Blackboard Collaborate Ultra, the web-conferencing tool used to conduct live synchronous sessions, has gained many new features since it was first introduced. One of the most demanded features added over a year ago is Telephony, which allows attendees to use a telephone (smart or landline), rather than a microphone, to listen and speak in a session.
Within a session, participants can generate a phone number and personal identification number (PIN) using the “Use your phone for audio” button. This is a great feature to ensure that everyone who joins a session is able to hear the speaker and participate verbally, and is a useful backup plan for participants who experience technical issues with their microphone. However, it requires that the participants first join the Collaborate Ultra session to generate the phone number. 
Now, Collaborate Ultra has an anonymous call-in option. This allows participants to join the audio only, without launching the session in a browser. It works similar to a traditional conference call. Faculty can access the phone number and PIN from the session drop down menu and send the information to participants.
Although attendees using the Anonymous dial-in feature will not be able to view content, they will be able to hear everything that is spoken and participate verbally. On the Participants panel in the session, callers will be identified with the last four digits of the phone number they used to call in, rather than their name. 
To learn more about this updated feature, visit Anonymous dial-in. Keep an eye out each month for updates or new features added to Collaborate Ultra.
This is great! However, it doesn’t address the difficulties or inability to join meetings at the School of Nursing, which has been ab on going problem.
Carol, I invite you to contact me to discuss the problems regarding joining meetings at the School of Nursing so we can investigate this.