What's New in Blackboard?

2024

ULTRA: Usability improvements for Documents

ULTRA: Video Studio: Enhanced caption support for uploaded files

Video Studio gives instructors the ability to easily upload or record audio and video within Documents, creating a more engaging learning experience. We have enhanced the capabilities of Video Studio to help create a more accessible learning environment. Now Video Studio auto-generates captions for all file types.

Video Studio is a premium solution. We are offering customers a free trial until June 30, 2025. This will provide access to the full version of Video Studio as a feature flag. Video Studio is set to OFF as a default in test/stage environments. If you want to enable it in your institution’s production environment, you can do that for free until the end of June 2025. Customers will have to purchase Video Studio to continue to use it beyond this date.

ULTRA: Usability improvement for Knowledge Checks

We modified the default for the Difficulty metric to display as "--" until there is at least one attempt. We also updated the answer instruction text for instructors to align with the instructions given in a test. It now reads "Choose one or more correct answers."

ULTRA: Mastery tab in the gradebook

The new Mastery tab in the Gradebook allows instructors and students to see how their activities align with institutional goals. Based on the goal performance scale set by your institution, the tab displays the mastery of each alignment.

The Mastery tab enables instructors to:

View the level of mastery per alignment for each student.
View how each student is performing against those alignments.
Drill down view for individual student mastery performance.

The Mastery tab enables students to:

Access a visual display of their mastery performance.
View specific skills and competencies that they need to master. This insight helps students understand where they should concentrate their efforts. This leads to more targeted and effective learning.
Access their performance as it relates to each specific criterion. This allows them to identify areas for improvement and work towards mastery.
Focus on key areas where mastery was not achieved. This fosters a growth mindset and a deeper understanding of the course content.

The color schema used in the Goal Performance Scale (shown in Image 5) indicates levels of mastery. Instructors can select View Scale to view the Goal Performance Scale from the Mastery tab.

Goals tab

Students can drill down on the Goals tab to individual content items to see how goals align with their mastery progress.

Configuring the Performance Scale (Administrators)

The performance scale is an institutional configuration. This allows for consistent aggregation across courses. It also creates consistency for students in mastery-based programs.
Administrators can configure the number of levels as well as the labels and colors for each.

Notes: 

Students will always see the Goals tab and instructors will always see the Mastery tab. When there are no goals aligned, the tab will be empty. The Mastery tab will display to other users depending on privileges. If their course role or system role allows them to create or view goal alignment, users will see the tab. 
Users can select the student column header on the Mastery tab to sort students by last name.
Instructors can preview what the Goals tab will look like for students.
The calculation method is points-based. To weigh different items, different point values should be assigned. For example, an instructor wants to weigh performance on a rubric criterion ten times greater than a matching question on a test. Therefore, the rubric row should be set to 50 points and the matching question to 5 points.
The calculation method prioritizes more granular alignments. Priority is given to alignments on individual rubric rows or test questions, and other alignments are then ignored. When the alignments are only on the assessment itself, those alignments will apply to all the assessment’s test questions or rubric criteria.

For administrators: The Administrator panel has a new configuration option on the Ultra Experience Management page: Enable support for Mastery Tab in Gradebook. The default state is OFF. Note that if enabled, students will see the Goals tab even when goals are not aligned to content items. In addition, all instructors will see the Mastery tab. The ability to control this feature at the course level will be available in a future release.

ULTRA: Generate question banks

ULTRA: Enhancements to student submission review page

The student submission review page makes it easier for students to access instructor feedback on their submissions.

We made several enhancements to this page:

When an instructor selects student preview, they can now access the student submission review page.
Students can now access offline submissions from this page.
Students now have a Read more option for overall and attempt feedback.

We also made general usability improvements, including additional labels and other indicators, to help students easily find the information they need.

ULTRA: Email notifications for followed discussions

ULTRA: Quickly access items that need grade reconciliation

With parallel grading, multiple people can share grading responsibilities for a course. For example, an instructor can divide up the grading tasks among teaching assistants and other graders. The designated reconciler reviews all grades and feedback to determine the final grade.

A Needs reconciling section now appears on the gradebook Overview tab. In this section, reconcilers can easily access all items ready for reconciliation.

This section is hidden when the grader has no items for reconciliation.

Graders can select Reconcile now to open the Submissions tab for the item. They can review grades and feedback from others before determining the final grade.

The Gradebook tab displays an exclamation point when there are items to reconcile or post.

ULTRA: Show unavailable students in the gradebook

Instructors may have students in their courses whose access to Blackboard is temporarily restricted. For example, if a student has a payment pending, an administrator can set the student’s user account as unavailable until the hold is lifted.

In direct response to user feedback, we’ve made changes to how unavailable students appear in the gradebook. Now unavailable students appear in the gradebook for their enrolled courses, but their avatar has a strikethrough to indicate the unavailable status.

To completely hide unavailable students from their gradebooks, instructors can use the Students Visibility setting introduced in the last release.

When the hide unenrolled students from the gradebook option is turned on, unavailable and unenrolled students are hidden from these gradebook areas:

Grades page
Students page
Calculation student list
Gradable items student list
Submission tab for an assessment
Group Submissions tab for an assessment
Student Activity tab for an assessment

ULTRA: Flexible Grading performance improvements

We made several adjustments to improve the performance of Flexible Grading. Users will experience faster loading when:

Scrolling in the Student list (instructors)
Posting all grades (instructors)
Viewing the rubric (instructors and students)

For larger classes with more than 2000 enrollments, the Flexible Grading page loads 25% faster!

ULTRA: MOBILE: Email notifications for followed discussion

Instructors and students sometimes need to pay special attention to one or more discussions or threads in a course. Users can now easily follow specific discussions to receive email updates on new contributions. Institutions can set notification defaults for discussion activity and responses for followed discussions. This feature makes it easier for users to monitor and engage with class discussions from the Blackboard Mobile App.

For Administrators: You can configure this feature in the Administrator Panel by selecting Notification settings and enabling/disabling your institution’s preferences.

ULTRA: Content Designer: Knowledge Check in Documents

ULTRA: Content Designer: Video Studio in Documents

Video Studio is a premium solution. We are offering customers a free trial until June 30, 2025This will provide access to the full version of Video Studio as a feature flag. Video Studio is set to OFF as a default in test/stage environments. If you want to enable it in your institution’s production environment, you can do that for free until the end of June 2025. Customers will have to purchase Video Studio to continue to use it beyond this date.

Instructors have recording capabilities in Announcements and Feedback features. Now they have the ability to upload or record audio and video within Documents. The lightweight, deeply integrated Video Studio solution promotes a more engaging learning experience.

When creating a Document, a new block option is available to create audio and video files from a camera, audio recording, or from screen recordings. Additionally, it is possible to upload audio and video files.

When a user starts recording, there is a 3 second countdown before the recording begins. Users can pause, resume, retake, or end the recording as needed.

After a user ends the recording, the uploading process begins. During this time, the user can preview the result and edit the title. Users can select Save to add the audio or video into a Document. After saving the video, auto captioning for videos is available.

For administrators: These new video capabilities require a license for Video Studio. Also, the "Enable support for customizing Ultra document layouts." setting on the Ultra Experience Management page in the Administrator Panel must be on. The videos created using Video Studio will not count towards your existing storage entitlement. The following existing privileges are used for the Video Studio solution:

Course/Organization (Content Areas) > Create Materials: To create videos. Includes all operations like save, finish, check Video upload Status. Not needed for playback.
Course/Organization (Content Areas) > Delete Materials: To delete videos.

ULTRA: Course Content Page Enhancements

User experience (UX) plays a vital role in student engagement and learning. We're committed to continuous improvement of the Blackboard Ultra course view. It's important to us that we meet the needs of our users—both educators and students. We're excited to deliver several changes to improve the Course Content page. Client feedback is at the center of the changes we’ve made.

The improvements include:

Greater visual depth
Improved page structure
Differentiation among course elements
An enhanced presentation of top-level and nested content

Greater Visual Depth and Content Page Structure

Creating a more appealing and engaging interface has been a key theme in client feedback. To support this, we've created greater visual depth to the Course Content page. This provides a more enjoyable and inviting experience for end users.

The new design incorporates:

Subtle gradients and softer edges
A more cohesive color palette with inviting, warmer tones
More intuitive navigation, which reduces cognitive load and increases focus on the content

Content presentation enhancements

We've improved the differentiation among learning modules, folders, and content items. Currently, users sometimes find it challenging to distinguish among these elements. This can lead to confusion and inefficiency in navigating course materials.

These improvements create a more organized and improved user experience.

To learn more about the visual style changes and to access supporting resources, visit the community blog post here.

ULTRA: AI Conversation

ULTRA: Review instructor feedback on the student submission review page

Assessment feedback gives students insights into their strengths and weaknesses. It also helps them refine their skills and knowledge. 

We are introducing a new student-facing submission review page for assignments. The new page makes all instructor feedback on a submission more accessible. We are planning to add this same feature for tests in a future release. 

Students can access the new assignment submission review page from these locations: 

The gradebook feedback button for the assignment.
The small panel that displays when students access an assignment from the Course Content page.

If a student submits multiple attempts, they can review each on the submission review page. By default, the student sees the appropriate graded attempt. The instructor defines which attempt to grade in the assignment's final grade calculation setting.

The new assignment submission review page displays the following information and feedback formats:

Assessment content
Student submission with inline feedback
Submission timestamp
Submission receipt
Final grade and calculation model
Attempt grade and feedback
Override grade and feedback (if applicable)
Optimized display of rubrics information and criterion feedback

ULTRA: Access assignment feedback hidden by release conditions

Students must access feedback on past submissions. Feedback review is vital for their academic growth. Now students can access all feedback on their submission, even if the assignment is hidden by a release condition. We are planning to ensure that students have access to all feedback on tests, discussions and journals in future releases.

ULTRA: Exclude attempt when grading

Allowing students to submit multiple attempts for an assessment can help them stay on track. It can improve the quality of the assessment and boost student success.

However, there are some circumstances where an attempt doesn’t need to be graded. For example, the student may have submitted the wrong file, or their submission may be incomplete or an outlier.

We added a new option to help instructors remove submissions from the grading workflow without having to delete them. When grading a student, you can now select Exclude Attempt to remove it from the Needs Grading workflow.

If an attempt is excluded, the Excluded label appears above the attempt grade and in the attempt selector. If you need to remove the attempt exclusion, select from the menu.

Grade calculations ignore excluded attempts. Students aren’t automatically granted an additional attempt if an attempt is excluded. You can grant additional attempts to the student via the exception's workflow.

You can exclude any submitted attempt by a student. If you exclude an attempt when the student has no remaining attempts, you receive a warning that their final grade can’t be calculated.When students review their submissions, a banner notification appears on excluded attempts.

ULTRA: View items that need grading and posting in the new Overview tab

To help instructors stay on top of their grading workload, we added an indicator to the Gradebook tab to let you know when there are new submissions to grade. The indicator displays the number that needs grading. If the count goes higher than 99, it displays as 99+.

We also added a new gradebook Overview tab to improve task orientation and grading efficiency. This tab contains two sections: Needs Grading and Needs Posting.

Needs Grading section

If you face a substantial grading workload, the Needs Grading section is a useful tool for prioritizing your tasks. It allows you to see all items ready for grading and a count of the total number of outstanding grading tasks in your course.

This section displays up to five items at a time, ordered by the oldest ungraded submission. For an item, select Grade now to quickly access the submissions you need to grade. If your course has more than five items that need grading, you can use the buttons at the bottom of section to navigate through all pending tasks.

Needs Posting section

The Needs Posting section increases accessibility of assessments with grades that need posting. For an item, select Post now to its grade If there are more than five items that need posting, you can use the buttons at the bottom of section to navigate through the pending tasks.

ULTRA: View late submissions that need grading

When enabled, the Automatic Zeros gradebook setting gives a zero score to students who haven’t made a submission by the due date. To help instructors to find and grade late assessment submissions, they are now indicated as Needs Grading on the Grades and Gradable Items gradebook pages.

ULTRA: Student Activity Log

ULTRA: Wiris Upgrade and Benefits

We’ve upgraded the Wiris engine and equation editor to the latest versions to improve performance. Version 8.10.2 of the engine and version 7.23 of the editor improves rendering of subscript and superscript formulas. This upgrade provides a better experience for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics courses.

ULTRA: Calendar Event Management

Institutions can now control which users can create events in the Base Navigation Calendar with a new system-level entitlement Calendar>Create Personal event. This update gives institutions greater control over calendar event creation within their learning environment.

If the Calendar>Create Personal event entitlement is not granted:

Users can’t create personal events in the Base Navigation Calendar.
Calendar tool is hidden in Base Navigation if users have no existing events in their calendars and lack this entitlement. Users don’t have permission to import Calendar events from external files (Settings).

When users possess the privilege of the Calendar>Create Personal event entitlement:

Users can create personal events using the Base Navigation Calendar.
The add calendar option is displayed.
The Calendar tool appears in Base Navigation.
Users can import Calendar events from external files (Settings).

ULTRA: Content Designer: Enhanced Documents

ULTRA: Image Generation Improvements

Images enhance comprehension and engagement with course content. To help, we introduced the ability for instructors to generate images using the AI Design Assistant.

We are updating the technology in the image generation process from DALL-E 2 to DALL-E 3. This update allows instructors to generate higher quality, higher resolution images in the following workflows:

Learning Module images
Document images
Announcement images
Assessment question images
Journal prompts images

Note: For administrators: The "Generate images" options only appear for instructors when each tool is on. Select Building Blocks from the Administrator Panel, then select Installed Tools. Locate "AI Design Assistant and Unsplash" and select Settings from the dropdown. The default state is off. You must also activate privileges. Assign the Use AI Design Assistant privilege for the appropriate Course Roles (for example, Instructor).

ULTRA: Multiple rules for release conditions

Related Topic: Content Release Conditions

Instructors need to release course content based on performance criteria to sequence students on learning paths correctly. Sometimes they also need to release content to different groups using different criteria. For example, graduate students may be required to perform additional activities or perform at a higher level than other students. To support this needed flexibility, instructors can now create multiple rules for release conditions.

You can create rules for release conditions based on these criteria: date, time, and grade range performance criteria. You can also create rules for specific individual learners, groups, or for all members.

This release also improves copying content from Original courses. Rules and criteria now copy from Original adaptive release settings. The supported criterion types are date, time, grade range, and memberships (individual or groups). Only supported criteria types are copied from Original to Ultra courses. These criteria types are removed automatically during a copy:

Attempt for a gradable item (student submitted the assignment or test)
Student marked an item reviewed

As before, we recommend reviewing settings after copying content from Original courses.

Note: For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed. For Test/Stage environments, availability will be on July 24.

ULTRA: Improvements to creating assignments

Related Topic: Create and Edit Assignments

Instructors need robust, easy to use tools when creating their assessments.

To create a better experience, the new Assignment page includes these improvements:

A new Instructions box where instructors can use the full content editor to craft assignment instructions.
There are no options to add questions to an assignment.
The Settings panel now includes only options relevant to assignments.
Blank attempts are no longer created when students view assignment instructions. The system only creates an attempt when students add content to the file drop zone / content editor. Note: Group or timed and proctored assignments continue to create attempts when students view the instructions.

Assignments created before this release will continue to create blank attempts when students view the instructions. We'll address this issue in a future release.

The New Test page remains unchanged. Instructors can access all the same question types and settings options. Attempts are still automatically created when students view the test questions.

ULTRA: Anonymous student responses for Forms

ULTRA: Ability to ‘Follow’ Discussions for Enhanced Engagement

ULTRA: Send messages to a group from Group Spaces

ULTRA: Improved navigation between students in Flexible Grading

Related Topic: Grade Tests with Flexible Grading

To make the grading experience more efficient, we added Next Student and Previous Student buttons to the Students tab in Flexible Grading. Instructors can now quickly navigate between students when grading assessments.

ULTRA: Hide unenrolled students from the gradebook

Related Topic: Ultra Gradebook and Course Settings

Students can change their course schedules at the beginning of a term or semester. Institution policy determines what happens when students change classes. At some institutions, when a student drops a class their enrollment (membership) record is set to unavailable. They display in the gradebook with a strikethrough on their avatar. The instructor's gradebook can become cluttered with students who aren’t actively enrolled in the class.

Using the new Students Visibility setting, instructors now have the option to hide or show unenrolled students.

The default option is to show these students.

You can access the Students Visibility setting from two locations:

Grades page
Students page
Calculation student list
Gradable items student list
Submission tab for an assessment
Student Activity tab for an assessment

Note: Users and enrollment records set to the "disabled" state will continue to be hidden in all cases. A best practice for data integrations is to use the "disabled" record state when instructors no longer have any responsibility to manage those records or should not change data associated with those students. The "unavailable" record state still allows data access and grading activities—it’s most suitable when a student shouldn’t access the course any longer, but instructors are still responsible for reporting data for the student.

ULTRA: Status information removed from the gradebook download file

Related Topic: Work Offline with Grade Data

Instructors can download the full gradebook or selected columns to work with the information offline.

We've removed from the download file the status information associated with grades. Removing this information makes it easier to perform statistical analysis or calculations.

Example	Before the change	After the change
A student submitted an attempt that was graded but not posted	Ready to Post (75)	75
A student submitted an attempt that was graded and has started a second attempt	In Progress (75)	75
A student submitted an attempt that needs grading	Needs Grading	Needs Grading

ULTRA: Assessment IP Address Filtering

Assessments are sometimes administered in proctored environments to ensure academic integrity. Instructors can now restrict an assessment by location in Ultra Course View. This restriction prevents students from taking tests outside of proctored locations or taking tests on another’s behalf.

To restrict by location, select Test Settings, then Assessment Security. Finally, select your Location restriction. No restriction is the default value.

Students are informed if a test is restricted by location before starting it. They're also informed if they are not meeting the IP address rules when starting an attempt and during the test.

For administrators: The configuration for IP filtering rules in Administrator Tool Panel > Course Settings > Grading Security Settings. For the range, enter as many filters as necessary to correctly capture the part of the network used in the testing environment. We will support multiple profile configurations in a future release.

ULTRA: Math Formula enhancement

ULTRA: Original Conversion Improvement: Convert Undeployed Tests to Question Banks

Related Topic:Copy Content from Other Courses

We’ve added a new configuration option within the Ultra experience settings: "Convert Undeployed Tests to Question Banks." This new option is designed to provide administrators with more control over how undeployed tests are handled during course conversions. By default, this option is not turned on and must be activated by administrators if they wish to use it.

Using the new Convert Undeployed Tests to Question Banks option in the Ultra experience settings, administrators now have more control over how undeployed tests are handled during course conversions. This provides greater flexibility and efficiency in managing undeployed tests and enables admins to choose the conversion method that best suits their institution’s needs.

Key Features and Benefits:

Conversion of Undeployed Tests to Question Banks:
- When turned on, this option converts all undeployed tests into question banks. This process helps to declutter both the course content page and the gradebook, making it easier for instructors to manage their course materials.
- This conversion significantly reduces the effort required to clean up courses that have been converted, as it organizes questions more effectively.
Removal of Random Blocks, Question Sets, and Linked Questions:
- During the conversion process, any random blocks, question sets, and linked questions included in undeployed tests will be removed. Question Banks do not support those features. This ensures that the resulting question banks preserve original questions without duplication.

Default Behavior When Option is Disabled:

By default, this option is not turned on.
If the "Convert Undeployed Tests to Question Banks" option remains turned off, undeployed tests will instead be converted into deployed tests within the Ultra experience and set to hidden. This default behavior preserves the original structure of the tests, including any random blocks, question sets, and linked questions.
The primary benefit of this default setting is that it allows instructors to use these converted tests as they were initially intended, without needing to recreate them from question banks.

ULTRA: Print answer key for assessments

Instructors can now print an answer key for their assessments. A printed answer key is helpful for grading any printed assessment.

Printing provides a convenient solution for a variety of use cases:

Accommodating students with specific needs or limited technology access
Providing a printed assessment for testing in designated centers
Backup and record keeping
Conducting offline assessment
Documentation and compliance
Maintaining security and integrity

The print answer key option is available in Tests and Assignments with questions. Instructors may also save answer keys as a PDF.

To print an answer key from an assessment, navigate to the assessment. Select Print from the Content and Settings tab.

NOTE: We plan to support printing question pools and printing from the mobile app in upcoming releases.

ULTRA: Improvements to prevent printing a question across pages

In response to client feedback, we enhanced the print functionality for assessments to ensure a more user-friendly experience. For the following use cases, questions now print so that a question is not separated incorrectly on the physical or digital paper page break (e.g., in PDFs). This improves readability and ease of use for instructors and students alike.

Question headers will split the question number and points possible across pages
Question header will not split the header from the question text
Question answer icons and text will not split across pages
Tables, lists, and images will not split across pages
Very large text answer options may span pages, but the answer choice icon (e.g. option A) will display next to the first line of text rather than aligning to the center of the option
In matching questions, the prompt/answer heading will not split from the answer pairs

ULTRA: Needs Grading improvements for assessments allowing multiple attempts

The value of multiple attempts on an assessment ranges from support of mastery learning to reducing student anxiety. To help instructors grade assessments with multiple attempts, we have added new settings.

When an instructor chooses to allow multiple attempts, there is now a way to see which attempt(s) display as Needs Grading.

From the ‘Attempts to grade’ menu. The options are:

First attempt
Last attempt (default)
All attempts

Instructors will always have access to all attempts submitted by a student in the grading interface. The Attempts to grade setting only controls which attempts display as Needs Grading.

If All attempts is selected, the instructor must also select the calculation method for the student’s grade.

From the Final grade calculation menu, the options are:

Average
Highest (default)
Lowest

ULTRA: Send a copy to email when scheduling announcements

ULTRA: Needs Grading improvements for Students and Questions tabs

We continue to improve the grading experience for instructors. Now, the Needs Grading filter for the Student and Questions tabs reflect the 'Attempts to grade' assessment setting.

The Needs Grading filter on the Student tab will now only display students with ungraded attempts that count towards Needs Grading.

The Needs Grading filter on the Questions tab will now only display questions with ungraded responses from attempts that count towards Needs Grading.

NOTE: Instructors will always have access to all attempts submitted by a student in the grading interface. The ‘Attempts to grade’ setting only controls which attempts need to be graded for the student to be removed from the Needs Grading workflow.

Example: An instructor configures a test with multiple attempts and chooses to grade the last attempt. Two students, Jessica Evans and Nathalie Williams, have made two attempts each. All four attempts are ungraded.

Continuing with the example, one essay question is displayed along with 2 responses to grade. The instructor is grading Jessica Evans. The attempt selector defaults to the last response to that question based on the assessment settings. After the instructor grades Jessica’s last response to the essay question, Jessica's responses will no longer appear on the Questions tab even though the response from her first attempt is ungraded.

ULTRA: Recording audio and video when adding per question feedback

When grading by student or question, instructors can now provide contextual feedback as recorded audio and video. Instructors can add recorded feedback to all question types. Question level feedback promotes deeper understanding and personal growth among students. Question level feedback enhances overall submission feedback and automated feedback for auto-graded questions.

NOTE: Audio and video feedback recordings do not count towards the institution storage quota.

ULTRA: Gradebook: Improved navigation when accessing feedback for Students

Some instructors choose to add feedback on a student’s overall submission and individual attempts. We've improved students' access to this valuable feedback. Now students can view overall and attempt-level feedback from the gradebook.

ULTRA: MOBILE APP: Mobile App token timeout configuration

ULTRA: 'Reply to Email' feature for Messages

MOBILE APP: Improved Mobile Authentication

We made backend improvements to the Blackboard Learn App authentication process. These changes reduce the frequency of logouts and enhance user experience. After the Blackboard Learn App 9.6 is released (July 2024), users will be required to update the app on their devices to ensure proper functionality. Users who do not update after the release will see a red banner informing them that their session has expired.

ULTRA: AI Design Assistant – Language Selector

ULTRA: Printing for Assessments

Instructors can now print assessments. Printing provides a convenient solution for a variety of use cases:

Accommodating students with specific needs or limited technology access
Providing a printed assessment for testing in designated centers
Backup and record keeping
Conducting offline assessment
Documentation and compliance
Maintaining security and integrity

The print option is available in Forms, Tests, and Assignments with questions. Printing also provides the option to save as PDF.

To print an assessment, from Content and Settings, select Print.

Note: We plan to support printing answer keys and question pools and printing from the mobile app in upcoming releases

ULTRA: Streamlined point value editing for questions

Related topics: Edit Tests and Questions

When editing a question, instructors can now access and edit the point value field with just two clicks. Reducing the number of clicks needed to edit the point value of a question saves instructors time and effort. This small change leads to a smoother workflow and enhances the overall teaching and learning experience.

Note: Editing the point values for matching questions requires three clicks.

ULTRA: Return a true/false question to an unanswered state

Students can now return a true/false question to an unanswered state after choosing an answer. Students clear their choice by selecting the same option again. Students may need to clear their answer selection for a test question. For questions that use negative scoring, if a student is uncertain about their answer, their score may be better if they leave it unanswered. In this case, clearing a response makes it easy for them to come back later using the unanswered question filter. This helps students better manage their time during a test.

In the past, a student could only change their answer to a true/false question to a different value.

ULTRA: Post immediately when creating announcements

ULTRA: Group members list available within the selected group

ULTRA: Filter out graded responses when grading by question

The Needs Grading filter now filters out graded student responses by default. Filtering this way helps instructors to focus on any remaining ungraded responses for a given question. It also provides instructors with an improved view of their outstanding grading workload. If instructors want to include graded responses, they can select Show graded responses. This selection preference is now stored per course and it persists across assessments in each course.

ULTRA: Grader Notes on student grades

Instructors can now add private grading notes to student grades. After a score is assigned, the new Feedback & Notes menu option is available. Grader notes form an important part of the academic record. These notes may serve as documentation for a grading decision or grade adjustment. Grader notes are private to graders and not visible to students.

Those with grading privileges can access Feedback & Notes from two places:

The Grades tab in the Gradebook by selecting a specific score.
The Submissions list page for an assessment, select the More menu for a student

ULTRA: Improved visibility of new grades and feedback in the student gradebook

To ensure that students are aware of any new grades in the course we have added an indicator to the Gradebook tab. When there are new grades, the number of new grades appears on the tab.

After selecting the tab, items with new or updated grades appear at the top of the student gradebook and display a purple indicator. The purple indicator disappears and the count on the tab reduces when the student selects the item or reviews their submission.

We also reviewed the use of color in the gradebook based on student feedback. Now, we mark late assessments with a "(Late)" label to reduce stress sometimes associated with the use of the color red. In the past, late submissions appeared with a red assessment icon and label.

ULTRA: Weighted calculation usability improvements

ULTRA: Student's overall grade visible to Observers

ORIGINAL and ULTRA: Base Navigation - Course and Organization filters and personalization

The courses and organizations tabs in Base Navigation are some of the most accessed places in Blackboard Learn. We received feedback in numerous focus groups and were inspired by client ideas posted in the Idea Exchange. We heard the pages should fit more institutions’ situations and give users more options to customize. This release includes the following improvements:

We removed the carousel for navigating between terms. There is now a term selector and filter you can use on its own or with other filters.

You can set filters, make term choices, and add text searches. All of these are clearly displayed below the search box. Remove these search settings or filters to see more courses or organizations. Remove them by selecting the close icon “x” on each.

Your selections and filters are remembered automatically even if you log out or switch devices. Set up the pages the way you like, and we’ll keep it that way until you change it.

The terms selector has specific logical behaviors to help users:

“Current Courses” and “Current Organizations” are the default term selections. If terms aren’t used or all your courses/organizations are open or use continuous duration, you’ll default to the “All Terms” selection option instead.
You can now choose to view “All Terms” to see everything regardless of term.
The “Upcoming Courses” and “Upcoming Organizations” term options will only display if you have upcoming courses/organizations.

ORIGINAL and ULTRA: MOBILE APP: Landing Page Enhancements for Blackboard Learn Mobile App

To enhance usability and streamline user interaction in the mobile app, we added filters to the following landing pages:

Courses
Organizations
Grades

Users now can use filters at the top of each landing page, allowing them to refine their search results.

When a user applies a filter, its tag appears at the top of the landing page. Users can remove filters by unselecting the respective tag.

ULTRA: Align goals to questions in question pools

ULTRA: Supporting multiple performance criteria in release conditions

Related topics: Content Release Conditions

Release conditions determine when students can view course content. Release conditions are on the content's visibility setting on the course content page. Currently, you can set:

Which course members or groups have access;
When the course content is accessible, visible, and hidden;
When student performance is necessary for completing an assignment or scoring.

Instructors can now set more than one performance criteria per content item.

ULTRA: Reuse questions in Forms

ULTRA: Improved Gradebook navigation

To create a more intuitive navigation, we replaced the grid and list view buttons with text links. The options are now:

Gradable Items
Grades (grid view)
Students

The Gradebook will remember the last view you used in each course.

ULTRA: Weighted Calculation Improvements

Related topics: Calculate Grades, Grade Columns

Now instructors can assign equal weights to items in the same categories. The chosen calculation method, whether proportional or equal, applies to all categories. In the past, weighted items in the same category had proportional weights. These weighted items were based on the possible points of each item.

To better understand student performance, some instructors use drop rules to remove outliers. Because it’s important to know the weighting method when managing these settings, we now display the instructor's chosen weighting option in the calculation rules panel.

ULTRA: Observer role support in Ultra Courses

ULTRA and MOBILE: Landing page enhancements for Blackboard Learn Mobile App

The landing pages (Grades, Messages, Courses, Organization) are now designed in a card layout. For the Courses and Organization pages, the course status indicator previously located in the course image has been moved below the course or organization title. The current functionality remains the same. These design changes align the landing pages with the design principles and language of the Blackboard Mobile App.

These enhancements are a part of a larger redesign of the Blackboard Learn mobile app landing pages to ensure uniform design, optimized user experience, and natural user flow across various devices and screen sizes.

ULTRA and MOBLE: Support for Observer role for Ultra Courses in Mobile App

Users with the Observer role can now view student progress in Ultra Courses using our mobile app. This provides student advisors and support staff the ability to track student success. 

They also can view grade related information. Observers view the same information displayed to a student. Mobile access for the Observer role makes it easier for support staff to help students.

ORIGINAL and ULTRA: Restricting Original Course View Course Copy workflow

Ultra: AI Design Assistant – Context picker for Learning Modules, Assignments, Discussions, and Journals

Related topics: Learning modules, Assignments,Discussions, and Journals

Context selection is key for tailoring course content generated with the AI Design Assistant. The context picker also helps to ground generated content in an appropriate context.

File types supported by the context picker include PDF, Word, PowerPoint, text, RTF, and HTML.

We are extending the context picker for test questions to other generation workflows:

Learning modules
Authentic assignments
Authentic discussions
Authentic journals

Ultra: Persistent navigation for Learning Modules

ULTRA: Student feedback remains visible to students regardless of release condition settings

Related topic: Content Release Conditions

Instructors may want to control access to course content using release conditions. This is helpful for providing custom learning paths through course content. The release conditions include an option to show or hide content to/from students before they meet release conditions. We've modified how these settings impact the students' view of feedback from instructors. Now instructors can set release conditions without any impact to feedback to students.

In the past, when an instructor selected the option to hide content, students could view associated grades but not the feedback. We have corrected this to ensure that students can always review feedback.

ULTRA: Default question points value changed from 10 to 1

ULTRA: Duplicate questions in Assessments, Forms, and Question Banks

ULTRA: Likert answer options expanded to include 4 and 6

Instructors can now create Likert scale questions with 4 or 6 answer options. This allows for greater granularity in student responses. An even number of answer options also supports the creation of questions where students cannot select a neutral option. This enhancement is in response to valuable user feedback.

ULTRA: Auto-submitted indicator in attempt logs

ULTRA: Anonymous posts for Discussions

Discussions play a pivotal role in nurturing peer-to-peer interaction and critical thinking. Students need to feel free to express their ideas and opinions without fear of judgement. To support this, we've added an option for instructors to allow anonymous posts in ungraded discussions. This feature provides flexibility for instructors. They can toggle anonymity on or off as the discussion progresses. Any existing anonymous posts keep their anonymity.

ULTRA: Self-Enrollment Group Improvements

ORIGINAL: Reply all in messages

Responding to messages is an important part of course communication. The "Reply all" option in the Original Course View is limited to messages with up to 100 recipients. With this release, we have raised limits to 1000 recipients. This is to help with wider course communication and based on client feedback. When using the "Reply all" feature, it will respond to all users on the original message. If you wish to select which users to reply to, the "Reply" option allows you to desired select users.

ULTRA: Usability improvements for flexible grading

Streamlining the grading process saves instructors time and reduces their workload. We have implemented several enhancements to Flexible Grading in response to instructor feedback. All the enhancements target improved usability and efficiency.

We relocated the attempt selector to improve visibility and efficiency. It is now nearer to the attempt grade pill. This allows instructors to switch between a student's attempts during grading.

ULTRA: Add question feedback when grading by student

Instructors can now provide contextual feedback by student on all question types. Question level feedback promotes deeper understanding and personal growth among students. Question level feedback complements the existing capabilities of overall submission feedback and automated feedback for auto-graded questions.

Note: We are targeting the 3900.91 May release for per-question feedback when grading tests by questions.

ORIGINAL and ULTRA: Calculations changed from using BigDecimal to BigFraction

Instructors need a gradebook that supports diverse grading scenarios. We are changing the software library used to perform calculations in calculated columns and the overall course grade.

Example: A course contains 3 assignments worth 22 points each. The student scores 13/22 on the first assignment, 14/22 on the second assignment, and 15/22 on the third assignment. An instructor creates a calculated column to calculate the average of these assignments.

Using the new software library, BigFraction, the average will calculate as 14/22.

With the former software library, BigDecimal, the average would incorrectly calculate to 13.99/22. The new software library ensures calculations compute as expected.

ULTRA: Overall Grade added to the Gradebook Download

Related topic: Work Offline with Grade Data

Some instructors download grades from the gradebook to analyze in other applications, such as Microsoft Excel.

Now, instructors can choose to include the Overall Grade for students in the downloaded gradebook. This additional data point helps provide a comprehensive view of student performance.

ULTRA: Edit gradebook category for Partner Cloud content

ORIGINAL, ULTRA and MOBILE: Long names visibility and sorting controls for the Student Activity report for assessments on small devices and mobile app

Related Topic: Activity Details for Assessments

Depending on the culture, personal name lengths vary. To continue demonstrating our commitment to diversity and inclusion, we adjusted long names in the Student Activity report for assessments. This change ensures that names are visible on a variety of devices. This helps instructors avoid confusion when viewing students with similar names.

Also, instructors can now sort the student list by last name in small devices so they can organize the list easily.

ULTRA: Individual date adjustments from Batch Edit

ULTRA View: AI Design Assistant – Context picker for test question generation – 3900.86

The AI Design Assistant offers inspiration and efficiency when generating test questions. Instructors can now select course items to help define questions. This option improves the alignment of generated questions to course content.

The context picker does not draw context from items that are attached to an Ultra document. Only items that appear on the context picker’s menu are used by the context picker. In future releases, attached files will be included in the context picker

ULTRA View: Goal alignment to Journals – 3900.86

Institutions want to align goals to course content. Goal alignment ensures that the curriculum is designed to meet specific learning outcomes.

Instructors can now align goals to journals to ensure that the activity measures the desired learning outcomes. This helps to ensure the accuracy and effectiveness of evaluation and feedback practices.

Instructors can also align goals to the following course items:

Assignments
Tests, including individual questions
Questions in banks
Discussions
Rubrics criterion
Files
Web links
Teaching tools with LTI connection
Documents

ULTRA View: No Due Date assessment option – 3900.86

Due dates are an important aspect of the teaching and learning process. In some scenarios, such as self-paced learning, an instructor may not want to apply a due date. To make the option for not having a due date more evident, we've added a "No due date" option for Tests and Assignments.

We also updated the default due date and time to tomorrow’s date at 11:59 pm.

There may be cases when the “No due date” selection conflicts with the Assessment Results settings. When this occurs, the instructor is prompted to review the settings.

Instructors can navigate to the Assessment Results section in the Settings via the link in the banner.

ULTRA View: Announcement indicators and mark announcements as read/unread – 3900.86

Announcements are an important communications channel within a course. Over the past 12 months, course announcements usage has more than tripled! With such an increase in usage, it is important to help create awareness of new announcements and read/unread controls.

Now, there is a number indicator next to the announcement tab in the course. The indicator signals the number of unread announcements available.

Additionally, users can now mark announcements as read or unread. On the New Course Announcement pop-up, users have the option to mark the read state. Users can also mark announcements as read or unread from the Announcement page.

ULTRA View: Last used view state of flexible grading side panels preserved – 3900.86

Instructors want to configure the grading interface according to their preferences. In flexible grading, instructors can collapse or expand the left panel (student cards) and right panel (feedback and rubrics). To provide a beter user experience, the last used state is now preserved in the browser. Now, navigating between student atempts and across sessions provides a more efficient experience.

ULTRA View: Gradebook item statistics – 3900.86

Item statistics give insight to course members' overall performance on a graded content. Now, instructors can select a column in the gradebook to access summary statistics for any graded item. The statistics page displays key metrics such as:

Minimum and maximum value
Range
Average
Median
Standard deviation
Variance

ULTRA View: Text grade schema converts to points – 3900.86

In the Original course view, instructors can create text schemas that are unsupported in the Ultra course view. When converting courses, text schemas convert to a points schema. After conversion to Ultra, instructors can create and apply an alternate schema if desired.

ULTRA View: Send messages to students from the Student Activity report for assessments on small and medium devices and the mobile app – 3900.86

Instructors lead busy, on-the-go lives and access Learn from a variety of devices. Some instructors use small or medium devices or the mobile app. Now these instructors can send messages to students from the Student Activity report for assessments. The message option is in the ellipsis menu for each student.

ORIGINAL and ULTRA View: Moodle Conversion Improvements – 3900.86

These improvements will not be available immediately in the release to Test/Stage environments for the 3900.86 release. We will update this note and send an email notification to followers of this page when it becomes available.

We continue to make progress on improving the conversion of Moodle courses. With this update, we're adding support for converting the following Moodle Question Types:

Multiple Choice (Single Answer)
Multiple Choice (Multiple Answers)
True/False
Matching
Short Answer
Numerical
Essay
Calculated
Calculated Multichoice (Single Answer)
Calculated Multichoice (Multiple Answers)
Calculated Simple

ULTRA View: Forms (Survey) – 3900.84

Some instructors need to collect information to place students in clinical experiences. Others need to survey their class to gauge student interests or opinions. Now, instructors can create a Form for these use cases.

The following items are supported in a Form:

essay question
Likert question
multiple choice question
true/false question
text
local file
file from cloud storage
page break

By default, a Form is not graded. Questions in a form don’t have correct or incorrect answers.

Some instructors may choose to grade a Form to encourage participation. When this is the case, instructors must manually enter a grade for each submission.

Instructors may view Form submissions by student or by question in the new grading view.

Instructors may download the Form results from the Gradebook and Submissions page as an Excel spreadsheet or CSV file.

In the Gradebook grid view, student submissions for an ungraded Form appear as “Submited.” Graded Forms display the manually entered grade or appropriate grading status.

A Survey created in the Original course view converts/copies to a Form in the Ultra course view. Only questions and options are supported in a Form convert/copy. After conversion, an exception suggests that instructors review their questions.

ULTRA View: Likert question type – 3900.84

Likert questions help provide a quantitative measure of opinions and atitudes. The responses often range from strongly disagree to strongly agree. This question type is now available in the Form assessment type.

The scale range defaults to 3 options, with suggested labeling for options 1 and 3 as strongly disagree and strongly agree. Instructors may select a range of 3, 5, or 7 and label the poles as desired. Instructors may also choose to include a "not applicable" option.

Note: A Likert question in a Survey created in the Original course view converts/copies to a Form in the Ultra course view. The scale range default is 3.

ULTRA View: Rubrics performance level descrip􀆟ons: Display choice persists – 3900.84

Rubrics play a critical role in the grading process for many educators. Rubrics performance level descriptions are hidden by default. Instructors can choose to display the performance descriptions as needed for grading.

In the past, the performance level descriptions display option didn’t persist when navigating submissions. This caused frustration for instructors.

Now, the rubrics grading interface stores the most recently used display option. This means that instructors who rely on performance level descriptions when grading don’t have to turn them on each time they navigate to grade another submission. The performance level display option preference is stored on a per-user per-assessment basis

ULTRA View: Send reminders from the gradebook: Improved student count for instructors – 3900.84

Some instructors like to send reminders to students who haven't yet made a submission for an assessment. The send reminder option in the gradebook saves instructors time in student support. We have refined the scenarios that determine the students who will receive the reminder. This will make the recipient list more accurate.

A student user will be counted and receive the reminder if they didn't submit and:

they are available in the course.
they have not received an automa􀆟c zero.
they don’t have a manual override score that was posted.

These changes help ensure that the number of students indicated in the send reminder confirmation is more accurate.

The Send Reminder option is now also available for LTI and 3rd party tools with assessments in the gradebook. With LTI Advantage integrations, the tool can inform Blackboard Learn when a student has submitted, even if they haven’t yet received a grade. If the tool doesn’t support this, it is possible that students will receive a reminder even if they’ve submitted their work. The tool provider can enhance their integration to improve this.

ULTRA View: Audio/Video Recording in feedback: Usability improvements – 3900.84

Audio/video feedback is a more personalized and engaging means for providing feedback. It is beneficial for addressing complex concepts and sharing detailed explanations. To ensure easy and clear access to this tool, we have exposed the Audio/Video op􀆟on on the feedback toolbar. When in use, the recording window appears on the right side of the screen so that the instructor can view the student submission.

The instructor can scroll through a student's response while recording their feedback. The instructor can maximize the recording window for beter visibility.

ULTRA View: Feedback on override and automa􀆟c zero grades for Tests and Assignments – 3900.84

Feedback is crucial for students as it supports and shapes their learning journey. Now, instructors can give feedback for overridden tests, assignment grades, and automatic zeros. This op􀆟on appears in the Gradebook grid view, and the Submissions list after the override or automatic zero is entered.

Override feedback on group submissions will be supported in a future release.

Additionally, instructors can now upload feedback for students as part of the offline grading process. In the past, only uploaded grades were visible to students.

Students can view override feedback a􀅌er grades are posted.

We also improved students' access to the feedback. Now, feedback for all atempts on a test or assignment is visible in a panel.

ULTRA View: Missed due dates included in the Course Activity Report – 3900.84

Punctuality and time management are key for student success. Instructors need an easy method for identifying students who may be at risk. Now, instructors can view the number of missed due dates for students in the Course Activity Report.

Instructors can customize the missed due date alert in the Alert Settings.

There is no default setting for missed due date alert. Be sure to customize the alert settings.

Students who trigger the missed due dates alert appear in the Course Activity report table and chart and in the downloaded report.

Students will not receive notifications based on course missed due date alert setting. If a student opts in to missed due date alerts, alerts are sent for each content item.

As before, activity stream notifica􀆟ons for instructors include a summary of students with alerts per course. Now, the summary includes missed due dates alerts. These alerts are triggered every day in case there are new students with alerts in a course. New courses need at least 2 weeks of activity to start triggering these notifications.

The missed due date alert applies when a student doesn’t submit before the due date in the following:

Assessments, including group and formative
Assessments with the “collect submissions offline” option selected - when an instructor creates an atempt and enters the submission date/time after the due date
Assessments with the “hide student names” option selected - alerts only after all student submissions are graded and student names are exposed
Discussions and journals marked for a grade
SCORM packages when the “Grade individual SCOs” option is selected in SCORM settings
Other 3rd party activities, such as LTI and Respondus

Special considerations:

Students with a due date accommodation never have their work marked late. A student with due date accommodation won't have any missed due date alerts.
Students with a due date exception will have a missed due date alert if the excepted due date passes and there is no submission.
Students with an exemption never have their work marked late. A student with an exemption won't have any missed due date alerts.
Hidden content with a due date or content with date/􀆟me and performance release conditions are included in missed due date alerts.
Content with a due date and release conditions for individual course members or groups will alert only those students/groups included in the condition who miss the due date.
New items added to the gradebook with a due date are not included in the missed due date alerts.

To view the Course Activity and Student Activity Details reports, the user’s role needs to have “Course/Organization Control Panel (Grade Center) > View Grades” privilege.

ULTRA View: Long student names visibility in the Course Activity Report – 3900.84

Depending on the culture, personal name lengths vary. In demonstrating our commitment to diversity and inclusion, we have adjusted long names in the Course Activity Report. This change ensures that names are visible even on small devices. This helps instructors avoid confusion when viewing students with similar names.

To view the Course Activity and Student Activity Details reports, the user’s role needs to have the “Course/Organization Control Panel (Grade Center) -> View Grades” privilege.

ULTRA View: Beter control over "Student Alerts" notifications for instructors - 3900.84

Notifications of certain student-related alerts help instructors be more aware of students who may be at risk. To help, we've made it easy for instructors to control what student alerts they receive in their Activity Stream.

The “Student Alerts” options are:

Low overall grade
Missed due date alert
and Last access alert

Administrators can control these 3 notifications at the institutional level in the administrator panel.

Notifications are:

Student Last Access Alert for Instructors
Student Low Overall Grade Alert for Instructors
Students Missed Due Dates Alert for Instructors

Key considerations:

These alerts are only available for courses.
Courses must have at least 10 students and no more than 2000 students. Courses with enrollments outside of that range won’t receive notifications.
Notifications for these alerts are sent nightly only when new alerts are met.

To view the Course Activity and Student Activity Details reports, the user’s role needs to have “Course/Organization Control Panel (Grade Center) > View Grades” privilege. These notifications are based on the values set in the Course Activity alert settings.

ORIGINAL and ULTRA View: Limit enrollment management actions based on data source key of enrollments – 3900.84

There are cases when instructors need to manage some course or organization enrollments.

Instructors may need to add co-instructors, assistants, or graders. However, institutional policy often mandates instructors should not alter records from a Student Information System (SIS).

Now, administrators can limit whether users can make changes to enrollment records based on how the enrollment was added. Enrollments added through the GUI belong to the SYSTEM data source. Enrollments added through integrations are assigned to other data sources based on configuration (non-SYSTEM).

The following Course/Organization Role privileges have been changed:

Change the availability of enrollments
Change a users’ roles in the course
Set an instructor as primary instructor
Remove (delete) users from the course

The 4 Course/Organization Role privileges have been split into 8 privileges—4 for enrollment records in SYSTEM and 4 for enrollment records not in SYSTEM. These are found in the privileges manager for each Course/Organizatiton Role:

Course/Organization Control Panel (Users and Groups) > Users > Remove System DSK Users from Course/Organization
Course/Organization Control Panel (Users and Groups) > Users > Change System DSK User's availability in Course/Organization
Course/Organization Control Panel (Users and Groups) > Users > Change System DSK User's Role in Course/Organization
Course/Organization Control Panel (Users and Groups) > Users > Set System DSK instructor as primary in Ultra Course View
Course/Organization Control Panel (Users and Groups) > Users > Remove Non-System DSK Users from Course/Organization
Course/Organization Control Panel (Users and Groups) > Users > Change Non-System DSK User's Role in Course/Organization
Course/Organization Control Panel (Users and Groups) > Users > Change Non-System DSK User's availability in Course/Organization
Course/Organization Control Panel (Users and Groups) > Users > Set Non-System DSK instructor as primary in Ultra Course View

Administrators can configure each Course Role with the appropriate privileges for their policies. The privileges and restrictions are applicable to users in both Ultra and Original Course Views.

The Original Course View has a bulk remove action for enrollments. If the course user is restricted from removing any of the selected users, the action is stopped with a warning.

If the above entitlements related to System DSK Users are permited and entitlements related to Non-System DSK Users are restricted, it will allow user to Remove, Edit Availability, Edit Roles and set Instructor as Primary for System DSK users only.

The remove member icon does not appear when a course user with no permissions tries to delete a Non-System DSK user.

The remove member icon appears in the GUI when a course user with permissions tries to delete a System DSK user.

The upgrade process should retain consistent behavior with the prior release. For example, if a Course Role had the privilege to remove users from a course/organiza􀆟on, they should now have the equivalent privileges:

Remove System DSK Users from Course/Organization
Remove Non-System DSK Users from Course/Organization

ORIGINAL and ULTRA View: Import Moodle packages – 3900.84

Switching from Moodle to Blackboard Learn Ultra is now easier than ever. Instructors can now import Moodle packages into Ultra and Original view courses themselves. This change removes instructor reliance on an administrator.

Learn more on importing courses from Moodle for more directions. We also have a guide to help you understand the differences in terminology.

ULTRA View: Batch Edit: Change to specific date and/or time – 3900.82

We heard that instructors want to change the date and time for selected items in their course. For example, the due date times are currently set to 8:00 PM and the instructor would like to change them to 11:59 PM. The change would give students more time to make their submissions. The problem with making that change is that it would be very tedious if you had to do one item at a time.

Using Batch Edit, instructors can override the existing date and/or time for selected items. Instructors can adjust the due date time for all assessments using this option. The same feature also works on show on and hide after dates and times.

ORIGINAL View: Restricting Original Copy Workflows – 3900.82

We had several issues related to copying items from Original to Ultra and Ultra to Ultra course view. The issues stemmed from users copying materials using Original workflows. The Original workflows opened the door for partial copies of items. The Original copy workflows were never designed or updated to support Ultra courses.

Here are two examples:

Example 1

The instructor would select "Discussions" and not select "Grade Center Columns and Settings." The discussions would copy without their associated grade center columns. The discussion would come over in a partial state and would not function. Instructors would need to delete and copy using the supported workflow.

Example 2

The instructor selects a "Content Area" with course links to discussions. They did not select "Discussions" or "Grade Center Columns and Settings." The course links copy. The course links don't function. The "Discussions" were not selected, and the course links have nothing to reference. Instructors would need to delete and copy using the supported workflow.

Previous Behaviors:

Instructors could use Original workflows to Copy from Original to Ultra.
Administrators could use Original workflows to copy from Original to Ultra.
Administrators could use Original workflows to copy from Ultra to Ultra.
New Behaviors: Instructors can no longer use Original workflows to copy from Original to Ultra.
Administrators can no longer use Original workflows to copy from Original to Ultra.
Copy Course Materials into a New Course
Copy Course Materials into an Existing Course
Administrators can no longer use Original workflows to copy from Ultra to Ultra.
Copy Course Materials into a New Course
Copy Course Materials into an Existing Course
Alternatives:
Instructors can copy from an Original to Ultra using the copy items workflow.
Administrators can copy from an Original to Ultra using the copy items workflow.
Administrators can copy from Ultra to Ultra using the copy items workflow.
Administrators can copy from Ultra to Ultra using the “Copy Course with Users (Exact Copy).
Administrators can export a course package from Ultra to import into another Ultra course.
Administrators can use the SIS Integration Framework to copy from Ultra to Ultra.

ORIGINAL AND ULTRA View: Help Center and About sections added to More menu - MOBILE – 3900.82

To elevate user accessibility and awareness, we've added two improved segments to the More menu: Help Center and About.

The About section is a comprehensive reservoir that empowers users with essential informa􀆟on to navigate their app experience.

This includes:
Accessibility details
Institution policies: Institutions can add their institutional privacy policy URL if this link has been configured in the "Data Use and Privacy Disclosure" Building Block settings.
A dedicated channel for mobile app feedback
Privacy policies
Release notes
Terms of use
App version information

Users can explore the Help Center for more information, providing a seamless and enriched user experience. The release notes provide users with information on enhancements, optimizations, and introduced features. This ensures users are well-acquainted with the app's evolving capabilities.

ULTRA View: Create Message privilege improvement – 3900.82

We've made some improvements to the privilege for creating messages in courses and organizations. This change improves the experience for system administrators and other users who are not enrolled in the course.

Now administrators and other privileged users can
• Access and use the message tab to communicate with course users
Course users will not be able to send messages to the administrator or respond to the administrator's messages.
• Make changes to the Course Tools - Messages and Messaging Options

ULTRA View: Unused files management tool – 3900.82

File management is important to many institutions that want to be cognizant of their digital footprint. To help instructors understand the usage of files in their course, we've created the Unused Files tool. This tool helps instructors find and delete course files that are not in use. Instructors can locate the Unused Files tool in the three-dot menu on the Course Content page.

There are two views available: unused files (default view) or all files. The file name, upload date, and file size display along with an option to download a copy of the local file. Instructors can easily delete unused files.

Course roles will need “Course/Organization >Files Manage Files” privileges to access the Unused Files tool.

ULTRA View: Multi-Factor Authentication for the default authentication method – 3900.82

Some institutions enforce Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) to fulfill security policies and best practices. To beter support these institutions, we now offer a second authentication factor for the internal authentication method (where a user provides a username and password).

When the administrator enables MFA, users start the MFA registration process after providing a correct username and password. Users can use an authenticator app of their preference or the one suggested by their institution.

Users are asked for a code generated by the authentication app on their trusted device(s) each time they log in.

If a user loses access to their trusted device, they can request a reset of their MFA (via normal institution-defined support channels). This allows the user to start the registration process of a new device.

MFA is compatible with the Account Locking feature. To protect accounts from unauthorized access, we recommend enabling the Account Locking feature. To confirm the current configuration, go to the Administrator Tool Panel -> Account Lock Se􀆫ngs -> Enable Account -> Locking.

For audit and monitoring purposes, events related to MFA log in and reset can be found in Administrator Tool Panel -> Tools and Utilities -> Logs -> Authentication Logs.

ORIGINAL View: Converting Building Block content to LTI: Panopto Course Content – 3900.82

The Panopto integration makes it easy for users to create, share, and view videos. Users can embed these videos in Blackboard Learn courses.

Panopto provided a Building Block for customers using Original Course View. To ensure a smooth transition we have updated the conversion tool so that users can convert Panopto content from Building Block to LTI content.

This conversion supports the following Building Block content:

Course tools content
Mashup links within the content editor

This tool only converts links created through the building block. Also, it validates the standalone links within the course to change the way those are processed. This will prevent standalone links from breaking after the building block deactivates.

Administrators can select from a drop-down menu the building block for configuration:

Echo360
Kaltura
Panopto

Administrators can configure the required IDs and custom parameters for the conversion details. For Panopto, we have added the following custom parameters:

Instancename: The administrator must modify the instance name if it has been changed in the general configuration of the Panopto Building Block.
folderid: This is a Panopto identifier for the courses in the different folders; this custom parameter does not need to be modified.

Building block mappings are displayed. Administrators can edit, delete, or turn off the building block for the conversion tool.

Once configurations are set, administrators can manage the placements. They have the option to choose the courses for which they want to initiate the content link conversion for a specific Building Block.

Finally, at Migra􀆟on Run Status, users can monitor the status of the conversion process for each course.

ULTRA View: Atempt logs for enhanced assessment integrity – 3900.82

Assessment integrity is a paramount concern for educa􀆟onal institutions. We empower instructors with valuable insights into students' progress for native assessments. The Atempt Logs prove to be an indispensable tool for validating issues students may encounter during an assessment. The logs also help instructors identify signs of academic dishonesty.

For tests, the logs provide the following:

Detailed information, including the date and time of the start and answers to each question
Question-specific details, such as question number, a preview of the question, and estimated time spent on each question
Submission receipt number, final grade, and atempt grade
Easy toggling between all in-progress and submited atempts for comprehensive assessment tracking

For Assignments, the logs offer:

Start and submission date and time
Submission receipt number
Seamless toggling between different atempts for a holistic view

Instructors can access the Atempt Logs from two primary areas:

Context Menu on Submission Page - exclusive to individual
Grades Tab under Student Overview Page - available for both group and individual assessments

For anonymous assessments, the report becomes active after grades are posted, and the anonymity is lifted. This ensures that the Atempt Logs report is a robust tool even in scenarios where student identities are initially concealed.

ORIGINAL View: Updated options display when sending email from Grade Center – 3900.82

Instructors can send emails to students in places like the Grade Center and Reten􀆟on Center. Previously, the op􀆟on to include student names in the sender copy was misleading. The checkbox seemed to apply to both sending a copy of the message and including recipient names. We’ve improved the presentation to clarify the expected behavior. A copy is always sent to the sender. The sender can opt-in to including recipient names in their copy of the email.

ULTRA View: Category Information on the Gradable Items Page – 3900.82

To provide greater efficiency and clarity in the gradable items view, we have added a Category column. This column, along with the grading item icon, helps instructors more readily identify to which category, if any, an item belongs. Instructors can sort this column ascending or descending alphabetically.

ULTRA View: Total & Weighted Calculations – 3900.82

Instructors need a gradebook that supports diverse grading scenarios. The gradebook supports the creation of calculated columns and an overall course grade. We are expanding gradebook functionality to also support total and weighted calculated columns. These types of calculations are helpful for specific events or periods, such as midterms or finals.

Total calculated columns can be point-based or weighted calculations. Like setting up the Overall Grade, instructors may link/unlink items in a category in the calculation. They may also choose to exclude categories from the calculation. For an included category, instructors may edit the calculation rule. The calculation rule allows instructors to drop scores or to include only the lowest or highest score in the category.

Instructors may wish to define a total calculated column for their own use. In this case, they can choose to hide from students. If desired, instructors can include a total calculated column in the overall grade calculation.

ULTRA View: Enhanced Grid View – 3900.82

To improve usability and maximize the screen real estate of the gradebook grid view, we have made several enhancements:

Improved row visibility and display more rows:

We reduced the size of the column icons and the spacing around them.
We removed group names and highlighting on group assessments.
The course name moves up and hides when vertically scrolling.

Improved student identification:

When hovering over a truncated student name, the full name displays in a tooltip.
Student IDs display beneath student names to aid in distinguishing between students with similar names.

ULTRA View: Sorting controls in Students view for assessments graded anonymously – 3900.82

We are adding sorting controls to assessments graded anonymously. Now instructors can apply these sorting options:

Submission date (oldest - newest) of latest atempt
Submission date (newest - oldest) of latest atempt

The grading interface stores the most recently used sorting option. If an instructor stops grading an assessment and resumes grading later, the last sorting option is applied.

ULTRA VIEW: Improved atempt display in Flexible Grading – 3900.82

Multiple-attempt assessments result in more submissions, which can increase the complexity of grading.

In the past, when an instructor selected a student in the list the most recent attempt displayed. Now, the attempt selected for display is based on the grading status and attempt aggregation model selected.

ULTRA VIEW: Delegated Grading improvements – 3900.82

Instructors sometimes distribute the grading workload for an assessment to multiple graders. This is a popular practice in larger classes. Instructors can assign graders to groups of students with the new delegated grading option. Each grader only sees the submissions made by students in the group(s) assigned to them.

Now instructors can also use delegated grading in combination with anonymous submissions and tests.

ULTRA View: Grade visible to students in Gradebook when item is hidden by release conditions – 3900.82

Release conditions provide op􀆟ons for custom learning paths through course content. When instructors set release conditions, content is unavailable un􀆟l students meet those conditions. An op􀆟on to 'Hide' selected content from students is available. This setting also hides the grade from the student view of the gradebook.

Now, instructors can set release condi􀆟ons without concern of hiding grades. Regardless of the setting in "When will content appear?", students can see the grade. All other func􀆟onality of release condi􀆟ons is unchanged.

ULTRA View: AI Design Assistant - Generate Rubric Improvements – 3900.82

The AI Design Assistant helps instructors create rubrics for assessments. We've streamlined a time-intensive task and created efficiency for instructors with rubric crea􀆟on. Being careful to consider user feedback, we have made some improvements to rubric genera􀆟on. The improvements improve column and row labels . We also improved the distribu􀆟on of percentages/points for criteria.

ULTRA View: AI Design Assistant - Authentic Assignment prompt generation – 3900.82

AI plagiarism is a growing concern among academics. Research indicates a variety of issues with a reliance on AI detection. Detection models cannot keep up with advancements in AI technologies. Our approach to combating AI plagiarism is different. We empower instructors to lean into the effective practice of authentic assessment.

Learn more with our academic paper AI, Academic Integrity, and Authentic Assessment.

Now instructors can generate assignment prompts that encourage students to:

engage in higher-order thinking,
apply their learned knowledge,
produce authentic submissions that are evidenced, and
emulate real-world situations.

To ensure the instructor is in control, the generation process allows instructors to:

enter an assignment description,
select a desired cognitive process based on Bloom's Taxonomy,
set the complexity, and
generate an assignment title.

The instructor can review the generated prompts and select one to add to the assignment. After adding the prompt, the instructor can edit or further refine the prompt as appropriate.

2023

ULTRA View: Authentic Discussion and Journal prompts

AI plagiarism is a growing concern among academics. Research indicates a variety of issues with a reliance on AI detection. Detection models cannot keep up with advancements in AI technologies. Our approach to combatting AI plagiarism is different. We empower instructors and lean on the effective practice of authentic assessment.

Learn more by reading our white paper about AI, Academic Integrity, and Authentic Assessment.

Now, instructors can generate discussion and journal prompts that encourage students to

engage in high-order thinking,
apply their knowledge,
justify or challenge their beliefs and ideas,
and emulate real-world situations.

To ensure the instructor is in control, the generation process allows instructors to

enter a discussion or journal description,
select a desired cognitive process based on Bloom's Taxonomy,
set the complexity,
and generate a discussion or journal title.

The instructor can review the generated prompts and select one to add to the discussion or journal. After adding the prompt, the instructor can edit or further refine the prompt as appropriate.

ULTRA View: Removal of First Time User Experience pop-ups

In the past, we provided in-context information pop-ups to support users when they used the system for the first time. These pop-ups, called First Time User Experiences (FTUEs), can be helpful to some users. At the same time, FTUEs can be distracting or unnecessary. Users who would like supportive information can locate that on our help pages. Some institutions want to provide their own support information across Ultra and choose to use tools such as Anthology Adopt.

Based on client feedback, we are removing the FTUEs across Learn Ultra. This improves the users' experience and supports a greater focus on the learning content. Approximately 60 FTUEs are being removed in this release.

ULTRA: Additional image insertion and generate options

Images enhance comprehension of and engagement with course content. Instructors and students want to use high-quality images in content and submissions. To help, we have added a new image button in the content editor in the following places:

Announcements
Assessment Questions
Student answers on questions (local file upload only)
Submission feedback (standard view)
Journal entries and comments

We also added the option for instructors to generate images in journal prompts and assessment questions.

ULTRA View: Large Rubric Support

Rubrics serve as a well-organized and transparent framework for assessing student work. We now support an unlimited number of rubric criteria and performance levels, up from 15 each. This change empowers instructors to craft rubrics that support diverse assessment scenarios. Unbound rubrics are valuable where a higher number of criteria are needed. Larger rubrics also prove invaluable for rubrics employed in accreditation processes.

ULTRA View: Group assessment due date exceptions

Instructors may want to set different due dates for each group working on a group assessment.

In the past, there was no way to assign varying due dates for each group working on a group assessment. Now, instructors can assign a unique due date to each group using the exceptions workflow.

On the group assessment Submissions page, the instructor may add or edit exceptions for a group.

The Exceptions panel displays relevant information such as the assignment name and selected group name. This helps ensure the accuracy of an exception. Instructors can select a due date for the group using the date and time picker.

ULTRA View: Goal alignment to questions in banks

Institutions want to align goals to course content. Goal alignment ensures that the curriculum is designed to meet specific learning outcomes.

Instructors can currently align goals to the following course items:

Assignments
Tests, including individual questions
Discussions
Rubrics criterion
Files
Web links
Teaching tools with LTI connection
Documents

Now, instructors can also align goals to questions within a question bank. Question-level goal alignment ensures that assessment items measure the desired learning outcomes. This helps to ensure the accuracy and effectiveness of evaluation and feedback practices.

ULTRA View: Prevent students from earning full credit when selecting all answers choices on a multi-select question with partial credit

Multi-select questions require students to select multiple correct answers from a list. This variation of a multiple choice question encourages critical thinking. Some instructors may award partial credit to students on these types of questions. Partial credit promotes a fairer and more accurate assessment of students' knowledge.

In the past, students received full credit when selecting all answer choices for a multi-select question with partial credit. This happened because there was no penalty or negative credit applied for wrong answer choices.

Now, when an instructor designs a multi-select question and allows partial and negative credit, the negative credit auto-distributes across wrong answer choices. An instructor can remove or edit the negative credit if desired.

ULTRA View: Flexible Grading

Grading large numbers of submissions without a way to organize them can be tedious. Now, instructors can apply various sorting options in flexible grading:

Submission date (oldest - newest) of latest attempt
Submission date (newest - oldest) of latest attempt
Last Name (A - Z)
Last Name (Z - A)
First Name (A - Z)
First Name (Z-A)
Student ID (ascending)
Student ID (descending)

The grading interface stores the most recently used sorting option. If an instructor stops grading an assessment and resumes grading later, the last sorting option is applied.

Also, if sorting the submissions by last name or grading status, the chosen sorting option carries over into the grading interface.

ULTRA View: Grid view sorting controls

Sorting options in the gradebook provide a more efficient grading experience.

We extended the sorting options to all remaining columns in the gradebook grid view:

SCORM
Journal
Group Assessment
Group Discussion
LTI
Calculations
Attendance
Discussion

Instructors can sort records in ascending or descending order and remove any applied sorting. A purple highlight in the column header indicates sorting is applied.

ULTRA View: Automatic zero gradebook improvement

Instructors can configure their gradebooks to assign automatic zeros to past due work. In the past, automatic zeros were assigned to past due work regardless of a student’s course enrollment status. For example, automatic zeros were applied to past due items for withdrawn students. This was problematic as, in some cases, it skewed course data.

Now automatic zeros are assigned to past due work only if the student has an enabled course enrollment. Automatic zeroes are no longer applied to past due items for withdrawn students. This helps to ensure that academic records are preserved as they are at the time of withdrawal.

Original and ULTRA: Enhancements to Grades – MOBILE APP

In response to user feedback, we've made improvements to the Grades page. The Grades page now offers more comprehensive information for students and instructors. We enhanced both the appearance and functionality.

For Instructors:

Upcoming Grading
- Upon expansion, instructors find items that need grading.
Concise View
- We've limited the display to only three items at a time.
- A Show More link is available, leading to the gradebook for that course
Efficient Navigation
- Instructors can access grading tasks by selecting the respective item.

For Students:

Upcoming Due Items
- When expanding the section, students now find items that are due within a week.
Recently Graded
- Expanded sections display items that have been recently graded.
Concise View
- To avoid clutter, we've limited the display to only three items at a time.
- A Show More link is available, leading to the gradebook for that course
Quick Access
- By selecting any item, users can navigate to the specific assessment or activity.
In the past, grade pills were black. Now grade pills display corresponding grade colors.

ULTRA View: Mobile App: Improved mobile experience for Course Content page

The Course Content page had several issues on mobile devices. We have made the following improvements:

Anthology Ally icons no longer overlap with other elements on the page.
Items nested in learning modules and folders no longer occupy as much space.
Icons on the content page are smaller, providing more space for titles and descriptions.
Titles and descriptions are no longer truncated. The full title and description are always visible now.
The button to make an item visible to students or hidden from students no longer goes off the page.

Updates:

ULTRA View: Image insertion option for Ultra Documents, Journals, Discussions, Assessment attempts, and Course Messages

Images play an important role in a student's education experience. Images help to enhance comprehension of and engagement with course content. To help instructors more easily identify high-quality images, we have added a new image button in the content editor in the following places:

Ultra Documents
Journal Prompts
Discussions
Course Messages

When selected, the instructor has the following options:

Upload an image through selection or drag and drop
Select a royalty-free, high-quality image from Unsplash
Generate images using AI (initially, only for Ultra documents)

Students can also access the new image button on the content editor in the following areas:

Discussion responses
Assessments and test question inputs
Course Messages

Users can rename the image. It is important always to consider the accessibility of course content. The user should mark the image as decorative or provide suitable alternative text.

ULTRA View: Matching question updates: partial credit auto-distribution and other updates

Matching questions are useful for testing a student's skill in making accurate connections between related concepts. This question type also checks students' understanding in a structured format.

To reward students who show partial understanding, some instructors wish to award partial and/or negative credit for matching questions.

In the past, instructors selected a scoring option:

allow partial credit,
all or nothing,
subtract points for incorrect matches, but question score can't be negative
or allow negative question scores.

These options were exclusive and, at times, created confusion for instructors. We removed these options.

Now, partial and negative credit is turned on by default. We auto-distribute partial credit as a percentage across the matching pairs. The auto-distribution of credit saves instructors time. Instructors can edit the partial credit values if needed to grant some pairs more or less credit. Values for partial credit must sum to 100%.

If desired, instructors may also specify a negative credit percentage to any pair. Negative credit is only assessed when applied and when a student mismatches a pair. If desired, instructors may choose to allow an overall negative score for the question.

We also made a few other improvements to this question:

We re-worded the question construction guidance and moved it to an info bubble.
In the past, the "reuse an answer" and "delete pair" options were behind the three-dot menu. Now, these options appear on the right side of the answer for each pair.
Before reused answers appeared as "Reused answer from pair #" in the answer field. Now, the answer itself is displayed in the answer field. "Reused answer" appears beneath the answer for the pair.
We renamed "Additional answers" to "Distractors."

ULTRA View: Late submission indicator in submission receipts

Students lead busy lives and sometimes submit assessments late. Some instructors and institutions use penalties or deduct points for late submissions. Based on direct feedback from instructors, we added a new ‘late indicator’ to the submission receipt. This indicator is present only if a student submits the assessment late.

Students can view the late submission indicator in:

the confirmation modal displayed upon a successful submission
the downloaded version of the submission receipt, and
the emailed submission confirmation.

Ultra View: Tab navigation for Journals

between the Journal and the Participation page. When an instructor sets up a journal for grading, the Participation is replaced by Grades & Participation. This update improves the usability of the journal. It also provides consistency of navigation with discussions and assessments.

ULTRA View: Anonymous Grading in Flexible Grading view

Instructors can reduce grading bias for high-stakes assessments by enabling anonymous grading. Many consider it an important grading approach.

Anonymous grading is now available in the new Flexible Grading experience. Instructors can now complete the following tasks and actions:

Grade test and assignment submissions by student
Filter on grading status of choice
Navigate between students and multiple submission attempts
Keep track of grading progress
View both the attempt- and the final grade for each assessment
Provide meaningful feedback, with or without a rubric
Grade inline using Blackboard Annotate
Collapse side panels to view more of the student submission
Show an originality score if SafeAssign is used

ULTRA View: Grading optimization for file-based Assignment submissions in Flexible Grading

Some instructors design assignments that require students to attach one or more files.

In the past, if a student attached multiple files to their assignment submission, the Bb Annotate inline grader displayed for each submitted file. This behavior introduced usability issues:

It was difficult for the instructor to know how many files the student had submitted easily.
Multiple stacked Bb Annotate instances, one for each attachment. This caused multiple scroll bars on the grading page, making navigation difficult.

Now, when grading file-based submissions, a tabbed interface appears. The first tab displays the assessment instructions. After that, there is one tab for each submitted file. The first attached file displays by default.

This new tab-based navigation has several benefits:

More of the student submission is visible to the grader without scrolling.
Navigating file-based submissions is more transparent and easy by removing multiple scroll bars.
The option to download the student-submitted file(s) is more apparent.
The number of files the student attached to their submission is clear.
Graders can switch between the assessment instructions and the submitted file(s).
Graders can easily navigate across the submitted files.

ULTRA View: Edit/Regrade in Questions view

Instructors may spot a mistake in a test question when grading a test submission. For example, instructors may have found a typo, chosen a wrong answer, or want to adjust points.

In the past, the "Edit/Regrade Questions" option was only available when grading submissions by "Student." Now, instructors can also access the Edit/Regrade workflow when grading by question.

ULTRA View: Sorting controls for Student Name, Overall Grade, Assessments, and Manual Columns in grid view

Sorting options in the gradebook provide a more efficient grading experience.

Now instructors can sort the following gradebook grid view columns

Student Name
Overall Grade
Tests and Assignments
Manual Columns

Instructors can sort records in ascending or descending and remove any applied sorting. A purple highlight in the column header helps instructors identify where sorting is applied.

ULTRA View: Gradebook grid view performance improvements

Some instructors prefer to work in the gradebook grid view. To improve the user experience, we made several improvements to this view. These improvements address overall performance and reduce the load time.

Performance tested scenarios:

25K student enrollments and 400 gradable items:Load time reduced from 108 s (about 2 minutes) to 14s (87% performance improvement)
2000 student enrollments and 400 gradable items: Load time reduced from 19s to 8s (57% performance improvement)
40 students and 400 gradable items:Load time reduced from 8s to 6.8s (14.75% performance improvement)

ULTRA View: Accessibility link before and after authentication

ULTRA View: Self-enrollment via URL

Updates and Bug Fixes – v. 3900.76

ULTRA: SafeAssign Direct Submit

Direct Submit allows instructors to submit items to SafeAssign outside of the assessment context. Now, instructors can use the Direct Submit option in Ultra courses. SafeAssign appears as an instructor tool in Books & Tools.

Upon opening the Books & Tools section, SafeAssign is in the Instructor tools section. If it is missing, this means your administrator has not turned on SafeAssign for your institution.

Using SafeAssign Direct Submit

There are two document submission methods:

Upload File: Select this option to drag or upload files via a pop-up window. The standard SafeAssign document processing rules apply:
- Maximum support file size is 10 MB
- Supported file types: .zip, .doc, .docx, .docm, .ppt, .pptx, .odt, .txt, .pdf, .rtf, and .html.
Copy/Paste Text: Select this option to enter a title for the submission and paste the text.

Submission Options

As part of the submission process, instructors will have a few processing options:

Check for Plagiarism (on by default):
- If on, SafeAssign processes the submission and generates an Originality Report.
- If off, SafeAssign does not produce an Originality Report. The submission is processed.
- Use case: The instructor uploads scripts or materials they suspect students might misuse. The instructor doesn't require a report for these specific materials and turns off the "Check for plagiarism" option. Submission is processed, but the Originality Report is not generated. The system will compare all future student submissions against these resources.
Add to Institutional Database (on by default): When on, submissions are added to the institutional database.

Instructors cannot deactivate both 'Check for Plagiarism' and 'Add to Institutional Database' at once. If both options are turned off, it is not possible to proceed with file submission.

Share option (deselected by default):
- All submissions are private by default. These submissions are only visible to the person who submitted the file across courses.
- If selected, the submission is visible to other course instructors within the course where the file was submitted.

Once a user submits the file, the submission panel closes, and a confirmation message appears. Users may see the information as it processes.

Navigating the Direct Submit page

Instructors can use the Search Item field to locate submissions quickly. Instructors can filter entries based on Privacy (All, Shared, Private) or Database (All, Added, Not Added). The pagination at the bottom lets instructors view more submissions across several pages.

For each submission, instructors can view the following:

Item name
Processing status
Link to the Originality Report
Matching Score
Database status
Submission Date
Privacy status

Instructors can organize the table entries by:

Item Name (alphabetical order)
Matching Score (from highest to lowest or vice versa)
Submission Date (from newest to oldest)

ULTRA: Delegated grading distribution by group membership

Instructors sometimes distribute the grading workload for an assessment to multiple graders. This is a popular practice in larger classes. Instructors can assign graders to groups of students with the new delegated grading option. Each grader will only see the submissions made by students in the group(s) assigned to them.

Delegated Grading can be used with all available group types. This first release of Delegated Grading supports assignment submissions from individual students. Tests, group assessments, and anonymous submissions are not supported at this time.

After selecting the Delegated Grading option, select the appropriate Group Set. Instructors can assign one or more graders to each group in the group set. If multiple graders are assigned to the same group, they will share the grading responsibility for the group members.

Graders assigned to a group of students will only see submissions for those students on the assignment’s submission page. They can only post grades for their assigned group members. Any unassigned instructors enrolled in the course will see all student submissions on the assignment’s submission page. They also post grades for all students.

If you would like to delegate randomly to course graders, first set up a randomized Group Set.

Note: At least one Group Set complete with Groups must be present in the course before using the Delegated Grading option.

ULTRA: Partial credit auto-distribution for correct answers for Multiple Choice questions

Multiple-choice questions with more than one correct answer are valuable assessment tools. Also known as multiple-answer or multiple-select questions, these questions assess comprehensive understanding. They also promote deeper learning and higher-order thinking skills.

Some instructors wish to award partial credit for these question types. This practice awards students who have a partial understanding. It also fosters a positive learning experience.

In the past, instructors had to enter a value for partial credit percentage for each option. Now, we auto-distribute partial credit across correct answer choices. This distribution provides efficiency and saves instructors’ time. If desired, instructors can edit the values if some correct answer options warrant more or less credit. Values for correct answers must sum to 100%.

ULTRA: Deselect answer choice for Multiple Choice question

In the past, a student could select an answer choice for a multiple-choice question, change their mind, and mark another answer choice. However, the student wasn't able to deselect an answer choice to return the question to an unanswered state. Now, students can deselect an answer choice. Deselecting a choice is helpful when a student doesn't want to guess. Deselecting a choice also allows the student to skip the question and return to it using the unanswered questions filter.

ULTRA: Send Reminder from Gradebook list and grid views

Part of effective teaching is student support. Instructors may want to send a reminder to students or groups who haven't yet made a submission for an assessment. To make this easy, we have added a "Send Reminder" option to items in the Gradebook.

Note: Reminders is an option for all gradebook items, including LTI and third-party tools.

Instructors may access the "Send Reminder" option in the grid view by selecting the gradebook column header.

Reminders are sent as a blind carbon copy to non-submitting students or groups as a course message.

When sending the reminder, the instructor will need to confirm their intent to send the reminder. The confirmation displays a count of the number of non-submitting students or groups who will receive the reminder.

Original and ULTRA: Anonymous Comments in Bb Annotate

In some grading scenarios, instructors prefer their students not to identify the individuals offering feedback on their submissions. To enhance anonymity, graders can now post Bb Annotate comments without disclosing their names. Instructors have the option to mark inline comments as anonymous when creating them or even after comments are added.

ULTRA: Sorting options for manually added gradable items

Sorting controls help instructors organize and find the information in the gradebook. Instructors can now use sorting controls on the grades page for manually created items. The sorting controls enable sorting in both ascending and descending order. Instructors can sort the following information:

Student name
Grade
Feedback
Post status

The applied sorting order is temporary and resets when you leave the page.

Note: Sorting controls can be applied to one column at a time. When you sort another column, items will order according to the selected column.

ULTRA: Copying grading schemas from course to course

Instructors can now copy individual grading schemas from Ultra and Original courses to other Ultra courses. Previously, you had to copy all schemas from the Original course. From the new Grading Schemas folder on the Copy Items panel, you can select which schemas to copy.

Note: A course may contain up to 100 grading schemas. If the number of selected schemas plus that already in the course exceeds this limit, the system will copy as many schemas as possible up to a total of 100. An informative banner alerts the instructor of this situation so they can take appropriate action.

ULTRA: Last Access course alert default set to 15 days

User feedback is key. Users told us that the frequency of access to Ultra courses depends on several factors, such as workload or class meetings recurrence. Previously, the default value for the "Number of days a student is inactive" was 5. Now, the default is 15. The alert for overall grade percentage is blank by default and is unchanged.

As before, instructors can adjust or remove course alerts.

Note: The new default value of 15 applies to new courses and courses that did not have values set for course alerts. Course alerts values set in existing courses are maintained.

ULTRA: Student activity report for Assessments enhancements for small devices and Mobile App

Instructors lead busy, on-the-go lives and access Learn from a variety of devices. To provide a better experience on small devices, we have added more capabilities for the Student Activity report for assessments. Instructors can access this report from their mobile devices with greater flexibility.

Now, in addition to a student’s name and grade, instructors can view student information on small screens:

Late submission indicator
Date opened
Date started
Attempts

Instructors can download the report in CSV format from small devices.

Note: The “Time to open" metric is no longer available in the Student Activity report. This metric was deprecated based on user feedback. The activity timeline chart is not available on small devices due to space restrictions. The messaging option from this report is planned for a future release.

ULTRA: Edit Settings for Partner Cloud Content Items

Partner Cloud tools provide flexibility in content and assessment creation. This release includes improvements to partner cloud settings in Learn Ultra. Instructors can now edit these settings from the Ultra Course page.

The edit settings include:

Name/Title
Description
Visibility including Release Conditions
Option to Launch to the tool
Open in a New Window
Enable Class Conversation
Grade information if Partner Content is gradable
Goals & Standards

If the Partner content is gradable, the due date and grade maximum are read-only. These are only configurable within the Partner Cloud tool.

Original and ULTRA: Set allowed number of Concurrent sessions

Institutions may want to restrict access to Learn from several devices at the same time. In the past, administrators could restrict users from accessing Learn on more than one device at the same time. Now, we have updated the number of concurrent sessions to include options for 2 or 3 concurrent sessions.

When users surpass the limit at login, they receive a notification that they will be logged out from devices with the oldest sessions.

Image 1. Concurrent session notice when a user surpasses the limit

ULTRA: Mobile App: Messages tool availability settings respected in Mobile App

With this release, the mobile app aligns to the course settings for Messages. If Messages are "off" for the course, the Messages option is not displayed in the mobile app. This applies to both courses and organizations. When Messages are "on", the messages options for students are enforced on the app.

Original and ULTRA: Mobile App: Inactive session termination warning in Mobile App

Terminating inactive sessions reduces the risk of unauthorized access to a user's account. When an administrator defines a timeout for inactive sessions, the auto-login option for the Mobile app does not renew the session. To improve the user experience, users are now alerted 6 minutes before the session expires. When the session expires, the user is logged out. If the app runs in the background, it counts as an inactive session.

Updates and Bug Fixes v. 3900.74

Original and ULTRA: Mobile App – Grades landing page Improvement

Grade information is one of the most important data points for instructors and students. The latest update to our mobile app brings an improvement to the grades landing page. With this update:

Students can now see their overall grade on the grades landing page.
Instructors can now see the overall course grade on the landing page.

These changes aim to enhance the user experience and provide a more streamlined way to access grade information.

ULTRA: Turn off/on Collaborate per course

ULTRA: Updated wording for course alerts in the Activity Stream

Consistency is key. In the past, we used different wording for course alerts on the Activity Stream versus the Course Activity report. Now activity stream notifications use the same wording as the course activity report.

Before, Activity Stream notifications used the following wording to count course alerts:

# Students are falling behind, # Falling, # Absent

Now, the wording for Activity Stream notifications is consistent with the wording on the Course Activity report:

Student alerts: # with low overall grade, # with last access alert

ULTRA: Improved progress tracking for graded LTI Content

Related Topic:
Progress Tracking for Students

Accurate course progress tracking is key for both students and instructors. Some instructors include graded LTI content in their course. In the past, progress tracking for graded LTI content was only updated manually by the student. Now when a student submits their work, their progress status updates to "complete." This change ensures better reporting for instructors and accurate progress tracking for students.

ULTRA: Reminder improvements for anonymous grading

Students may sometimes complete an assessment but fail to submit it. Instructors can send email reminders to non-submitters. In the past, it was unclear if all students received the emailed reminder. Now a banner informs instructors of the number of students who received the email reminder. Information for any student who did not receive the email due to an invalid or missing email address is also included. The email will now also include the due date.

ULTRA: Flexible Grading support for tablets and other improvements

Flexible Grading is a new, efficient assessment grading experience introduced in the August 3900.71 release. We are happy to now support Flexible Grading for instructors using tablet devices. When grading using the Flexible Grading experience from a table, only one of the side panels will be open at any time. Accessing another panel will collapse the other.

ULTRA: Copying Announcements

Reusing content eliminates the need to create everything from scratch. This saves time and effort in the content development processes. To support reuse, instructors can now copy specific announcements or all announcements from another course. Instructors can copy Announcements from both Original and Ultra courses. When copied, each announcement will be set to draft.

ULTRA: Batch Edit support for recursive actions

Batch editing offers value by streamlining and expediting repetitive tasks. We have updated batch edit to now support recursion. Batch edit actions now apply to all items inside of Folders and Learning Modules.

ULTRA and Original: Auto-captioning for video and audio feedback

Ensuring accessible and inclusive experiences for our students is of paramount importance. We have taken a significant step forward by implementing automatic captioning for audio and video content used in assessment feedback and announcements. This feature enhances accessibility and fosters inclusivity. Auto-captioning also supports diverse language preferences, aligning with the user's chosen language in Learn.

ULTRA: Learning Module image integration options

ULTRA: Course Banner images from Unsplash

ULTRA: Artificial Intelligence (AI) Design Assistant

The potential uses of Artificial Intelligence are exciting. As we look to explore the benefits AI has to offer, we are prioritizing lawful, ethical, and responsible use. We have established our Trustworthy AI principles, where we commit to:

humans in control,
fairness,
privacy,
security and
safety to name a few.

We recommend reviewing the documents linked below as you consider using AI within Learn Ultra. These documents are designed to support your implementation, training, and policy setting as it relates to AI usage.

Our Trustworthy AI Principles can be found in our Trust Center.
Further information on the AI Design Assistant can be found on our help pages.
(Link on the item above still to be created, Legal is working on the content)

We chose to partner with Microsoft to provide this functionality for many reasons. A primary reason is that Microsoft has a long-standing commitment to the ethical use of AI. Please find helpful resources from Microsoft below:

ULTRA: Test Question Generation

Related Topic:
AI Design Assistant

Crafting test questions from the ground up demands a significant amount of time. The AI Design Assistant steps in to offer test question suggestions, helping instructors reclaim valuable time. This resource is beneficial for both formative and summative assessments.

ULTRA: Question Bank generation from ULTRA Documents

Related Topic:
AI Design Assistant

The Ultra Document is a valuable way to present content. It seamlessly blends text and media components, enriching content presentation. With the aid of the AI Design Assistant, instructors can build question banks to gauge comprehension of the text-based elements within an Ultra Document. This streamlined process saves significant time. It also stands as a robust aid in shaping both formative and summative assessments. – generate a question bank from the text of an ultra document.

Instructors can select preferred question types or use the “Inspire me!" option. The instructor can specify the desired level of complexity and number of questions. After reviewing the questions, it’s a single click to publish the questions to the question bank.

ULTRA: Rubric Generation

Related Topic:
AI Design Assistant

Grading rubrics offer a structured framework to assess student work. They ensure both fairness and consistency in grading. Moreover, they furnish students with clear directives to meet desired learning outcomes. However, crafting rubrics can be a time-intensive task. The AI Design Assistant can take the helm in rubric creation, drawing cues from course context. While retaining human-centered authority, instructors can define the rubric. This includes specifying details like descriptions (learning objectives or topics), rubric type (percentage, points, or range), complexity, and dimensions. The rubric remains open to review and refine, guaranteeing the instructor's input at every step.

Rubric generation is an option everywhere we support rubric creation.

ULTRA: Course Structure Suggestions

Related Topic:
AI Design Assistant

Creating a course from the ground up can often feel like a daunting and time-intensive task. Some educators might find themselves without access to the necessary instructional design resources, leaving them in search of extra support.

Enter the AI Design Assistant—an innovative solution designed to tackle these very challenges. By harnessing the power of advanced AI, this assistant offers a helping hand in structuring your course. Drawing insights from the course's title, description, and contextual information, it effortlessly generates learning modules.

What sets the AI Design Assistant apart is its commitment to putting instructors in the driver's seat. Empowering educators, it allows for the provision of supplementary context, such as descriptive text or keywords. Instructors have the flexibility to add a title prefix—think "topic" or "unit"—infusing a personalized touch. Visual elements can also be seamlessly integrated, amplifying the learning experience.

In a testament to customization, instructors wield the ability to fine-tune the complexity of their content. Additionally, they can precisely dictate the quantity of learning modules to be generated, ensuring a tailored approach to their teaching journey.

Updates and Bug Fixes v. 3900.72

ULTRA: Flexible Grading:

Related topics:
Flex Grading Assignments

Flex Grading Tests

Flexible Grading is a new, efficient assessment grading experience. The new experience:

provides intuitive and streamlined navigation,
eliminates artificial barriers,
saves time and effort when navigating from student to student or question to question.

Flexible Grading capabilities:

Grade by question or student
Filter on grading status of choice
Navigate between students and multiple submission attempts
Keep track of your grading process
View both the attempt and the final grade for each assessment
Provide meaningful feedback with or without a rubric
Grade inline using Blackboard Annotate
Collapse side panels to view more of the student submission
Post all grades when ready

Supported assessment grading configurations:

Individual student test and assignment submissions
Single and multiple attempts
Grading with rubrics
SafeAssign

Other assessment configurations will continue to route through to the current grading experience. There is no loss of grading functionality for these configurations:

Anonymous submissions
Group submissions
2 graders per student
Peer review
Flexible Grading will come to these assessment configurations in future releases.

More information on Flexible Grading

ULTRA: Gradebook New Default Cell Status

ULTRA: Increased visibility of Gradebook Move Button

ULTRA: Bulk Download of Anonymous Submissions

ULTRA: Assessment Submission Receipt Improvements:

Related topics:
Submissions Receipts (students)

Submissions Receipts (instructors)

Assessments can be stressful for students. Some instructors require students to submit attachments as part of the assessment requirements. Students need reassurance that they have attached the correct file for the right assessment. Students also desire confirmation that their submission was successful.

Based on direct feedback from students, we added the new information to the existing submission receipts:

Course name and ID
Assessment name
Submission size - only included for file-based assessments and tests with essay questions
Auto submit indicator - this indicator is present only if the assessment is automatically submitted by Learn as part of a timed assessment or the Prevent Late Submission assessment setting

Students can view the additional submission receipt information in:

The confirmation modal displayed upon a successful submission
The text file students can download from the confirmation modal
The automatic email confirmation

ULTRA: Rubrics: Editing Improvements

A grading rubric provides a clear and transparent framework for evaluating student work. Rubrics ensure consistency and fairness in grading. Rubrics also provide a means for giving effective feedback.

Instructors can edit any rubric not yet used for grading. In the past, selecting outside of an editable area would save edits and automatically exit out of edit mode. This made selecting text and editing rubrics difficult. Now, if users select text inside the rubric edit box and drag out of the edit box, the edit mode does not close.

ULTRA and Original View: Removal of Welcome guidance for first-time login and attendance user experience pop-ups

First-time user experience guidance provides users with instructions and tips. This guidance shows users how an application works so they can start using it right away. To provide a better user experience, we are updating some of the guidance in Learn Ultra. Some guidance that is no longer needed is being removed. We'll be making these updates over a series of releases.

In this release, we are removing the Welcome guidance for first-time login. This is a series of three scrolled screens before a user reaches the base navigation. This guidance is no longer applicable. Its removal provides immediate access to the base navigation after users log in.

ULTRA and Original View: Course Banner Improvements:

ULTRA: Learning module Image

ULTRA: Replace file in Course Content

Related topics:
Add Files, Images, Audio, and Video

Edit and Manage Content

Responsible use of storage space matters to institutions. Before, when an instructor replaced a file in the course, the system created a new file version. Now, the system replaces the file. The system no longer creates new versions, freeing up storage space.

ULTRA: Students with alerts flags in the Course Activity Report

ULTRA: Groups in the top navigation bar and Group Spaces

Related topic:
Group Spaces for Instructors

Groups for Students

Groups are essential for fostering collaboration, promoting active learning, and deepening understanding of course material. In the past, instructors could define groups and group sets. Instructors could also create group assessments. This release includes improvements aimed at helping all users make better use of groups.

We've moved Groups from the Details & Actions menu to the top navigation bar. This improves the visibility and prominence of Groups.

ULTRA: Unread Message Indicator

ULTRA: Group Messaging Improvements

ULTRA: Mobile App: Course status indicators

Related topic:
Courses and Organizations (Mobile)

The Blackboard Learn mobile app provides easy access to course material whilst on the go. We have enhanced the course list with status indicators for each course. These indicators help users to identify the status of each course.

Course status indicators include:

Private (the student cannot access the course)
Open
Complete

Original and ULTRA: Messages Off Indicator

Original and ULTRA: Course Status and date improvements

The Courses page is a popular entry point to courses for instructors and students. For both list and tile views of Courses, we've added course start dates or start now prompts. These indicators help users understand what's happening with each course.

Now the course status appears both in the image on the course and as text beneath the course title. When a course is Private and has a start date defined in the future, the date also displays.

ULTRA: Ultra Accessibility Checker

Accessible content ensures inclusivity and meaningful engagement for diverse learners. To help instructors create accessible content, instructors can now use the Ultra Accessibility Checker (Powered by Ally). The Ultra Accessibility Checker scans content in the content editor for Ultra Documents. This helps instructors identify and fix accessibility issues.

The Score Gauge indicator is visible when instructors are active in the content editor of Ultra Documents. Instructors can select the Score Gauge to view the Instructor Feedback panel. This panel provides suggestions to fix accessibility issues at scale. Instructors can also view the content editor in a preview. The Score Gauge provides a live score and flags accessibility issues during content creation and editing.

ULTRA: Manage Messages at the course Level

Institutions often have policies about how students communicate with others in their courses. We strive for Learn to have the flexibility to support institutional policies and decisions. As such, Administrators can now configure instructor control of the visibility of the Messages tool at the course level. When permitted, instructors can configure the Messages tool in the Course Settings.

Original and ULTRA: Active Session Termination

Original and ULTRA: Concurrent Session Control

Updates:

Manage Messages at institutional level:

Institutions often have policies about how students communicate with others in their courses. To support institutional policy, system administrators can now manage Messages tool visibility. When Base Navigation is enabled, this level of control is available for both the Ultra and Original experiences at the institution and node levels.

Administrators can define Messages visibility for both courses and organizations. Messages are not displayed on the Ultra Base Navigation when it is hidden at institutional level. If an institution has different configurations at node level, Messages will display on the Ultra Base Navigation according to the Messages policy applied for each course. The Course Messages option does not display for courses where the Messages tool is off.

Mobile App - Improvements to the Grades landing page:

Mobile app users can now select the sorting criteria for their grades. Users can sort grades as follows:

course order
last activity (most recent grade posted)
due date (latest or oldest first)
These sort options allow users to customize the Grades landing page to suit their preferences.

Ultra Courses: Improved flattening logic:

Items can move when copied, imported, or converted into Ultra courses. We call this the flattening process. The process moves items with a depth greater than two to the lowest supported level in Ultra courses. For institutions that have opted in to a third level of depth, items with a depth greater than three move to the lowest supported level. We received feedback from instructors calling for improvements to this process.

One issue was that items were not retained in their parent folder. As a result, a course could have many empty folders at the lowest supported level. The items that used to be in those folders would also be at the lowest supported level. This made it difficult for instructors to understand where items used to be. They had to spend a lot of time finding and moving items.

The second issue was with Learning Modules. Learning Modules could become nested inside other Learning Modules or Folders. Nested Learning Modules are not supported in Ultra courses. These nested Learning Modules set the wrong expectation for new users. This also broke the user interface.

With this update, we implemented new logic:

Learning Modules are always brought to the highest level on the Course Content page.
Folders are now brought to the highest level necessary to ensure that child items don't move.

This change should help instructors organize their moved content.

Ultra Courses: Self-enroll for Ultra Courses and Organizations:

In the past, the course and organization catalogs only showed Original courses and Original organizations. We’ve updated both catalogs so they also display Ultra courses and Ultra organizations.

As with Original courses and organizations, Ultra courses and organizations must be associated with the catalog in the administrator panel or through data integration processes. The self-enrollment setting for Ultra courses and organizations must be managed in the administrator panel or through data integration. At this time, instructors can’t enable self-enrollment in Ultra courses and Organizations.

Ultra Courses: File deletion in the course also removes the file from the Content Collection:

The Content Collection is a valuable tool for organizing files and to support content reuse. In the past, if an instructor deleted a file from an Ultra course, the file remained in the Content Collection. This was the case even if the file was not used in other courses. Removing this file required additional steps from the instructor and was often overlooked.

Now, when a file is deleted from the course, it is also deleted from the Content Collection when it is not used in other courses or another place in the same course. This workflow simplifies file management and helps with responsible use of storage space.

Ultra Courses: Resizing media

Instructors often strive to include media in their course design to help create an engaging course. Students may desire to include media in their discussions or assessment responses. When inserting media, users expect an easy way to control the size of the included media. In the past, this wasn't easy to do. Users would have to size media before uploading it in the course.

Now media items have handles in each corner. Users can resize the media by dragging a corner handle. Users can also resize media via keyboard navigation. Media types available for resizing include images, videos, and media inserted via URL.

This enhancement provides users with a seamless and intuitive way to resize media.

Ultra Courses: Progress Tracking and Start / Continue / Completed options for Learning Modules:

Progress Tracking provides students with clear visibility of their progress throughout a course. In the past, students would need to expand the module to view progress for the contents of a Learning Module. To save time and provide greater clarity, a progress summary for Learning Modules is now displayed at the top level.

Ultra Courses: Start, Continue, and View Assessment options and file submission update:

To increase clarity for students before they begin an assessment, we have made changes to the user interface. In the past, when a student selected an assessment, the Details & Information panel included an option labeled View assessment. Now this option is labeled as Start attempt. Additionally, the button displays different states based on the student's progress:

If the student is eligible to make a new attempt, the button displays Start attempt alongside the next attempt number.

If the student has saved a draft, the button displays Continue attempt along with the current attempt number.

Once the student has exhausted all possible attempts, the button displays View submissions. This indicates that students can review their completed submissions.

These modifications aim to provide a more intuitive and informative experience for students. These changes ensure that students have a clear understanding of their progress and available options throughout the assessment process.

Ultra Courses: Send reminders to non-submitters for anonymously graded assessments:

During an assessment, instructors may need to communicate with students. To support this need, instructors can filter and select the students they would like to message from the Submissions page. Instructors can craft a message appropriate to the audience and circumstances.

In the past, the instructors couldn't message students for assessments that are anonymously graded. This is because instructors do not know which students had submitted.

Now we have introduced a Send Reminder option. This allows instructors to send reminders to students who have yet to make a submission for an anonymously graded assessment.

With the "Send Reminder" button on the Submissions page for anonymously graded assessments, instructors have the chance to confirm their desire to send the reminder along with the number of students who will receive it.

Ultra Courses: Delete Grade Schemas:

In the past, instructors could only create and edit grade schemas. Now, instructors can also delete grade schemas that are not used in the course. The option to delete helps instructors maintain the grade schema list.

A Delete button now appears on schemas that are not in use. Schemas that are in use will only display the option to copy.

Ultra Courses: Complete/incomplete grade schema:

The complete/incomplete grade schema is now available for the Ultra Course View. This grade schema helps to shift the focus from points earned to student effort and completion of tasks. It offers a more holistic approach to assessing student progress.

Instructors can select the schema in the settings panel from the Grade using section. When a grade is assigned, a checkmark is displayed on that item for the student in the gradebook. An incomplete is displayed as a dash in a grey-colored pill.

Ultra Courses: Exceptions panel updates:

Exceptions are important for supporting students who experience unforeseen situations. Instructors can:

Grant additional attempts
Reschedule submission deadlines
Allow extended access

We've updated the exceptions panel to display more information. The exceptions panel now features course, assessment, and student names. This improvement helps instructors to ensure the accuracy of the exception.

Ultra Courses: Add exceptions for anonymously graded assessments:

We have simplified the navigation for Assessments. Instructors now have convenient access to different sections using tabs:

Granting additional attempts
Rescheduling submission deadlines
Allowing extended access
Now instructors can grant student exemptions for anonymously graded assessments. Instructors can access the exceptions options for all assessments from the Student Overview page in the gradebook.

Ultra Courses: Tab navigation for Assessments:

We have simplified the navigation for Assessments. Instructors now have convenient access to different sections using tabs:

Content and Settings
Submissions
Student Activity
Question Analysis

This improvement is designed to optimize instructor efficiency. It provides a more streamlined assessment management experience for instructors.

Ultra Courses: Partial and negative credit improvements for the Multiple Choice / Multiple Select question type:

Multiple Choice and Multiple Answer questions are graded automatically. Answers are scored based on the instructor selected scoring option.

In the past, instructors could select from the following scoring options:

All or nothing. A student must select all the correct answer choices to receive credit. If a student selects one or more incorrect answer choices, they earn no points.

Allow partial credit. A student receives partial credit if they correctly answer part of the question.

Subtract points for incorrect answers. A student will have points subtracted for incorrect answer choices. This option discourages guessing. The overall question score is not less than zero. With the partial credit and subtract points options, all answer choices were equally weighted. Instructors were unable to control how much partial and negative credit is awarded for each correct and incorrect answer.

To provide instructors with more control we have made some changes. Now instructors can turn on partial and negative credit. This option allows instructors to:

Define a positive percentage value to award credit for a correct answer(s)
Enter a negative percentage value to subtract for an incorrect answer(s)
Allow a negative overall score for the question

Updates:

Ultra Courses: Add Exemptions for Anonymous Assessments:

The use of anonymous grading helps to reduce grading bias. Many consider it an important grading approach. To further support instructors and improve their ability to manage student exemptions, we have introduced a way for instructors to set exemptions for anonymously graded assessments. Instructors can now access the exemptions option for an anonymous assessment from the Student Overview page. This will make it easier for instructors to manage exemptions and ensure a fair and accurate grading process for all students.

Courses Term display logic improvements:

In the past, when a course was not associated to a term and occurred in the past, Learn would sometimes create a term based on the duration of the course. In other cases, Learn would assign the course to a term based on institutional-defined criteria that matched the duration of a course. This assignment method often led to confusion for students and instructors. To remove confusion and provide accurate term and course alignment, we have implemented improvements to the course term display logic.

Original Course View: Improved Assignment Submission page:

Students submitting an Assignment in Original Course View have several possible actions. They can upload files, author a submission, and attach a note to their instructor. Previously, these actions could be confusing for students. The option to add comments always displayed. The option to author a submission required selecting a button that was easy to miss.

We redesigned the Assignment submission page to be less confusing and easier for students to use.

Students have three distinct actions they can take. Each section can be opened independently. Students can open more than one. The page will retain added content when a student closes a section.

Create Submission
Upload Files
Add Comments
All Assignment information has been grouped together:
- Due date
- Points possible
- Grading rubric
- Group membership and update statuses
- SafeAssign disclosure

Ultra Courses: Preserve "Open in New Window" behavior for Flickr Mashups as Web Links:

In the May release, we added a new setting to Web Links on the Course Content page. Instructors can choose whether the web link opens in a new window or within the Ultra Course View. With this change, converted Flickr Mashups would not load unless users opened the Web Link in a new window. We have updated the conversion process so that when a Flickr Mashup is converted to a Web Link, the "Open in a new window" option is auto selected.

Ultra Courses: Prevent renaming of items when moved during a copy, import, and/or conversion:

Items copied, imported, or converted into the Ultra Course View sometimes move. Items move when they are nested more than the Ultra Course View allows. Items that move are placed at the lowest supported level in the Ultra Course View.

When moved, the title of these items would change to reflect their original location path. While helpful, the change added extra work for users. As a result, users had to change the title of each moved item and remove the pathing. With this release, we will no longer change the title of items.

Ultra Courses: Announcements in the top navigation bar:

To provide a better user experience, we moved Announcements from the Details & Actions menu to the top navigation bar. This reduces the number of items within the Details & Actions menu. This change also improves visibility and prominence of Announcements.

Users will be able to access announcements anywhere from within a course. All existing announcements functionality remains the same.

Ultra Courses: Progress tracking management:

Progress tracking provides students, instructors, and administrators with an efficient way to track and measure student progress. Now administrators can control progress tracking at the institution and node levels. This option is on the Administrator Panel | Tools & Utilities module | Tools option. An administrator may select from the following setting combinations:

On and unlocked in Ultra courses
On and locked in Ultra courses
Off and unlocked in Ultra organizations
Off and locked in Ultra organizations

The lock option prevents instructors from changing the administrator-defined default within their courses. Administrators should lock the setting to ensure consistent use of progress tracking.

Administrators can control the scope of the availability changes. This allows administrators to choose to apply changes to only new or new and existing Ultra courses/organizations.

Note: With this release, progress tracking availability remains unchanged. With the August release, progress tracking will be turned on for all Ultra courses and organizations. Administrators can change this setting to meet the specific needs of their institution as needed.

Ultra Courses: Journal Grades & Participation list filters:

To help instructors manage journal entries and provide effective feedback to students, we have added new Student and Grading Status filters to the Grades & Participation view in Journals. These filters allow instructors to view student journal entries based on their status. This can help streamline the grading and feedback process. These filters are consistent with filters in other areas of Ultra. This consistency provides a unified and intuitive experience for instructors.

Ultra Courses: Course Links improvements:

To provide a better experience, we’ve made a series of improvements for Course Links:

Instructors have the option to add course links to folders and learning modules on the Course Content page. The option to add course links to folders and learning modules is hidden for nested content containers.
Instructors cannot move into another folder or learning module a course link to a folder or learning module. A warning message displays if an instructor tries to move a course link in this way.
Instructors cannot copy into another folder or learning module a course link to a folder or learning module. The option to copy course links to folders and LMs is hidden if an instructor selects the Copy Content option from the + menu while inside a folder or learning module.
To help users identify course links to folders and learning modules, we have made a new icon. This icon displays a link at the top left corner of the icon for a folder or learning module. In the past, the learning module did not have an icon. Learning modules now have an icon, which is the same one displayed for learning modules on the Create Item panel.
The context menu for a course link to a folder or a learning module now provides these options:
- Edit Course Link
- Edit Linked Folder or Learning Module
- Delete Course Link

Users can expand a course link to a folder or learning module as they would a folder or learning module. This allows the user to view the nested contents of the target folder or learning module. The contents displayed are read only. An instructor cannot modify the nested contents displayed for the course link. An instructor cannot move additional content into the folder or learning module course link. - More information on the release notes pages

Ultra Courses: Support for anonymous grading of tests:

Instructors can reduce grading bias for high-stakes assignments by enabling anonymous grading. Until now, this option was only available for assignments. Instructors can now also turn on anonymous grading on tests. This adds an additional layer of fairness and impartiality to the grading process.

Ultra Courses: Upload questions from a file to tests and assignments:

Besides course content, assessment questions are one of the most valuable teaching artifacts. Up until now, instructors could only create new questions in tests, assignments, or question banks. This process could be time-consuming and inefficient.

Now instructors can author questions offline in a text file. Instructors can upload the file into a test for a more streamlined test building workflow. Each question file must be a tab-delimited TXT file. The file should not exceed 250 records to avoid time-out restrictions. For more details on formatting requirements, please review the related Help pages for Original and Ultra platforms.

Instructors can easily edit and use the uploaded questions as they would a question created in a test. Uploading questions saves instructors valuable time and effort.

Supported question types include:

Multiple choice / multiple answer
True / False
Essay
Fill in the Blank
Fill in Multiple Blanks
Numeric response
Matching

Calculating course grades can vary depending on instructor practice. To offer greater flexibility in gradebook calculations, instructors can now opt to use the 'Base calculation on points earned out of total graded points' option for any gradebook calculation, regardless of whether it contains operators with functions and variables. Previously, this option was only available for Average, Total, Minimum, and Maximum calculations.

Updates:

How am I doing Report - Currently Off

The “How am I Doing" report allows students to see how they perform in comparison to the class.

Certain institutions may prohibit the sharing of this information with students. To support institutions' preferences, administrators can now control the visibility of this report.

Ultra Courses: Instructor’s Notes on Student Overview:

Teaching many courses is challenging. Keeping track of student details can be even harder. To help, we've created a dedicated space for instructors to take notes about students in each course. These notes are private. Only instructors, administrators, and higher roles can access them.

To access the notes, instructors may select the Notes tab on the Student Overview page. From there, an instructor can add notes and review any other notes for a student in that course. They can also review notes added by other instructors in the same course.

The text editor for notes includes basic formatting options such as bold, italics, colors, styles, and font size.

The most recent notes appear at the top of the list.

Symbol font removed in Original Course View:

Unicode is a standard encoding system that allows popular fonts to support characters across various languages. In the past, specialized mapped fonts were used, which replaced one character for another. However, both the author and viewer had to have the exact same font installed on their device, making communication difficult.

In the Original Course View Content Editor, the Symbol font is an example of a mapped font for Greek. Some browsers and operating systems no longer support the Symbol font. This can result in students seeing Latin characters when authoring and instructors seeing Greek ones when reading. This has caused confusion for instructors trying to grade student work.

To avoid this confusion, we removed the Symbol font from the Content Editor in Original Course View. Instead, users can choose other common fonts that support Greek characters. To type in Greek, add the Greek language and keyboard layout to your device's operation settings. This feature is supported in Windows, MacOS, iOS, and Android.

Existing content formatted to use the Symbol font will remain in that font if the browser supports it.

Ultra Courses: Drag and drop desktop folders to upload to the Course Content page:

Efficiency is key for instructors when creating course content. To assist with this, we've added a drag and drop support for uploading folders with files to the course content page. Instructors may drag and drop a folder from their computer to the course content page.

If an instructor drags and drops more than 25 files at the same time, a warning message appears. This message does not restrict the upload, but it informs the user that it may take a few minutes to complete. During the upload process, the instructor can cancel at any time. If the upload is canceled, the files are deleted.

Ultra Courses: Control where Web Links open:

Opening links in a new window is generally considered best practice, especially for external websites. This avoids browser security features blocking content from loading. There may be situations when an instructor or course author prefers linked content to open in a panel in the Ultra course.

When content is hosted on the Learn environment or on the institution’s website, the content is less likely to be blocked. In this example, opening content in a panel in the Ultra course is a better experience for students.

We understand that instructors need to have control over this aspect of their course design. Now instructors may specify where linked content should open - in a panel in the Ultra course or a new window. This option gives instructors and authors greater flexibility in designing their course content. Opening content in a panel in the Ultra course can be particularly beneficial for content authored with tools like Articulate Storyline, Articulate Rise, Adobe Captivate, and Adobe Dreamweaver.

Option to control where the web link opens; default is new window

Ultra Courses: Hotspot question zoom in/out:

When assessing a student's knowledge of visual content, the hotspot question type is a popular choice. To further enhance this question type, we have added two new features: Zoom In/Out and Full-Screen view. These controls enable instructors to define hotspots more precisely. These new controls are also accessible using convenient keyboard shortcuts.

Ultra Courses: Remove category assignment requirement when editing LTI items via the gradebook:

Instructors may need to adjust the due dates for third-party activities in their courses. In the past, when making such changes, instructors also had to assign these activities to a specific category within the gradebook.

Now instructors can edit gradebook columns for LTI-based activities without assigning them to a category. This change streamlines the process without forcing category selection.

Ultra Courses: Send Messages from the Submission page:

During an assessment, instructors may need to communicate with students. For example, an instructor may wish to send reminders to non-submitters. Or an instructor may want to notify students about their grades. To support this need, now instructors can message students from the Submissions page.

To get started, instructors can search or filter to find and select recipients. Then, select the "Send Message" button to open the messaging interface to craft the message.

We understand that student confidentiality is important. Thus, when an instructor selects more than one student as a recipient of a message, the recipients will be on BCC. This ensures that students’ identity and contact information remain confidential.

Ultra Courses: Rubrics improvements:

Rubrics play a critical role in the grading process for many educators. We've made significant enhancements to the rubric-based grading experience.

Performance level descriptions are now hidden by default. This change streamlines grading when instructors are familiar with the performance level requirements. Instructors can choose to display the performance descriptions if needed for grading.

Sometimes instructors change their minds when grading. Now it’s possible to deselect a performance level if choosing another level of performance isn’t appropriate. Criterion feedback is also collapsible, allowing for a more streamlined view of the grading panel.

Making Blackboard Learn inclusive and accessible is important to us, so we’ve improved keyboard navigation of rubrics. Navigate between rubric criteria with tab and use up/down arrows to select a performance level.

Ultra Courses: Add Exemptions via the gradebook grid view:

Instructors may need to excuse specific students from assessments or activities in a course. In the past, instructors could apply an exemption from the submissions page and student detail view. Now instructors can also access the option to exempt students from the gradebook grid view.

When an instructor exempts an assessment or activity:

The exempted item is not factored into the Overall Grade calculation.
The exempted item is not marked late for students who do not submit.
The students with an exemption will not receive an automatic zero.
Students can still submit work for exempted items. Instructors can assess and provide feedback on these submissions for exempted items.

Ultra Courses: Prevent backtracking in tests with page breaks:

Effective assessment settings are essential for accommodating various instructional scenarios. For example, instructors can insert page breaks into an assessment to create sections. Now instructors may prevent backtracking in paged tests. This option ensures that students progress through the pages of an assessment in a predetermined sequence. This option will be helpful when upcoming questions provide hints or reveal answers to questions on previous pages.

Instructors can activate this setting in assessments that contain questions.

Ultra Courses: Question Banks - Reuse Questions option:

Aside from course content, test questions are some of the most valuable resources in a course. Instructors invest significant time and effort creating and refining banks of test questions. Instructors use these banks to easily reuse questions across various assessments.

Now instructors can copy questions between question banks. To copy a question, an instructor can select the new Reuse Questions option. Additionally, instructors can copy questions from existing assessments directly into their question banks. This process makes it easier to build and expand question libraries.

Ultra Courses: Grading attempt selector improvements:

Multiple attempt assessments can be a beneficial assessment option. Multiple attempts allow students to learn from their mistakes. It may also help students improve their understanding of the material.

At the same time, managing multiple submissions introduces some complexity for instructors. To help, we have added an attempt selector on the grading page. By default, the grading page displays the most appropriate attempt based on the “grade attempts" setting.

Updates:

Unsupported Course Cartridge and ePack Features Removed – 3900.60

In the past for Original Course View, there were two older methods for adding licensed publisher content. These are no longer supported:

Course Cartridges, a server-based method to download licensed publisher content using one-time keys ePack licensed content importing when converting WebCT courses. While we have not supported these for years, users still see options to add Course Cartridges download keys. APIs for ePack conversion are still part of the course import process. In this release, we have removed these. Instructors and admins will no longer see options to enter a Course Cartridge download key.

Manage Roster:

Institutions often have policies about hiding students' personal information. Institutions can now manage Roster visibility. This level of control is for both Ultra and Original Course Views when Base Navigation is enabled.

Administrators can define the Roster visibility at the institution and node levels for both courses and organizations. When permitted, instructors can define the Roster visibility setting at course/organization level.

The Details & Actions menu in Ultra Course View will not display the Roster to students when it is hidden. Instructors can manage the Student Roster visibility in Original Courses when allowed by the administrator.

Course Activity Report Table Enhancements

The course activity page helps instructors understand students' performance. With this information, instructors can:

Identify struggling or high performing students based on their grade, hours in course, or days of inactivity.
Message students who have a low grade and/or have not accessed the course recently.
Receive alerts when a student has not accessed their course in a while or if a student's grade has dropped.

With this update, we have made the following improvements:

New Table - Updated to be more consistent with other features. Those who use progress tracking will find the feel of the new table should be familiar. The new table makes it easier to select and message students.

New Days of Inactivity Column - the number of days since a student last accessed your course. Instructors can use this information to identify students that might be falling behind.

Access Student Overview - click or tap a student's name to see their grades, progress, and activity over the weeks. Instructors can use the Student Overview to get a full picture of a student's performance and engagement in a course.

More Student Information. Accommodations, name pronunciation, and pronouns are now visible. Instructors can use this information when drafting messages to students.

PDF version of the SafeAssign Originality Report

The SafeAssign Originality Report is a valuable teaching and learning tool. Instructors use the report to ensure students express original thoughts and cite sources. Some instructors allow students to view the report. This is helpful for teaching students how to cite their work.

In the past, users could download the report as PDF. However, users could not open the sources from the PDF.

Now, users can open matched sources from the PDF. We also made some usability improvements to the PDF, such as text alignment and font adjustments. To better support peak usage, we made infrastructure improvements.

What's New in Blackboard?

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2024

October 2024 Updates and Bug Fixes Open Close

ULTRA: Usability improvements for Documents

ULTRA: Video Studio: Enhanced caption support for uploaded files

ULTRA: Usability improvement for Knowledge Checks

ULTRA: Mastery tab in the gradebook

ULTRA: Generate question banks

ULTRA: Enhancements to student submission review page

ULTRA: Email notifications for followed discussions

ULTRA: Quickly access items that need grade reconciliation

ULTRA: Show unavailable students in the gradebook

ULTRA: Flexible Grading performance improvements

ULTRA: MOBILE: Email notifications for followed discussion

September 2024 Updates and Bug Fixes Open Close

ULTRA: Content Designer: Knowledge Check in Documents

ULTRA: Content Designer: Video Studio in Documents

ULTRA: Course Content Page Enhancements

ULTRA: AI Conversation

ULTRA: Review instructor feedback on the student submission review page

ULTRA: Access assignment feedback hidden by release conditions

ULTRA: Exclude attempt when grading

ULTRA: View items that need grading and posting in the new Overview tab

ULTRA: View late submissions that need grading

ULTRA: Student Activity Log

ULTRA: Wiris Upgrade and Benefits

ULTRA: Calendar Event Management

August 2024 Updates and Bug Fixes Open Close

ULTRA: Content Designer: Enhanced Documents

ULTRA: Image Generation Improvements

ULTRA: Multiple rules for release conditions

ULTRA: Improvements to creating assignments

ULTRA: Anonymous student responses for Forms

ULTRA: Ability to ‘Follow’ Discussions for Enhanced Engagement

ULTRA: Send messages to a group from Group Spaces

ULTRA: Improved navigation between students in Flexible Grading

ULTRA: Hide unenrolled students from the gradebook

ULTRA: Status information removed from the gradebook download file

ULTRA: Assessment IP Address Filtering

ULTRA: Math Formula enhancement

ULTRA: Original Conversion Improvement: Convert Undeployed Tests to Question Banks

July 2024 Updates and Bug Fixes Open Close

ULTRA: Print answer key for assessments

ULTRA: Improvements to prevent printing a question across pages

ULTRA: Needs Grading improvements for assessments allowing multiple attempts

ULTRA: Send a copy to email when scheduling announcements

ULTRA: Needs Grading improvements for Students and Questions tabs

ULTRA: Recording audio and video when adding per question feedback

ULTRA: Gradebook: Improved navigation when accessing feedback for Students

ULTRA: MOBILE APP: Mobile App token timeout configuration

ULTRA: 'Reply to Email' feature for Messages

MOBILE APP: Improved Mobile Authentication

June 2024 Updates and Bug Fixes Open Close

ULTRA: AI Design Assistant – Language Selector

ULTRA: Printing for Assessments

ULTRA: Streamlined point value editing for questions

ULTRA: Return a true/false question to an unanswered state

ULTRA: Post immediately when creating announcements

ULTRA: Group members list available within the selected group

ULTRA: Filter out graded responses when grading by question

ULTRA: Grader Notes on student grades

ULTRA: Improved visibility of new grades and feedback in the student gradebook

ULTRA: Weighted calculation usability improvements

ULTRA: Student's overall grade visible to Observers

ORIGINAL and ULTRA: Base Navigation - Course and Organization filters and personalization

ORIGINAL and ULTRA: MOBILE APP: Landing Page Enhancements for Blackboard Learn Mobile App

May 2024 Updates and Bug Fixes Open Close

ULTRA: Align goals to questions in question pools

ULTRA: Supporting multiple performance criteria in release conditions

ULTRA: Reuse questions in Forms

ULTRA: Improved Gradebook navigation

ULTRA: Weighted Calculation Improvements

ULTRA: Observer role support in Ultra Courses

ULTRA and MOBILE: Landing page enhancements for Blackboard Learn Mobile App

ULTRA and MOBLE: Support for Observer role for Ultra Courses in Mobile App

ORIGINAL and ULTRA: Restricting Original Course View Course Copy workflow

April 2024 Updates and Bug Fixes Open Close

Ultra: AI Design Assistant – Context picker for Learning Modules, Assignments, Discussions, and Journals

Ultra: Persistent navigation for Learning Modules