The LT Hub has been made aware of a bug in the chat feature of Blackboard’s Collaborate Ultra that may impact some classes.
The bug relates to the Profanity Filter functionality in chat. When this setting is enabled in a session, students are unable to type certain terms (as determined by Blackboard, not UBC) in the chat window, and those terms are replaced with asterisks.
Earlier this week, the Profanity Filter was overbroad; Blackboard has now rectified that. If you encounter a term that should not be on the list, please contact the LT Hub.
In addition, the Profanity Filter seems to operate on some occasions whether or not the setting is switched on. Blackboard currently has no estimate of when this bug will be fixed.
If you have had a course session impacted by this bug, you may want to communicate the issue with your students. A draft course announcement is included below:
Collaborate Ultra Chat Filtering Issue
In Collaborate Ultra, some terms are inadvertently filtered in the chat window. This is caused by a software bug related to a profanity filter in Collaborate Ultra that works even if your instructor turns the filter off. UBC has escalated this issue with the vendor to ensure the bug is fixed. Please rest assured that there is no intention to filter the course discussion or to censor any topics in the course. The observed behaviour is due to a technical issue.