Faculty overview of Digication integration with Blackboard Ultra

Version: Kora Courses, October 4, 2023 or later

Permissions required: Faculty

To connect your Blackboard Ultra course to Digication, first make sure that you are enrolled in the Blackboard Ultra course as an instructor.  Only an instructor can initiate course connection with Digication. 

Add a Digication link to your course navigation

• Go to your course in Blackboard Ultra, and click Content (1) in your course navigation. Click “+Add Content” (2).
  
  
  
• Select “Content Market” (3).

• Locate Digication (4) in the Content Market, and click the “plus sign” (5) to add the link to your course.
  
  
  
• Then, click the Digication link to create the course connection to Digication. This link will take you to the dashboard of your Digication course.

New Digication user

If you do not yet have a Digication account, you will see one of two screens, depending on your school’s Blackboard Ultra integration settings. 

If your school allows your Blackboard Ultra integration to create new Digication accounts, you will be logged directly into Digication with your new account, and you will need to accept the terms and conditions to proceed. 

If your school has disabled account creation via your LMS integration, you will see the following message:  "You do not have a Digication account" (1).

Existing Digication user

If you already have a Digication account, you will be immediately logged into your account. If your school’s system settings allow it, the integration will create a course that has the same course information as your LMS course, and you will be taken to the home page (1) for your new Digication course.

Assignments in Digication

The Assignments area in Digication is where you can provide instructions, prompts, and templates to your students.

When creating assignments for your students, the recommended workflow is:

1. Create Digication assignments in Digication.
2. Optionally add a direct link to the Digication assignments in Blackboard Ultra. 
3. Have your students access the Digication assignments and complete and submit their work in Digication.
4. You can review student submissions directly in Digication. The grading area allows for grading, outcomes assessments, and comments on student submissions. Grades saved in Digication can be automatically posted in Blackboard Ultra.

• Click “Create New Assignment +” (1) to create a Digication assignment. 
  
  
  
  If you wish to import previously created assignments to your courses, please see the following articles for more information: 
  
  For importing assignments into a single course, please see "Import assignments," and for importing assignments into multiple courses, see "Kora Course admin tool."
  
  
• You’ll be taken to the Assignment creation screen (2), where you can add all the details of your assignment.
  
  
  

Options to send grade to Blackboard Ultra

• Enable “Send Grade to Blackboard Ultra” (1) in the assignment settings.
• A grade column will be created automatically in the Blackboard Ultra gradebook when you grade your first submission.
  

If you would like to create direct links to specific Digication assignments within Blackboard Ultra, for more information please see “Advanced features: integration with Blackboard Ultra”.

Grading assignments

• To grade a Digication assignment, locate the assignment on your Digication dashboard and click “REVIEW SUBMISSIONS” (1).
  
  
  
  
• You’ll be taken to the first assignment submission. Click “GRADE” (2) to enter a grade. Click “SAVE” (3) to save the grade. 
  
  
  
• Once you’ve saved your grade, a HISTORY link will appear. This provides a log of all grading activity for this submission.

Grade sync to Blackboard Ultra

If the assignment you are grading has the Blackboard Ultra grade sync enabled, your grade should automatically be sent to Blackboard Ultra after you save the grade. This may take a few seconds after you save the grade. 

• You can confirm that the grade was sent to Blackboard Ultra by clicking “HISTORY” (1).
  
  
  
• You can also check the Gradebook (2) in Blackboard Ultra to see that the grade has been sent.
  
  
  

Please note that the grade sync is a one-way sync from Digication to Blackboard Ultra. 

• Any grade changes made and saved on the Digication assignment will be updated in the Blackboard Ultra Grade area.
• Any grade changes made in the Blackboard Ultra Grades area will not be reflected in  Digication.

For more information about making changes to a Digication assignment that is connected to Blackboard Ultra and troubleshooting the grade sync connection, please see “Advanced features: integration with Blackboard Ultra”.

Roster management

When you connect your Blackboard Ultra course to Digication, all members of your Blackboard course will be imported into Digication. This will enroll all of the students who are in your Blackboard Ultra course into your Digication course. 

• You can review who is in your Digication course by clicking People.
  
• After the initial connection is made, you can perform a manual import to update your roster from Blackboard Ultra. To do a manual roster import, click People (1) and click “IMPORT ROSTERS” (2). 
  
  
• Then, you can choose whether you want to “Enroll and drop users according to the LMS roster” (3). 

If you enable this option, users will be dropped from the Digication if they are no longer enrolled in the Blackboard Ultra course. 

You can also choose to include users who are manually enrolled or self-enrolled on the Digication side.

• Click “SYNC” (4) to manually sync the roster from Blackboard Ultra. The import process will begin and show when the sync is completed.
  
  
  

Advanced options for Blackboard Ultra integration

There are some additional advanced features available in the Blackboard Ultra integration. These optional features are not necessary for basic Blackboard Ultra integration with Digication:

• Create direct links to specific Digication assignments.
• Checking Blackboard Ultra connection.
• Editing details of connected Digication assignments. 
• Troubleshooting grade sync.
• Blackboard Ultra student preview.

For more information about advanced options, please see  “Advanced features: integration with Blackboard Ultra”.