Spring 2026 marks the first semester that instructors at the University of Mississippi are required to use the Blackboard Ultra course view, phasing out the original viewing format in the course management system. Now, three weeks in, professors and students have mixed reviews on the new interface, with some appreciating new user-friendly features such as drag-and-drop.
Instructor of Speech Talya Slaw was especially welcoming of the transition, citing ease of access and a “smoother” feel.
“It’s certainly easier for me to make modules, basically, for each week than it was in the old Blackboard,” Slaw said. “Smoother is a good way of describing it. It feels a lot more intuitive in how you build stuff on (the instructors’) end. It’s a lot easier now since you once had to push a lot of buttons to move things around.”
Assistant Professor of Speech Communication Jacob Justice echoed Slaw’s sentiment.
“I don’t miss anything about the old Blackboard. I really like that you can drag and drop items easier,” Justice said.
Blackboard Ultra has been available to the university since December 2021, and prior to this semester, professors had the option to choose between the Ultra format and the original format.
In 2024, the university announced to its faculty members that a spring 2026 deadline to switch to Ultra would be implemented. Rationale behind the change include a cleaner user interface, a more mobile-friendly display and new tools and artificial intelligence features.
Not all professors gave praise to Ultra, including Associate Professor of Classics Jonathan Fenno, who shared his concerns.
“I have a very complicated grading schema,” Fenno said. “In Excel, I have no problems using formulae to arrange for that, but it is very difficult on Blackboard.”
Fenno also added that he missed the gradebook format in the original course view, citing issues with sorting in Ultra.
“It used to be really easy in the past layout to find out which students hadn’t submitted something or received a low grade and to send them an email,” Fenno said. “The sorting doesn’t work very well. It fails to sort grades, or it sorts them wrongly. It’s a big failure. There are major problems with Ultra.”
Veronica Ramponi, a freshman criminal justice and forensic chemistry major from Telluride, Colo., also has her concerns.
In Blackboard Ultra, professors have to manually unlock documents after uploading them. Ramponi said this causes difficulty for instructors.
“Stuff is locked weird, and it’s hard to find certain things,” Ramponi said. “When you click on courses, it only shows you your most recent three, so that makes it harder to use on the phone and mobile devices.”
The Daily Mississippian was unable to obtain a comment from the Office of Information Technology.
Faculty experiencing trouble with the transition to Ultra can reach out to the Faculty Technology Development Center at (662) 915-7918 or ftdc@olemiss.edu.
Students are encouraged to reach out to the IT Help Desk at (662) 915-5222 or helpdesk@olemiss.edu.
