Blackboard (Ultra)

Why use PlayPosit in Blackboard Ultra?

1. Single Sign-on: Instructors and learners are never prompted to enter a separate email, username or password to create or view content
2. Auto-sync course data: We manage learner-course relationships, eliminating the need to manually create courses or upload rosters
3. Auto-sync grades: Learner grades are synced immediately with the Blackboard gradebook at the end of a bulb. As well, instructors can access the rich analytics from any PlayPosit link within Blackboard. 
4. Co-instructor collaboration: Multiple instructors, instructional designers and TAs can access their own PlayPosit content and manage any shared course content, like bulbs and analytics. 
5. Course copy: Instructors can save time by seamlessly translating PlayPosit links to recurring courses. The new course and learner roster is automatically synced and previous data is cleared. 

Video tutorial

Set up PlayPosit in Blackboard

PlayPosit is integrated into your Blackboard environment by your administrator. Follow the steps below to add PlayPosit to your course and sync your learner roster.

1. Login to Blackboard and navigate to the course you would like to connect to PlayPosit.

2. Click on the + button.

3. Select Content Market and find PlayPosit.

4. Click Enter PlayPosit to access your account

Note: If you have not previously created a PlayPosit account, following the steps above will automatically generate an account for you.  

Assign a Bulb to learners

1. On the course content page, click the + button.

2. Select Content Market and find PlayPosit.

3. Click Set Link. PlayPosit will open and you will see your Bulb library

4. Locate the Bulb you want to use. Click on the LMS Icon next to the Bulb title

5. Select the learner experience:

1. Self-paced-- Choose this option if you want learners to take the bulb individually, on their own device, on their own time (most commonly used).
2. Broadcast-- Choose this option if you want to project the bulb live, in class and have all learners take the bulb together. Start/stop time and pacing of the video is controlled by the instructor, while learners answer projected questions from their own device (like a clicker). To learn more, click here. 

6. Click Link and now your bulb has successfully been linked to the assignment 

For advanced options, find the bulb link you just created and click Edit from the triple dot menu.

Here you can edit the assignment title, add a description, change the point value, and adjust other settings. By default, all assignments are worth 100 points.

Note: All point adjustments must be made prior to learners starting the assignment. Adjust points after will require instructors to manually export grades.

Assign content with the rich text editor

1. Navigate to an existing content area or create a new content area.

2. In the content area, click  Build Content and select Item, Content Folder, Module Page, Blank Page, or anywhere the RTE is available. 

3. Enter the name of the assignment in the name field. Click the  Add Content button. Select PlayPosit from the options. 

4. Click  Set Link to access your PlayPosit account. 

5. Find the Bulb or Playlist to link and click on the Blackboard icon. 

6. Select the learner experience: 

1. Self-paced - Choose this option if you want learners to take the Bulb individually, on their own device, at their own time (most commonly used).
2. Broadcast - Choose this option if you want learners to complete the Bulb synchronously in class. Click here to learn more.

7. The Bulb or Playlist will appear as a link with the name next to it inside the rich text editor. 

8. Click  Submit to create the assignment. 

9. To access the PlayPosit monitor page, click on the LTI link in the assignment. 

10. Select  Monitor from the manage link screen. 

Monitor learner responses

Monitor to view analytics, discussion posts, and learner notes. To learn more about monitoring discussion posts, click here. To learn more about viewing learner notes, click here.

In Blackboard, click on the assignment for which you want to view data and click Monitor. Click here to learn more about PlayPosit Bulb analytics. Click here to learn more about PlayPosit Playlist analytics.  

Sync grades to Blackboard Grade Center

If your Bulb only includes auto-graded questions (multiple-choice, check-all-that-apply, fill-in-the-blank), then grades will be automatically exported into the Blackboard gradebook. 

If you have graded free-response questions or edited grades for auto-graded questions, you will need to sync changes with the Blackboard Grade Center. To do this:

1. Navigate to the Monitor page
2. Click Sync
3. Click Status to check the status of the learner grade export. Note: It may take a few minutes to push all updated scores into the gradebook. 

Course copy

PlayPosit supports Blackboard Ultra's course copy feature. This means:

IMPORTANT information when using course copy:

• All master and child courses are linked to the same bulb, but when a course is copied, learner attempts will be saved in individual sections within PlayPosit and Blackboard Ultra.
• Anyone launching a bulb linked in a copied course will be given facilitator access to all the bulbs linked in that course. For more information on the roles and permissions of a facilitator, click here.
• Learners or instructors are able to launch a copied assignment first to trigger the copy process.
• Learners launching a PlayPosit bulb from a copied Blackboard Ultra course for the first time will see a blue screen asking them to refresh the page. Refreshing the page will correctly launch the copied assignment. 
• Instructors will not see bulbs in the Classes tab of their PlayPosit dashboard for copied courses until someone launches the bulb from the copied course in Blackboard Ultra.
• Assignments linked through rich text will not be synced to the gradebook. They will copy over as expected.
• If a linked bulb is changed or deleted in the Master course, those changes are also made to bulbs linked in the child copied courses for that assignment, since all courses are linked to the same bulb.

• All PlayPosit links and bulbs will transfer to the new course
• If any learners are retaking the course, previous scores will be reset automatically