eCampus Ultra AI Design Assistant
- Shana Blackshire
eCampus Ultra includes a new tool that utilizes artificial intelligence to help faculty create course structure, generate discussion or journal prompts, and create assignments, tests, or grading rubrics. The complexity and level of detail in AI-generated modules, questions, or assessments can be adjusted by entering more information in the description you provide the AI tool and by selecting a value on the Complexity slider in the tool.
You can read more about the AI design assistant’s features on Blackboard Anthology’s AI Design Assistant help page.
The AI design tool is a useful aid to creating content or structure for your course, but faculty are urged to review and refine any AI generated content before sharing it with students.
Course Module and Structure Suggestions
Based on your course title and description, the AI design assistant will provide a layout for content modules that you can then edit and refine further by filling in more descriptive information for the AI designer. In a new (blank) course shell, click the Auto-Generate Modules button - or, if you already have content in your course, you will find the same option in the add content menus when you click the plus sign.
Generate Course Discussions
Use the AI design assistant to auto-generate discussion topics for your course. When you create a new discussion from the Discussions tab or from the main Content tab, select Auto-generate discussion to access the tool. Enter a description for the discussion or choose a course content item to use as a jumping off point. Then choose the cognitive level of analysis desired and use a slider to select the complexity level of the discussion question. Finally click generate to create a new discussion.
Generate Journal Assignments
The AI design assistant can also generate topics for student journal entries based on course content or a description that you enter. From the main Content tab, click the plus to create a new item, and choose Journal as the item type. Click Auto-Generate Journal to proceed. Enter a description for the journal assignment or select course items you’d like students to address in the journal assignment. Choose the cognitive analysis level and complexity, then click Generate.
Generate Grading Rubrics
Generate rubrics for grading assessments in your course from the Gradebook Settings menu in the Gradebook of your course, or from the Assignment Settings menu inside an individual assessment. Click Generate in the Course Rubrics area to begin.
Enter a description of the assessment or objectives of the rubric to give the AI assistant and select the type of grading to be used, then select the number of criteria (rows) and levels of proficiency (columns) in the rubric. Click Generate to view the rubric and Continue to edit the rubric to suit your needs.
Generate Assignments
Create new graded assignments in your course with the AI design assistant by clicking the Create option in the new content item menu (+ on the content page) and choosing Assignment. On the new assignment page, click Auto-generate assignment to start. Enter a description or select course items to help the AI design assistant target the right content, then choose a desired cognitive level and complexity for the questions and answers. Generate possible assignments, and select one to Add to the course content page.
Guide: Assignment Prompt Generation
Generate Test Questions
When creating a new test in eCampus Ultra, the AI design assistant can help you write questions. On the new test page, click the plus to create questions, and choose Auto-generate question in the questions menu. Enter a description or select items from the course content to help the AI choose a topic, and select the Type, Complexity, and Number of questions for this topic. Click Generate to review and select questions that you’d like to Add to Assessment.
Guide: Test Question Generation
Generate Question Banks
If you create an Ultra Document (Content>Plus >Create>Document) that displays instructional content for your students, the AI design assistant can use that document to generate a question bank for use in assessments. Click the Auto-generate question bank link at the bottom of the Ultra document’s content sections to choose options. All content on the document will be used to formulate the questions.
In the AI question bank tool you can select the Type, Complexity, and Number of questions to tailor the questions generated. Click the Generate button to see suggested questions. After carefully reviewing the generated questions, click the checkboxes to select the ones you’d like to keep and click Add to Question Bank to save them. You will be able to see the new bank of questions from the Question Banks link in the Details & Actions area of the Content page, or when you are creating a test or assignment in the course.
Guide: AI Question Bank Generation
Generate Images
eCampus Ultra allows you to search for images to use in your course from the included stock image collection, or use the AI design assistant to generate images for your course. When adding content to a document, you can click the Image button to upload an image from your device, search the stock images archive, or Generate images with the AI tool. Click the field below to describe an image that you’d like to include, and click Generate. Choose an image you like and click Next to select the aspect ratio and zoom level for the appearance of the image on your course document. Finally, give the image a display name and an alt-text description, and choose file options for whether students can download the image before you Save it to the content page.