Getting Started

Video: Blackboard Collaborate with the Ultra experience user interface tour shows you Blackboard Collaborate with the Ultra experience in action.

Imagine walking into a room that was perfectly outfitted for collaboration. The amount of tools to engage and capture are potentially endless. Like any good classroom or studio space, we must be organized.

We've organized everything into three convenient areas: a media space, the Session menu, and a Collaborate panel.

Use our accessible in-product tutorials to get up and running saving precious session time. From the Session menu, select Tell me about Collaborate and choose the features they want to walk through.

Add a profile picture

Having a social presence can be critical to a successful online learning experience. Something simple as adding a profile image can make learners more comfortable with participating online.

1. Open My Settings. Select your profile picture and select your name. Or, open the Collaborate panel and select My Settings.
2. Point to the profile picture and select it.
3. Upload any image or use your device camera to take a photo. You can choose to use this profile picture for every session.

   PNG, JPEG, and JPG are supported file types.

4. Adjust the image area.
5. Select I Like it!

Collaborate remembers your choice. You don't have to do this again from the same device or browser, unless you clear your cache.

If you joined by a guest web link instead of from a course, you'll need to upload an image for each new session you join.

Get set up to use your audio and video

You must complete audio and video set up at least once before you can use them.

Some browsers need access to your microphone to play audio, even if you don't plan to speak. To hear others in the session, give the browser permission to access the microphone.

After you are set up, select the microphone and video camera icons any time during a meeting to turn them on or off. With your keyboard, press Alt + M to turn your microphone on and off. Press Alt + C to turn your camera on and off.

Collaborate remembers your choice. You don't have to do this again from the same device or browser, unless you clear your cache.

Status and feedback

Change your status to away or let others know how you feel about something said or shared in the session.

From the main stage, select your profile picture.

Feedbacks appear with an attendee's profile pictures on the main stage, in the Attendees panel, and in Chat. After 30 seconds the feedback disappears.

The Away status stays until you return and select I'm back!

A summary of the feedback selected appears under the panel heading. It shows the current feedback with a count of attendees using it.

You can sort the attendees by feedback in the Attendees panel. For example, if you want to know who is happy about what was said, select Happy under the Attendees heading. Only those who are happy appear.