Release Notes 2021

Learn SaaS release 3900.15.0: Update to client Production environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.15.0 | Release to Production 3 June 2021
Original Experience, Ultra Experience and Ultra Course View

As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3900.15.0 (full release number 3900.15.0-rel.33+c15f06f) to client Production servers on Thursday, June 24, 2021. Please remember that the efforts to resolve the SCORM upgrade issues are still ongoing. Clients still running on 3900.13.0 will not be updated this time.

Updates in this version include:

• In the Ultra Course View, users with Course Builder roles couldn't create journals or any type of content on Ultra courses. We’ve fixed the issue.
• In the Ultra Course View, course announcements became single paragraphs of unformatted text, after making a copy of a course. We've fixed the issue.
• In the Original and Ultra Experiences, the function CONTENT_IS_AVAILABLE(), was a potential driver of performance problems for some clients. We made significant improvements, for the benefit of both courses and organizations's users.
• In the Original and Ultra Experiences, a critical DB performance issue was present whenever a grade refresh occurred. Also, due to a SameSite restriction of the Chrome browser impacting the major workflow of Cengage B2, users weren't able to import contents. We’ve fixed both issues.
• In the Original Experience, the Downtime Maintenance Schedule date picker worked as expected only when the en_US language pack was set as the user's language. When using other language packs (e.g. en_UK), and error appeared when selecting a desired date. We've fixed the issue.

Learn SaaS releases 3900.15.0 and 3900.17.0: Update on releases to client Production environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.15.0 | Release to Production 3 June 2021
Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.17.0 | Release to Production 1 July 2021
Ultra Experience, Original Experience

We’re updating the information available regarding the Blackboard Learn SaaS 3900.15.0 release to client Production servers, previously scheduled for Thursday, June 3, 2021:

• A maintenance update to client Production environments will take place on Thursday, June 24, to apply high priority fixes.
• The efforts to resolve the SCORM upgrade issues are still ongoing. Clients still running on 3900.13.0 will not be updated on June 24.

We aim to update all Production sites to 3900.17.0 on Thursday, July 1. This will include those clients who are currently on 3900.15.0 as well as those who are still on 3900.13.0.

We’ll provide new updates as soon as we have more information.

Learn SaaS releases 3900.15.0 and 3900.17.0: Update on release to client Production and Test/Stage environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.15.0 | Release to Production 3 June 2021
Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.17.0 | Release to Production 1 July 2021
Ultra Experience, Original Experience

We’re updating the information available regarding the Blackboard Learn SaaS 3900.15.0 release to client Production servers, previously scheduled for Thursday, June 3, 2021:

• A maintenance update for 3900.15.0 to client Production environments is planned to take place on Thursday, June 24, after an update from Rustici was received. We are in the process of integrating and testing the updates.
• Inclusion of clients still on 3900.13.0 in the release on Thursday is tentative at this point, as it depends on the resolution of all SCORM related issues.

The 3900.17.0 upgrade to all stage/test sites that began on Friday is still in progress. We are expecting to complete it later today, Monday June 21.

We’ll provide new updates as soon as we have more information.

Chatbot enhancements

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.15.0 and v3900.17.0 | Release to Test/Stage and Production 17 June 2021
Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View and Base Navigation

On June 17, Blackboard Student Success updated Blackboard Chatbot. Chatbot is included in Blackboard Learn at no additional cost, so the Learn experience is also improved:

• Search Blackboard Learn Help documentation for Instructors as well as Students.
• In addition to asking the chatbot questions, users can now also navigate a category hierarchy to discover common topics.
• Resulting help information is now previewed directly in the chat interaction. Users can click to open the full documentation from the Help site.
  • The default Help articles reference the Ultra Course View to better support users transitioning to our latest interface and may need more assistance. However, users can easily switch to the Original Course View versions of Help articles as needed.
• Institutions can upgrade to the premium version of Blackboard Chatbot that now supports adding institutional-specific help resources and defining a unique, branded chatbot persona.

Blackboard Chatbot currently supports English language North American SaaS environments using Base Navigation. The June 17 update applies to all production and test/stage environments.

Learn SaaS releases 3900.15.0 and 3900.17.0: Update on release to client Production and Test/Stage environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.15.0 | Release to Production 3 June 2021
Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.17.0 | Release to Production 1 July 2021
Ultra Experience, Original Experience

We’re updating the information available regarding the Blackboard Learn SaaS 3900.15.0 release to client Production servers, previously scheduled for Thursday, June 3, 2021:

• The outstanding SCORM upgrade issue is still unresolved. We are working hard alongside Rustici in order to fix it as quickly as possible, and we don't have a target date for resolution yet.
• For institutions that have already received Learn SaaS 3900.15: there will be no further  production upgrades until the SCORM issue has been resolved.
• For institutions that are still using Learn SaaS 3900.13: production upgrade to 3900.15 will not be performed until the SCORM issue has been resolved.

We will also move forward with the Blackboard Learn SaaS 3900.17.0 release to client Test/Stage servers, previously scheduled for Tuesday, June 8, 2021, to Tuesday, June 15, 2021. This new release date aligns with our usual pattern, minimizing its delay as much as possible. Based on institutional feedback we also aim to provide institutions with sufficient time for testing.

The release schedule has been updated to reflect this latter change.

Learn SaaS release 3900.15.0: Delay for release to client Production environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.15.0 | Release to Production 3 June 2021
Ultra Experience, Original Experience

As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re delaying the Blackboard Learn SaaS 3900.15.0 release to client Production servers, previously scheduled for Thursday, June 3, 2021.

• Issues have been identified with the SaaS Downtime Maintenance Schedule (impacting INTL admins when the system locale is not en_US), and, for a few clients, a SCORM issue.
• The release has been rolled out for most clients.
• The release is being held for some clients on the US East Coast.

We’ll provide more updates as soon as we’ve identified a new target date.

Learn SaaS release 3900.15.0 update: Customer Self Service Maintenance Scheduler for Postgres Upgrade

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.15.0 | Release to Production 3 Jun 2021
Ultra Experience

We try our best to have the highest uptime available for Learn SaaS, but there are often some actions that require we take a customer’s site down to perform maintenance. The database upgrade to Postgres 12.5 is one such upgrade that will require some downtime.

We're releasing a new process to reduce the amount of coordination and communication efforts between clients and Blackboard Support. With this release, we give administrators the control in their production environments to schedule their maintenance window in the administrator panel, and select themselves a date and a time that allows for minimal disruption to their users.

You can learn more detailed information on Behind the Blackboard.

Learn SaaS release 3900.15.0: Update to client Production environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.15.0 | Release to Production 3 Jun 2021
Original Experience

As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3900.15.0 (full release number 3900.15.0-rel.17+fc81d0d) to client Production servers on Thursday, June 3, 2021

Updates in this version include:

• In the Original and Ultra Experiences, users couldn’t download files attached to Organization discussion boards. Instead, they were redirected to Learn’s front page. We’ve fixed the issue.

Learn SaaS release 3900.15.0: Update to client Test environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.15.0 | Release to Production 3 June 2021
Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View

As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3900.15.0 (full release number 3900.15.0-rel.14+031309f) to client Test servers on Tuesday, June 1, 2021

Updates in this version include:

• In the Ultra Experience, an admin couldn't set a custom language pack as the default until the system had assigned it an Ultra locale first. This process could take hours, or even days, instead of some minutes. We've fixed the issue and now admins can enable system default.
• In the Ultra Experience and Ultra Course View, when an automatic zero was set for assignments delivered late, an assignment that was never submitted was just marked as late, without the zero grade. We’ve fixed the issue.

Learn SaaS release 3900.15.0: Update to client Test environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.15.0 | Release to Production 3 June 2021
Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View

As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3900.15.0 (full release number 3900.15.0-rel.11+9c51902) to client Test servers on Tuesday, May 25, 2021

Updates in this version include:

• In the Ultra Experience and Ultra Course View, when an instructor was grading an assignment, the page refreshed each time when moving between different sections using tab navigation. We've fixed the issue.

Learn SaaS release 3900.15.0: Update to client Test environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.15.0 | Release to Production 3 June 2021
Ultra Experience, Original Course View

As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3900.15.0 (full release number 3900.15.0-rel.9+82a89d6) to client Test servers on Tuesday, May 18, 2021

Updates in this version include:

• In the Original Experiences, an accessibility issue was present in threads within forums as the Thread Reply, Quote, Edit or Delete buttons were inoperative using the keyboard via the tab, space or enter keys. We've fixed the issue.
• In the Original Course View, the Last updated time/date stamp in the full grade center view has been removed to improve performance. The upper-right corner of the full Grade Center in an Original Course displayed a time/date stamp indicating the last change by any user. This display caused significant performance issues in courses with large enrollments or when many users graded concurrently, thus it has been removed. If reviewing when changes were made in the Grade Center, you still see this information, including the last update, under Reports > View Grade History.
• In the Original Course View when base navigation is enabled, when embedding a new Kaltura content item within text, then moving on to the base navigation activity stream and refreshing it, the link would show HTML content and an inactive link instead of providing a proper, readable link to the Kaltura video. We've fixed the issue.

Highlight on bug fixes - 3900.15.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.15.0 | Release to Production 3 June 2021
Original Experience, Ultra Experience

The bug fixes in this Learn release include:

• In the Ultra Experience, when Ultra Stream Notifications were sent to a specific, targeted role, the system announcement was sent correctly to the specific users with that institution role, but the Admin Announcement UI indicated the notification was sent to everyone. causing confusion for admins. We've fixed the issue.

• In the Ultra Experience, in tests, the student's browser needed to be refreshed manually in order to show them tests hidden by conditional availability, even after these conditions were met. We've fixed the issue.

• In the Ultra and Original Experiences, there were software updates related to server performance causing customer email alerts: Administrators were receiving Failed to Phone Home emails for software updates on SaaS environments. They will no longer see those emails. Also, as part of this change, the Update Status column has been removed from the Installed Tools page for Building Blocks. We've fixed the issue.

• In the Original Experience, after a Learn user had disabled their profile image from view, other users were still able to see it as it remained publicly available. We've fixed the issue.

You can view all maintenance items in Behind the Blackboard. Our Known Issue articles provide information for individual bug fixes, and may include bug descriptions and which Learn versions were affected. You can filter bug fixes by SaaS release for easier navigation. View the 3900.13.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.

Support for Right to Left

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.15.0 | Release to Production 3 Jun 2021
Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View

Blackboard is pleased to introduce full Right to Left language support in Learn Ultra and to bring this capability to our Arabic and Hebrew speaking markets.

We've included in this release:

• Full Right to Left flipped user interface across Ultra including base navigation, Ultra Course View and System Admin. 
• Enhancements for the Ultra Rich Text Editor  that allow our users who write in Right to Left languages to adjust the text direction display.
• System level Arabic and Hebrew language support and Ultra Course View  language enforcement.

Feedback by criterion

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.15.0 | Release to Production 3 Jun 2021
Ultra Course View, Blackboard App

Rubrics are an essential tool when thinking about grading workflows. With this addition, rubrics inside Ultra courses are more useful to instructors. Segmented feedback provides more flexibility and detail to messages sent from instructors to students when grading an assignment. Students can have a better understanding of the why behind their grade, as per their instructor or grader prerogative.

Feedback by criterion is available wherever rubrics appear, like discussions, anonymous assignments, single and multiple attempts assignments, among others.

When using the parallel grading workflow, the option will be available to all graders, but the only feedback by criterion students will see, is the one given by the reconciler. The workflow remains around rubrics, and thus, feedback inside rubrics for the delegated workflow will remain the same.

This new feature is a step forward in our commitment to keep improving the rubrics roadmap.

A/V Recordings option in announcements

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.15.0 | Release to Production 3 Jun 2021
Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View

With this new option, instructors can now insert audio and video recordings in their course announcements.

Peer Assessment: Peer Notifications

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.15.0 | Release to Production 3 Jun 2021
Ultra Experience

This feature aims to expand previous releases of the Peer Assessment functionality. Students and instructors can learn about relevant changes in submissions via the Activity Stream. Instructors get notifications when new reviews arrive, and students get them when their reviews are graded.

Peer Assessment: Batch edit

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.15.0 | Release to Production 3 Jun 2021
Ultra Experience

This feature aims to expand previous releases of the Peer Assessment functionality. Instructors can edit peer review items in batches. They can adjust the due date of separate items at the same time by delaying or advancing the date in a given batch.

Reset Signed URL configuration

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.15.0 | Release to Production 3 Jun 2021
Original Experience

This feature improves content delivery, accessibility and performance for China users, serving all files via our CDN Servers. The server will auto-configure and set up the user’s session to use or not to use signed URLs during login. Administrators can manually adjust exceptions by contacting Blackboard Support.

Course Auto-Archive performance and efficiency improvements

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.15.0 | Release to Production 3 June 2021
Ultra Experience, Original Experience

This improvement fixes known issues causing archive-related instability and implements a safety-net to stop archiving courses that repeatedly fail. It also improves efficiency of auto-archives by adding more sources that the system can store as a reference instead of copying them as file data. Last but not least, it ensures that auto-archives are enabled for all sites as part of each release.