Using the Ultra template

Summary

Introducing the structure and content of the Ultra module site template and step-by-step guidance on using it to prepare a site.

Relevant VLE site design principles

The template has been designed to apply the site designb principles as a whole.

Template structure

The Ultra module site template has a pre-built overall structure:

Staff Ultra guides: Advice on building the site
Assessment: Pre-built content & placeholders collating all assessment information. All assessment information for the site must be added to this section.
Module information: Placeholders for key module information (module overview, staff contacts etc.) and pre-built departmental information. In some departments, this may be separated into distinct module and departmental sections.
Module materials: Containers for you to add your module content to (slides, quizzes, Padlets etc.). This could be a single container, or separate containers for each week/part of the module (see below).
Reading List: an LTI link to the Reading List tool. The Reading List must be used to provide all set readings for the module.
Panopto Replay content: an LTI link to the Replay Lecture Capture content area for lecture capture recordings.

There are small differences across Department- and School-specific templates, particularly in terms of how these components are organised, but each template has the same broad structure.

Decorative

Benefits of a consistent overall structure

For staff: the pre-built structure and placeholders for key information help minimise workload in developing sites.
For students: we have significant feedback from students that broad consistency across module sites is key to helping them find important information across multiple sites.
A consistent, predictable structure across sites is particularly important for improving accessibility.

Using the content in template

The staff ultra guides learning module is designed to help staff easily find resources that can aid development and personalisation of the ultra site from the base template. It is important that the learning module is left on hidden, so students can not see this resoource.

The module materials section can appear different in the template dependant on the department. The module materials section learning module can appear in the format of either:

Chronological: Each module materials section contains a week’s worth of readings, assignments, lecture notes, and discussion forums.
By subject area: Each module materials section contains lecture material and readings on a specific subject, along with assignments, discussion forums, and tests.
By content type: Similar content types are grouped together in a module materials section (e.g., all the lectures for the entire course).

Module Materials Types — *Example of 3 types of module material layouts*

We have placeholders in the module Information & Assessment sections these are required to be replaced with relevant information and module materials sections there are optional placeholders to help you build your site but feel free to delete them if not relevant. Below demonstrates an example of the placeholder information found in the template documents.

Module Placeholder Info — *Example of placeholder text in template*

The Reading List tool allows students to access all readings you have setup. If you need to add readings to the tool, please find more advice or help implementing the reading lists on the reading list guide page.

The Panopto LTI tool allows you to access replays of lecture capture recordings and record videos for the module site. More advice on how to use panopto can be found at the panopto guide page.