts.

[guidance on announcements](https://help.blackboard.com/Learn/Instructor/Ultra/Interact/Announcements) (Ultra courses)
[guidance on announcements](https://xerte.cardiff.ac.uk/play_16134) (Original courses)

Clearly label all content and announcements

Ensure that it is as clear as possible which students a piece of content or assessment relates to - for this to come across to the activity stream or a push notification it needs to be in the title of the content or assessment. For example, include 'Late', 'Extension' or 'Resubmission' in the title of all assessments that are not intended for the whole cohort.

And finally...

Students themselves can choose which notifications/alerts/e-mails they want to receive by selecting the notification settings in the Activity Stream. However, it is important that they are aware that the selected settings will effectively apply to ALL the modules they are enroled on, not just a single instance.

Further support

For further support related to the content of this resource please contact [digedsupport@cardiff.ac.uk](mailto:digedsupport@cardiff.ac.uk).

You can also contact us via digedsupport@cardiff.ac.uk if you have any digital education queries not related to this resource.

Review status

This resource is reviewed and updated every 6 months.

It was last updated on 26/04/2023

Created by: Jordan Lloyd

dandange8005 / Ultra-Essentials