TABLE OF CONTENTS

• About the AI Design Assistant
  • What is the AI Design Assistant?
  • Privacy and Security
  • Additional Resources
• Generate Learning Modules
• Create Authentic Assessments
  • Generate Assignment Prompts
  • Generate Discussion Prompts
  • Generate Journal Prompts
• Generate Rubrics
• Generate Test Questions
• Generate Images
• Alternative Text Assistant (Ally)

About the AI Design Assistant

What is the AI Design Assistant?

Blackboard’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) Design Assistant allows you to use advanced generative AI to simplify and inspire course creation and enhance your teaching experience. You may use the AI Design Assistant to help with a variety of tasks such as:

• Simplifying course creation.
• Creating authentic assessments.
• Generating rubrics. 
• Creating test questions and question banks.
• Sourcing and/or generating royalty-free images. 

The AI Design Assistant is intended to inspire and offer recommendations, not replace your experience and expertise. With the AI Design Assistant, you are always in control. Simply review, edit, and approve the generated content before adding it to your course.

Privacy and Security

The AI Design Assistant is powered by Microsoft's Azure OpenAI service and does not collect or store any personal data or personally identifiable information about students or instructors. All course data used for the input and all output generated by the AI Design Assistant is stored in Lesley’s existing Blackboard database and none of the data created by the AI Design Assistant is used for (re)training of the AI system or shared with others. 

For more information on Microsoft's Azure Open AI, please see Data, privacy, and security for Azure OpenAI Service.

Additional Resources

• Anthology’s Trustworthy AI Approach. 
• Anthology's stance on best practices for maintaining academic integrity in the world of AI: AI, Academic Integrity, and Authentic Assessment: An Ethical Path Forward for Education.

Generate Learning Modules

Are you trying to figure out the best way to design your course? Unsure where to start? The AI Design Assistant can help! Provide some information about your course such as the title, description, objectives, etc. and the AI Module Generation tool can create some learning modules to help you organize your content and guide your students through the course.

To auto-generate Learning Modules, click on the + button anywhere on your Course Content page. From the menu, select Auto-Generate Modules.

Provide some information about your course in the Description box (limited to 2000 characters) to narrow the focus. Or, if you already have content, click Select Course Items to select items from your course (ex your syllabus, Ultra Documents, discussions, assignments, etc.). You may opt to select a title prefix for your modules (ex Week 1, Module 1, Unit 1, etc.) and whether to include images. Set the complexity and the number of Learning Modules and click Generate.

The AI Module Generation tutorial video will walk you through using the AI Design Assistant to create learning modules in your course.

Once you have created your modules, review them for accuracy and bias. You may edit and refine the descriptions and images to better fit your teaching style, goals, and course outcomes.

More information about creating and managing Learning Modules may be found here: Create Learning Modules.

Create Authentic Assessments

The AI Design Assistant allows you to generate authentic assessment prompts for Discussions, Journals, and Assignments. You can input keywords, a description of your content, or select any course content item to include to narrow the focus of your assessment. The AI Design Assistant utilizes Bloom's Taxonomy to create prompts that encourage students to engage in higher-order thinking, apply their knowledge, and emulate real-world situations.

AI Suggestions for Authentic Assessments overview video will walk you through a brief overview of what the tool has to offer.

Generate Assignment Prompts

The AI Design Assistant can help you to generate assignment prompts that encourage students to engage in higher-order thinking, apply their knowledge, and emulate real-world situations. 

On the Assignment creation page, select the Auto-Generate icon.

This will launch the Auto-Generate Assignment tool. The AI Design Assistant will generate three assignment prompts based on the information that you provide. 

Use the Description box (limited to 2000 characters) to add some information about your Assignment. Or click Select Course Items to select items from your course (ex Ultra Documents, files, Discussions, Assignments, etc.). 

Next, select the desired cognitive level (Apply, Analyze, Evaluate, Create, or Inspire me!), complexity, and select whether or not you want to generate a title for your Assignment prompt. Once you have finalized your settings, click Generate.

Choose the prompt you would like to add to your Assignment and review it for accuracy and bias. Click Add to add the prompt to your Assignment. You may edit and refine the assignment to better fit your teaching style, goals, and course outcomes.

More information about Assignments may be found here: Create and Edit Assignments.

Generate Discussion Prompts

The AI Design Assistant can help you to generate discussion prompts that encourage students to engage in higher-order thinking, apply their knowledge, and emulate real-world situations. 

On the Discussion creation page, select the Auto-Generate icon.

This will launch the Auto-Generate Discussion tool. The AI Design Assistant will generate three discussion prompts based on the information that you provide. 

Use the Description box (limited to 2000 characters) to add some information about your discussion. Or click Select Course Items to select items from your course (ex Ultra Documents, files, Discussions, Assignments, etc.). 

Next, select the desired cognitive level (Apply, Analyze, Evaluate, Create, or Inspire me!), complexity, and select whether or not you want to generate a title for your Discussion prompt. Once you have finalized your settings, click Generate.

Choose the prompt you would like to add to your Discussion and review it for accuracy and bias. Click Add to add the prompt to your Discussion. You may edit and refine the prompt to better fit your teaching style, goals, and course outcomes.

More information about Discussions may be found here: Create Discussions.

Generate Journal Prompts

The AI Design Assistant can help you to generate journal prompts that encourage students to engage in higher-order thinking, apply their knowledge, and emulate real-world situations. 

On the Journal creation page, select the Auto-Generate icon.

This will launch the Auto-Generate Journal tool. The AI Design Assistant will generate three journal prompts based on the information that you provide. 

Use the Description box (limited to 2000 characters) to add some information about your journal. Or click Select Course Items to select items from your course (ex Ultra Documents, files, Discussions, Assignments, etc.). 

Next, select the desired cognitive level (Apply, Analyze, Evaluate, Create, or Inspire me!), complexity, and select whether or not you want to generate a title for your journal prompt. Once you have finalized your settings, click Generate.

Choose the prompt you would like to add to your journal and review it for accuracy and bias. Click Add to add the prompt to your Journal . You may edit and refine the prompt to better fit your teaching style, goals, and course outcomes.

More information about Journals may be found here: Create Journals.

Generate Rubrics

The AI Design Assistant can help you generate rubrics to create a structured framework for grading, ensuring fairness and consistency.

You may generate rubrics from any place where you can create a rubric, such as within the settings for an Assignment, Discussion, Journal or the Gradebook. Click Generate to begin.

This will launch the Generate Rubric tool. The AI Design Assistant will generate a rubric based on the information that you provide. 

Use the Description box (limited to 2000 characters) to add some information about what you will be assessing. 

Next, select the type of rubric you wish to create (percentage, percentage range, points, or point range), the complexity, and the number of columns and rows. Once you have finalized your settings, click Generate.

The AI Rubric Generation tutorial video will walk you through the basics of using the AI Design Assistant to create rubrics. 

Review your rubric for accuracy and bias and to ensure that it meets your needs. Select Continue to edit the rubric to better fit your teaching style, goals, and course outcomes.

More information about rubrics may be found here: Create Rubrics.

Generate Test Questions

The AI Design Assistant can help you generate test questions for both formative and summative assessments.

On the test creation page, click the + button to open a menu and select Auto-generate Question.

This will launch the Auto-Generate Questions tool. The AI Design Assistant will generate test questions based on the information that you provide.

Use the Description box (limited to 2000 characters) to add some information about your test questions. Or click Select Course Items to select items from your course (ex Ultra Documents, files, Discussions, Assignments, etc.). 

Next, select the desired Question Types (essay, fill in the blank, matching, multiple choice, true/false) or select Inspire me! to create several different question types. Select your desired complexity level and the number of questions you wish to create. Once you have finalized your settings, click Generate.

The  AI Question Generation tutorial video will walk you through the basics of using the AI Design Assistant to create test questions.

Once you have created your test questions, review them for accuracy and bias. You may edit and refine your test questions to better fit your teaching style, goals, and course outcomes.

More information about Tests may be found here: Create Tests.

Generate Images

You can use the AI Design Assistant to generate images to insert into your text, learning modules, or anywhere you can add an image.

To begin, click the Image button in the text editor.

In the Image Source area, select Generate Images, enter a description, and select the desired image.  

You may change the aspect ratio and drag the slider or use the arrow keys to reposition the image. Click Next to continue. 

You will then be prompted to edit your file options. By default, the display name for the image is your file name, but you may edit it. Next, add alternative text to your image. If your image is purely decorative and does not convey any information, you may mark it as decorative. Finally, you may decide whether people may view and download your image, view only, or download only. 

Click Save to save your changes and add your image. 

More information about using the text editor may be found here: Blackboard Ultra Course View: Add and Format Content.

Alternative Text Assistant (Ally)

Ally's AI Alternative Text Assistant is designed to assist you in creating descriptions for your images. An image description (also referred to as alt text), makes it easier to connect the image to its context and allows students with visual impairments to understand the image. 

Ally checks for image descriptions anywhere there is an image, including image files and files that include images (ex attached Word documents, PDFs, and presentations).

Select the Accessibility Score Indicator to open the Instructor Feedback Panel.

The Instructor Feedback Panel will highlight the specific accessibility issues found in your image. Click on the Auto-generate description button. Ally will process your image and provide a suggested description.

Review the suggested description for accuracy and clarity. You may edit the description or delete it to add one of your own. 

Once you are satisfied with the description, click Add to approve and apply the text to the image.

See Ally: Add Image Descriptions for more information, including tips and tricks for adding good image descriptions.