Senior Blackboard Ultra consultants

About the Role

Acuative Middle East is seeking a Senior Blackboard Learn Ultra Consultant to assume full technical and functional ownership of a live Blackboard Learn Ultra environment. This full-time position is based in Makkah, with work locations in Jeddah and Makkah. The consultant will serve as the single point of delivery accountability, collaborating with IT, academic affairs, registrar teams, faculty, and other stakeholders.

Engagement Focus

The engagement for this role centers on four key areas: Stabilize → Optimize → Enable → Transfer. Responsibilities include platform stabilization, data and access remediation, identity/SIS integrations, Ultra configuration, course and assessment standardization, faculty enablement, operational support, documentation, and knowledge transfer.

Key Responsibilities

• Conduct stakeholder interviews and establish project scope and priorities.
• Assess Production, Test/Stage, and approved Blackboard environments, inventorying configurations, licenses, users, courses, integrations, authentication, reports, support processes, and security/accessibility controls.
• Establish a prioritized remediation backlog with risks, dependencies, owners, timelines, and acceptance criteria, along with appropriate testing, backup, rollback, approval, and change-management procedures.
• Profile and cleanse Blackboard data, identify and resolve duplicate or invalid records, and review privileged accounts.
• Stabilize identity and integration feeds, including reconciliation, monitoring, alerting, recovery, and backfill.
• Maintain a register of licensed Blackboard capabilities, configure and enable approved Ultra capabilities, and review course configurations and integrations.
• Design and implement institutional Blackboard Ultra course templates, standardize course navigation, assessment structures, and accessibility.
• Provide Tier 2/3 onsite support for user access, course setup, content, gradebook, assessments, and integrations.
• Deliver faculty workshops, hands-on course-building clinics, one-to-one consultations, and targeted support during term starts.
• Maintain complete and editable architecture, configuration, data-flow, and field-mapping documentation, along with test packs and runbooks.
• Conduct structured shadowing and reverse-shadowing with client teams and perform a final operational-readiness review and formal knowledge transfer.

Qualifications and Experience

• 5-10 years of experience in a relevant role.
• Demonstrated expertise as a hands-on Blackboard Learn Ultra specialist.
• Deep technical expertise combined with strong functional and academic-facing capabilities.
• Proficiency across platform administration, data remediation, SIS/identity integrations, security, course design, assessments, and faculty training.
• Experience taking ownership of a live, mission-critical LMS environment within higher education.

Required Skills

• Strong stakeholder-management skills.
• Excellent communication skills.
• Ability to work collaboratively with diverse teams including IT, academic affairs, and faculty.
• Problem-solving skills for technical and functional issues, including vendor escalation.

Work Environment

This is a full-time position with Acuative Middle East, located in Makkah, with operations in Jeddah and Makkah. The role involves working closely with various university departments to ensure a stable, optimized, well-documented, and self-sufficient Blackboard Ultra operation for the client.