By James Martinez
Hood College’s learning management system, Blackboard, was upgraded at the start of the fall semester.
Blackboard Ultra is the upgraded version of Blackboard Original that the institution has used for the past 25 years.
Director of Instructional Technology Jeff Welsh said that while Hood was still using Blackboard Original, it was not receiving many updates or optimizations. Many features were being added to the Ultra version
of the site.
“When there was one new feature in 2023, they brought out 20 in Ultra,” Welsh said.
Welsh interpreted the original’s pattern of fewer updates as a signal that Blackboard was preparing to announce a transition to the Ultra version of the site for everyone.
“As an administrator, I saw the writing on the wall, that they are getting ready to tell us that there is a cliff coming,” Welsh said.
Welsh started the discussion about switching to Blackboard Ultra. Other leaders and administrators at Hood decided that this change would be for the best.
Administrators decided to switch in the summer of 2024, and Anthology made an announcement in March 2025 that said that all courses that run on Blackboard Original must switch to Blackboard Ultra by December 2026.
This switch puts Hood College about a year and a half ahead of institutions still using Blackboard Original.
Welsh also said that Anthology felt that the old theme was not very compatible with mobile vdevices that students were using to access Blackboard.
The focus of Blackboard Ultra was to normalize the way professors set up their Blackboard sites. They also normalized the user interface of the site to ensure that the site looks the same across all devices.
The hope was that students would have a near seamless transition to Blackboard Ultra and have access to a variety of features to keep all necessary documents on the website. The system now embeds documents into the site, allowing them to open directly within the site without needing to be downloaded or opened separately.
Problems may arise with any form of software. Students can report issues to Hood College’s IT support. They can be contacted through the IT Helpdesk Support Portal.
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