Blackboard

Yes. You can change the course duration by going to the course settings. For more info read How Can I Change the Course Settings?

No, it must go through Colleague. In order to push the grades, they need to be in Colleague as well.

If a student participates in a Collaborate session does that make the student status Present in Attendance? It can, but it must be setup first. Collaborate tracks if a student is present, late, or absent from a session. Collaborate then sends that information directly to the Attendance page in the appropriate Blackboard Learn course. Attendance from the Collaborate session is counted in each student’s average attendance in the course, which can also be used in calculating student grades.

Yes!

Unfortunately, tags are not part of Ultra assessments. They will get stripped off.

The Alert Settings allow instructors to view flags next to the names of students who are underperforming in their courses. Based on your Alert Settings, you’ll see students with alerts highlighted in the Course Activity report. You’ll also receive activity stream notifications when new students have alerts. You can address these performance issues with your students by sending them direct messages. If you want students to receive alerts in their activity stream based on your settings for low overall grade and days since last access alerts, you can select the checkbox at the bottom of the panel.

However, by checking that box students will receive alerts only for low overall grade and days since last access. Students will not receive notifications based on course missed due dates alert settings. If a student opts in to missed due dates alerts, alerts are sent for each content item.