For Faculty

Dr. Lisa A. Clark is a higher education executive and recognized thought leader specializing in artificial intelligence, academic transformation, and digital learning innovation. As Associate Vice President of Academic Transformation at Blackboard, she advises institutional leaders on AI strategy, learning innovation, and technology-enabled transformation initiatives.

With more than 20 years of experience across higher education and educational technology, Dr. Clark has partnered with colleges and universities in more than 25 countries to support online learning, faculty development, learning platform modernization, and student success initiatives.

She is the author of Reframing Bloom's for the Age of AI and From Creation to Transformation: Evidence of Learning in the AI Era and is a frequent speaker on topics including AI-enabled learning, assessment innovation, digital transformation, and the future of higher education. Her work has been featured in Higher Education Digest, and she was recognized as one of Vevox's Top 50 Voices to Follow in Higher Education for 2026.

Dr. Clark serves on the Board of Directors for the United States Distance Learning Association and on the Graduate School Advisory Board for Keiser University.

Dr. Misty Cobb is the Principal Product Manager at Blackboard and the product leader for Blackboard Gradebook. She leads strategy and development for teaching and learning experiences that help educators focus on what matters most: student success. Misty partners closely with clients, designers, engineers, and researchers to shape Gradebook through continuous discovery and customer collaboration.

With more than 20 years of experience in education and educational technology, Misty brings a unique perspective to solving complex challenges. Before moving into product management, she served as a classroom teacher, instructional designer, Director of Distance Education, solutions engineer, customer success leader, and program manager. Her diverse background allows her to bridge the needs of educators with thoughtful product strategy and design.

Outside of Blackboard, Misty serves on the Board of Directors for the Cleburne County Chamber of Commerce, where she supports workforce development and initiatives that strengthen connections between education, business, and the local community. She is also the unopposed candidate for the Cleburne County Board of Education and will begin serving following the November general election.

Misty is passionate about partnering with educators to simplify complex workflows, improve the grading experience, and build products that make a difference in teaching and learning.

Product Engagement Manager for Ally at Blackboard, where she works closely with institutions to increase adoption and meaningful engagement with Blackboard Ally, helping create more accessible and inclusive learning environments. She earned her PhD in American Studies from the University at Buffalo and brings nearly two decades of teaching experience across history, disability studies, and American popular music.

As a disabled scholar, she integrates lived experience into her accessibility work. She is the co-author of Disability and Accessibility in the Music Classroom (Routledge, 2022) and contributes to accessibility thought leadership through publications, presentations, and webinars.

Share this with your students in your syllabi at the start of the semester, then reinforce prior to finals in support of academic success:

Do you know how to complete a test, submit an assignment and check your grade in Blackboard? If not, TU's Blackboard team can show you! See tips and guidance tips and guidance for using Blackboard and taking online tests/quizzes or submitting assignments. Read the TU News story: "Blackboard hacks you should know."

Log into the Bb Student Ultra org site for more info. Contact Blackboard for more help through towson.edu/blackboard.

Make sure you take care of your faculty responsibilities and know how to get help if you need it. See the start and end of semester responsibilities.    

Blackboard courses are generated via PeopleSoft system. If you do not see a course you are teaching, please submit a course request.

All courses that exist in PeopleSoft can be found with enrollments in Blackboard. See how to move your course online. Once you're all set up in Blackboard, use it to hold virtual class meetings. Need help? Contact the TU Blackboard Team.

To merge enrollments into one Blackboard course site please submit a Course Combine request. Note: this request can take 2-3 business days to complete.

Shell courses allow instructors to populate a Blackboard course with class materials related to courses they teach every term. This allows a faculty member to update the shell course and then copy it each semester to multiple courses. Students will not access a shell course. For details and to request a shell course, submit a course request. 

Master courses allow a program coordinator to populate a course on Blackboard with course materials related to a program or particular course that, regardless of section, has the same course materials. This master course can then be copied to multiple courses regardless of the instructor. Students will not access a master course. For details and to request a master course, submit a course request.   

• Provide a Rubric Evaluation Report (as in Original Course View)
• Bring back dual grade display
• Adding term categorization and filtering to grades and messages ultra pages
• Ability to submit an assignment on behalf of a student
• Hide preview users from "add users" list
• Allow Course Image to be different than Banner image
• Bulk Change Question points in test
• Ability to bulk download group assignment submissions
• Allow color coding to course content folders
• Distinguish between multiple choice and multiple answer questions
• Support for a dark mode in Ultra courses
• Instructors can create internal course links in documents
• Improvements to anonymous discussions
• Allow instructor to view "in progress" attempts
• Use multiple rubrics on a single assignment
• Instructors can decide whether they will accept a submitted file or if the student can type into the textbox, or both in assignments, test, journals, and discussion boards
• Multiple due dates for discussions
• Hide Details & Actions menu items not being used

• When copying content do not make it unavailable
• Add Discussion description
• "Empty content" submission should get automatic 0 grade
• Add Grade Categories at Content & Settings
• Email alerts default to the assignments due over the next seven days.
• Make unavailable courses hidden from course list
• Instructor choice of alternate formats available to students
• Log course availability activity
• Delete multiple announcements
• Indicate dropped grades in the Gradebook
• Option to display overall grade as both letter and percentage
• preview assessment
• Improve Gradebook drag-and-drop column reordering
• Ability to post an announcement to specific groups or merged courses
• Customize access code protected assessments
• SafeAssign integration with discussion boards
• Copy/paste & drag/drop images into the content editor
• Add a section for notes when inputting students accommodations in roster
• Ability to change the default setting for content visibility
• Provide an interface in Ultra for the Grade History
• Display Example Answer for essay question
• Ability to batch delete question banks
• Add ability to duplicate content items by clicking on the ellipse (3 dots)
• Allow students to reply to Gradebook feedback
• Stop allowing duplicate names or titles for things in learn
• Remove the relationship between due dates and date/time release conditions
• Bring back the blue "in progress" button
• Change category of Calculation Item
• Allow Control C and Control V to be able to paste image directly into messages
• Content editor to descriptions
• Allow instructors to turn on/off Grade Pill Colors on a course-by-course basis
• Ability to support automatic penalty deductions in the Gradebook
• Mark as incomplete instead of leaving blank
• Can't delete undeployed test folder because assessments contain questions used in question pools
• Let instructors choose ultra course color
• Choose language in ultra course
• Stop showing staff preview user students to students in the class roster
• Top line menu
• Child course ID in roster tool
• Allow students to share journals with their class
• Allow for a selection of exam essay questions
• Automatically close open folder when you open a new one
• Add rubric to Gradebook created column
• Include images in announcements
• Scheduled grade posting
• Bulk move content
• Text/Content editor should have HTML editing capability
• Images for folders
• Options to add images to new grade categories
• Add COUNT() to calculation formula
• Faculty override should mean that an attempt is graded
• Assignment reminders sent to ONLY those without grades
• Separate date column for announcement list
• Ultra document navigation pane
• Add an auto save function for Ultra documents
• Unused files - download all
• Clarify when student has made more than one attempt on submissions page
• Add option for students to download submission receipt at any time after submission
• Preserve group submission if student withdraws from course
• Run a report on how many students had looked at their grade and feedback
• Display Announcements on Course Content page
• Create Exemptions for journal assignments
• Download files according to applied filters
• Allow instructors to take a test without entering student preview mode
• Export option for Testbanks and Tests
• Ability to pin announcements
• Batch edit - renaming titles
• Multiple grades for discussions
• Merge multiple question banks
• Add Gradebook item statistics for anonymous assessments
• Darker module outline for accessibility
• Enhancing Table Styling in Blackboard Ultra
• Test availability exceptions in Ultra for multiple students who need to take test at different times
• Creating something like grade history for content/activities
• Indicate to student their accommodation has been applied
• Enhance My Tasks module
• Instructors can set their own languages for their course
• Course Copy by pulling and pushing for other course
• Instructor can drag and drop Gradebook items into new categories on overall grade page
• Assessments: allow instructors to define grace period for late submissions
• Create categories, and drag/drop assignments into categories all in the same screen via Gradebook
• Make it harder to delete a test or assignment with submissions/grades
• Ability to download detailed log after ultra course conversion
• Indicate date and time an item was graded
• Bring back blogs
• Warn that emailed messages won't have images
• Ability to unpost grades for student work
• Improve description of Discussion Board and Journal
• Improved rubrics management
• Instructors need ability to control what items/columns students see in their view of the gradebook
• Sort by LATE in assessments
• Download all parts of a graded assignment (incl. grade, submission, rubric and all feedback, inline, overall and rubric)
• Download student submissions for tests and assignments
• Data integration to Manage Goals
• Ability to enable/disable instructors from hiding/showing Gradebook columns from themselves
• Move the SUBMIT button
• Display Child Course ID in Gradebook (and add to "Filters" options)
• Need letter input for Grades and Grade Schema
• Allow modification of grade pill thresholds, or switching off pill colors at the instructor level

• Make "oops something went wrong" error more informative
• When sorting students in the Gradebook by last name, it should actually do that
• Improve the new search, terms and filtering of course lists.
• Allow reordering of terms
• Ultra course messages need subject line
• Make Performance Thresholds a transferrable field when doing a full course copy
• Increase number of records exported in Course Activity *.CSV
• Open Immersive Reader in a New tab
• Hiding Bananas: Hidden AI Prompts in Assignments.