Release Notes for Learn SaaS - 2023
Learn SaaS release 3900.76.0
Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.76.0
Release to Test/Stage: Tuesday, 12 September 2023 | Release to Production: Thursday, 5 October 2023
Original Experience, Ultra Experience
Original Course View, Ultra Course View
For full feature details please review the corresponding notes for the Learn 3900.76.0 version included below on this page. Details can also be found on Behind the Blackboard.
Latest release: 3900.76.0-rel.24+c0388a7 to Production servers to take place on 26 October 2023.
For more information on updates and bug fixes, please visit Behind the Blackboard.
October 2023 – 3900.76 Release
The October 2023 - 3900.76 release is robust with features in eight (8) areas:
- Assignments and tests;
- Communication and collaboration;
- Gradebook;
- Learner progression and personalized experience;
- Integrations;
- Learn core and security;
- Mobile; and
- Upgrade to Ultra
These improvements impact instructors, students, and administrators. Some features do require administrative action.
Instructors:
- SafeAssign Direct Submit
- Delegated grading distribution by group membership
- Partial credit auto-distribution for correct answers for Multiple Choice questions
- Sorting controls for manually added gradable Items
- Last access course alert default set to 15 days
- Student Activity report for Assessments enhancements for small devices and the Mobile app
- Edit Settings for Partner Cloud Content Items
- Canvas conversion improvements: Removed unnecessary Content Item/Document
- Canvas conversion improvements: Preserving videos
Instructors and students:
- Send Reminder from Gradebook list and grid views
- Anonymous comments in Bb Annotate
- Copying grading schemas from course to course
Students:
- Deselect answer choice for Multiple Choice question
- Messages tool availability settings respected in Mobile App
All users:
Administrators:
Assignments & Tests
SafeAssign Direct Submit – 3900.76
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors
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.
Image 1. Access SafeAssign Direct Submit from Books & Course Tools
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.
Image 2. Options to upload or copy/paste text
Image 3. Upload file options
Image 4. Copy/paste text options
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.
Image 5. Submission confirmation and processing is underway
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)
Image 6. Direct Submit page
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. Direct Submit for Original courses remains unchanged. SafeAssign Direct Submit is exclusively available to those with Instructor roles. Administrators must turn on SafeAssign for the Direct Submit option to appear in Books & Tools (Building Blocks, Installed Tools, SafeAssign).
Delegated grading distribution by group membership – 3900.76
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors
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.
At least one Group Set complete with Groups must be present in the course before using the Delegated Grading option.
Image 1. Instructor view of the assessment Settings panel with the Delegated Grading option enabled
Image 2. Instructor view of the Delegated Grading interface where the Group Set to be used for distributing the grading workload is selected
Image 3. Instructor view of the Delegated Grading interface with a Group Set selected
Image 4. Instructor view of how to align graders to a group to distribute the grading workload
Image 5. Instructor view of the completed delegated grading set up where all groups have been aligned to one or more graders
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
Partial credit auto-distribution for correct answers for Multiple Choice questions – 3900.76
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors
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%.
Image 1. Question credit auto-distributes across correct answer options; values can be edited
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
Deselect answer choice for Multiple Choice question – 3900.76
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Students
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.
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
Communication & Collaboration
Send Reminder from Gradebook list and grid views – 3900.76
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors, Students
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.
Reminders is an option for all gradebook items, including LTI and third-party tools. Please note: Reminders can only be sent if you are enrolled in the course. The item must be visible to students and have no release conditions. Future updates will allow you to send reminders for items with release conditions.
From the Gradebook list view, this option is in the overflow menu.
Image 1. Send Reminder option from list view
Instructors may access the "Send Reminder" option in the grid view by selecting the gradebook column header.
Image 2. Send Reminder option from grid view
Reminders are sent as a blind carbon copy to non-submitting students or groups as a course message.
Instructors can view the sent message in their course messages. If messages are off and the reminder is sent as an email, the instructor will receive a copy of the email.
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.
Image 3. Send Reminder confirmation
Image 4. Instructor view of the reminder as a course message
For anonymous grading, non-submitting students receive the reminder via e-mail. This ensures that anonymity is preserved.
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
Gradebook
Anonymous comments in Bb Annotate – 3900.76
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience, Original Experience
Ultra Course View, Original Course View
Impact: Instructors, Students
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.
Image 1. Setting a comment as anonymous while editing the comment
Image 2. Anonymous comment as seen by the student
For administrators: A new configuration option, "Enables anonymous comments in Bb Annotate", appears on the Ultra Experience Management page in the Administrator Panel. The default state is "off.” The feature will have a phased release that may occur after the release date.
Sorting controls for manually added gradable Items – 3900.76
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors
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.
Sorting controls can be applied to one column at a time. When you sort another column, items will order according to the selected column.
Image 1. Instructor view of sorting controls on the grades page for a manually added gradable item
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
Copying grading schemas from course to course – 3900.76
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors
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.
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.
Image 1. Grading Schema folder now appears as an option in Copy Items
Image 2. Selected Grading Schemas to copy
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
Learner Progression & Personalized Experience
Last access course alert default set to 15 days – 3900.76
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors
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.
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.
Image 1. Alerts Settings panel
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. To view the Course Activity and Student Activity Details reports, the user role needs to have the “Course/Organization Control Panel (Grade Center) > View Grades” privilege.
Student Activity report for Assessments enhancements for small devices and the Mobile app – 3900.76
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors
Related topic: Study Activity Details for Assessments
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.
Image 1. Student Activity report for an assessment on a small screen
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.
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
Integrations
Edit Settings for Partner Cloud Content Items – 3900.76
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors
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
Image 1 and 2. Partner Cloud Edit Settings
If the Partner content is gradable, the due date and grade maximum are read-only. These are only configurable within the Partner Cloud tool.
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses and all Partner Cloud tools. There are no configurations needed.
REST API to track content copy history – 3900.76
Blackboard Learn SaaS, Blackboard Learn 9.1
Ultra Experience, Original Experience
Ultra Course View, Original Course View
Impact: Administrators
Related topic: Learn APIs
Understanding the copy history of course content is crucial to improve version control. Now users can retrieve a detailed history of content copies across different courses.
Administrators can use the endpoint GET /learn/api/public/v1/courses/{courseId}/contents/{contentId} to access course content. To retrieve the content copy history, include the "expand=copyHistory" parameter.
The "copyHistory" attribute contains a list of Content Copy history objects, each with two attributes:
- contentId: Refers to the historical hierarchy of LTI content IDs
- courseUuid: Refers to the corresponding course IDs from which the content was copied
For administrators: The required entitlements for Course Content API remain unchanged.
REST API to access Gradebook dates – 3900.76
Blackboard Learn SaaS, Blackboard Learn 9.1
Ultra Experience, Original Experience
Ultra Course View, Original Course View
Impact: Administrators
Related topic: Learn APIs
Users can now retrieve valuable date-related grading data. This provides a more effective experience when working with this API.
For the endpoint GET /learn/api/public/v2/courses/{courseId}/gradebook/columns, users will now have access to the following attributes:
- Created: This attribute allows you to find out when a grade or gradebook column was created.
- Modified: With this attribute, you can get the date when a grade or gradebook column was last modified.
For this, we have also introduced corresponding query parameters to allow filtering:
- ?date_created= date: Use this query parameter to filter the results based on the creation date.
- ?date_modified= date: This query parameter enables you to filter results based on the date of the last modification.
These query parameters allow users to tailor their API requests. This ensures that the data required for reporting or management purposes is obtained.
For administrators: These query parameters allow users to tailor their API requests. This ensures that the data required for reporting or management purposes is obtained. The required entitlements for Gradebook API remain unchanged.
Migration Tools (Kaltura Course Content) – 3900.76
Blackboard Learn SaaS, Blackboard Learn 9.1
Original Experience
Original Course View
Impact: Administrators
We are committed to ensuring a smoother transition experience ahead of the removal of Building Blocks. To help, we've enhanced Building Block content migration related to converting Kaltura content in Original Courses. The conversion transforms Building Block links to LTI links.
Administrators can manage placements through intuitive drop-down menus, simplifying the Building Block transition process.
The Content Migration Tool service for Kaltura can be accessed through Administrator Tools.
Image 1. Content Migration Tool
Administrators will find a dedicated location for configuring settings.
Image 2. Migration Service Settings
Administrators can select the required IDs and leverage custom parameters for course details and migrated content.
Image 3. Migration settings for Kaltura
Once configurations are set, administrators can manage placements seamlessly. They can select the courses to migrate to and monitor the status of the migrated courses.
Image 4. Content Migration Tool
A course search function will display the courses (enabled or disabled) that contain the content links to be migrated. This has a designated time range for the search.
Image 5. Example – courses that contain Kaltura content links
Administrators can easily track the status of courses selected for content link migration. They can search for migration link statuses for each course based on a specified time range.
Image 6. Search options for identifying courses for migration
This tool has been designed to accommodate other B2s and to allow for future enhancements without major changes to the interface.
For administrators: For optimal performance, select a maximum of two semesters during content migration process.
Set allowed number of concurrent sessions – 3900.76
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience, Original Experience
Impact: All users
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
Image 2. Concurrent session notice for mobile users when a user surpasses the limit
Image 3. Administrator view - Concurrent Session controls
For administrators: Administrators may define their preference in the Administrator Tool Panel > Security module > Account Lock Settings option. We have updated the default value for the IL4/FedRAMP boundary to 2 sessions allowed. Every other institution continues to have "Unlimited" as a default value.
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 turned off automatic updates on their devices must download the update.
Mobile App
Messages tool availability settings respected in Mobile App – 3900.76
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Students
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.
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.
Inactive session termination warning in Mobile App – 3900.76
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience, Original Experience
Ultra Course View, Original Course View
Impact: All users
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.
Image 1. Notification appears 6 minutes before session termination
For administrators: Administrators can configure the time for inactive session termination from the Admin Panel > Security > Account Lock Settings. The default time a user can be inactive is 180 minutes (about 3 hours). The inactive time can be configured between 15 to 480 minutes. As before, session cleanup is a background task, so the ending of a session will be approximately the configured time, typically in a minute or two.
Upgrade to Ultra
Canvas conversion improvements: Removed unnecessary Content Item/Document – 3900.76
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience, Original Experience
Ultra Course View, Original Course View
Impact: Instructors
Related topic: Migrate from Canvas
Canvas Modules convert to Content Areas in the Original Course View. The conversion created a Content Item inside the Content Area using the same title as the Content Area. The content item didn't contain any content. This created more work for users as they now needed to delete the unnecessary Content Item.
Image 1. Unnecessary Content Item with the same title as the Content Area
Canvas Modules convert to Folders in the Ultra Course View. The conversion created a Document inside the Folder using the same title as the Folder. The Document didn't contain any content. This also created more work for users as they now needed to delete the unnecessary Document.
Image 2. Unnecessary Document with the same title as the Folder
Now the conversion process no longer creates unnecessary Content Items or Documents.
For administrators: This feature is available for all Original and Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
Canvas conversion improvements: Preserving videos – 3900.76
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience, Original Experience
Ultra Course View, Original Course View
Impact: Instructors, Administrators
Related topic: Migrate from Canvas
In some cases, video files from Canvas were not coming over during conversion. We have resolved this issue for those converting to both Original and Ultra courses.
For administrators: This feature is available for all Original and Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
