Module Rollover for Semester 1 will occur week commencing the 8th June.
In anticipation of the upcoming module rollover date, we would like to let you know that the TEL team are here to help with any queries you may have. Our Learning Technologists are available to discuss how to get the best out of the university’s technological tools, to enhance your pedagogic approaches.
Departmental or Course teams are welcome to contact us at TEL tel@worc.ac.uk to arrange a meeting.
Online support available from TEL
Module Design support
Our Learning Technologists have developed some insightful Module Design guidance for staff:
The Module Designer Tool – This tool can be used to assist with each stage of designing a course. You can also use it for general guidance when creating engaging and easy to use online content.
Our Blackboard Learn Ultra Manual covers everything from creating new content and setting up assessments, to using interactive tools or features which boost student engagement.
Semester 1 Modules are due to be created in Blackboard week commencing 8th June 2026. Modules will be available for staff to self-enrol on from the second week of June to allow time to develop new online course content for next year.
Migrating your Content
Intending to reuse materials from last year?
Once you have self-enrolled onto the newly created modules in June. You can follow our Copying Content guidance to bring across any content from another module you are already enrolled on, you will firstly need to be in the new empty module.
Differences between a ‘Course Copy’ and the recommended ‘Bulk Copy’
Copying an entire course will include all old announcements and assessments. Only use this option if you wish to copy everything on the Content page including Panopto videos that are not held in a learning module or folder.
If you do use the course copy option, we recommend removing any copied assessments and to create new assessments for the current semester / academic year instead.
On the other hand, the Bulk Copy option allows you to select folders using ‘Copy Items’. We recommend copying only the specific items that are needed using the Bulk Copy method. You can also choose to copy individual items at a more granular level.
Copying Videos
Each Blackboard module has a Panopto folder where video content for the module needs to be held. By storing videos in this folder, permissions are granted to all users enrolled onto the Blackboard module to view. If you need to check your module’s videos you can do this by using the Panopto website link. (The Panopto website link is useful for managing your module’s video content, we recommend keeping this hidden from student view.) If you cannot see a video listed in your module’s Panopto folder, you will need to ensure this is copied over. You can choose to upload and embed to Blackboard if any videos are missing. If you have any problems checking on the location of your videos, or ensuring videos are copied over, please do contact us at TEL tel@worc.ac.uk for further support.
A second blog post will follow (Part 2), detailing the different support available from TEL to assist colleagues with preparations for the new academic year.
The Digital Education Hub is a new SharePoint site created to support colleagues in the design and delivery of online and blended learning.
The Hub brings together practical and technology-enhanced guidance, with examples and resources all in one place – making it easy to access support. It can be used when designing a new course or CPD programme, developing online activities, refreshing existing content, or for exploring different approaches to teaching and learning.
You’ll find step-by-step guidance, templates, examples of practice, and support for using digital tools or platforms at the point of need. The Hub is intended to support colleagues involved in teaching and course development, regardless of experience level.
What you’ll find in the Hub
The Hub is structured around key aspects of digital education. It includes guidance on planning and structuring courses, creating engaging content, and encouraging student participation in both asynchronous and live settings. You’ll find advice for designing assessment and feedback, and for making content accessible and inclusive. There is also guidance on course readiness to support reviewing and sense-checking courses before launch, alongside templates, tools and further support.
How to use the Hub
You can use the Hub in a way that suits your needs:
Work through sections step-by-step when designing a new course
Dip into specific topics for quick guidance
Use templates and checklists to support planning and review
Revisit sections as part of ongoing course development
The Hub focuses on small, actionable guidance to assist colleagues in designing clear, consistent and well-structured online and blended learning. This includes aligning learning outcomes, activities and assessment, making effective use of digital tools, and ensuring content is accessible and easy to navigate.
The Hub’s guidance is intended to be practical and flexible – you don’t need to use everything, just what’s most helpful for your context.
We recommend adding the site to your favourites or following it in SharePoint so it’s easy to find again and remains visible in your navigation.
While the Hub provides an on-demand resource, the TEL team are also here to offer one-to-one assistance where needed. If you’d like to talk through your course or project, or explore how the Hub can support your teaching, please feel free to get in touch: tel@worc.ac.uk
You may be aware that conversations are currently ongoing about the future of Blackboard Class Collaborate and the move to Microsoft Teams for online teaching. While no final decisions have yet been confirmed, now is a good time to ensure that any Class Collaborate recordings you wish to keep are safely stored elsewhere.
To help safeguard your teaching materials, we strongly recommend downloading your Blackboard Class Collaborate recordings and uploading them to Panopto for future use. This blog post outlines the steps involved in the process.
What you will need
Before you begin, please ensure you have access to the following:
The Blackboard Class Collaborate session recordings that you wish to retain
A Panopto link added to your Blackboard module
Sufficient space on your computer to download and temporarily store the recorded files
Step 1: Download your Blackboard Class Collaborate recording
Log in to Blackboard and open the relevant module.
Click the three dots (⋮) next to Class Collaborate and select ‘view all recordings’.
Locate the recording you want to save.
Click the three dots (⋮) next to the recording and choose ‘Download’.
The recording will download as an MP4 file to your computer.
Step 2: Upload the recording to Panopto
Click on the Panopto website link within your Blackboard module.
Navigate to or create a folder for the module’s recordings. You can use your existing module folder if this is already set up.
Select Create > Upload media:
Drag and drop the downloaded MP4 file or browse to select it.
Wait for the file to upload and finish processing.
After your recording appears in Panopto, you may want to check playback to ensure the audio and video are correct.
Your recording will now be available in Panopto for students on the module to view.
We recommend completing this process before August, particularly for any recordings you may need again in the future. Once the future of Class Collaborate and Teams has been approved, we will communicate the outcome.
The Blackboard ‘Document’ tool now includes a new AI feature for Knowledge Checks. This option enables you to either enter a question manually or autogenerate a question using the built in AI knowledge check generator. Knowledge Checks in Blackboard enhance the learning experience, they allow students to access and engage with content, then receive immediate feedback. Tutors can also view the students’ responses.
How to use documents created elsewhere
Tutors can convert word, pdf or PowerPoint files directly into html format using the Blackboard ‘Convert a file’ option.
Converting a file in this manner will result in a more accessible experience for students. Once the file has been converted, any additional formatting can be added from the formatting tool bar.
How to add a Knowledge Check
Once the file has been converted, a knowledge check can be added to the document.
You can create your own question or use the built in ‘Auto-generate question’ tool to create one for you. (Auto-generated questions use the Blackboard AI Design Assistant.)
The question will then appear at the end of your converted document.
If you are a tutor who teaches students who are using PebblePad, you may want to remind your final year students that they can take a free PebblePad alumni account.
Students who have used PebblePad during their studies may want to retain the work they have done for the purposes of CPD when they leave the University. They can do this by creating an alumni account, when they are about to leave the University. Work in the student’s University account will then be copied into their alumni account, and for this reason it is recommended that students do not create the alumni account until they are ready to leave the university. There is no charge for an alumni account. This PebblePad guide provides further information about Alumni accounts.
To maintain access to their alumni account, students should use a personal email address which they intend to keep for the foreseeable future.
Recently we have seen an increase in queries about recording student presentations for assessment. As ever, a Blackboard submission that uses Panopto is the best option for student submissions. However, what about recordings for presentations in-class? There are a couple of options available.
Manual recording
This is the method that most staff have used historically. Many schools have their own video cameras, and staff can borrow these to record the student presentations and share with external examiners via OneDrive or SharePoint. Recordings can either be stopped after each student, or one long recording can be made, and the timestamps noted for external examiners.
The advantage of this process is that it’s relatively straightforward and easy for staff to implement. Most schools have cameras to borrow, most often via PAS teams or Technicians, and extracting the videos and sharing by OneDrive or SharePoint is fairly simple.
The disadvantages are that using OneDrive relies on the sharer being available for the duration of the moderation process. If that person is on annual leave or sick, any issues with the files or sharing process are difficult to resolve. If the sharer leaves the university altogether, their OneDrive account will be taken down, and the recordings could be lost.
Video files could be uploaded and located in a SharePoint site, to allow all members access. We recommend contacting Digital Services for support with SharePoint. However, sometimes External Examiners can encounter issues accessing links and content in SharePoint too.
Using Panopto
As an alternative, we have designed a workflow to record via Panopto within your Blackboard module. The tutor is logged in and the recordings sit in a private area within the Blackboard space.
The advantages of this process are that the recordings will be held within the Blackboard module, meaning that any member of staff, including external examiners will have access, without the students being able to see them. The steps are contained in one process, with little follow-up. The process can work from any room, even those without Panopto video recording, although this will require a webcam.
This approach is quite versatile and can meet the needs of a range of assessment approaches. If you would like to know how to do this, please sign up for our training session on Wednesday 29th April, 13:30-14:30. You can book a place via iTrent under Learning, and selecting the type ‘Technology Enhanced Learning’.
If you have any questions, please email us at TEL@worc.ac.uk
Blackboard instructors now have access to a new AI Conversation tool that supports both ‘Socratic Questioning’ and ‘Role-play’ scenarios. This feature allows students to interact with an AI persona to explore ideas, ask questions, and practise responding to realistic situations.
In Socratic questioning mode, students can ask questions about a specific topic and build their understanding through guided interaction.
Students can also take part in a simulated scenario with an AI-generated character using the Role-play tool. This can be particularly useful for practising professional conversations, decision-making, or problem-solving in a safe environment.
Setting up a Role-play conversation
Creating a role-play activity involves two main stages.
1. Set the scene and define the student’s role
Describe the scenario
Explain the context
Define what the student is trying to achieve
2. Create the AI persona
Upload a profile image for the AI ‘character’
Give them a name
Define their personality and behaviour
Provide instructions for how they should respond
Set the complexity of the responses they will give
Automatic setup
You can also automatically generate a conversation scenario using documents uploaded to the system. The tool can use a range of file types, including PDF, Word, PowerPoint, text, RTF, and HTML files, to help create a conversation based on existing course materials.
Testing
Before releasing the activity to students, you can preview the conversation yourself by interacting with the AI persona. This allows you to check that the responses behave as expected and refine the scenario if needed.
Reviewing Student Interactions
As an instructor, you can review AI conversation transcripts to see how students engaged with the scenario and how they approached the discussion.
Further Information
More details about setting up the Conversations tool can be found on the Blackboard AI Conversation support page.
AI Data Usage and Security
As an integrated feature within Blackboard, the AI Conversation tool does not use your course data to train or improve external AI models. More information about this can be found on Blackboard’s Trustworthy AI Support pages.
We’re starting the process of moving from Blackboard Class Collaborate to Microsoft Teams, and we’d really value your input. In its place, we’ll be supporting the Microsoft Teams integration within Blackboard as the primary tool for online teaching, tutorials, and live sessions.
Many of you are already using Teams for learning and teaching and we’d like to hear more about your experiences so far. To help us understand what’s working well (and what isn’t), we’ve put together a short questionnaire. Your feedback will play a key role in shaping the support, resources, and training we provide over the coming months.
Thank you for taking a few minutes to share your thoughts.
As promised, here is a follow up blog post for Academic staff, focused on troubleshooting potential student queries and information about how to signpost issues to TEL.
The TEL Unit have a Turnitin help page for students, which tutors are welcome to share. The page contains resources and FAQs for common issues:
Turnitin will not open due to an error message or internet connectivity:
If an error message appears or Turnitin fails to load up, this is usually due to browser or internet problems. Please signpost students to TEL tel@worc.ac.uk for support. Or to our Turnitin Student Support page. (Students need to ensure ‘third-party cookies’ are enabled for the Blackboard VLE https://worcesterbb.blackboard.com for Turnitin to open correctly. We recommend Chrome or Mozilla Firefox browsers.)
It is helpful if students provide us with a screenshot of the issue, if possible. However, if the due date is imminent, tutors can choose to accept an email copy of their student’s assignment and submit on behalf of the student instead.
The submission point will not open or displays an error message – due to the ‘Open in New Window’ setting being applied:
For some devices, if the Turnitin assignment submission point is set to open in a new window this can prevent access. For this reason, the default option in Blackboard is for Turnitin not to open in a new window for students. If you have added the ‘Open in new window’ setting, we recommend unticking this choice, by using the Blackboard three-dot menu for the Turnitin submission point:
A student cannot make a Late Submission to the original point:
The Late Submission setting allows students who have not been able to submit ahead of the due date and time to make one late submission in total. If a student has accidentally submitted an incorrect version of their assignment, either before the due date has passed or afterwards, it will only be possible for students to make a further late submission if a tutor intervenes. Tutors can contact us at TEL for support, as there are workarounds if you would like the student to have the opportunity to make another normal late attempt.
We have advice for the different types of Late Submissions in our Turnitin manual – for normal Late submissions, Resubmissions or Mitigating Circumstances.
A Student has submitted the wrong assignment to the submission point by mistake:
When the recommended settings are applied, if the due date has not yet passed, students can resubmit as many times as they wish up until this time. There is no need to remove a submission, as a new submission will overwrite the incorrect document. The previous incorrect version will not be compared for similarity checking.
However, if the due date has passed and a student has already submitted, they will not be able to make a further late submission (as described above). Students are not able to remove a submission themselves but module leaders can assist. Please feel free to contact the TEL Unit if you would like advice as a tutor.
Sometimes a student may have accidentally submitted an incorrect assignment to the wrong module, as well as to the correct submission point – If this has happened, please contact TEL tel@worc.ac.uk. Both module leaders will need to be made aware if the due dates have passed. If the submission points are summative, there will be a high similarity score match for self-plagiarism. (Self-matches could later be filtered out using the ‘Exclude Sources’ button by tutors: Originality Report.)
Students cannot resubmit, but the due date has not yet passed:
We recommend checking the option Generate reports immediately (students can resubmit until due date) has been chosen. (This option also allows students to view similarity reports before the deadline is reached.)
Unfortunately, it is easy to accidentally select a different choice here, due to the use of a drop-down menu. It is possible to alter this Optional Setting in Turnitin, by selecting the cog in the top right-hand corner. Please see our Checking or Changing the Settings guidance.
If Academic staff or students need any support with Turnitin, please do not hesitate to contact us at TEL tel@worc.ac.uk.
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