What's new in Blackboard?
Blackboard updates follow a four-week cycle that includes a staging release, testing, changes, and finally a production release. Each month, Blackboard updates go through this cycle. Some of these updates are mandatory, while others are optional and can be decided upon by the institution. Currently, Academic Technology Services may not immediately release new Blackboard features to production when they become available to the broader Blackboard community. We may require additional testing both externally and internally to ensure that these changes have minimal negative impact on our instructors. Thank you for your understanding and patience as we strive to provide a stable and effective teaching environment. For more information, please read this document:
November 2024
New features
Role play option for AI Conversations (under review): The AI Conversation feature now has a role play option where instructors can customize an AI persona for students to have a conversation with.
Updates to existing features
Skip link to Course Information: For users who use their keyboard to navigate Blackboard, there is now a second skip link. Users can choose to "Skip to course information", in addition to "Skip to course information".
Blackboard mobile app rebranding: The Blackboard Learn App will now be known as Blackboard App. The Blackboard app also has a new app icon.
Improvement to resizing blocks in Documents: It is now easier to resize tall, vertical blocks in Documents by hovering anywhere along the vertical line, instead of specific spot.
Empty state indicator for Documents: Empty content blocks in Documents now contains the text "Select this block to add content".
Print Tests with questions from Question Pools and other improvements: Instructors can now print and save tests as PDFs. The printout includes questions from Question Pools. This includes the answer key as well as the blank test for the student.
Download option for student activity log: The student Activity Logs in the Gradebook can now be downloaded as CSV files.
Batch edit - usability improvement: As "Change dates to a specific date and/or time" is the most popular option used in Batch Edit to change dates, it is now the default option
Blackboard mobile app rebranding: The Blackboard Learn App will now be known as Blackboard App. The Blackboard app also has a new app icon.
Video Studio: Viewing controls for captions and transcription (under review): Users can now turn captions on/off, as well as choose to have the transcript displayed to the right of the video.
Video Studio improvements (under review): Users are now able to edit video titles, select the device from which to record, and click "retry" for a failed video upload.
Fixes to existing features
Improved performance for assignment file submissions: Improvements have been made to the student file submission process that will prevent them from uploading corrupt and/or oversized files.
Brightspace conversion: quiz pools and quiz sections: Brightspace quiz pools can now be converted to Blackboard. Quiz sections become separate pages on tests.
October 2024
New features
Student Activity Log (Released): Instructors can review student activity to inform decisions in academic disputes, financial aid, and other troubleshooting. Instructors can see activity from the last 140 days. Activity events include things like course access, assessment started, assessment draft saved, discussion access, discussion edit, journal access, LTI item access, and SCORM item access.
Generate question banks (under review): Question banks can be auto-generated through AI from course materials or text.
Updates to existing features
Video Studio: Enhanced caption support for uploaded files (under review): Video Studio now auto-generates captions for all file types.
Quickly access items that need grade reconciliation: A "Needs Reconciling" section appears in the Gradebook Overview tab for reconcilers in a course where an instructor is using parallel grading.
Show unavailable students in the gradebook (not working properly yet) : Unavailable students appear in the Gradebook, but their avatar has a strikethrough.
Brightspace conversion improvements: Question library and sections in Brightspace now convert to question banks in Blackboard Ultra.
Flexible Grading performance improvements: The flexible grading platform now loads faster.
Email notifications for followed discussions: Users can now receive an email notification right away for followed discussions.
Email notifications for followed discussions (mobile): Users can now set up notifications in their mobile app to receive an email right away for followed discussions
Fixes to existing features
Usability improvements for Documents: Usability of the Documents tool has been improved.
Usability improvement for Knowledge Checks: The difficulty metric now displays as "--" instead of "Hard" until there is at least one attempt.
Enhancements to student submission review page: The student submission review page has been enhanced to help students easily find the information they need.
September 2024
New features
View items that need grading and posting in the new Overview tab: There is an additional tab in the Gradebook called Overview, which gives a quick view of what assessments require grading and posting.
Student Activity Log (delayed): Instructors can review student activity to inform decisions in academic disputes, financial aid, and other troubleshooting. Instructors can see activity from the last 140 days. Activity events include things like course access, assessment started, assessment draft saved, discussion access, discussion edit, journal access, LTI item access, and SCORM item access.
AI Conversation (under review): AI conversation is an activity type that uses Socratic questioning to guide students in a conversation about a topic. Instructors can choose a topic, an AI persona and view the conversation in the grading platform.
Updates to existing features
Course content page enhancements: The course content page has been enhanced. These changes include warmer tones, greater differentiation among course elements and the course content is now left-aligned.
Exclude attempt when grading: Instructors can exclude student attempts in the grading. This removes the student from the Needs Grading workflow and from any calculations. However, excluded attempts are part of the assessment attempt count.
Review instructor feedback on the student submission review page: Students can now view all instructor feedback in one page. Students can access their feedback via the Gradebook feedback button for the assignment or by clicking on the assessment name.
Access assignment feedback hidden by release conditions: Students can now access feedback for assignments even when the assessment has been hidden via release conditions.
Brightspace conversion improvements: Improvements have been made to Brightspace conversions:
Embedded Multimedia for Assignments and Discussions: Embedded images in Assignments and Discussions now convert.
Embedded Multimedia via Media Library Now Supported: Multimedia added to the Rich Content Editor in Brightspace using the Media Library now properly converts.
Arithmetic and Significant Figures Question Types: Conversion of artithmetic and significant figure questions has been improved.
Content Designer: Knowledge Check in enhanced Documents: Instructors can add multiple choice/answer knowledge checks in their Documents. These are ungradable, but students can get immediate feedback and instructors can view metrics for each question.
View late submissions that need grading: When students make submissions with Automatic Zeros are enabled, you will see the new submissions as X to grade. Previously, the status for assessments past the due date were labeled as All graded even though there were new submissions.
Wiris upgrade and benefits: Rendering of subscript and superscript formulas via the Math tool in text boxes has improved due to an update in the software Wiris. This change has resulted in more compact math formulas contained subscript and superscript.
Video Studio within enhanced Documents (under review): Video Studio allows instructors to upload or record audio and video within Documents.
August 2024
New features
Hide unenrolled students from the gradebook (Ultra):
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:
Course settings
Gradebook settings
Updates to existing features
Content Designer: Enhanced Documents (Ultra): Blackboard has made significant enhancements to Documents. Instructors can now select from a variety of block types like Content block, HTML block, file upload block, cloud upload, content collection block and file convert block. There is also added a menu bar to edit the documents. Additionally, instructors can create appealing layouts by resizing and dragging/dropping blocks into columns and rows.
Improvements to creating assignments (Ultra):
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.
Note that assignments created before this update will have the old Assignment settings, which include the ability to add questions. Assignments created prior to this update will be converted at a later time.
Multiple rules for release conditions (Ultra): You are now able to add multiple release conditions for items. With each rule, all date/time and/or performance condition(s) must be met before the item is released. If multiple rules are set, the student must meet the conditions of at least one of the rules before the item is released.
Anonymous student responses for Forms (Ultra): Instructors can now collect anonymous submissions in Forms. Note that when Anonymous submissions is checked, other settings are enabled by default. In addition, the following settings are not available with anonymous submissions: groups, class conversations, student activity, exceptions, exemptions, accommodations, and student progress/statistics.
Ability to ‘Follow’ Discussions for Enhanced Engagement Assessment (Ultra): Users can now follow select discussions and receive notifications for new contributions from peers or instructors. New notification options for the Activity Stream settings (via your Blackboard profile) allow users to manage notification types for discussions
Improved navigation between students in Flexible Grading (Ultra): To make the grading experience more efficient, Blackboard has added Next Student and Previous Student buttons to the Students tab in Flexible Grading. Instructors can now quickly navigate between students when grading assessments.
Status information removed from the gradebook download file (Ultra): Blackboard has 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 |
Send a message to a group from Group Spaces (Ultra): Users can now send a group message from the members page of a group space. This encourages collaboration on content that they have been assigned.
Math formula enhancement (Ultra): Blackboard has reduced the response time in the text editor when creating a formula. With enhanced data retrieval, instructors can process formula requests more efficiently.
Image Generation Improvements (Ultra): The technology in the image generation process has been udpated from DALL-E 2 to DALL-E 3. This update allows instructors to generate higher quality, higher resolution images
Brightspace and Moodle conversion improvements (Ultra):
There are some improvements in converting Brightspace and Moodle content to Blackboard.:
The Brightspace conversion process now supports the preservation of grade categories. This enhancement allows instructors to associate grade-related items with preserved categories after conversion which will simplify setting up their gradebooks. Instructors can set weights using these categories, ensuring an organized grading structure.
Discussion Forums and Topics in Brightspace are now preserved during the conversion process. Discussion Forums convert to Folders and Discussion Topics convert to Discussions.
Equations converted from Brightspace to Learn can now be edited without breaking. This ensures a more reliable and efficient transition for courses with
Blackboard has resolved an intermittent issue where file uploads failed during conversion. All uploaded files now convert in a proper state so that users can view and download them.
With this update, we can preserve the settings from Brightspace. Quizzes with timers will either continue to be open or auto submit once the timer ends.
Previously when converting from Moodle to Blackboard, converted Images wouldn't display for students. The issue is now fixed.
July 2024
Updates to existing features
Print answer key for assessments (Ultra): Instructors can now print assessments with answer keys.
Improvements to prevent printing a question across pages (Ultra): Except for very large text answer options, questions will not be split across pages.
Needs Grading improvements for assessments allowing multiple attempts (Ultra): The grade attempt options have changed:
Grade Attempts Option | Attempt(s) counting towards Needs Grading | Needs Grading count in the Gradebook |
|---|---|---|
First attempt | The first attempt submitted by the student | 1 |
Last attempt (Default) | The last attempt submitted by the student | 1 |
All attempts | All attempts submitted by the student | 3 |
Send a copy to email when scheduling announcements (Ultra): Instructors can now send an email copy for scheduled announcements.
Needs Grading improvements for Students and Questions tabs (Ultra): The Needs Grading filter now only displays students with ungraded attempts that count towards Needs Grading.
Recording audio and video when adding per question feedback (Ultra): Instructors can add audio/video for per question feedback when grading assessments.
Improved navigation when accessing feedback (Ultra): Students can now access feedback on individual attempts via the Gradebook.
Brightspace Conversion Improvement (Ultra): Embedded Images and Multimedia: Embedded images and multimedia in HTML documents in Brightspace are now preserved and converted to Ultra content items.
Moodle Conversion Improvement (Ultra): Graded Discussions: Graded discussions and their settings in Moodle now convert to Ultra.
Improved Mobile Authentication: Improvements to the Blackboard Learn App authentication process have reduced the frequency of logouts. Users will be required to update the app on their device.
‘Reply to Email’ feature for Messages (Ultra) - Under Review: This allows users to reply to instructors and student messages. The reply will be sent to the sender's email and will not be retained in the Blackboard course.
June 2024
New Features
Printing for assessments (Ultra): Instructors can now print or create PDFs of forms, tests, and assignments with questions. At this time, this function is not available yet for answer keys or question pools, as well as printing from the mobile app.
Return a true/false question to an unanswered state (Ultra): Students can now return a true/false question to an unanswered state after choosing an answer.
AI Design Assistant - under review (Ultra) - output language selector: Instructors can use a language selector to create multi-language AI-generated content for their courses. The input and output language do not have to be the same.
Grader Notes on student grades (Ultra): Instructors can now add private grading notes to student grades, which can be used as documentation for a grading decision or grade adjustment. These notes will not be visible to the student. They can be viewed from the Grades and the Gradable items tabs.
Base Navigation (Ultra): Course and Organization filters and personalization: There is now a term selector and filter in the courses and organizations tabs in Base Navigation.
Updates to existing features
Post immediately when creating announcements (Ultra): When creating an announcement, there is now an option to post immediately.
Prevent auto-assigning members within self-enrollment groups (Ultra): There is now an option to prevent students from being auto-enrolled at the end of the enrolment period for self-enrollment groups.
Group members list available in the selected group (Ultra): Group members are low displayed as a member's tab rather than a separate panel. When toggling to content, students are able to see all content items linked to that group.
Filter out graded responses when grading by question (Ultra): In flexible grading, instructors can now show graded responses within the Needs Grading filter, while still filtering out questions that have been completely graded.
Weighted calculation usability improvements (Ultra): The label "0% per item" that appeared for categories that were excluded has been removed.
Landing page enhancements for Blackboard Learn Mobile app: In the Blackboard mobile app, there are now filters for courses, organizations, and grades to refine search results.
Improved visibility of new grades and feedback in the student gradebook (Ultra): The Grades area for students has been updated. There is now an indicator on the Grades tab to show new grades, and late assignments are no longer in red but have "(Late)" in black.
