AI Design Assistant in Blackboard Ultra: FAQ 

The following information has been taken from our training sessions that took place on Sept 26 and Oct 16, 2024 with the Blackboard/Anthology team.

To watch the session from Sept 26, please click the link here. To watch the session from Oct 16, please click the link here.

Q: What is the AI Design Assistant and how does it help instructors? 

The AI Design Assistant is a new suite of tools in Blackboard Ultra that helps instructors efficiently create course content, assessments, and activities. It’s not meant to replace instructor expertise, but rather to act as a “sounding board” and assist in the often time-consuming task of course design. Imagine it as a helpful partner suggesting ideas and providing starting points, allowing you to focus on refining and customizing the content to match your teaching style and learning objectives. 

Q: How does the AI Design Assistant suggest learning modules based on my course? 

The AI Design Assistant can analyze your course title, description, and learning objectives to generate relevant learning module suggestions. By identifying key terms and concepts, it can recommend modules that align with your course content and goals. You can further guide the AI by specifying the desired number of modules, their complexity level, and even the preferred language for output. 

Q: Can the AI Design Assistant help me create engaging course content? 

Yes, the AI Design Assistant can help in several ways: 

• Generating Images: You can use the tool to tap into a vast repository of royalty-free images from Unsplash or even generate unique images based on your keywords and descriptions. This allows you to easily add visually appealing elements to your learning modules and documents. 
• Creating Ultra Documents: The tool simplifies the process of designing engaging Ultra documents by providing options for adding images, text blocks, knowledge checks, and other multimedia elements. You can easily rearrange and format these elements to create dynamic and interactive learning materials. 
• Generating Assessments and Activities: The AI Design Assistant can help you create quizzes, assignments, discussions, and journals. It focuses on authentic assessment, suggesting prompts that encourage students to apply, analyze, evaluate, and create, rather than simply memorize information. 

Q: How does the AI Design Assistant support quiz creation? 

The AI Design Assistant offers several features for creating quizzes: 

• Generating Question Banks: You can automatically generate question banks based on existing course content, saving you time in writing questions from scratch. The tool allows you to specify the question types, complexity levels, and the number of questions desired. 
• Reusing Questions: You can easily tap into existing question banks and select individual questions to include in your quizzes. 
• Creating Question Pools: The tool allows you to create random blocks of questions, randomly selecting a specified number of questions from a larger pool. This ensures that students get a varied selection of questions, promoting a deeper understanding of the material. 

Q: What are the benefits of using the AI Design Assistant for assignments and rubrics? 

The AI Design Assistant simplifies the process of creating assignments and rubrics: 

• Generating Assignment Prompts: It suggests engaging prompts based on authentic assessment principles, encouraging students to create projects, presentations, and multimedia artifacts. 
• Creating Matching Rubrics: The tool can automatically generate rubrics that align with the assessment criteria and learning objectives of your chosen assignment prompt. You can customize the rubric by adjusting the criteria, levels of achievement, and descriptions to fit your specific grading needs. 

Q: How can I ensure the quality and accuracy of the content generated by the AI? 

While the AI Design Assistant is a powerful tool, it’s essential to review and edit the generated content to ensure accuracy and alignment with your course goals: 

• Review Learning Modules: Carefully evaluate the suggested learning modules and their content, adding, deleting, or modifying them as needed. 
• Edit Generated Text: Check the generated text for accuracy, clarity, and potential biases. Reword and refine the language to ensure it reflects your teaching style and expertise. 
• Validate Test Questions and Answers: Ensure the accuracy of the generated test questions and answers, correcting any errors and revising questions that are unclear or ambiguous. 
• Customize Rubrics: Edit the generated rubrics to align with your specific grading criteria and expectations. 

Q: How does the AI Design Assistant handle different languages? 

The AI Design Assistant offers advanced options for specifying the output language for generated content, including learning modules, assignments, rubrics, and quizzes. This is particularly helpful for instructors teaching language courses or developing multilingual resources. 

Q: What are the limitations of the AI Design Assistant? 

While the AI Design Assistant is a valuable tool, it’s essential to be aware of its limitations: 

• Reliance on Existing Content: The tool relies on the content you provide, such as course descriptions, learning objectives, and existing materials. The quality of its output depends on the quality and clarity of the input. 
• Need for Instructor Review and Editing: The generated content should be considered a starting point and requires careful review and editing by the instructor to ensure accuracy, appropriateness, and alignment with course goals. 
• Inability to Grade Automatically: The AI Design Assistant does not provide automatic grading capabilities. Instructors are still responsible for grading student work using the generated rubrics or other assessment methods.