Release Notes for Learn SaaS - 2023
Learn SaaS release 3900.60.0
Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.60.0
Release to Test/Stage: Tuesday, 7 February 2023 | Release to Production: Thursday, 2 March 2023
Original Experience, Ultra Experience
Original Course View, Ultra Course View
For full feature details please review the corresponding notes for the Learn 3900.60.0 version included below on this page. Details can also be found on Behind the Blackboard.
Latest release: 3900.60.0-rel.41+9d324a9 to Production servers to take place on 30 March 2023.
For more information on updates and bug fixes, please visit Behind the Blackboard.
March 2023 – 3900.60 Release
The March 2023 - 3900.60 release is robust with features in six areas:
- Assessment and grading;
- Data and analytics;
- Mobile app;
- Integration, extension, and management;
- Communication and social engagement; and
- Course upgrading.
These improvements impact instructors, students, and administrators. Some features do require administrative action.
Instructors:
- Improved attempt switching when grading student submissions with multiple attempts
- Sorting Controls on the Anonymous Submissions Page
- Sorting on Overall Grade in the Gradebook Student List View
- Course Activity Report Table Enhancements
- Unsupported Course Cartridge and ePack Features Removed
- Support for concurrent course copies
- Preserve empty content areas
- Preserve font families
- Reschedule announcements
Instructors and students:
All users:
- PDF version of the SafeAssign Originality Report
- Improvements to the user profile
- Password age, re-use, and expiration policies
- Blackboard Assist (K12 availability)
Administrators:
Assessment and Grading
Improved attempt switching when grading student submissions with multiple attempts – 3900.60
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors
Multiple-attempt assessments can be more complicated for instructors because there are more submissions. To switch between attempts for a student in the past, an instructor would have to close an attempt then select a different attempt. This wasn’t intuitive and required extra clicks. Now instructors can navigate directly between a student’s attempts. If a student has multiple attempts for an assessment, an instructor will see an option to switch attempts. This is more efficient.
Image 1. Instructor view of the attempt drop-down menu on the grading page
When the instructor clicks a student name in the Submissions list, the most recent submitted attempt will be loaded.
The attempt selector displays information to help instructors select the desired attempt:
- Attempt number
- Submission time stamp
- File size
- Grade (if graded)
- Late indicator (if applicable)
Image 2. Navigating between student attempts using the attempt drop-down menu
For administrators:As part of the March release, this feature will be available by default. It will be possible to opt out of using this feature. At that time, you can set the feature to unavailable on the Ultra Experience Management page in the administrator panel. The feature flag will be removed in the May release and this feature will become permanent.
Sorting Controls on the Anonymous Submissions Page – 3900.60
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors
Record sorting provides a more efficient grade review experience. Instructors need to sort students by grade to identify submissions at a grade boundary. This helps instructors make any changes necessary before posting grades.
Any sorting applied yields a temporary change to the sort order of all columns on the Anonymous Submissions page.
Image 1. Instructor view - students sorted by highest to lowest grade
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
Sorting on Overall Grade column in the Gradebook Student List View – 3900.60
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors
Instructors need sorting controls in the Gradebook. These sorting options are helpful for organizing the Gradebook data for various contexts:
- identifying students with grades at a grade boundary
- ordering students from highest to lowest grade, or vice versa
Now instructors can sort the Gradebook Students list view on the Overall Grade column. Any sorting applied yields a temporary change to the sort order of all columns.
Image 1. Instructor view - students sorted by highest to lowest Overall Grade
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
PDF version of the SafeAssign Originality Report – 3900.60
Blackboard Learn SaaS, Managed and Self-Hosting
Ultra Experience, Original Experience
Ultra Course View, Original Course View
Impact: All users
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.
Image 1. Improved PDF version of the SafeAssign Originality Report
For administrators: Managed and Self-Hosting clients must upgrade to the newest version of the SafeAssign Building Block for these improvements.
Data & Analytics
Course Activity Report Table Enhancements – 3900.60
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View, Original Course View
Impact: Instructors
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.
Image 1. Course Activity Report - new table capabilities and metrics
For administrators: This feature is available for all courses. There are no configurations needed.
Mobile App
Improvements to the user profile – 3900.60
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Impact: All users
Users expect to have a congruent experience on the mobile app and desktop experience. In the January 2023 - 5900.56 release, we updated the mobile app design for the user profile page. Now the profile page experience on the mobile app corresponds with the desktop experience.
From the app, users can:
- enter/edit address information
- enter/edit phone and fax numbers
- edit prefix and name details
- record, edit, and/or delete their name pronunciation
- select preferred pronouns or create their own
- change their profile picture
- view profile card
Image 1. Users may update profile information from the mobile app
Image 2. Users may record the pronunciation of their name
For administrators: This feature is available for all users of the Mobile App. No action is needed from users who have enabled automatic updates on their devices. Users who have disabled automatic updates on their devices must download the update.
Integration, Extension, and Management
Administrator Login As Tool: Permissions Extended – 3900.60
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience, Original Experience
Impact: Administrators and users with permissions
End user support is critical for system administrators and other support staff in varying roles. Administrators can now enable the Login As feature for roles other than the full administrator role. This ensures that institutions can enable additional support personnel without giving them full administrative privileges.
When using Login As, your activity will be logged against the impersonated user, and may result in false positives for activity that could impact institutional or external reporting.
Image 1. Manage Login As privileges in the Administrator Panel
For administrators: To enable the Login As entitlement, access System Roles > Privileges. Mark the two privileges for Login As. Select Permit Privileges in the Privileges dropdown.
REST APIs to read Rubrics associations – 3900.60
Blackboard Learn SaaS, Blackboard Learn 9.1
Ultra Experience, Original Experience
Ultra Course View, Original Course View
Impact: Administrators
Providing access to Rubric associations within our REST API framework offers many benefits:
- additional administrative control for assessments
- flexibility for external third-party integrations
- supports instructor-student communication about performance expectations
In this release we are glad to make available a new Rubrics Associations API. This public API includes a set of GET endpoints. This helps to inform users about existing rubric associations in a course:
- Rubrics associations
- Rubrics associations by rubrics ID
- Rubrics associations by associations ID
For administrators: The REST integration user must have the entitlement “course.rubrics.VIEW” to make use of the new endpoints.
LTI Tool Content Icons on Calendar – 3900.60
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Base Navigation, Calendar View
Ultra Course Calendar
Impact: Instructors, Students
In the past, LTI content icons did not appear in the calendar on the base navigation or in the course. The icons help users identify and distinguish between content types. Now, the LTI content icons used in the course will display as follows:
- Course Calendar: Schedule Day
- Course Calendar: Due Dates Day
- Base Navigation Calendar: Schedule Day
- Base Navigation Calendar: Due Date Day
This improvement applies to icons for LTI tools.
Image 1. Instructor view - LTI Tool with default icon in the Calendar
Image 2. Student view - LTI Tool with default icon in the Calendar
For administrators: We recommend administrators review LTI placement configurations since icons can help users differentiate content. Icons for LTI Tools are displayed in the places mentioned above, as well as in other areas. Only LTI content icons in the Calendar are affected in this release. When the tool provider manages their icons, those are always used can cannot be changed. When the tool provider does not supply an icon, the administrator can add one. When no icon is defined, a default icon is used.
Manage Roster - 3900.60
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View, Original Course View
Impact: Instructors, Students
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.
For instructors: your institution may enforce a policy and not allow you to change this setting.
Image 1. Instructor view - Roster visibility control
Image 2. Student view - Roster does not appear in the Details & Actions menu when the Roster is hidden
Image 3. Roster visibility controls from the Administrator Tools Panel
Instructors, Teaching Assistants, and Course Builders roles have the privilege to view and edit the Roster by default. For other roles, the following privileges must be configured:
- View Roster: Administrator Panel (Courses) > Courses > Edit > Enrollments or Course/Organization Control Panel (Users and Groups) > Users
- Edit Roster visibility: Course/Organization Control Panel (Customization) > Tool Availability
For administrators: Administrators can configure the Roster visibility from the Administrator Panel > Tools and Utilities > Tools.
Open the padlock to allow individual instructors to edit their Roster tool availability. Lock the padlock to enforce the institutional policy for Roster availability.
Password age, re-use, and expiration policies – 3900.60
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience, Original Experience
Impact: All users who are allowed to reset their passwords in Learn
Most institutions use an identity provider (e.g. Azure Active Directory) to manage and authenticate users. There are cases when administrators create users in Learn. These users may set their own passwords in Learn. In support of security requirements for passwords, users may be prompted to:
- Change their passwords after a certain number of days have elapsed since their last password change. After expiry, users can log in with their old password, but are prompted to change it immediately before continuing.
- Wait a span of time between password changes. When a user tries to change a password before a certain span of time, they are informed that they cannot change the password. We recommend contacting the helpdesk in this case.
- Avoid re-using previous passwords.
Image 1. A user is prompted create a new password after password expiration
Image 2. A user is informed when a password cannot be changed because of the password Minimum Age Policy Violation
Image 3. A user is informed that previous passwords may not be reused
Image 4. An administrator configures the Password Age and History policies
If necessary, an administrator can require users to change their passwords to meet password policies updates instead of waiting for an automatic expiry. The “Expire Password” option appears in the Administrator Panel on Users page. Select one or multiple users at a time. Full System Administrators can use this new feature by default. Administrators may grant this privilege to other roles if desired: “Administrator Panel (Users) > Users > Edit > Expire Password”. If an administrator chooses to expire a user’s password and the Minimum Password Age Policy is turned on, users will not have to wait to change their password.
Image 5. An administrator expires users’ passwords
Finally, for security measures, passwords are no longer stored in archive packages.
Image 6. An administrator downloads archive package
For administrators: For administrators: When changing passwords for another users, ensure you meet password length and complexity rules.
Administrators can determine the age and reuse policies. These new settings appear in the Administrator Panel on the Password Settings page. Only a full System Administrator can access the configuration page. The default settings enforce the following policies:
- Password Age Policy: This option is off by default. The following rules may be turned on independently:
- The minimum age default value is 24 hours. Define a value between 1 and 720 hours. New users will not have to wait for this period to change their passwords the first time.
- The maximum age default value is 90 days. Define a value between 29 and 360 days.
- Password History Policy: This option is off by default. If turned on, administrators can specify the number of recently used passwords for the system to check. The default value is 10. Define a value between 1 and 24.
Unsupported Course Cartridge and ePack Features Removed – 3900.60
Blackboard Learn SaaS, Blackboard Learn 9.1
Original Experience
Original Course View
Impact: Instructors
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.
Image 1. An instructor viewing the “Import Course Cartridge” page in the Original Course View Control Panel—this option will be removed in 3900.60
There are no changes for existing content. Course Cartridge materials that required ongoing license validation have not worked for years. Course Cartridge materials that became standard Learn items—students do not have to enter license keys to access them the first time—will continue to work.
This change is unrelated to other methods to import content or access licensed publisher materials. These other methods are not impacted by this change:
- Partner Cloud
- Importing or exporting a Learn course package
- Importing or exporting a Common Cartridge (an exchange format standard from 1EdTech, formerly IMS Global)
- Course auto-archive
For administrators: This change is for all Original courses. There are no configurations needed.
Security: Registration of all domains required– 3900.60
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience, Original Experience
Ultra Course View, Original Course View
Impact: Administrators
Various methods of verifying users help to make the Blackboard Learn application more secure. One method is to confirm all requests come to authorized domains. Administrators manage this in the Administrator Panel > Hostname Configuration.
In the past, requests from some parts of the application would work even if the requester domain wasn’t registered. In the near future, this will no longer be allowed. This improves security of Blackboard Learn.
Image 1. The hostname configuration page allows administrators to register all domains used to access the Learn application
For administrators: If your institution created alternate domains for your Learn environment, you must register all of them.
Blackboard Assist (K12 availability) – 3900.60
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience, Original Experience
Blackboard App
Impact: All users
Assist offers learners one central hub within Blackboard Learn to find and access the services they need to flourish. In the past, Blackboard Assist was not available to clients with K12 licenses. From March 2, 2023, K12 clients will also have the chance to enable Assist.
Enable Blackboard Assist within Blackboard Learn to:
- Give learners one place to find vital support services. The prominent placement of Blackboard Assist in Blackboard Learn helps make learners increasingly aware of all connected support resources.
- Get learners to take advantage of available services. Blackboard Assist is available around-the-clock from the desktop and Blackboard mobile app. This means that learners can access these support resources whenever and wherever they need them. Featuring services this way provides an additional means to capture your learners’ attention.
- Gain access to Ally File Transformer: The Blackboard Ally File Transformer helps learners to personalize their learning experience. It can convert files into alternative formats that better fit their needs, devices, and learning preferences.
For administrators: Assist must be enabled for use. Learn more: https://help.blackboard.com/Learn/Administrator/SaaS/Tools_Management/Blackboard_Assist
Communication & Social Engagement
Discussions - Deactivate post activity – 3900.60
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience, Original Experience
Blackboard App
Impact: All users
Before this release, the only way to prevent posts in a discussion was by defining a due date. Instructors now have a checkbox option in the Discussion Settings panel. When checked, participants cannot edit or delete posts in a discussion.
Image 1. Instructor view - Deactivate Post Activity in the Discussion Settings panel
Image 2. Student view – Discussion view after the instructor has elected to prevent editing
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed at the administrator level.
Course Upgrading
Support for concurrent course copies - 3900.60
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors, Administrators
Copies are a queued task in Blackboard Learn. In the past, when copies were initiated by an SIS, Learn could process two copies in parallel at any given time. The same was not true for copies initiated by end users. Copies initiated by end users process one at a time.
With this update, we have increased the limit to four for both SIS and end user-initiated copies. The limit will now allow a total of 8 copies to process at any given time: 4 copies from the SIS and 4 copies from end users. Increasing the limit reduces the wait time associated with copies.
For administrators: There are no administrative configurations required.
Preserve empty content areas - 3900.60
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors, Administrators
Institutions use empty content areas to create the initial structure in a course. They are often used for templates to help instructors know where to place items. In the past, empty content areas were not brought over during copy, import, and conversion processes.
We now preserve empty content areas during the copy, import, and conversion process.
For administrators: There are no administrative configurations required.
Default Menu settings no longer apply to new courses and organizations using the Ultra view - 3900.60
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Administrators
Blackboard administrators can configure a default menu for new courses and organizations. The default menu is a great way to create the initial structure of a course. Having a default structure can help instructors know where they should put items.
Unfortunately, the default menu settings were being applied to new Ultra courses. They should have only applied to courses using the original course view. The way Original and Ultra courses display and structure content is different. Because of this, the default menu settings created an undesired structure for new Ultra courses.
Institutions also use different structures for Original and Ultra courses and organizations. Having the default menu applied to new Ultra courses and organizations created work. The Ultra courses needed to have the default menu removed before faculty could use them.
Now new Ultra courses and organizations will not inherit the default menu settings. New Ultra courses and organizations can still leverage templates by copying a template from another course.
For administrators: To review the existing default menu settings navigate to Admin > Course/Organization Settings > Default Course/Organization Menu.
Preserve Font Families - 3900.60
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors
In the past, we would set all fonts to Arial during the conversion process. The Ultra course view did not always support different font families.
We now preserve font families during the conversion process using the following logic:
- If font family is Arial in Original Course View, set to Arial in the Ultra Course View.
- If font family is Comic Sans MS in Original Course View, set to Comic Sans MS in the Ultra Course View.
- If font family is Courier New in Original Course View, set to Courier New in the Ultra Course View.
- If font family is Times New Roman in Original Course View, set to Times New Roman in the Ultra Course View.
- If font family is Verdana in Original Course View, set to Verdana in the Ultra Course View.
- If font family is anything else or not defined in the Original Course View, set to Open Sans in the Ultra Course View.
The font families in the Original course view are different from those in the Ultra course view. The above logic tries to preserve font families as best as possible to reduce cleanup.
Font families are preserved when converting text associated with the following items:
- Announcements
- Discussions
- Assignments
- Documents
- Journals
- Groups and Group Sets
- Tests and Question Types
For administrators: There are no administrative configurations required.
Reschedule Announcements - 3900.60
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors
Instructors have not had the ability to reschedule announcements. If the show on and hide after date fields were set for the future, a pop-up window would not generate. Instructors prefer a pop-up window because it helps students see the announcement. If there is no pop-up, a student may not know there is an announcement for them to view.
Some instructors were recreating announcements from scratch to generate these pop-ups. With this update, instructors can now reschedule announcements without having to recreate them. They can do this by changing the show on and hide after fields to a future date.
When users first enter a course, the rescheduled announcement will trigger a pop-up.
For administrators: There are no administrative configurations required.
