Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
Getting started with Ultra
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This staff guide provides some quick tips for getting started with MyBeckett Ultra.
MyBeckett is our University portal and Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). It allows staff and students to access a range of systems, services, module teaching materials and online assessments/feedback. Around 30,000 students and staff use MyBeckett, making it the most used University system by a considerable margin.
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Portal: refers to the helpful links that staff and students will see when they log into MyBeckett. Different users see different content depending on their role at the University.
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VLE: the teaching and learning content available to staff and students when they go into Modules and Communities.
Ultra is the new view of MyBeckett modules and communities.
If you are familiar with MyBeckett modules and communities, you will be used to a two-column layout with the module menu on the left and the module content on the right. This type of module layout is known as the Original view.
Ultra view offers a more modern interface which aims to reduce clicks and improve the user experience across a range of devices.
- We are taking a phased approach to the Ultra upgrade, to allow us to learn from the experience of early adopters.
- Ultra is available at a minimum of course level to reduce the risk of students experiencing a mixture of Original and Ultra modules / communities for the current year.
- We recommend that you have conversations within your Course / Subject Area / School to decide upon your approach to MyBeckett Ultra and other technologies that you use in your teaching. Please read our Ultra Upgrade FAQs for more information.
- Decide upon a simple and consistent structure for your content and use this across your course.
- Think about the student experience, use the Student Preview tool to check what you have built.
- Regularly run the Accessibility Report in your module to check content and remove broken links.
- Make it as easy as possible for students to navigate and locate content.
- Using a template will make it easier for instructors to set up their modules / communities, and will improve the student experience by providing a consistent structure or baseline. Example templates are available.
- If you'd like to design a template for your Course / Subject Area / School, you could use a sandpit. To request a sandpit module or community, contact the Digital Learning Service via the contact details at the bottom of this page.
Click the link below to open an online resource provided by the Educational Enhancement Unit in the Centre for Learning and Teaching.
Improving the student experience through better MyBeckett module design
Grounded in findings from UK-wide research by JISC and CLT best practices in digital pedagogy, this guide provides some practical steps you can take to lead to better learning and teaching in the online space, helping to solve the problems that both you and your students face when using the VLE.
Feel free to explore at your own pace and revisit as needed.
