Looking for the latest release information? Check out the Blackboard Learn SaaS release notes feed.
More on Learn with the SaaS Deployment | How to enable the Ultra experience
Browse the list of features or view the maintenance items.
You can also see our instructions to create and export a list of Known Issues in Behind the Blackboard.
Learn SaaS release 3900.2.0: Update to client Test/Stage environments
We’re applying an updated version of 3900.2.0 (full release number 3900.2.0-rel.25+e0228f9) to client test/stage servers on Tuesday, December 1, 2020.
Updates in this version include:
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In the Original Course View, when an instructor edited response feedback to a test question, the content editor loaded after a 2-second delay. We’ve fixed the issue.
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When an institution had the same entityID configured in their IDP and SP metadata, SAML authentication failed and users couldn’t log in. We’ve fixed the issue.
Learn SaaS release 3900.2.0: Update to client Test/Stage environments
We’re applying an updated version of 3900.2.0 (full release number 3900.2.0-rel.20+e43df0f) to client test/stage servers on Tuesday, November 24, 2020.
Updates in this version include:
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The download button for the Insight Report (Beta) for administrators wouldn't respond or create a CSV. We've fixed the issue.
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When restoring a merged course from an archive, Learn only restored the parent course and not its child course(s). We've fixed the issue.
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A few institutions that use the Consulting Central B2 for Blackboard Assist saw slow performance and some downtime in Learn. We've fixed the issue.
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Existing and newly created web links in Library modules were throwing an error when clicked. We've fixed the issue.
Learn SaaS release 3900.0.0: Update to client Production environments
We’re applying an updated version of 3900.0.0 (full release number 3900.0.0-rel.60+0c79e9e) to client Production servers during off-hours on Monday, November 23, 2020.
Updates in this version include:
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A few institutions that use the Consulting Central B2 for Blackboard Assist saw slow performance and some downtime in Learn. We’ve fixed the issue.
Learn SaaS release 3900.0.0: Update to client Production environments
We’re applying an updated version of 3900.0.0 (full release number 3900.0.0-rel.57+59c5f28) to client Production servers during off-hours on Wednesday, November 18, 2020.
Updates in this version include:
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When an instructor copied a journal from one Ultra course to another, all journals from the first course were copied to the second. We’ve fixed the issue.
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In the Ultra Course View, some Collaborate sessions didn’t appear in the Join Session overflow menu. We’ve fixed the issue.
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In the Original Course View, response feedback for the Grade Questions feature of the Grade Center was missing the new content editor, and text entered into the box there wouldn’t save. We’ve fixed the issue.
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Unannotated Box documents wouldn’t load in Bb Annotate. We’ve fixed the issue.
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The download button for the Insight Report (Beta) for administrators wouldn’t respond or create a CSV. We’ve fixed the issue.
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When restoring a merged course from an archive, Learn only restored the parent course and not its child course(s). We’ve fixed the issue.
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When a Redis connection failed, Learn didn't attempt to reconnect, so users had to manually retry their task. We’ve fixed the issue.
Fixed issues
The bug fixes in this Learn release include:
- When D2L course content was imported into an Ultra course, document heading formatting was lost. We’ve fixed the issue.
- In an Ultra course, when a user not enrolled creates a discussion, the system throws an error when a student tries to access it: “Oops! Something broke. Please reload the page.” Now, the discussion board opens without error.
- In the Ultra Course View, students couldn’t navigate to the next course content item from a discussion board post if conditional availability was set. We’ve fixed the issue.
- The Course List / My Courses module was missing from the main Courses tab on the Institution Pages during the upgrade process. We’ve fixed the issue.
- When an instructor exported a single question pool with a special character from the Original Course View, the pool wouldn’t import as a question bank to an Ultra course. 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 3900.2.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.
LTI tool availability by institutional hierarchy
Administrators can now manage the availability of third-party LTI tools according to their institutional hierarchy, similar to how they can with Building Block tools. Administrators can control availability of tools by department or course in Admin Panel > Institutional Hierarchy. Original Course View courses continue to allow instructors to override the availability state of tools if allowed. Tool availability in Ultra Course View courses is always managed by the administrator. The options when managing LTI tool availability settings have been updated to reflect these differences.
Learn SaaS release 3900.0.0: Update to client Test/Stage environments
We’re applying an updated version of 3900.0.0 (full release number 3900.0.0-rel.18+41e3877) to client Test/Stage servers during off-hours on Tuesday, October 20, 2020.
Updates in this version include:
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In the Ultra Course View with the Spanish language pack, a grade calculation in the Ultra gradebook was incorrectly labeled as NaN. We’ve fixed the issue.
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Some Learn environments that use the Partner Cloud Building Block had problems with content sync. We've fixed the issue.
Learn SaaS release 3800.19.0: Update to client Production environments
We’re applying an updated version of 3800.19.0 (full release number 3800.19.0-rel.51+4456ac1) to client Production servers during off-hours on Thursday, October 15, 2020.
Updates in this version include:
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We've integrated Xythos Service Packs 20 and 21, which introduce internal improvements to the content system.
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The verbosity level of new log nodes reverted to the default initial value instead of matching the level set in Log Settings. We've fixed the issue.
Assist
As students re-engage in their disrupted educational experience, they'll need student services more than ever. At some institutions, these services will be virtual for the first time. Blackboard Assist is a student success hub for campus and online resources, available on your desktop or from anywhere with the Blackboard mobile app. Assist elevates campus and online resources, building awareness so students always find what they need.
Assist supports your educational continuity plans with institutional, Blackboard-sourced, and partner-provided solutions. Institutions can create and feature profiles of their existing services to appear in Assist. Assist also provides access to partner services: curated, high-quality providers offering scalable, virtual solutions to meet student needs. Administrators can manage available partner services that best benefit their students.
Assist will be available in Learn SaaS for higher education institutions in the Original Experience, the Ultra Experience, and the Blackboard app. At this time, it won't be available for K12, corporate, and government clients.
We encourage you to start planning the services you would promote in Assist, connecting with the offices that manage your student services including academic and financial assistance, health and wellness, housing and food security, and student life.
In future releases, Assist will adapt to users and offer personalized recommendations in places of learning such as in courses, the gradebook, and the activity stream.
More on Assist for instructors
More on Assist for administrators
Visit the Community site for more details and guides you can use to share information on Assist
Content editor updates
This release introduces big updates to the content editor in the Original Course View and the Original experience. We’ve made numerous simplifications and improvements, including:
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A single menu to add content that automatically recognizes file types
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Optimized experience for all devices and screen sizes
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Better accessibility for both the editor and the content you create. Menus and icons have higher contrast, pop-ups are gone, and an accessibility checker lets you know about accessibility issues as you write
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The ability to paste content from Word, Excel, and websites with basic formatting and easily remove extra HTML
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The ability to paste a link in the editor and automatically embed videos and previews
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The ability to display formatted computer code snippets
Institutions using custom language packs created for older versions of Learn have found they may need to update their language packs for the editor to work properly.
API updates
We’ve made some noteworthy API updates, including:
- Institutions and partners can now provide students direct, deep links to specific Learn course content from their own portal or tool.
Maintenance items
You can view 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 3900.0.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.
Learn SaaS release 3800.19.0: Update to client Production environments
We’re applying an updated version of 3800.19.0 (full release number 3800.19.0-rel.42+e227a86) to client Production servers during off-hours on Thursday, October 8, 2020.
Updates in this version include:
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Emailed course announcements in both the Original and Ultra Course Views now include both the course name and the title of the announcement in the email subject.
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The calculated grade snapshot information didn't update correctly in courses that use the Telemetry B2. We've fixed the issue.
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Learn environments ran out of memory when archiving courses with large volumes of activity accumulator records. We've fixed the issue.
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In the Ultra Course View, students couldn’t navigate to the next course content item from a discussion board post if conditional availability was set. We’ve fixed the issue.
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In the Ultra Course View, users who had system permission to create materials but were not enrolled in a course couldn’t add permanent files to a course. We’ve fixed the issue.
Learn SaaS release 3800.19.0: Update to client Test/Stage environments
We’re applying an updated version of 3800.19.0 (full release number 3800.19.0-rel.32+99f4ccd) to client Test/Stage servers during off-hours on Tuesday, September 29, 2020.
Updates in this version include:
- We’ve added unique login counts for the previous 30, 90, and 180 days to the Learn Insight Report.
- In the Ultra Course View, some replies weren’t visible in discussions. We’ve fixed the issue.
- In the Ultra Course View, some users’ discussion response and reply counts didn’t appear correctly. We’ve fixed the issue.
- In the Ultra Course View, some users’ profiles and activity in discussions appeared as though the users were unavailable. We’ve fixed the issue.
- In the Original Course View, discussion forum links that were broken during a course copy couldn’t be removed from the new course. We’ve fixed the issue.
- When an instructor reverted a course back to the Original Course View from Ultra Course Preview, a lost association with the course data source key caused problems with SIS integration. We’ve fixed the issue.
- Some users at institutions that use SSO with the SAML Building Block had trouble logging in to their Learn environments. We’ve fixed the issue.
Changes to deleted file retention period
With this release, Blackboard will change the content collection system’s deleted file retention period from 45 days to 32 days on clients' Learn SaaS sites. This change will reduce the amount of storage used by client sites and bring our retention period in line with the Learn SaaS Service Level Agreements data retention period. The change will not impact course auto archives or active course data.
Maintenance items
You can view 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 3800.19.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.
Learn SaaS release 3800.17.0: Update to client Test/Stage environments
We’re applying an updated version of 3800.17.0 (full release number 3800.17.0-rel.17+ca99c4d) to client Test/Stage servers during off-hours on Tuesday, September 1, 2020.
Updates in this version include:
- For some administrators, the Insight Report (Beta) displayed 0 for Auto-Archived Courses and Organizations and Days of logs available instead of the correct count. We've fixed the issue.
- In the Original Course View, when an instructor quoted a post with embedded files, students couldn't access the files from the instructor's reply. We’ve fixed the issue.
- Some environments encountered short periods of downtime after RDS maintenance. We've fixed the issue.
Learn SaaS release 3800.15.0: Update to client Production environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3800.15.0 (full release number 3800.15.0-rel.32+577dd66) to client Production servers during off-hours on Thursday, August 27, 2020.
Updates in this version include:
- In the Ultra Course View, when partner content was used in a course, some content provider options didn't display in the Content Market. We've fixed the issue.
- In the Ultra Course View, Vimeo videos wouldn't embed in course content. We've fixed the issue.
- For some administrators, the Insight Report (Beta) displayed 0 for Auto-Archived Courses and Organizations and Days of logs available instead of the correct count. We've fixed the issue.
Learn SaaS release 3800.15.0: Update to client Production environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3800.15.0 (full release number 3800.15.0-rel.30+8445ff0) to client Production servers during off-hours on Thursday, August 20, 2020.
Updates in this version include:
- Some users couldn’t log in to their Learn environment when a SAML SSO provider was created as inactive and then was set to active. We’ve fixed the issue.
- In the Original Experience, SAML logout pages displayed in the default language instead of a user's preferred language. We've fixed the issue.
Learn SaaS release 3800.17.0: Update to client Test/Stage environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3800.17.0 (full release number 3800.17.0-rel.11+9b66d12) to client Test/Stage servers during off-hours on Tuesday, August 18, 2020.
Updates in this version include:
- In the Original Experience, forgotten password emails for custom, secondary brand domains incorrectly sent users to the main brand domain. We've fixed the issue.
- In the Ultra Course View, content added with LTI tools wouldn't open with learning module navigation. We’ve fixed the issue.
- Some users couldn’t log in to their Learn environment when a SAML SSO provider was created as inactive and then was set to active. We’ve fixed the issue.
Learn SaaS release 3800.15.0: Update to client Production environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3800.15.0 (full release number 3800.15.0-rel.28+ba39496) to client Production servers during off-hours on Thursday, August 13, 2020.
Updates in this version include:
- In the Original Experience, forgotten password emails for custom, secondary brand domains incorrectly sent users to the main brand domain. We've fixed the issue.
- In the Ultra Course View, content added with LTI tools wouldn't open with learning module navigation. We’ve fixed the issue.
API updates
We’ve made some noteworthy API updates, including:
- We added the ability to create, update, or delete institutional hierarchy node associations between courses and Institutional Hierarchy nodes.
- We enhanced the public assignment APIs to support SafeAssign options, which aligns with the functionality offered in the user interface.
Enhancements to course archive and restore
This update makes the archive process more comprehensive. Now, archives gather data for users who may have dropped the course during the term, which provides a fuller picture of user activity in restored courses for records and reviews.
When an archive is restored, course and enrollment records are returned to the enablement state at the time of the archive creation. User records that match with existing accounts will be linked during the restore process, but the existing user’s enablement state will not change. As before, if records are disabled and locked, an administrator will need to enable records in Learn to review them.
H5P added to list of embedded media
With this release, H5P has been added to the list of supported embedded media in the text editor.
Learn SaaS release 3800.17.0: Update to release notes
We prematurely announced that version 3800.17.0 would contain Assist, a student success hub for campus and online resources. We are still testing this feature, and it’s targeted for release in the near future. We apologize for the confusion.
Learn SaaS release 3800.15.0: Update to client Test/Stage environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3800.15.0 (full release number 3800.15.0-rel.24+b25671a) to client Test/Stage servers during off-hours on Tuesday, August 4, 2020.
Updates in this version include:
- We’ve improved system performance and stability for institutions with very large courses (many students and many content items).
Learn SaaS release 3800.13.0: Update to client Production environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3800.13.0 (full release number 3800.13.0-rel.29+ffe3614) to client Production servers during off-hours on Thursday, July 23, 2020.
Updates in this version include:
- Some SIS feed files were blocked and couldn't update information in Learn. We've fixed the issue.
- Courses with missing resources couldn’t be deleted because the archive process couldn’t complete. We’ve fixed the issue.
Learn SaaS release 3800.15.0: Update to client Test/Stage environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3800.15.0 (full release number 3800.15.0-rel.21+8a56e93) to client Test/Stage servers during off-hours on Tuesday, July 21, 2020.
Updates in this version include:
- Some SIS feed files were blocked and couldn't update information in Learn. We've fixed the issue.
- Courses with missing resources couldn’t be deleted because the archive process couldn’t complete. We’ve fixed the issue.
Bb Annotate release to Singapore Polymall environments shifted
The release of Bb Annotate to Singapore Polymall environments has been shifted by one week. It will be available in Test/Stage environments beginning on July 20, 2020, and in Production environments beginning July 27, 2020.
The detailed release plan on Behind the Blackboard and the Community site has been updated to reflect this change.
To learn about Bb Annotate, visit the Bb Annotate Communication & Adoption Toolkit.
More on how to review instructor feedback in Bb Annotate for Students
Learn SaaS release 3800.13.0: Update to client Production environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3800.13.0 (full release number 3800.13.0-rel.26+bfd99e6) to client Production servers during off-hours on Thursday, July 16, 2020.
Updates in this version include:
- In the Original Experience, some users still saw incorrect column headers and missing data in exported Outcomes Assessment reports. We've fixed the issue.
- In the Ultra Experience, only two lines of a course announcement displayed at a time. We've fixed the issue.
Learn SaaS release 3800.15.0: Update to client Test/Stage environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3800.15.0 (full release number 3800.15.0-rel.15+49a56b1) to client Test/Stage servers during off-hours on Tuesday, July 14, 2020.
Updates in this version include:
- In the Original Experience, some users still saw incorrect column headers and missing data in exported Outcomes Assessment reports. We've fixed the issue.
API updates
We’ve made some noteworthy API updates, including:
- We added the ability to create, update, or delete institutional hierarchy nodes. We also added the ability to create child nodes for a specific NodeId, and delete and update institutional hierarchy nodes by NodeId.
Maintenance items
You can view 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 3800.15.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.
SOAP Web Services API removal
Please note that in the August 2020 Learn release, as part of the removal of SOAP Web Services APIs from Learn, we are removing the following Java APIs which have been deprecated since 2015:
- CourseCategoryMembershipLoader
- CourseCategoryMembershipPersister
- OrganizationCategoryLoader
- OrganizationCategoryMembershipLoader
- OrganizationCategoryMembershipPersister
- OrganizationCategoryPersister
Learn SaaS release 3800.15.0: Delay for Continuous Delivery release to Test/Staging environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re delaying the Blackboard Learn SaaS 3800.15.0 Continuous Delivery release to Test/Stage servers, previously scheduled for July 7, 2020, until Wednesday, July 8, 2020. The release schedule has been updated to reflect this change.
Learn SaaS release 3800.13.0: Update to client Test/Stage environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3800.13.0 (full release number 3800.13.0-rel.23+f2b803a) to client Test/Stage servers during off-hours on Tuesday, June 30, 2020.
Updates in this version include:
- In the Original Experience, some SIS integrations didn't process feed files. We’ve fixed the issue.
- In the Original Experience, administrators couldn’t see the result categories in an enterprise survey results report. We’ve fixed the issue.
- In the Ultra Course View, certain assessment settings (like rubrics, delegated grading, and peer review) were disabled when an instructor added presentation-only content. We’ve fixed the issue.
Learn SaaS release 3800.11.0: Update to client Production environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3800.11.0 (full release number 3800.11.0-rel.35+a142044) to client Production servers during off-hours on Thursday, June 25, 2020.
Updates in this version include:
- In the Original Experience, some students couldn’t access enterprise surveys. We’ve fixed the issue.
Learn SaaS release 3800.13.0: Update to client Test/Stage environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3800.13.0 (full release number 3800.13.0-rel.17+e9dcbb4) to client Test/Stage servers during off-hours on Tuesday, June 23, 2020.
Updates in this version include:
- In the Ultra Experience, users couldn't access the date picker to edit a date. We've fixed the issue.
- In the Original Course View, some grades entered as letters were incorrectly changed to the next highest letter grade. We’ve fixed the issue.
- In the Original Experience, the exported Outcomes Assessment report had some incorrect column headers and was missing data. We've fixed the issue.
- In the Original Experience, some students couldn’t access enterprise surveys. We’ve fixed the issue.
- We enhanced logging for the SAML B2.
Learn SaaS release 3800.11.0: Update to client Production environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3800.11.0 (full release number 3800.11.0-rel.34+e7b8bbb) to client Production servers during off-hours on Thursday, June 18, 2020.
Updates in this version include:
- In the Original Course View, when a Learn instance used custom brands or themes based on the 2012 theme, users couldn't see links under the Course Control Panel. We've fixed the issue.
- In the Original Course View, some grades entered as letters were incorrectly changed to the next highest letter grade. We’ve fixed the issue.
- In the Original Experience, the exported Outcomes Assessment report had some incorrect column headers and was missing data. We've fixed the issue.
Bb Annotate release to international Production environments
Bb Annotate will be released to international Production environments starting on Monday, June 15, 2020.
The release is staggered by Regional Data Centers. To find your specific date, consult the detailed release plan on Behind the Blackboard or the Community site.
To learn about Bb Annotate, visit the Bb Annotate Communication & Adoption Toolkit.
More on how to review instructor feedback in Bb Annotate for Students
Cumulative Update 4 for FDO Q4 2019 (release 3800.0.4)
Cumulative Update (CU) 4 for the Q4 2019 Flexible Deployment Option (FDO) release of Blackboard Learn SaaS is available.
API updates
We’ve made some noteworthy API updates, including:
- We added the ability to provide public APIs to Read Institutional Hierarchy Nodes.
- We added the ability to provide APIs to access and manage user avatars.
Maintenance items
You can view 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 3800.13.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.
Learn SaaS release 3800.11.0: Update to client Test/Staging environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3800.11.0 (full release number 3800.11.0-rel.23+7619f1a) to client Test/Stage servers during off-hours on Tuesday, June 2, 2020.
Updates in this version include:
- Files attached to discussion threads replaced existing discussion files when copied into existing courses. We've fixed the issue.
- In the Original Course View, when an instructor created a test from a question set, they couldn't add more than one question. We've fixed the issue.
- Some administrators saw large numbers of assignment submission exceptions in their logs. We’ve added log information to help determine the sources of those exceptions.
Learn SaaS release 3800.11.0: Update to client Test/Staging environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3800.11.0 (full release number 3800.11.0-rel.13+dc44ed6) to client Test/Stage servers during off-hours on Tuesday, May 26, 2020.
Updates in this version include:
- In the Ultra Course View, students with special characters in their name couldn't launch a test in Respondus LockDown Browser. We've fixed the issue.
- In the Original Course View, instructors couldn't enter maximum points for a graded discussion thread. We've fixed the issue.
- Some administrators still saw "New Box View" as their building block title after Bb Annotate was turned on. We've fixed the issue.
Bb Annotate release to U.S. Production environments and international Test/Staging environments
Bb Annotate will be released to U.S. Production environments starting on Tuesday, May 26, 2020.
Bb Annotate will also be released to international Test/Stage environments starting on Wednesday, May 27, 2020.
The release is staggered by Regional Data Centers. To find your specific date, consult the detailed release plan on Behind the Blackboard or the Community site.
To learn about Bb Annotate, visit the Bb Annotate Communication & Adoption Toolkit.
More on how to review instructor feedback in Bb Annotate for Students
Maintenance items
You can view 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 3800.11.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.
Cumulative Update 3 for FDO Q4 2019 (release 3800.0.3)
Cumulative Update (CU) 3 for the Q4 2019 Flexible Deployment Option (FDO) release of Blackboard Learn SaaS is available.
Learn SaaS release 3800.9.0: Update to client Test/Staging environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3800.9.0 (full release number 3800.9.0-rel.24+a58123a) to client Test/Staging servers during off-hours on Tuesday, May 5, 2020.
Updates in this version include:
- We changed the title of a basic usage report for Learn administrators. It's now called Insight Report (Beta). Learn more about where to find the report and how to read it.
- In the Original Course View, some tests got stuck in "In Progress" status, so instructors couldn't end attempts or grade them. We've fixed the issue.
- Some Learn instances didn't receive grade events information from Caliper. We’ve fixed the issue.
- Custom SafeHTML filters reverted to the default policy with certain SaaS upgrades. We've fixed the issue.
Bb Annotate release to U.S. Test/Staging environments
Bb Annotate will be released to U.S. Test and Stage environments starting on Monday, May 4, 2020. More information on the Bb Annotate release plan can be found on Behind the Blackboard and the Community site.
To learn about Bb Annotate, visit the Bb Annotate Communication & Adoption Toolkit.
More on how to review instructor feedback in Bb Annotate for Students
Learn SaaS release 3800.9.0: Update to client Test/Staging environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3800.9.0 (full release number 3800.9.0-rel.17+0de27ea) to client Test/Staging servers during off-hours on Tuesday, April 28, 2020.
Updates in this version include:
- Administrators couldn't send SMS or text-to-voice notifications to users through Connect for Learn. We've fixed the issue.
- Some Learn instances had performance issues related to mobile Notifications. We’ve fixed the issue.
Learn SaaS release 3800.9.0: Update to client Test/Staging environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3800.9.0 (full release number 3800.9.0-rel.13+116516d) to client Test/Staging servers during off-hours on Tuesday, April 21, 2020.
Updates in this version include:
- A basic usage report for Learn administrators on system usage and storage. Learn more about where to find the report and how to read it.
- Improved dynamic flow control for better system resiliency and efficient database queries.
- In the Original Course View, the Overall Summary of User Activity report only listed the Guest user in the Access/Date graphic. We've fixed the issue.
- In the Original Course View, course content that used adaptive release with groups created an unwanted membership criterion that blocked student access to the content. We've fixed the issue.
API updates
We've made some noteworthy API updates, including:
- We added the ability to search and sort on the timestamp when a course membership was modified. Developers can increase efficiencies in report generation, audit completion, and membership information display.
- We redesigned the Groups API and separated Groups and GroupSets. Now, developers will have easier access to Groups in a GroupSet and behavior that better resembles how the Learn interface presents Groups.
Visit the Developer site for full REST API documentation.
Maintenance items
You can view 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 3800.9.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.
Learn SaaS release 3800.6.0: Update to client Production environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3800.6.0 (full release number 3800.6.0-rel.16+f1c0e8e) to client Production servers during off-hours on Thursday, April 9, 2020.
Updates in this version include:
- In the Ultra Course View, some students' participation in gradable discussions didn't report correctly to the gradebook. We've fixed the issue.
- Some fixes behind the scenes to keep your environments tidy.
Learn SaaS release 3800.6.0: Update to client Test/Staging environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3800.6.0 (full release number 3800.6.0-rel.16+f1c0e8e) to client Test/Staging servers during off-hours on Tuesday, April 7, 2020.
Updates in this version include some fixes behind the scenes to keep your environments tidy.
Cumulative Update 2 for FDO Q4 2019 (release 3800.0.2)
Cumulative Update (CU) 2 for the Q4 2019 Flexible Deployment Option (FDO) release of Blackboard Learn SaaS is available.
Adjust first day of the week in the calendar
Different global regions have different calendar conventions, including which day displays as the first day of the week. With this release, Blackboard calendars will display the most common convention for the first day of the week based on a user's selected language. Users will be able to see the change in the month and day views of both their overall and individual course calendars. The date picker display will also change in the Ultra Course View and for administrator notifications in the Ultra Experience.
Users can change their language in the user profile. Administrators can customize the first day of the week for their language pack if they choose.
Global logout with SAML authentication providers
Library upgrades in our SAML authentication provider B2 could affect the first logout attempt of any Learn user session created through a SAML authentication provider with Global Logout support. If a user's session was established before the library upgrade, they won't be able to log out of their SSO session through Learn the first time they try. On first logout, users will be presented with a page that informs them that their SSO session is still active.
Users can log out through the identity provider, or they can log in again, which will present them with the option to log out of their SSO session.
Maintenance items
You can view 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 3800.6.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.
Learn SaaS release 3800.4.0: Update to client Test/Staging environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3800.4.0 (full release number 3800.4.0-rel.32+1b0447c) to client Test/Staging servers during off-hours on Tuesday, March 3, 2020.
Updates in this version include:
- When an Original Course used two percentage range rubrics, the second rubric didn’t always have the correct total number of points. We’ve fixed the issue.
- If a user changed their password through their SIS using encryption methods other than SSHA, they could be kicked out of their session after logging back in. We’ve fixed the issue.
Learn SaaS release 3800.4.0: Update to client Test/Staging environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3800.4.0 (full release number 3800.4.0-rel.26+312e74d) to client Test/Staging servers during off-hours on Tuesday, February 25, 2020.
Updates in this version include:
- Some integrations using LTI 1.3 deep link couldn't launch a needed resource link. We've fixed the issue.
- Column headers in the Ultra grade center were duplicated after an administrator customized the colors in their institutional brand. We’ve fixed the issue.
- Some users couldn't see their avatar thumbnails in the users and groups section of the Original Course View. We've fixed the issue.
Learn SaaS release 3800.2.0: Update to client Production environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3800.2.0 (full release number 3800.2.0-rel.25+95332d7) to client Production servers during off-hours on Thursday, February 20, 2020.
Updates in this version include:
- Some administrators encountered LDAP authentication problems because the TLS connection failed. We’ve fixed the issue.
Learn SaaS release 3800.4.0: Update to client Test/Staging environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3800.4.0 (full release number 3800.4.0-rel.20+6b6dbf5) to client Test/Staging servers during off-hours on Tuesday, February 18, 2020.
Updates in this version include:
- In the Ultra Course View, instructors were informed that their institution had made messages read-only for students in English instead of their selected language. We’ve fixed the issue.
- Some administrators saw a both successful and a failed login for each sign-in attempt in their authentication logs. We’ve fixed the issue.
- Some administrators encountered LDAP authentication problems because the TLS connection failed. We’ve fixed the issue.
- Issues with file uploads and downloads in the Ultra Course View:
- Some users saw the upload icon buffering even though they could upload and download files. We’ve fixed the issue.
- Some students couldn’t download files they added to essay questions. We’ve fixed the issue.
- Issue with grading in the Ultra Course View:
- Some student submissions reordered randomly while an instructor was grading. We’ve fixed the issue.
- Issues with file uploads and downloads in the Original Course View:
- Some users couldn’t upload files with % in the filename. We’ve fixed the issue.
- Some users couldn’t download files attached to submissions that use Box view. We’ve fixed the issue.
Learn SaaS release 3800.2.0: Update to client Production environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3800.2.0 (full release number 3800.2.0-rel.24+29cd420) to client Production servers during off-hours on Thursday, February 13, 2020.
Updates in this version include:
- In the Original Experience, the last login date wasn’t updating accurately for users with cloud profiles. We’ve fixed the issue.
- In the Ultra Course View, some users couldn’t see images they added to the text editor until their content was posted or submitted. We’ve fixed the issue.
- Issues with file uploads and downloads in the Ultra Course View:
- Some users saw the upload icon buffering even though they could upload and download files. We’ve fixed the issue.
- Some users couldn’t download files they had previously uploaded if the filename contained a special character. We’ve fixed the issue.
- Some students couldn’t download files they added to essay questions. We’ve fixed the issue.
- Issues with grading in the Ultra Course View:
- Some student submissions reordered randomly while an instructor was grading. We’ve fixed the issue.
- Some instructors encountered a blank screen after entering a grade for a student assignment that had multiple attempts. We’ve fixed the issue.
- Some instructors didn’t see entered grades in the gradebook until they refreshed the page. We’ve fixed the issue.
- Issues with file uploads and downloads in the Original Course View:
- Some users couldn’t upload files with % in the filename. We’ve fixed the issue.
- Some users couldn’t download files attached to submissions that use Box view. We’ve fixed the issue.
Maintenance items
You can view 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 3800.4.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.
Cumulative Update 1 for FDO Q4 2019 (release 3800.0.1)
Cumulative Update (CU) 1 for the Q4 2019 Flexible Deployment Option (FDO) release of Blackboard Learn SaaS is available.
Learn SaaS release 3800.2.0: Update to client Production environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3800.2.0 (full release number 3800.2.0-rel.20+2226729) to some client Production servers during off-hours beginning Thursday, February 6, 2020. This update will be applied to clients in the following regions or time zones:
- Americas Central
- Americas Mountain
- Americas Pacific
- Asia and Oceania
- Europe, Middle East, and Africa
Updates in this version include:
- In the Original Course View, users couldn’t access pre-existing course glossaries. We’ve fixed the issue.
- In the Ultra Course View, some users couldn't view inline or download files attached to essay questions if the file names had certain special characters. We’ve fixed the issue.
- In the Ultra Course View, some users couldn’t view inline or download files with New Box View. We’ve fixed the issue.
- Some assignments submitted through SafeAssign got stuck in In Progress status and the submission didn’t complete. We’ve fixed the issue.
- Users accessing Learn with the Google Chrome 80 beta release had trouble with SAML login authentication. We’ve fixed the issue.
Phased release schedule for 3800.2.0 Production environments
The 3800.2.0 Production release will be divided by region or time zone to ensure release quality. All upgrades will occur during off-hours in each region or time zone.
- Asia, Oceania, Europe, Middle East, and Africa: By region.
- Americas: By four major time zones, Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific.
- If your institution lies outside one of these time zones, you'll be included with the nearest time zone. For example, clients in the Atlantic time zone will be upgraded with the Eastern time zone.
- Americas Eastern time zone: In three groups.
- These groups are alphabetical by the official name of your institution on file with Blackboard. If you want to confirm the name we have, please log in to Behind the Blackboard and select My Account > My Institution. Your institution name is displayed in the upper-left corner with your client ID number.
| Date | Group | Local Start Time* |
|---|---|---|
| Monday, February 3, 2020 | Americas Central Americas Mountain Americas Pacific |
Early Morning After 2 AM CST After 2 AM MST After 2 AM PST |
Asia and Oceania Europe, Middle East, and Africa |
Evening After 17:00 SGT / 20:00 AEDT After 17:00 CET |
|
| Thursday, February 6, 2020 | Americas Eastern Group #1 (institution names A–G) Americas Eastern Group #2 (institution names H–R) Americas Eastern Group #3 (institution names S–Z) |
Evening After 5:00 PM EST |
Maintenance items
You can view 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 3800.2.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.
Learn SaaS release 3700.16.0: Update to client Production environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3700.16.0 (full release number 3700.16.0-rel.52+5c69d6d) to client Production servers during off-hours on Thursday, January 2, 2020.
Updates in this version include:
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Some administrators couldn’t export the student goal performance report from the Administrator panel. We’ve fixed the issue.
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In the Original Course View, some instructors encountered error messages when they created calculated questions that use predefined calculus functions. We’ve fixed the issue.
API assessment attempts filter
With this update, API users can view and filter a list of assessment attempts based on when the attempt was created, modified, or submitted.
Java 11 JDK and Building Blocks
As we have previously announced, Blackboard Learn’s 3800.0.0 release uses a new version of Java, Java 11 JDK. Java are the libraries on which the Learn application runs and also the libraries that power Building Blocks, the add-on tools and features you may use in your environment. We’re implementing Java 11 to improve security and performance. Staying on recently updated libraries is crucial to staying ahead of those who may try to compromise your learning environment.
This important update can impact custom and third-party add-on tools using the Building Blocks (B2) integration framework, and we strongly encourage all clients and partners who use Building Blocks to test them with Java 11. We’ve extended the time 3800.0.0 will stay on Test/Staging servers to allow more time to test Building Blocks (see the Learn SaaS CD Release Schedule).
To help identify potential incompatibilities with third-party add-ons, we’ve developed a Building Block scanning tool. While the tool doesn’t replace functional testing, it can help developers understand what changes need to be made if issues are found with a Building Block. Because the tool can be resource-intensive, it should only be run on your staging or test environment.
For additional resources on Java 11 testing and details about the Building Block scanning tool, visit the Developer portal.
Maintenance items
You can view 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 3800.0.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.
Learn SaaS release 3700.16.0: Partial delay for Continuous Delivery release to Production environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re delaying the Blackboard Learn SaaS 3700.16.0 Continuous Delivery release to client Production servers for US East customers, previously scheduled for December 5, 2019. All Continuous Delivery client Production servers will receive an updated version of the 3700.16.0 release during off-hours on Wednesday, December 18, 2019.
More information on the delay available on Behind the Blackboard
Updates in this version include:
- Students and instructors using the Ultra Course View couldn’t download file submissions. We’ve fixed the issue.
- Some instructors couldn’t access Message attachments in the Original Course View. We’ve fixed the issue.
- In the Ultra Course View, when an instructor graded one assignment and moved on to the next, the first assignment displayed again instead of the next one. We’ve fixed the issue.
- Instructors couldn’t copy more than 50 questions into a new test in the Ultra Course View. We’ve fixed the issue.
- The Rustici fix for Chrome was included in 2017.1.67. This version was applied to 3700.16, 3700.0.5, 3500.0.9, 3400.0.14 versions of the Learn product. Customers that upgrade to these versions won't be impacted by the future Chrome release.
Learn SaaS release 3700.16.0: Addition to client Production release
As part of our commitment to release quality, the scheduled Production release of 3700.16.0 (full release number 3700.16.0-rel.33+fdffbe0) during off-hours on Thursday, December 5, 2019 will include an additional update.
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Users of some LTI tools couldn’t create LTI content or use services because the tools weren’t properly validated. We've fixed the issue.
Learn SaaS release 3700.16.0: Update to client Test/Staging environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3700.16.0 (full release number 3700.16.0-rel.25+b897566) to client Test/Staging servers during off-hours on Tuesday, November 26, 2019.
Updates in this version include:
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Some users got an error message when they downloaded student submissions in certain file formats. We've fixed the issue.
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Some LTI 1.3 workflows didn't launch from Partner Cloud Settings. We've fixed the issue.
Maintenance items
You can view 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 3700.16.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.
Cumulative Update 5 for FDO Q2 2019 (release 3700.0.5)
Cumulative Update (CU) 5 for the Q2 2019 Flexible Deployment Option (FDO) release of Blackboard Learn SaaS is available.
Learn SaaS release 3700.14.0: Update to client Test/Staging environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3700.14.0 (full release number 3700.14.0-rel.9+dce67da) to client Test/Staging servers during off-hours on Tuesday, November 5, 2019.
Updates in this version include:
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Some internal CSS files were processing incorrectly. We’ve fixed the issue.
Learn SaaS release 3700.11.0: Update to client Production environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3700.11.0 (full release number 3700.11.0-rel.19+09cd901) to client Production servers during off-hours on Thursday, October 31, 2019.
Learn SaaS release 3700.14.0: Update to client Test/Staging environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3700.14.0 (full release number 3700.14.0-rel.8+884e842) to client Test/Staging servers during off-hours on Tuesday, October 29, 2019.
Account lockout
In this release, by default Learn will lock user accounts after 5 failed login attempts. Administrators can disable the feature or edit its limits by selecting Account Lock Settings in the Administrator panel. Administrators can decide the maximum failed attempts allowed within a specified period. They can also choose how long accounts remain locked and whether accounts unlock automatically if users reset their passwords.
More on configuring Account Lock Settings
Guest Account can't be enrolled in courses
Previously, when an unauthenticated user accessed Blackboard Learn and the "Enable Guest" property was enabled they were associated with the "Guest" account. Instructors were able to enroll this "Guest" account in courses and organizations, circumventing application entitlement handling.
This account is a unique Blackboard System Level account that was never intended to be enrolled. Allowing this account to be enrolled meant possible data exposure to unauthenticated users as multiple un-authenticated users could be associated with the account.
Therefore, in this release we removed the ability for the "Guest" account to be enrolled in courses stopping potential data exposure concerns between unauthenticated users. Existing "Guest" account enrollments will remain and be visible to instructors and administrators so they can clean up these existing enrollments through the user interface.
Maintenance items
You can view 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 3700.14.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.
New icons
Iconography is incredibly important in Learn Ultra. The icon set we currently use was created when we first brought Ultra to the market. We've done a lot of research with our clients regarding what they liked and didn't like about the iconography in the system. Because of that feedback, we've made some adjustments to the icon set. Most notably, the new icons are darker and appear more prominently now.
Learn SaaS release 3700.11.0: Update to client Test/Staging environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3700.11.0 (full release number 3700.11.0-rel.10+be2cf60) to client Test/Stage servers during off-hours on Tuesday, September 17, 2019.
Updates in this version include:
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Blackboard Learn’s September 4 update introduced an issue with the LTI Advantage version of the Cengage integration for some institutions. The Blackboard gradebook didn’t always synchronize with graded student activities that used Cengage links created prior to the release. The Blackboard Learn September 17 update resolved the issue, and LTI Advantage with the Cengage integration functions as intended.
Additional updates
- Partners appearing in the Content Market can now leverage LTI Advantage for their association, even if a previous LTI 1.3 domain was registered through core Blackboard Learn.
Maintenance items
You can view 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 3700.11.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.
Learn SaaS release 3700.9.0: Update to client Production environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3700.9.0 (full release number 3700.9.0-rel.24+374338b) to client Production servers during off-hours on Thursday, September 12, 2019.
Updates in this version include:
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Blackboard Learn’s September 4 update introduced an issue with the LTI Advantage version of the Cengage integration for some institutions. The Blackboard gradebook didn’t always synchronize with graded student activities that used Cengage links created prior to the release. The Blackboard Learn September 12 update resolved the issue, and LTI Advantage with the Cengage integration functions as intended.
UPDATE: Upcoming changes to Open JDK and impact to Building Blocks in Learn SaaS deployments
To address recent changes in Oracle’s Java support model, Blackboard Learn is transitioning to adopt a more recent version of Java, Java 11 JDK. Our new target for adopting Java 11 is 3800.0.0. Please confirm release dates with the SaaS release schedule.
We strongly encourage all clients and partners who use Building Blocks to test them with Java 11. Partners and clients can access early builds of Learn with Java 11 by requesting to join the Learn SaaS Technical Preview program.
As part of this change, we are transitioning from the Oracle-supported version of Java 11 to the AWS-supported version of Java 11 called Corretto. This does not impact SaaS or Managed Hosting clients. Operational changes for self-hosted clients are minimal.
For further details on Java 11 Technical Preview testing with Building Blocks and Corretto changes for self-hosted clients, see the following articles:
View the Behind the Blackboard announcement
Join the conversation on Blackboard Community
We previously announced this change to Java 11 to be part of Blackboard Learn release 3600.0, scheduled for April 2019. Later, we'd communicated a new target of June 2019 followed by September 2019. Based on the results of testing with Technical Preview participants and our partners, we concluded that Java 11 adoption should be delayed further.
Previous announcements:
To address recent changes in Oracle’s Java support model, Blackboard Learn is transitioning to adopt the latest version of OpenJDK as it’s released. We previously announced this change with the introduction of OpenJDK 11 as part of Blackboard Learn release 3600.0, and later announced a new target of June 2019. Based on the results of initial testing with Technical Preview participants and our partners, we concluded that Java 11 adoption should be removed from those target releases due to compatibility issues with extensions. The delay allowed for continued testing to uphold the user experience and minimize disruptions.
For developers, partners, and institutions, testing Building Blocks for compatibility is highly recommended because libraries may have changed. For developers, recompiling Building Blocks using the updated Java libraries is also a best practice and should be performed for Java 11.
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We’re changing the way we adopt Java updates in Blackboard Learn. These changes start with Blackboard Learn SaaS release 3600.0 with the adoption of Open JDK 11.
While we expect that building blocks will continue to work as is, Blackboard is aware that some fundamental library changes could affect compatibility. To help ensure that you’re able to thoroughly test for these upcoming changes, we’re introducing a Learn SaaS Technical Preview program.
Partners in the Blackboard Developers’ Network (BbDN) should enter a support case requesting to participate in the program.
Cumulative Update 4 for FDO Q2 2019 (release 3700.0.4)
Cumulative Update (CU) 4 for the Q2 2019 Flexible Deployment Option (FDO) release of Blackboard Learn SaaS is available.
Cumulative Update 3 for FDO Q2 2019 (release 3700.0.3)
Cumulative Update (CU) 3 for the Q2 2019 Flexible Deployment Option (FDO) release of Blackboard Learn SaaS is available.
Learn SaaS release 3700.9.0: Update to client Test/Staging environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3700.9.0 (full release number 3700.9.0-rel.23+e0c105e) to client Test/Stage servers during off-hours on Tuesday, September 3, 2019.
Updates in this version include:
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Some mobile users saw an error message in the Activity Stream. We’ve fixed the issue.
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Some users couldn't customize their default brand in the Ultra Experience. We’ve fixed the issue.
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Users couldn't create new accounts on Open Education. We’ve fixed the issue.
Some users had trouble logging out in the Original Experience. We’ve fixed the issue.
Learn SaaS release 3700.9.0: Update to client Test/Staging environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3700.9.0 (full release number 3700.9.0-rel.16+4fb2947) to client Test/Stage servers during off-hours on Tuesday, August 27, 2019.
Updates in this version include:
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Users encountered an error message when saving changes to their default brand in the Ultra Experience. We’ve fixed the issue.
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Open Education pages returned errors site-wide. We’ve fixed the issue.
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Assessments took longer than usual to load in the Ultra Course View. We’ve fixed the issue.
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For users preparing to migrate to a SaaS deployment, the Move Legacy Content tool caused problems with Turnitin feedback. We’ve fixed the issue.
Learn SaaS release 3700.9.0: Delay for Continuous Delivery release to Test/Stage environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re delaying the Blackboard Learn SaaS 3700.9.0 Continuous Delivery release to client Test/Stage servers, previously scheduled for August 13, 2019. The new release date is August 15, 2019, two days later than previously announced. The release schedule has been updated to reflect this change.
Maintenance items
You can view 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 3700.9.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.
Learn SaaS release 3700.7.0: Update to client Production environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3700.7.0 (full release number 3700.7.0-rel.31+c948a62) to client Production servers during off-hours on Friday, August 30, 2019.
Updates in this version include:
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Users couldn't create new accounts on Open Education. We’ve fixed the issue.
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Open Education pages returned errors site-wide. We’ve fixed the issue.
Learn SaaS release 3700.7.0: Update to client Production environments
UPDATE: We have resolved the AWS resource issue affecting EU clients. All Learn SaaS Production instances should now have received the updated 3700.7.0 version.
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3700.7.0 (full release number 3700.7.0-rel.27+ce363ca) to client Production servers during off-hours on Wednesday, August 14, 2019.
Updates in this version include:
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Users experienced extremely slow response times during the upgrade. We’ve fixed the issue.
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The banner thumbnail image caused a large number of temporary files to fill the root file structure. We’ve fixed the issue.
Additional updates in the user interface
- When students open an assessment in the Ultra Course View, the Submit button is disabled until they add content or answer at least one question.
- When a student or instructor uses Box View in an assignment, it opens by default and displays using more screen space.
- We've added a display warning to help administrators identify when they are enabling a feature that may send data outside the specified compliance boundary. This allows administrators to make more informed decisions about the features they enable.
- We've changed the height of the Institution Page banner image to 160 pixels. Because screen size width varies on wider screens, the banner image crops the top and bottom of the image as the content area gets wider.
Learn SaaS release 3700.7.0: Update to client Test/Staging environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3700.7.0 (full release number 3700.7.0-rel.20+09250fe) to client Test/Staging servers during off-hours on Wednesday, July 31, 2019.
Updates in this version include:
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What's New blog notifications didn't display correctly. We’ve fixed the issue.
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Details on files uploaded to essay questions didn't display correctly. We've fixed the issue.
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The Redis cache building block didn't display status and statistics correctly in the Administrator panel. We've fixed the issue.
Learn SaaS release 3700.7.0: Update to client Test/Staging environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3700.7.0 (full release number 3700.7.0-rel.9+7230020) to client Test/Staging servers during off-hours on Tuesday, July 23, 2019.
Updates in this version include:
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Some users received an error message when opening the Grade Center. We’ve fixed the issue. More information on Behind the Blackboard.
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Instructors weren't able to edit anonymous Discussion Topics in the Ultra Course View. We've fixed the issue.
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Some custom Building Blocks weren’t reachable using the HttpAuthModule class. We’ve fixed the issue.
Maintenance items
You can view 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 3700.7.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.
Learn SaaS release 3700.5.0: Update to client Production environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3700.5.0 (full release number 3700.5.0-rel.17+4d20a83) to client Production servers during off-hours on Thursday, July 18, 2019.
Updates in this version include:
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Some custom Building Blocks weren’t reachable using the HttpAuthModule class. We’ve fixed the issue.
Learn SaaS release 3700.5.0: Update to client Test/Stage environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3700.5.0 (full release number 3700.5.0-rel.14+eacb9cf) to client Test/Staging servers during off-hours on Tuesday, July 2, 2019.
Updates in this version include:
The Discussion Board post count displayed inaccurately. We've fixed the issue.
Learn SaaS release 3700.5.0: Update to client Test/Stage environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3700.5.0 (full release number 3700.5.0-rel.12+64e9d47) to client Test and Staging servers during off-hours on Tuesday, June 25, 2019.
Updates in this version include:
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We’ve removed the Learn Legacy Authentication Provider type, which represented the authentication framework deployed on versions prior to 9.1 SP8.
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Instructors received error messages when they created a folder or downloaded a file with special characters in the filename with SafeAssign. We’ve fixed the issue.
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When a student submitted a file with spaces in the filename, the instructor couldn’t preview or download it in the Ultra Course View. We've fixed the issue. More information on Behind the Blackboard.
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A few improvements for Mobile users:
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Students using the Blackboard App received errors when starting an assignment attempt in the Original Course View. We’ve fixed the issue.
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Students using the Blackboard App on an Android device couldn’t see what they were typing in an assignment because the keyboard was hiding the rich text editor in the Ultra Course View. We've fixed the issue.
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Learn SaaS release 3700.3.0: Update to client Production environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3700.3.0 (full release number 3700.3.0-rel.9+2a83306) to client Production servers during off-hours on Friday, June 21, 2019.
Updates in this version include:
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When a student submitted a file with spaces in the filename, the instructor couldn’t preview or download it in the Ultra Course View. We've fixed the issue. More information on Behind the Blackboard.
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A few improvements for Mobile users:
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Students using the Blackboard App received errors when starting an assignment attempt in the Original Course View. We’ve fixed the issue.
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Students using the Blackboard App on an Android device couldn’t see what they were typing in an assignment because the keyboard was hiding the rich text editor in the Ultra Course View. We've fixed the issue.
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Maintenance items
You can view 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 3700.5.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.
Cumulative Update 2 for FDO Q2 2019 (release 3700.0.2)
Cumulative Update (CU) 2 for the Q2 2019 Flexible Deployment Option (FDO) release of Blackboard Learn SaaS is available.
New updates for Ally customers
The latest release of Ally (v. 1.31) contains improvements that may apply to your product. Visit the Ally release notes to learn more. Don't have Ally? Learn more about Ally.
Learn SaaS release 3500.0.5: Update to FDO client Production environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3500.0.5 (full release number 3500.0.5-rel.49+4a09578) to Flexible Deployment Option client Production servers. Your instance may be updated starting at 5:00PM EST on May 20, 2019.
Learn SaaS release 3700.3.0: Update to client Test/Staging environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3700.3.0 (full release number 3700.3.0-rel.7+29b16e7) to client Test/Staging servers. Your instance may be updated starting at 5:00AM EST on May 31, 2019.
Updates in this version include:
- When a student submitted multiple attempts on a test in quick succession, the system's responsiveness would slow or stop. We've fixed the issue.
- On the Courses page in the Ultra experience, longer course names were appearing with unexpected symbols. We've fixed the issue.
- A few improvements for custom themes in the Ultra experience:
- We've improved how custom themes are created and updated on the backend in the Ultra experience to improve performance.
- Deleted custom brands weren't being removed from the database properly, leading to unexpected behavior. We've fixed the issue.
- When an administrator uploaded a custom navigation logo, the custom login logo was cleared. We've fixed the issue.
- Some users reported losing the ability to upload a logo to the Institution Page. We've fixed the issue.
- The Institution Page associated with a custom brand wasn't available for administrators if modules weren't visible. We've fixed the issue.
Additional updates in the user interface
- Previously, the Courses page in the Ultra experience listed a user's oldest courses first. The order has been flipped and now the newest courses are listed first. If a user designates any courses as favorites, those courses still appear first in the list.
- To improve performance for system tasks, we’ve introduced new retention settings. You can configure how long your system retains information on asynchronous system tasks, including “complete,” “error,” and “incomplete” tasks. Find these options in Administrator Panel > Logs > System Tasks Status > Retention Settings.
- We’ve updated file behavior for Portfolios to improve performance. When a user downloads a portfolio, the assets will reference assets stored on Blackboard's content delivery network (CDN). File names will use https://learn.blackboardcdn.com/. Related updates are described on Behind the Blackboard.
Maintenance items
You can view 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 3700.3.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.
Cumulative Update 1 for FDO Q2 2019 (release 3700.0.1)
Cumulative Update (CU) 1 for the Q2 2019 Flexible Deployment Option (FDO) release of Blackboard Learn SaaS is available.
Learn SaaS release 3700.0.0: Update to FDO client Test/Stage environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3700.0.0 (full release number 3700.0.0-rel.23+4c6d4de) to Flexible Deployment Option client Test/Stage servers. Your instance may be updated starting at 5:00AM EST on May 15, 2019.
Learn SaaS release 3700.0.0: Update to client Test/Staging environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3700.0.0 (full release number 3700.0.0-rel.10+745b49a) to client Test/Staging servers. Your instance may be updated starting at 5:00AM EST on April 15, 2019.
Updates in this version include:
- System and course role privileges weren't appearing in the user interface as expected. We've fixed the issue. More information on Behind the Blackboard.
- A critical security vulnerability has been internally identified and we have fixed the issue. More information on Behind the Blackboard.
Maintenance items
You can view 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 3700.0.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.
Learn SaaS release 3600.0.0: Update to client Production environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3600.0.0 (full release number 3600.0.0-rel.11+318243c) to client Production servers. Your instance may be updated starting in the early evening hours on April 13, 2019 based on your region and timezone.
Updates in this version include:
- A critical security vulnerability has been internally identified and we have fixed the issue. More information on Behind the Blackboard.
Cumulative Update 5 for FDO Q4 2018 (release 3500.0.5)
Cumulative Update (CU) 5 for the Q4 2018 Flexible Deployment Option (FDO) release of Blackboard Learn SaaS is available.
Learn SaaS release 3600.0.0: Update to client Test/Staging environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3600.0.0 (full release number 3600.0.0-rel.9+22b493d) to client Test/Staging servers. Your instance may be updated starting at 6:00AM EST on April 1, 2019.
Updates in this version include:
- Instructors and students were unable to view portfolio submissions after a recent upgrade. We've fixed the issue. More information on Behind the Blackboard.
- In the Original Course View, the breadcrumb navigation bar at the top of the browser window appeared twice. We've fixed the issue. More information on Behind the Blackboard.
- In the Ultra Course View, we've removed the new Student Preview feature to address quality concerns. It will be included in an upcoming release.
Course role for facilitators
Facilitation privileges have been long requested functionality in Blackboard Learn's Original Experience. We’re excited to bring this ability to both the Original and Ultra Experiences.
3600.0.0 marks the culmination of previous content lockdown releases with the introduction of the Facilitator role. This course role contains a set of default privileges regarding course calendar, discussions, gradebook, announcements, materials, and groups. Course members can be granted this role to help maintain the pace of the course throughout the term or as needed.
This release includes two new privileges to grant a user the ability to create or delete a discussion in the Ultra Course View.
Additionally, the privileges list shows when certain entitlements are inherited by other privileges. For example, the Course/Organization (Content Areas) > Edit Material Availability privilege is automatically granted to a user who also has the Course/Organization (Content Areas) > Edit Materials privilege. We’ve made this association clearer in the user interface.
If your environment already contains a custom course role with FACILITATOR as the Role ID, you may notice errors after the 3600.0.0 update. We're working on addressing this issue before the release reaches Production servers. To troubleshoot, copy your custom role, rename it to eliminate FACILITATOR, apply it to the appropriate users, and remove the old custom role.
Improvements for auto-archived courses
This release includes improvements to automatically archived courses to provide clients with greater flexibility and customization. You can access these settings through the Course Settings area of the Administrator Panel. Administrators can choose the length of time to keep a course archive on their system and whether course archives should include content that lives outside of the course’s directory.
More on automatic course archives
Maintenance items
You can view 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 3600.0.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.
Self-service log download and removal of Kibana Building Block
We’ve added support for server log storage and access from within the Blackboard Learn user interface. Select Manage Content in the Administrator Panel to access logs.
Server logs are created once every hour and stored in the internal > logs folder. Logs are grouped by year, month, day, and hour. Logs are generated in the same format as those you’re used to viewing in Kibana as a JSON file.
The hour folder uses the Universal Time Coordinated (UTC) hour. Logs are transferred to the local file system once per hour, but on a four-hour delay. For example, if the current hour is 4 then during this hour logs from hour 0 will be transferred.
As part of the 3600.0.0 release, we will remove the Kibana Building Block and stop sending logs to Kibana. All logs will need to be accessed via the new workflow in the user interface.
More on how to download and reformat system logs in Blackboard Learn SaaS
Additional updates in the user interface
- If your institution uses the Turn It In Building Block, students will no longer receive a Past Due notification when they have submitted an assignment on time.
- We’re building more and more content capabilities into the Ultra Course View. In this release, you’ll notice a redesigned menu to accommodate additional options in course content, gradebook, discussions, and documents.
- Users who subscribe to email notifications will notice we’ve updated the message format. We’ve reduced Blackboard branding and optimized the format for better appearance on more devices and email clients.
- We’ve updated the Global HTML filter to accept .txt files for student submissions
- Push notifications in the Ultra experience support Ultra course discussions. Students can receive notifications when someone responds to their discussion, someone replies to their posts, an instructor creates a new discussion, or when participation deadlines are approaching. Instructors can receive notifications for replies to discussion threads or posts they authored.
Learn SaaS release 3500.11.0: Update to client Test/Staging environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3500.11.0 (full release number 3500.11.0-rel.10+071f567) to client Test/Staging servers. Your instance may be updated starting at 6:00AM EST on March 4, 2019.
Updates in this version include:
- Participants in an Organization saw an "Oops! Something went wrong" message when clicking on Organizations in the Ultra base navigation. We've fixed the issue. More information on Behind the Blackboard.
- Users weren't able to log in to Blackboard Learn with the Ultra experience with Microsoft Edge browser versions 30-41. We've fixed the issue. More information on Behind the Blackboard.
Learn SaaS release 3500.11.0: Update to client Test/Staging environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3500.11.0 (full release version 3500.11.0-rel.9+0b3fe2f) to client Test/Staging servers. Your instance may be updated starting at 6:00AM EST on February 22, 2019.
Updates in this version include:
- In the Ultra Course View, students with accommodations and assessment exceptions can be granted additional time in timed assessments.
- Users can access SCORM content in a copied course. More information on Behind the Blackboard.
Blackboard Learn achieves LTI Advantage certification
Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) is an initiative managed by the IMS Global Learning Consortium to seamlessly integrate learning applications used by instructors into their courses. It includes a standard protocol for establishing a trusted relationship between the tool provider and the Learning Management System (LMS), so that students and teachers can have a seamless, integrated experience of using the tool within the context of their course.
Blackboard Learn is now LTI Advantage certified. Blackboard is among the first edtech companies to meet the rigorous IMS certification requirements for all components of LTI Advantage. LTI Advantage builds on the latest set of IMS standards and provides educational institutions and edtech suppliers with a set of extensions that allow deeper integration and enhanced interoperability between IMS certified tools and LMSs. LTI Advantage also leverages a robust security framework that offers more advanced protection of sensitive student data and adds features to support the delivery of innovative learning tools and applications necessary for digital transformation within an institution.
Content lockdown: Expanded user privileges for course announcements control
3500.11.0 contains enhancements for granular entitlements in Original and Ultra course roles in support of the formalized facilitator role. Facilitation privileges have been long requested functionality in Blackboard Learn's Original Experience. We’re excited to bring this ability to both the Original and Ultra Experiences.
The set of privileges contained in this release relate to course announcements. Individuals with these privileges can create course announcements in both course views. Additional entitlements allow users to view draft announcements in addition to posted announcements.
Cross-origin resourcing tool for administrators
Administrators may need to allow an external script or third-party application to make direct calls to their Blackboard Learn instance’s REST API. Previously, these requests would be blocked at the browser level. In this release, we introduce a Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) tool to allow your institution to leverage cloud-based or third-party extensions more fully. Administrators can also use the CORS tool to strictly define the allowed domains within an access control list and headers allowed as part of those requests. This secure, scalable tool lets you explore more integration possibilities using REST APIs.
From the Administrator Panel, select Cross-Origin Resource Sharing in the Integrations menu. Select Create Integration to get started.
Maintenance items
You can view 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 3500.11.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.
Miscellaneous updates
- Instructors at institutions based in the EU/UK will be able to use the recording feature in assessment feedback. This feature will be enabled in the eu-central-1 region when this release reaches Production servers. More on recording creation for administrators.
- A word count appears when drafting responses and replies in discussions in the Ultra Course View.
- The Messages page in the Ultra Course View wasn’t responsive for users on mobile devices. We’ve made it responsive.
- Instructors can now rename an LTI link from the gradebook in the Ultra Course View.
- Users enrolled in a demo environment may have noticed their SMS notifications were overwritten when upgrading to the 3500.9.0 release. We fixed this issue before the release reached Production servers.
- In a previous release, some institutions may have noticed the CAS authentication provider threw errors. We fixed the issue.
- When an administrator sought to delete all users not enrolled in a course, the system didn’t correctly list the number of users it would remove in the operation. We’ve fixed the issue.
- When copying an Ultra course using SIS, the new course duration was overwritten by the source course. We’ve fixed the issue by excluding a duration on the course copy.
- Users may have received an error message when attempting to connect to OneDrive for Business through Blackboard Learn. The vendor has fixed the issue.
- Group submissions in the Ultra Course View weren’t appearing consistently in the gradebook. We’ve fixed the issue.
- Instructors may have received an error message when saving course reports to the Content Collection. We’ve fixed the issue.
- A synchronization issue caused unexpected behavior in custom language packs. We’ve fixed the issue.
- Course messages with attachments sometimes resulted in an error message asking the user to contact their system administrator. We fixed the issue.
- SafeAssign Originality Reports weren’t loading correctly for users with Korean language packs enabled. We’ve fixed the issue.
- SafeAssign Originality Reports weren’t loading for users after a system update to the 3500.7.0 release. We’ve fixed the issue.
- Unenrolled users can view announcements in unavailable courses.
Cumulative Update 4 for FDO Q4 2018 (release 3500.0.4)
Cumulative Update (CU) 4 for the Q4 2018 Flexible Deployment Option (FDO) release of Blackboard Learn SaaS is available.
Cumulative Update 3 for FDO Q4 2018 (release 3500.0.3)
Cumulative Update (CU) 3 for the Q4 2018 Flexible Deployment Option (FDO) release of Blackboard Learn SaaS is available.
Content lockdown: Expanded user privileges for course calendar control
3500.9.0 marks the third release containing enhancements for granular entitlements in Original and Ultra course roles. Our next and final release of this feature will include the formalized facilitator role. Facilitation privileges have been long requested functionality in Blackboard Learn's Original Experience. We’re excited to bring this ability to both the Original and Ultra Experiences.
The set of privileges contained in this release relate to course calendar events. Individuals with these privileges can add, edit, and delete course calendar events in both course views. In the Ultra Course View, individuals with these privileges can also add, edit, and delete office hours and course schedules.
Maintenance items
You can view 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 3500.9.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.
Miscellaneous updates
- To improve performance times and user experience, course messages no longer appear in the activity stream.
- Instructors are now prompted to name content they create in the Ultra Course View.
- We’ve made several AX improvements in Ultra:
- Improved the color contrast ratio for reorder and move icons on the Course Content page.
- Added a stroke around the panel close button to comply with color contrast ratios.
- Improved the hover and keyboard states for active elements to be more visually significant.
- We’ve updated gradebook entitlements to address security concerns. Visit Behind the Blackboard for more information and guidance. The solution listed in the article will be included in 3500.9 when it reaches Production servers.
- In the Original Course View, we’ve updated the color key in the Course Coverage report to match the legend more accurately.
- When an instructor attached a file as feedback on a graded discussion, students encountered errors trying to download it. We’ve fixed the issue.
- When an unread discussion post appeared as a link in the What’s New module, users encountered errors when opening it. We’ve fixed the issue.
- Calculated questions using exponents in answers in the Original Course View were marked incorrect when students input an acceptable answer. We’ve fixed the issue.
- Instructors encountered an error when trying to use anonymous grading for attempts still in progress. We’ve fixed the issue.
- We’ve improved the logic for grading multiple choice questions when a student selects both correct and incorrect answers in the Ultra Course View.
- We’ve removed the ability for students to edit graded group discussion forum titles and descriptions.
- We’ve fixed a CSS error that caused text tagged with <em> HTML to appear on separate lines.
- We’ve improved the course import feature to preserve the content package’s folder structure.
Blackboard SOAP Web Services deprecation
With the release of Blackboard Learn Q2 2019, Blackboard is deprecating our SOAP APIs. We recommend that if you use Blackboard's SOAP APIs as an external application or as part of a Building Block, you should immediately refactor your integration using our Blackboard REST APIs.
Blackboard SOAP APIs will become unavailable with the release of Blackboard Learn 9.1 Q2 2020.
Visit Behind the Blackboard for more information on SOAP web services deprecation and guidance on migrating to REST APIs.
Cumulative Update 2 for FDO Q4 2018 (release 3500.0.2)
Cumulative Update (CU) 2 for the Q4 2018 Flexible Deployment Option (FDO) release of Blackboard Learn SaaS is available.
Caliper 1.1 update for Blackboard Learn Telemetry Service
Blackboard is pleased to announce updated support for the Caliper Analytics® standard in Blackboard Learn. Caliper is a specification from the IMS Global Learning Consortium® that defines a standard for the exchange of user activity information. Blackboard Learn supports this standard, giving institutions the option to emit near-real-time and batch user event data to an event store system for further analytics and reporting.
The centralized service that processes the Learn telemetry stream into Caliper events data currently uses the Caliper 1.0 specification. On January 3, 2019 this service will change to use the Caliper 1.1 specification.
For more information about how this update affects your Blackboard Learn environment, visit Behind the Blackboard
More on Caliper event configuration is available on the Developer Community
Maintenance items
You can view 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 3500.7.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.
Miscellaneous updates
- This release resolves an issue where the Blackboard app and Blackboard Instructor app weren’t compatible with Session Fingerprint settings. Session fingerprint settings to Create New Session When Fingerprint Changes are now compatible with the mobile apps’ mBaaS architecture.
- When you access individual students' attendance record in the Ultra Course View, the date column has been renamed Meeting and now appears first.
- An updated version of the Vital Source Building Block (v3.101.2018040483) is bundled with this release.
- To accommodate Microsoft Azure SAML requirements, we’ve added the option to keep the SAML session age unlimited.
- When viewing assessments that were graded using a rubric more than a year ago, users may have noticed a discrepancy between rubric totals and the grade displayed in the Grade Center. Raw data was not affected. We fixed the issue.
- Grade Journey wasn’t consistently displaying optional data when the extraction was initiated from merged courses. We fixed the issue.
- Users may have encountered an error when attempting to download a file package in the Content Collection. We fixed the issue.
- When a student submission was deleted, attached files were orphaned and retained in storage, sometimes unnecessarily. We fixed the issue.
- When an Ultra assessment was set to assign automatic zeros, the system wouldn’t log a zero score in the gradebook when a student had saved a draft but not submitted work. We fixed the issue.
- Importing a Canvas course to the Ultra Course View resulted in missing content. We fixed the issue.
Maintenance items
You can view 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 3500.5.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.
Miscellaneous updates
- The Consulting Central Building Block is bundled with this release. Learn more about Consulting Central on Behind the Blackboard.
- The French language pack previously used an incorrect phrase to label new discussions. We’ve fixed the issue.
- Users saw an error when downloading an annotated PDF with comments. We’ve fixed the issue so the downloads now include a summary list of comments.
- To avoid permissions and grading issues, all LTI tools are excluded from the Copy Content option in the Ultra Course View.
- When a student attempted to access an unavailable course in the Ultra experience, the date was recorded in the Performance Dashboard under “Last Course Access.” We’ve fixed the issue.
- When a user attempted to access Organizations in the Ultra experience while using a touchscreen device, the page would display an error. We’ve fixed the issue.
- When the Attendance tool was set to unavailable or inactive at the system level, instructors may have encountered error messages in the gradebook. We’ve fixed the issue.
- Optional data wasn’t consistently included in Grade Journey extractions using REST. We’ve fixed the issue.
- When an administrator attempted to move a user from one child course to another, the user enrollment wouldn’t change successfully. We’ve fixed the issue.
- Students may have had trouble accessing the activity stream due to conflicting backend logic regarding grade columns and due dates. We’ve fixed the issue.
- Special characters in custom Ultra locales weren’t displaying correctly. We’ve fixed the issue.
- Course reports weren’t enforcing the date format for the system’s chosen language pack. We’ve fixed the issue.
- Some devices displayed misaligned numbers for options in multiple choice, either/or, and true/false questions. We’ve fixed the issue.
- The words points and score were sometimes used interchangeably in the Ultra Course View. We've updated the user interface to use points where it's more accurate.
- Based on user feedback, we’ve updated the activity stream messages regarding student achievement and activity in courses. The new messages aim to reduce confusion and be more encouraging.
- The Availability Override option didn’t work as expected when a start date wasn’t specified. We’ve fixed the issue so students with this privilege can access courses with or without a specified start date.
- The service that connected cloud storage to Learn environments used a case-sensitive check to verify domain security. When domains used a mix of upper and lower case letters, the service couldn’t complete the request and resulted in incomplete attachments. We’ve fixed the issue.
New updates for Ally customers
The latest release of Ally (v. 1.23.1) contains new features, bug fixes, and other improvements that may apply to your product. Visit the Ally release notes to learn more. Don't have Ally? Learn more about Ally.
New updates for Ally customers
The latest release of Ally (v. 1.23) contains new features, bug fixes, and other improvements that may apply to your product. Visit the Ally release notes to learn more. Don't have Ally? Learn more about Ally.
Calendar items and due date notifications for additional content types
The Calendar and To Do modules show the due dates of course items, but this was previously limited to activities and assessments using just Blackboard Learn tools. In this release, the capability is expanded so that other content types, including those from 3rd party solutions, are now incorporated into these Original Experience areas when using a web browser.
Users see these due items in their Course Calendar or My Blackboard Calendar, and due date notifications appear in the To Do module and through other notification subscription channels.
All of the following create calendar items and due notifications:
- Assessment items such as assignments and tests
- Interactive tools including graded discussions, blogs, journals, and wikis
- Grade Center columns created manually and not linked to content items such as an observation or offline assignment
- SCORM packages
- Content items generated from building blocks when a linked Grade Center column has a due date
- LTI resource links when a linked Grade Center column has a due date
Data Integration Logs storage load reduced
We’ve improved the way that data integration logs store information in the shared file system. Searches in SIS logs are limited to seven-day date ranges to improve performance and reduce system strain.
Maintenance items
You can view 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 3500.3.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.
Miscellaneous updates
- When versioned files are imported/restored as part of course import/restore, the version number (of the file in the source course) is appended at the end of the file name so that users can differentiate which version it is. For example, if version 1 and 2 of a file named "geography.html" are imported, the new files will be named "geography_v1.html" and "geography_v2.html", respectively.
- A permissions issue in the Mobile Web Services building block caused tests to be inaccessible when first opened through the app. We fixed the issue.
- An updated version of the Partner Cloud Building Block is bundled with this release.
- An updated version of the Wiley Plus Building Block is bundled with this release.
- An updated version of the Cengage Mindlinks Learning Building Block is bundled with this release.
- An updated version of the Vital Source Building Block is bundled with this release. Grade syncing in the VitalSource Building Block is disabled by default in this release to prevent issues on the vendor's side.
- Files uploaded as part of a SCORM package are now saved in a Content Collection folder (/internal/courses/<courseID>/content/<contentID>) rather than the Local/Shared File System. When a client system is upgraded to this release, a background migration task is invoked upon server startup to move all existing SCORM files from Local/Shared File System to Content Collection. Several optimizations have been added to minimize the performance impact and memory usage for this task and it should be virtually transparent for users.
- Counts in the Ultra gradebook were confusing when some students were denied access in the course after participating in discussions or submitting assessments. We fixed the issue.
- In the Original Course View, users designated as Observers were unable to view files added to the course through the Build Content > Add File workflow. We fixed the issue.
- Attachments to course messages in the Original Course View resulted in the Tomcat temp directory disappearing, which led to other areas of Learn malfunctioning. We fixed the issue.
- When an instructor attempted to grade a group assignment using a rubric and the language pack used commas to designate decimal places, the grade would display inconsistently. We fixed the issue.
- In the Original Course View, pattern matching questions with incorrectly formatted regular expressions in the answer were marked wrong. We fixed the issue.
- As part of an earlier improvement for content delivery in the Content Collection, we added the ability to disable certain MIME types in Learn. We expanded the list of default allowed MIME types.
- Instructors encountered errors when grading a group discussion with a rubric. We fixed the issue.
- We’ve fixed some issues in reports: All User Activity Inside Content Areas and Course Performance Report.
- Clients using the Australian English language pack in Ultra encountered problems when creating calendar items. We fixed the issue.
- Conversations on course content in the Ultra Course View were capped to the previous 10 replies, with no way to view earlier parts of the conversation. In this release, students and instructors can access earlier parts of the conversation.
SAML updates
We’ve enhanced the logout process for SAML single-sign on sessions. When a user logs out of Blackboard Learn, a message appears and asks them to confirm log out for all associated apps in the session. Previously, the SSO session persisted until it expired. Users can choose to terminate their entire SSO session when they log out of Blackboard Learn to protect their security when using public or shared computers.
Cumulative Update 4 for FDO Q2 2018 (release 3400.0.4)
Cumulative Update (CU) 4 for the Q2 2018 Flexible Deployment Option (FDO) release of Blackboard Learn SaaS is available.
Internet Explorer no longer supported
Support for Internet Explorer ends with Blackboard Learn 9.1 Q4 2018 and SaaS 3500.0.0. Older releases may still work using this browser. Microsoft ended active development for Internet Explorer in January 2016. Some newer features in Learn may not work, including Attendance and Create Recording. Reported issues isolated to Internet Explorer won't be resolved by Product Support. We recommend using another browser.
Maintenance Items
You can now view 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 3500.0.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.
Miscellaneous updates
- When a course was converted from Original to Ultra, instructors found they weren’t able to edit point values for assessments and questions that used decimal points in the number of possible points. We’ve fixed the issue by rounding point values down to the nearest whole number. This change is listed as an exception during the Ultra Course Preview.
- Some users were unable to save drafts in discussion forum threads when using a language pack other than English. We’ve fixed the issue.
- Placeholder text in the Ultra login page would sometimes obscure the username and password when the user input this information. We’ve fixed the issue.
- Discussion descriptions in courses using the Learn 2016 theme were sometimes obscured or displayed with a limited width. We’ve fixed the issue.
- Some users were unable to create criteria for Self and Peer Assessments when accessing the feature on Microsoft Edge or Internet Explorer. We’ve fixed the issue.
- When the Ultra experience is enabled, the Exit button overlapped the Add button in the Original Course View. We’ve fixed the issue.
- We’ve rewritten an error message in Ultra to make acceptable date formats clearer.
- When an instructor reversed the decision to ignore an attempt in the Original Course View, the message displayed on the screen was unclear and didn’t indicate the workflow. We’ve updated it to say Attempt marked as Not Ignored.
- When users attempted to select all text in an Ultra assessment attempt, the browser didn’t select the text included in the attempt. We’ve fixed the issue.
- When a user edited a test question in the Original Course View, some options in the text editor didn’t display correctly. We’ve fixed the issue.
New updates for Ally customers
The latest release of Ally (v. 1.19.3) contains bug fixes and other improvements that may apply to your product. Visit the Ally release notes to learn more. Don't have Ally? Learn more about Ally.
A special note from Product Management
We are developing our teaching and learning products toward the greater good of a holistic, next generation digital learning environment through the lens of three critical, unifying product themes: academic effectiveness, learner engagement, and education insight. By focusing on these themes, we will unify the development of our products to empower excellence in teaching and learning, inspire genuine interest, attention, and interaction in the learning process, and enable continuous improvement through accurate and deep understanding of the teaching and learning process.
In the Learn SaaS 3400.11.0 release, we focused our development and design on academic effectiveness and learner engagement. You’ll see below that we’ve also aligned our feature list into groups based on value and benefit to you and your users.
Academic effectiveness
- Download annotated PDFs
- Anonymous grading in Ultra Course View
- Unsubmitted work counts as zero
Learner engagement
- Download annotated PDFs
- Improvements for course messages
Content delivery improvements
Multimedia is essential in many mixed-mode and online courses, and poor performance can lead to a frustrating user experience. To help speed the delivery of online media, such as video, we’ve added configuration options for administrators to control content delivery through signed URLs. Signed URLs allow content to be delivered directly and securely from cloud storage, which provides faster transfers and requires fewer resources to run on the system. A signed URL is equivalent to the actual file after it’s delivered to the browser.
Find the settings on Administrator Panel > Content Management Settings > Cloud Signed URL Settings.
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) User Report
One of the requirements of the European Union (EU) GDPR is to allow users to receive human-readable reports of personal information that has been collected about them. Clients receiving user requests may submit a case on Behind the Blackboard, including the user’s ID, to request the exported report package. The report is a ZIP file that contains CSV files with site- and course-level information about user activity, tool interactions, uploaded content, or submitted work within Blackboard Learn. Any grade data in the report are raw values and don’t include any calculations or weighting the instructor may have applied in the Grade Center. The report won’t contain information about other users in the system, content created by the institution or other users, or information from deleted courses.
Flexible Deployment Option customers: In Q4 2018 CU1 (3500.0.1), the GDPR User Report includes Activity Log and Attendance data.
Maintenance Items
You can now view 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 3400.11.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.
Miscellaneous updates
- In the Original experience, administrators had no option in the user interface to remove images they had added to a default brand. This issue was fixed.
- Some institutions who customized the default landing page in the Ultra experience noticed some inconsistent behavior for the destination when users logged in. This issue was fixed.
- Some custom administrator roles were unable to access courses delivered in the Ultra Course View. This issue was fixed.
- Attachments to course messages caused unnecessary file backups that could lead to system performance issues. This issue was fixed.
- In the Ultra experience, default course view settings would sometimes reset on system restart or upgrade. This issue has been fixed.
- Some instructors who used percentage-based rubrics to grade assignments noticed that mid-range values would revert on save. This issue was fixed.
- For environments with automatic course archive enabled, some files older than 45 days weren’t included in course backup files. This issue was fixed.
- We’ve updated the text shown to administrators who choose to use the Ultra experience on Test environments. The message now states more clearly that the environment will need to be completely rebuilt and all data will be lost to convert back to the Original experience.
- We’ve updated the text shown to users when content controlled with conditional release is unavailable. When a student hovers on the content after access is over, the message now reads: You can't access this content after MM/DD/YYYY, 00:00AM. Previously, the message only stated when the content became available, not when access ended.
Cumulative Update 3 for FDO Q2 2018 (release 3400.0.3)
Cumulative Update (CU) 3 for the Q2 2018 Flexible Deployment Option (FDO) release of Blackboard Learn SaaS is available.
A special note from Product Management
We are developing our teaching and learning products toward the greater good of a holistic, next generation digital learning environment through the lens of three critical, unifying product themes: academic effectiveness, learner engagement, and education insight. By focusing on these themes, we will unify the development of our products to empower excellence in teaching and learning, inspire genuine interest, attention, and interaction in the learning process, and enable continuous improvement through accurate and deep understanding of the teaching and learning process.
In the Learn SaaS 3400.9.0 release, we focused our development and design on academic effectiveness and learner engagement. You’ll see below that we’ve also aligned our feature list into groups based on value and benefit to you and your users.
Academic effectiveness
- SCORM support in Ultra
- Download gradebook
- Custom locales in Ultra
Learner engagement
- Group creation & grading enhancements
- Course list optimization
- Conversation improvements
- Add LTI links to the Institution Page
Maintenance Items
You can now view 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 3400.9.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.
Miscellaneous updates
- We've updated text regarding external submissions in the Ultra Course View. The assessment setting now says Collect submissions offline, and students see a message that says Offline submission when accessing assessments of this type.
- Instructors encountered an error in graded discussion boards converted from the Original Course View to the Ultra Course View. The error appeared when the instructor tried to change the grade schema. This issue was fixed.
- Recipients were unable to download message attachments that contained special characters in the file name. This issue was fixed.
- Instructors may have encountered an error when attempting to delete submissions that contained attachments. This issue was fixed.
- Course members may have experienced issues opening and viewing discussion boards where a deactivated user had once participated. This issue was fixed.
- Messages in the Ultra Course View sometimes showed the incorrect sender and recipient names. This issue was fixed.
- Administrators may have seen an error regarding permissions when attempting to download an attachment on a student submission. This issue was fixed.
- Users who change their language setting can see system announcements that were posted before changing the setting.
- In the Original Course View, some users had to refresh the page to see their reply to a discussion forum. This issue was fixed.
- In the Original Course View, some users were unable to remove file attachments in draft discussion posts. This issue was fixed.
- Instructors may have observed unexpected characters in the Due Date column of the Ultra gradebook when the assignment had no due date assigned. This issue was fixed.
New updates for Ally customers
The latest release of Ally (v. 1.17) contains bug fixes and other improvements that may apply to your product. Visit the Ally release notes to learn more. Don't have Ally? Learn more about Ally.
Mobile Web Services
The Blackboard Mobile Web Services Building Block enables users to connect to their courses through Blackboard's mobile applications: Blackboard app and Blackboard Instructor. The latest version of the Mobile Web Services Building Block is 94.9.12. Check these links for the best available version for your installation.
Maintenance Items
You can now view 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 3400.7.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.
Miscellaneous updates
- In the Ultra Course View, the Add Content icon is now a darker shade and heavier weight to provide greater contrast with the surrounding elements in the user interface.
- When setting up SMS notifications in Ultra, users now see a message reminding them that their cellular carrier may charge a fee for these messages.
- The SafeAssign Originality Report is disabled for assessments set to collect external submissions.
- An updated version of the Cengage Building Block (v1.101.20182347) is bundled with this release.
- Some students may have had trouble accessing a group assignment if a group member was disabled from accessing the course. This issue has been resolved.
- Lengthy videos displayed through the New Box View service were stopping before reaching the end of playback. The vendor has fixed this issue.
Localization updates
- The German translation for Open to Students in the Ultra Course View has been improved.
- The word “goals” was inconsistently translated in the Spanish language pack for the Ultra experience. This issue has been resolved.
New updates for Ally customers
The latest release of Ally (v. 1.16.5) contains bug fixes and other improvements that may apply to your product. Visit the Ally release notes to learn more. Don't have Ally? Learn more about Ally.
Educator Preview is now the new CourseSites!
Educator Preview is now the new CourseSites. The learning environment will still serve as the premier place to test drive the Ultra experience, with the added bonus of having a course delivery option for you to teach live courses using either the Ultra Course View or the Original Course View. Check out the new CourseSites and visit the CourseSites Community for more information.
Configure static resources
Starting with this release, you can specify a desired directory in the Content Collection. To access this setting, go to Admin Panel > System Configuration > Configure Static Resources. Blackboard Learn ships with this set to an internal default directory, but you can change that to any location of your choice. Files in the chosen location are served by the Learn application server as if they were located at the server root, allowing the server to serve static files such as robots.txt and favicon.ico. Before this improvement, this functionality required custom workarounds.
This feature is intended solely for files such as those listed; it is not intended for serving dynamic content or large files.
Improvements to User Privacy in accordance with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
Blackboard is committed to protecting the privacy of all users. Due to changing regulations globally concerning use of data and privacy, including the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), this release includes updates that impact user experience. Administrators should evaluate the impact this may have for their users.
- On the login page, we've added links to access the Blackboard privacy and data use statement, the Blackboard terms of use, and an optional privacy and data use statement from the institution have been added to the login page. In the Original experience, the links also appear in the login module and the settings area of My Blackboard. In the Blackboard and Blackboard Instructor mobile apps, the links are found in Settings and in the Terms of Use shown at login. This way, users can access important information about the use of their data and their privacy both before and after authentication.
- The Security Management: Cookie Disclosure Building Block, originally intended to address regulations in the European Privacy Data Directive, has been replaced by the Security Management: Data Use and Privacy Disclosure Building Block. This Building Block is part of the core system and can't be disabled or removed.
- For institutions that don't have users who would fall under regulations requiring this acceptance, the terms acceptance interface can be disabled in the Security Management: Data Use and Privacy Disclosure settings page. However, we recommend institutions keep the acceptance interface enabled because some users might access from another location with such regulations.
- The Security Management: Data Use and Privacy Disclosure settings page allows an administrator to define a web link to institutional statements about data use and privacy. An administrator could also store such a statement in the Content Collection as a public file and link to it.
More on the Security Management - Data Use and Privacy Disclosure Building Block
Maintenance Items
You can now view 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 3400.5.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.
Miscellaneous updates
Ultra Experience and Ultra Course View
- We've updated the scoring options for multiple choice questions so they are shorter and easy to scan:
- All or nothing: All correct answers must be selected to receive full credit
- Partial credit: Give credit for correct answers with no penalty for incorrect answers
- Subtract points for incorrect answers: Give credit for correct answers, but subtract points for incorrect answers. The question score can total less than 0.
- When accessing the course catalog as a guest in Ultra, the user wasn't always able to return to the login page from within a course. This issue has been resolved.
- The Maximum Score field in Ultra assessments now displays an error message when a user attempts to input a negative number
- We fixed a bug that incorrectly displayed the number of students with accommodations in a discussion
- When more than one instructor was enrolled in a course, these users were assigned to groups in group discussions in the Ultra Course View. This issue has been resolved.
- Students may have seen an error message when attempting to view grades in a course where a graded discussion was available at a certain date and time. This issue has been resolved.
- The Ultra course roster was including disabled enrollments in the overall count of course members. This issue has been resolved.
- The link to chat with Support in Educator Preview was updated to a new destination
Original Experience and Original Course View
- We've fixed an error that appeared when an instructor attempted to create an assignment using a Portfolio template in the Original Course View
- The number of points possible for an assessment in the Original Course View was inconsistent when a rubric was applied. This issue has been resolved.
- When students uploaded multiple attachments to Self and Peer Assessments, only the first attachment was displayed. This issue has been resolved.
- On the Goal Performance page, the overall progress for a goal was incorrectly aggregating the performance on aligned course items. This issue has been resolved.
General
- Some institution announcements may have disappeared after upgrading from Managed Hosting to SaaS. This issue has been resolved.
- SafeAssign sporadically failed to generate Originality Reports for assignments. This issue has been resolved.
- An error occurred when attempting to create a new system role in Blackboard Learn. This issue has been resolved.
Localization updates
- Placeholder text in fill in the blank questions wasn't properly localized. This issue has been resolved.
- Fields in the attendance report for instructors weren't properly localized. This issue has been resolved.
- Users who selected Swedish as their default language in Ultra saw untranslated strings when viewing events on the base calendar. This issue has been resolved.
New updates for Ally customers
The latest release of Ally (v. 1.16.2) contains bug fixes and other improvements that may apply to your product. Visit the Ally 1.16.2 release notes to learn more. Don't have Ally? Learn more about Ally.
Cumulative Update 1 for FDO Q2 2018 (release 3400.0.1)
Cumulative Update (CU) 1 for the Q2 2018 Flexible Deployment Option (FDO) release of Blackboard Learn SaaS is available.
Auto-archive courses
Blackboard is introducing a new feature that automatically archives active courses on Blackboard Learn SaaS client sites. Auto-archive is an automated process that archives any course that has had activity since the last time the process ran. Archives are stored in the Content Collection where administrators can view, restore, and download the archives as needed. Blackboard Learn keeps the latest archive of a course indefinitely, but deletes older archives after 30 days.
Using this tool, an administrator can restore an archive of an existing course if the owner has damaged the course. Administrators can also restore previous versions of a course (within 30 days) if the owner needs to compare the current version to an earlier version of the course.
This feature is being introduced to client sites incrementally, so you may not see it available on your system even though the 3400.3.0 release is available.
Content lockdown
Many institutions use Subject Matter Experts to create content for a course. This content is used across all sections of a course and is facilitated by multiple faculty. To ensure that the content in each course section remains consistent, we’ve added new entitlements for course roles so administrators can grant additional permissions for users that will allow them to view the content but they will not be able to modify the content.
In the coming releases, we’ll introduce even more granular entitlements like these with the goal of ultimately providing a formal Facilitator role that you can enable and designate for chosen users. You’ll find the following permissions are now available:
- Course/Organization (Content Areas) > Adaptive Release > Create Date-Based Criteria
- Course/Organization (Content Areas) > Adaptive Release > Delete Date-Based Criteria
- Course/Organization (Content Areas) > Adaptive Release > Edit Date-Based Criteria
- Course/Organization (Content Areas) > Edit Material Availability
- Course/Organization Control Panel (Grade Center) > Change Due Date of Grade Center Items
Learn Data Pipeline Upgrade
Blackboard is upgrading the data management process for Blackboard Learn clients with Direct Data Access (DDA). This change applies to Blackboard Learn SaaS Advantage customer institutions using DDA. Blackboard is migrating SaaS reporting data to a new state-of-the-art Snowflake database. After the migration is complete, clients will have access to a new data microservice for Blackboard Learn. You can get the same data that supports Learn's built-in reporting using the new microservice.
This change is being introduced to client sites incrementally, so you may not see it available on your system even though the 3400.3.0 release is available. Full documentation, including credential requests, user interface access, and affected Building Blocks, will be available soon.
Maintenance Items
You can now view 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 3400.3.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.
Miscellaneous updates
- We've updated a message in the mobile view of the Ultra Course Preview to be more consistent with the experience on desktop. Both platforms now show the user the following message:
If you like the preview, you can permanently convert your course and save any changes you've made during the Ultra Course Preview. If you switch back to Original Course View, changes made during preview are lost. - We've updated text for students beginning assessments without time limits in the Ultra Course View. When a student opens an assignment or a test without a time limit, the button says View assessment instead of Start attempt. This language more clearly communicates that the student is not compelled to submit the attempt after opening it if it isn't timed.
- We've improved the user experience in the new editor. Previously, when a user wanted to remove a hyperlink from a piece of text, they would need to delete the text entirely. Now, a user can simply remove the hyperlink without affecting their content.
- In both Ultra and Original courses, when instructors first access the attendance feature, they’re able to select Add Attendance and add an attendance column after attendance records are generated. In the Ultra Course View gradebook, instructors can delete attendance if no attendance records exist.
- Administrator preview for a system notification in the Ultra experience previously cut off long pieces of text. The preview now wraps text and this issues has been resolved.
- The SafeHTML filter now applies to additional files types in Blackboard Learn.
- Course content wasn't appearing as expected when a course bound to a term was archived and restored in a system that did not have the equivalent term. This issue has been resolved.
- Instructions on how to set up shared locations and web folders in the Content Collection previously displayed natively in Blackboard Learn. In this release, these instructions now lead to help.blackboard.com so the content can be kept up to date.
- Some users received a past due notification for assessments, even when they had already submitted ahead of the due date. This issue has been resolved.
- In-product help links now appear for all users on the Institution Page.
NewBoxView is default service
Starting with the 3400.3.0 release, New Box View will be the default service (instead of Crocodoc) for all new Blackboard Learn installations. If your institution decided not to transition to New Box View and is upgrading to a more recent version of Blackboard Learn, this change won't affect you unless you are starting with a fresh install for the new target instance.
LTI placement improvements
A number of enhancements have been made to LTI Tool Provider setup and placements:
- Administrators can now access LTI Tool Providers directly from the Administrator Panel in the Integrations menu.
- There are new naming and capabilities in the placement options for an LTI tool.
- Under Type, the student tool has been renamed to Course tool, with availability options for students and non-students. Student Course tools appear in the Student Tools area and no longer require instructor action for students to use the tool. Non-student Course tools appear in the Control Panel for instructors and other course users with access to the Control Panel.
- The Content Item Message tool type is now the Supports deep linking option within the Course content tool to reflect a name change by the IMS Global organization.
- There is a new Administrator tool placement type, which lets administrators place LTI tools in the Tools and Utilities menu on the Administrator Panel.
Maintenance items for 3400.1.0
You can now view 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 3400.1.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.
Miscellaneous updates
- Instructors can sort the roster by student last name in the Ultra Course View.
- Attendance in the Original Experience now supports Internet Explorer 11.
- File attachments in the Ultra editor were not displaying as expected due to copy/paste behavior. A message has been added to the editor prompting the user to reinsert any pasted attachments to ensure they display correctly for other course members.
- Content items in the Original Course View were unexpectedly moving their position in a list after being edited. This issue has been resolved.
- Some students who had been removed from an Original course were receiving notifications regarding group activity in the course. This issue has been resolved.
- When upgrading Blackboard Learn, the Mobile Building Block’s environment setting was reset and caused issues for users searching for courses via mobile apps. This issue has been resolved.
- After an upgrade, the scrollbar in the Grade Center appeared on the left side of the screen and obscured information. This issue has been resolved.
Outcomes roles based on Institutional Hierarchy
When the centralized Assessment team demonstrates the simplicity and time-saving power of Outcomes Assessment, other departments and programs across the institution often want to take advantage of the solution and move their Assessment practices to Outcomes. Historically, though, institutions have been hesitant to roll it out to individual departments because adding Outcomes roles for users outside of the central office would grant full access to the entire institution’s evidence collections, evaluations, and reports.
With this update, we have enhanced Outcomes to respect the access limitations you’ve put in place by configuring Institutional Hierarchy. You can now assign Outcomes roles to key stakeholders within each department and these users will only be able to create evidence collections, manage evaluations, and view reports for courses within their node of the Institutional Hierarchy.
Cumulative Update 2 for FDO Q4 2017 (release 3300.0.2)
Cumulative Update (CU) 2 for the Q4 2017 Flexible Deployment Option (FDO) release of Blackboard Learn SaaS is available.
Maintenance items for 3300.11.0
You can now view 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 3300.11.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.
Miscellaneous updates
- Instructors can now embed a YouTube or Vimeo video in grade feedback in the Ultra Course View.
- Help text on the LTI Placements page in the Administrator Panel has been updated.
- An updated version of the Cengage Building Block (v1.101.201704346) is bundled with this release.
- A new message appears in the Copy Content panel in the Ultra Course View: You can’t copy content from other courses when you’re in the Ultra Course Preview.
- When an instructor creates an availability condition for content in an Ultra course, the custom range previously referred to points when the schema was set to percentage. This issue has been resolved.
- Text on the Ally integration page in the Original experience has been updated for readability.
- We've made indexing improvements to help speed up the migration from Crocodoc to New Box View.
- Previously, instructors using the Swedish language pack in the Original Course View were unable to edit text questions. This issue has been fixed.
- In the Original Experience, date selectors broke when a user accessed Blackboard Learn using a browser set to Swedish, Danish, or Spanish. This issue has been fixed.
- We’ve improved the LTI launch behavior when the tool is configured to launch automatically.
- In the Ultra Experience, when a user saved content in the editor that included multiple breaks to create white space, the editor automatically removed some space. This issue has been resolved.
Maintenance items for 3300.8.0
You can now view 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 3300.8.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.
Miscellaneous updates
- This release contains a security fix to the login page that could interrupt the way third party SSO solutions pass user credentials from a client portal to Blackboard. A one-time nonce value has been added to the login form. This nonce must be passed back to the server with any POST to the login page. Third-party solutions which rely on posting usernames and passwords directly to /webapps/login/ will fail. This is by design. Clients using supported SSO methods including SAML and CAS aren't affected. Clients experiencing difficulty with custom SSO solutions should file a support ticket on Behind the Blackboard.
- An updated version of the Blackboard Partner Cloud Building Block (1.7.2017021408) is bundled with this release.
- When a student received a 0 score for a graded item, it appeared as negative on the My Grades page in the Original Course View. This issue has been resolved.
- In both experiences, users who requested a new password weren't obligated to enter a new password when navigating to Learn using the recovery link emailed to them. This issue has been resolved.
- When exporting a course from the Ultra experience, some course IDs weren't appearing in Firefox. This issue has been resolved.
- After upgrading to the 3300.0.0 release, the Default Course View option was reset to Original Course View. This issue has been fixed.
- We’ve improved the LTI launch behavior when the tool is configured to launch automatically.
- The following Crocodoc to New Box View issues have been addressed:
- Inline comments were appearing as HTML.
- Students replying to instructor comments received an error message regarding session expiration. The vendor has addressed this issue.
Maintenance items for 3300.6.0
You can now view 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 3300.6.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.
Miscellaneous updates
- In some environments, when attempting a test or assignment with math equation images, students were unable to view the image. This error was due to the image not being stored in the appropriate permanent storage location and has been resolved.
- When changing course availability in the Ultra experience, the padlock icon was difficult to visually distinguish as open or closed. The padlock icon has been updated to more clearly show the open or closed state.
- Some error messages have been updated to provide more context for users. For example, empty title or message fields in Targeted Notifications say Please type a title or Please type a message respectively, instead of simply Required.
- In the Original Course View, users who connected to and browsed content from McGraw-Hill and returned to Blackboard Learn were unable to exit the course. This issue has been fixed with the improvements made to LTI launch return behavior.
- When viewing an Ultra graded discussion on a mobile device, students who viewed the settings saw a blank page. This issue has been fixed.
- Group assessment grades in the Ultra Course View were not consistently saving when instructors graded and posted from the Submissions view. This issue has been fixed.
Password reset improvements
Requests using Blackboard Learn's native password reset feature now expire after 15 minutes, improving security of the reset link.
Re-release of 3300.2 (Continuous Delivery hotfix)
To ensure quality, we've worked to resolve a number of issues identified in Blackboard Learn SaaS 3300.2.0 continuous delivery release.
Cumulative Update 1 for FDO Q4 2017 (release 3300.0.1)
Cumulative Update (CU) 1 for the Q4 2017 Flexible Deployment Option (FDO) release of Blackboard Learn SaaS is available.
Maintenance items for 3300.2.0
You can now view 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 3300.2.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.
Crocodoc to New Box View update
Instructors grading assignments can view documents in-line and annotate the document to provide feedback for students. In prior versions, this used a licensed technology called Crocodoc that will be discontinued on January 15, 2018. This release allows institutions to switch to a replacement service from Box entitled New Box View that offers similar capabilities. Prior documents with annotations will be automatically migrated without requiring action from administrators. Administrators only need to enable the New Box View service.
It is recommended administrators initiate the migration between periods of heavy assessment such as between terms; the migration to and adoption of New Box View doesn't have to occur at time of upgrade.
Maintenance items for 3300.0.0
You can now view 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 3300.0.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.
Manage connected third-party applications using Three-Legged OAuth 2.0
Starting with this release, Blackboard Learn provides support for three-legged OAuth (3LO) 2.0 authorization. Developers can create applications using REST APIs that act on a user's behalf in a more secure way. When authorized using 3LO, applications can act on behalf of a user and therefore are restricted to the parts of Learn for which that user has permissions to access.
When users work in a third-party tool, the application may ask your permission to operate within Learn on your behalf. This process allows the application to submit assignments or tasks the user has completed to Blackboard Learn. Similar to syncing social media applications, the integration allows learning platforms to work together. Once a user allows access, they can manage the authorization from the Tools panel.
Previously, such applications could only work with Learn using generic credentials. Generic credentials had all permissions needed for the application, regardless of individual user's access levels. This method also didn't provide the ability to track individual user activities. Now, Learn supports either method: the use of generic credentials or user-specific credentials and permissions.
Migrate message storage
The Administrator Panel now includes the option to migrate messages in courses and organizations to the Learn database. Older course and organization message were stored via flat files on a shared storage volume. New courses and organizations always store messages in the database.
You can find the migration option in Administrator Panel > Tools and Utilities > Course Messages.
During migration, the system skips a course or organization if it doesn’t exist, is disabled, or already uses database storage. You can check your system logs to confirm message migration is complete.
Miscellaneous updates
- New column sub-heading for total points: For each column in the grid view of the gradebook, you can view the total points for each item or calculation and easily see the grade each student earned.
- Instructors no longer see intermittent permissions errors when attempting to view attachments on student submissions
- An updated version of the Respondus LockDown Browser Building Block (3.5.0) is bundled with this release.
- The SAML Building Block now supports SNI
- An issue with editing content items has been resolved
- An issue with embedded media files not playing in assessment questions has been fixed
- Email settings are preserved when copying materials into an existing course
- Students whose course access has been disabled no longer appear in group membership lists
- Timed assessments sometimes automatically submitted student work prior to the time limit. This issue has been resolved.
- Instructors using the Brazilian Portuguese language pack no longer have trouble overriding grades using decimals (,)
- The Rubric type dropdown list appears in courses when the Learn 2016 theme is enabled for the environment
- In the Original Course View, due date settings and rubric associations are retained when an entire forum is copied
- Usernames are required when creating new accounts via the LIS 2.0 SIS Framework
- When creating a content item in the Original Course View, images attached using the content editor would break if the filename contained the word 'portfolio.' This issue has been fixed.
- In the Original Course View, unavailable graded forums with due dates no longer appear in the To Do module
SCORM engine update
The integrated SCORM player has been updated to a newer version that improves playback of responsive content and better supports SCORM packages in right-to-left languages such as Arabic.
SMTP authentication and encryption for email
SMTP authentication is now supported to improve the security of outbound email. Mail server configuration is now handled in the Email configuration page of the Admin panel. Settings take effect upon submission. An entry in the registry is created the first time this configuration page is used.
Support for IMS Global's LTI Content-Item Message Standard: Add teaching tools via LTI from provider's site
Content-Item message 1.0 is an LTI specification for exchanging content between LTI tools and Blackboard Learn. Many types of content can be shared, such as static links, embedded images or other media types and files, extending the LTI toolbox and streamlining the process of setting up an LTI tool link. Content-Item message enables external (LTI) tools to appear in the same way that internal tools do.
This enhancement provides another time savings for instructors and course builders: you can now add third-party content from a trusted provider's website directly, without having to navigate back to Learn. Additionally, instructors can add multiple pieces of content at once. Select and import the pieces of content to add to your Learn course, rather than adding each piece of content individually. These abilities depend on how the provider's content is configured.
Maintenance items for 3200.12.0
You can now view 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 3200.12.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.
Miscellaneous updates
- When uploading a file through the content editor, the error message has been replaced to provide better guidance.
- Invalid File Type
You tried to upload an unsupported file type. Select a different file and try again. More on supported file types.
- Invalid File Type
- Course visibility confirmation messages have been updated to explain how availability is tied to academic terms. Instructors and course builders have different options for course availability when the course is associated with an academic term:
- When a course is associated with an active term, it can be completed but not made private.
- When a course is associated with a past or future term, it can’t be made available.
- After a course is converted from the Original Course View to the Ultra Course View, users can download and open content attachments missing file extensions/MIME types without needing to choose the appropriate program.
- Gradebook grid view has been refactored to improve performance and reduce bugs.
- An updated version of the Partner Cloud Building Block (v1.7.2017021367) is bundled with this release.
- The Sharp Building Block (v. 1.1.51) has been unbundled from this release.
Maintenance items for 3200.10.0
You can now view 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 3200.10.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.
Miscellaneous updates
- Instructor feedback on manually created gradebook items now displays for students as expected.
- In the Original Course View, instructors are shown updated help text on the Email Settings page. The instructions now indicate that some settings may be restricted by the institution administrator.
- We’ve fixed LTI links in the Ultra Course View to launch properly in mobile browsers and Blackboard apps.
- We’ve fixed an issue with loading longer lists of content folders on the Course Content page in the Ultra Course View.
- We’ve fixed an issue in the administrator Grade Center reports. Previously, grade columns were not appearing for courses using the Original Course View.
- We’ve fixed an issue that created a new session for users who login to Learn using SAML or CAS authentication. This release resolves any conflicts arising from ceasing an existing session, including problems with assessments that used force completion.
- An updated version of the McGraw-Hill Connect and Create Building Block (v2.4.2017020074) is bundled with this release.
- Message text has been updated for course builders who remove a member from a course:
- Remove Member?
When you remove members from your course, all of their grades, activity logs, and data are deleted. Are you sure you want to remove this member?
- Remove Member?
- We’ve rewritten error messages on the calendar to be more useful. When a user types an invalid date or time, the error message describes the required format:
- Please type a date in the following format: MM/DD/YYYY.
- Please type a time in the following format: 00:00 AM.
Maintenance items for 3200.8.0
You can now view 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 3200.8.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.
Miscellaneous updates
- Internet Explorer 11 is supported for the Ultra login page.
- Overdue notifications no longer appear in the activity stream for students who have submitted at least one attempt on time for a multiple-attempt assessment.
- Performance improvements have been made to address memory leaks. Performance began to suffer during longer sessions in which the user navigated to multiple areas of Ultra. This release addresses those issues.
- The text editor's save and cancel behavior has been improved.
- The instructor view of attachments on individual attempts in a multiple-attempt assessment has been fixed.
- Submission receipts have been localized into the user's chosen language.
- Inserting HTML into the text editor no longer locks the browser.
- Visibility settings are inherited when a whole course's content is copied into a new Ultra course.
- To help differentiate course members with identical names, the username has been added to the user card in the Ultra course roster and other areas such as Messages.
- Instructors can delete feedback on a graded item.
- When a course in the Ultra Course Preview is set as available to students from the Courses page, a new message appears: Finalizing conversion…
- An updated version of the Pearson MyLabs Mastering Building Block (v3.201.2017020601) is bundled with this release.
- An updated version of the VitalSource Building Block (v3.101.201702475) is bundled with this release.
- An updated version of the Partner Cloud Building Block (v1.7.2017021354) is bundled with this release.
- Text in Discussions in the Ultra Course View has been updated for consistency:
- Delete Response?
Are you sure you want to permanently delete this response from the discussion? Replies to this response remain unless you choose to delete them. - Delete Reply?
Are you sure you want to permanently delete this reply to remove it from the discussion? - Make an initial post to start a discussion.
- Delete Response?
- Text in conversations on course content items in the Ultra Course View has been updated:
- Delete Response?
You can delete this response to remove it from the conversation.
- Delete Response?
- A message that appears for students working on timed assessments has been updated:
- Timer is still active
The timer will continue to count down when you close your draft. Your work is automatically saved and submitted when time is up.
- Timer is still active
Maintenance items for 3200.6.0
You can now view 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 3200.6.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.
Miscellaneous updates
- Blackboard Learn SaaS is officially certified in the LTI 2.0 standard.
- Course copy via SIS integration behavior has changed. To maintain server speed and prevent unnecessary database job queues, only two course copy jobs can run concurrently in the cluster.
- Improvements have been made to notifications regarding late or overdue activity in the Ultra experience. The activity stream exhibited confusing behavior regarding due dates in restored courses, or when due dates had been changed.
- For auto-graded assessments that have been submitted past the due date, instructors now can overwrite the grade in the grade pill where the grade is automatically calculated.
- SAML sign on failures now include a unique identifier, allowing administrators to trace what went wrong with a user's specific login attempt.
- Content visibility settings are preserved when exporting and importing courses using the Ultra Course View.
- An updated version of the Partner Cloud Building Block (v1.7.2017021340) is bundled with this release.
- An updated version of the Qwickly Building Block (v.3.7.3) is bundled with this release.
- Text has been changed in assessments with multiple allowed attempts. When a user opens an assessment that is past due, a message now states: Past due. This attempt will be marked late. This helps to clarify that any additional attempts submitted after the due date will be marked late, but the attempts submitted prior to the due date satisfy the deadline.
- Text has changed in the Profile area of the Ultra experience. When a user selects their privacy settings,
- The options for students now include:
- Only instructors
- Anyone in my courses
- Administrators and anyone in my courses
- Instructors and Administrators see the following options:
- Administrators and other instructors
- Anyone in my courses
- Administrator and anyone in my courses
- The options for students now include:
Mobile device navigation improvements for the Original experience
This release includes navigation improvements for the system and course menus in the Original experience. When users access Blackboard Learn through their mobile devices, the navigation has been moved to a hamburger menu for persistent access from screen to screen. Tabs and subtabs also appear in navigation choices. My Blackboard has been incorporated into the system menu for easier access. Within a course, the menu opens and closes more easily with fixed location action rather than tab.
Blackboard Open Content available in Content Market
Blackboard Open Content is now available as a content partner in the Content Market for both Original and Ultra experiences in Blackboard Learn.
With this release, instructors using Blackboard Learn can launch directly from the Content Market into Blackboard Open Content to create, share, and discover rich educational content from a global network of instructors and leading OER providers.
Additionally, instructors can launch directly from the Content Market into the partner channel for CK-12 and Curriculum Pathways to discover and add content to their courses.
Accessibility update to the first-time user experience
When a user first logged in to Blackboard Learn with the Original experience, an overlay appeared on the screen to highlight key navigation elements. The overlay caused a frustrating user experience for those using assistive technologies and has been removed to improve overall accessibility.
New Blackboard app download module
A new module called Download Blackboard's Student App Today has been added to help students discover and download the Blackboard app. The module includes Apple and Android download links.
While the module is available by default for users to add to personalized tabs, it is not added to any tabs automatically. Administrators can use standard tab and module configuration to present the module on appropriate student tabs or to restrict the module entirely.
Course copy improvements
Institutions often use courses as templates for future instruction. Previously, when a course contained an LTI link to a specific piece of content, such as a chapter within an eBook, the link would break in a copied course, causing frustration and confusion. This issue is resolved in this release.
There is now a solution that keeps track of your placement so your content is not lost. The source course ID and content ID is tracked during course copy (and possibly archive/export) and the parameters are passed along with the launch in the respective history parameters.
LTI 2.0 Technical Preview
Partners, customers, and Blackboard can use the LTI 2.0 specification to create solution integrations that are accessible from various access points in both the Ultra and Original experiences. Specifically, the LTI 2.0 registration (tool proxy) services are supported along with the results service for returning scores to the gradebook. Other LTI services and specifications including Content Item messages and Gradebook services (formerly Rich Outcomes) are not supported at this time.
Maintenance items for 3200.4.0
You can now view 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 3200.4.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.
Miscellaneous updates
- SAML Building Block now supports the SHA-256 algorithm
- Improvements to fix visual bugs in Ultra language packs
- Comment icons have been updated for consistency
- Icons throughout the system have been replaced to use SVG files
- Ally Integration Reports no longer open in a pop up window
- Users can upload PDF files to Educator Preview environments
- Auto-save behavior has been removed from individual questions when creating an assessment in the Ultra Course View. Instructors are now prompted to manually save individual questions as they create assessments.
- Updated versions of the Mobile Web Services Building Block (v3200.4.0), McGraw-Hill Higher Education Building Block (v2.3.2017020076) and WileyPlus Building Block (v2.1.201604543) are bundled with this release
- The text dividing assessment and submission content has been changed for questionless tests as follows:
- Assessments without questions: Student content appears at the end of each submission
- Assessments with questions: If students add additional content, it appears at the end of each submission
- Assessment load times have improved to support a greater number of students and questions
Email configuration settings
Administrators can edit email configuration settings in the user interface, rather than editing the settings in the bb-config.properties file. This method allows you to edit email configuration settings without having to restart your Blackboard Learn environment. The configuration settings are now located under System Configuration > Email Configuration. The Local Support Contact, which was previously under System Admin > Help, is now located under Email Configuration as well.
Blackboard Learn SaaS: Q1 2017 Summary
In the early months of 2017, Blackboard released multiple new features, enhancements, and maintenance items to customers on the Learn SaaS continuous delivery deployment.
Here is a snapshot of that work, representing four Production environment releases in Q1 2017:
- 13 new features released, including localized user interface, integration with Blackboard Ally, LTI improvements, enhancements to discussions and assessments in the Ultra Course View, and more
- 7 long-term performance and scalability initiatives achieved
- 600+ maintenance items fixed on the backend and frontend, including both Original and Ultra experiences and course views
Thank you for helping us build this momentum. We’re eager to share more of these achievements as the year progresses. Refer to the full release notes to learn more about the details and cadence of Blackboard Learn SaaS releases.
Blackboard Ally: A solution for better accessibility
Ally is an additional, optional service for improving the accessibility of content and can now be integrated into Blackboard Learn. In this release, Ally improves accessibility within Blackboard Learn in the following ways.
- Ally presents instructors and content authors with an accessibility score and coaches users in ways to improve the accessibility of materials.
- Ally creates and presents students with automatically-generated alternative versions of uploaded files and creating accessible HTML, digital braille, and audio format files.
- Ally allows administrators to see accessibility scores of materials across courses and track changes over time to plan, measure, and improve accessibility.
Blackboard Store Building Block
The Blackboard Store Building Block has been removed from this release.
Building block installation validation
When installing a building block, the system checks the manifest for properly escaped characters in XML. Improperly formatted XML caused issues with some building blocks in some environments.
Outcomes Assessment: Sampling by demographic
When collecting and sampling student submissions for a secondary program evaluation process, administrators can sample student work by student demographic information in addition to sampling by courses and terms. Sampling can be done by the education level field or institution roles. You can use boolean operators such as AND/OR when sampling institution roles. For example, you could sample graduating senior in a specific program for evaluation purposes.
SAML authentication provider enhancements
To help troubleshoot SAML authentication issues, administrators now have the ability to regenerate certificates and change the responseSkew value in the user interface. SAML encryption certificates can periodically expire and should be regenerated regularly to maintain security. The responseSkew value may need to be edited if your Learn server is in a different time zone than the Identity Provider's server. The time difference can cause SAML assertions to expire before users are properly authenticated.
SIS integration enhancements
Command line Snapshot tools have been removed. Flat, snapshot-formatted files can still be processed through the SIS Integration Framework. New REST web services have been added to retrieve job status and record processing errors. These allow administrators to implement real-time monitoring and issue resolution processes if desired.
To learn more about transitioning from Snapshot to the SIS Integration Framework, join us for a webinar on 24 May 2017.
Q2 2016 CU4 for Flexible Deployment Option clients
Blackboard Learn SaaS customers on the Flexible Deployment Option (3000.0.0 release) will receive this cumulative update for Blackboard Learn 9.1, which contains fixes and enhancements for the Original experience and Original Course View. The full release notes can be found on Behind the Blackboard – Article #43340.
Additional drag-and-drop locations
File drag and drop are now supported in the following areas.
- Content Collection – file upload page replacing Java-dependent interface
- Content Editor – embed attachment
- Blank Page content type
- Blog – Create Entry
- Journal – Create Entry
- Portfolio – add Artifact
If the browser allows, users can drag a folder of files and the files will upload individually.
Responsive improvements for mobile devices
In this release, we've made a number of improvements for users on mobile devices.
- Improved course menu collapse behavior
- More responsive table handling in many interfaces including but not limited to:
- Grade Center
- Discussion forum list page
- Admin interfaces
- (Original Experience only) Responsive improvements for My Blackboard pages, including the ability to make a selection from the left panel and see content from the right panel. On mobile devices, the selected content will appear in an overlay that can be dismissed by selecting the close icon at the top.
Grades Journey
This update improves handling for managing grade columns in or reading grade data from merged sections. Institutions using flat file or REST in addition to LIS integration types can now retrieve just the external grade column. And new column filtering and column mapping capabilities make it easier to integrate with various student information systems.
Content Collection search improvement
The Basic or Advanced Search feature in the Content Collection now requires a starting search directory for better performance. Admins can grant users a permission to still search across all directories. A new privilege has been added so administrators can permit or restrict users from searching top-level directories in Basic and Advanced Search.
Course activity reports
The Course Activity Overview report has been updated to improve the experience for larger enrollment courses. Instructors can filter the report and break down the calculations of student activity by course groups.
Enterprise Surveys improvements
Changes to defaults and recipient count behavior help prevent admins from accidentally sending a survey to an overly-large recipient list.
New icon set
In this release, there is a new icon set for use in courses and organizations, and cancel/submit buttons will always pin to the bottom of the page regardless of device.
Quality improvements
Blackboard Learn 9.1 Q4 2016 includes multiple new and enhanced features, improved workflows, and technology updates. Enhancements for this release generally fall into the following five categories:
- Technology infrastructure improvement to improve performance and security
- Improved experience for mobile users and updating the look-and-feel of the environment
- Improvements to save time and effort including file drag-and-drop in key workflows
- Assessment enhancements in the core teaching and learning tools
- Reporting improvements
REST APIs
REST APIs are no longer restricted to technical preview. Administrators and developers can create integrations using REST APIs and secured with OAuth. Please note that we strongly encourage anyone making use of these APIs to thoroughly test their functionality. Please see the following articles on the Community site for further details:
Reports on student activity - Assignments
With this release, we've augmented student activity reports in Original and Ultra courses. Now activity reports are available for assignments in addition to tests, which were supported beginning with the v3000.4.0 release.
The student activity report displays the details of when each student accessed, began, and made a submission to an assignment.
This is a dual-panel feature, which looks and functions the same in both Original or Ultra courses. However, the school's Learn instance must have the Ultra experience enabled in order to use Student Activity Reports.
- See when students opened, began, and submitted their assignments.
- View the data visually using Chart View or in a text layout using Grid View.
- Easily access the data at the course level, using the same method for both assignment and test activity.
- In Original courses: Select the Content tab, then navigate to an assignment and select the arrow to the right of its name. Choose Student Activity.
- In Ultra courses: Access Student Activity data from the Course Content page. Hover over a test and select the bar chart icon labeled Student Activity.
Cengage Building Block
An updated version of the Cengage Learning MindLinks™ Building Block, v1.101.201602307, is preinstalled for all clients on SaaS Standard deployments. It is turned off by default.
Bookshelf by VitalSource
The Building Block version 3.101.201602448 is preinstalled and available to all clients on SaaS Standard deployments and clients on the 9.1 Q2 2016 release. It is available by default.
Cengage Building Block
The Building Block, v1.101.201602307, is preinstalled and available to all clients on SaaS Standard deployments. It is turned off by default.
Learn 2016 Theme for improved mobile experience
This release includes a new theme for the Original experience that provides a more modern look and feel. Most importantly, the Learn 2016 theme significantly increases the responsiveness of the interface for small devices.
The theme also incorporates elements from the new Blackboard design language including color, fonts, and spacing, for greater consistency between Blackboard Learn, Collaborate Ultra, and the Bb Student app. Finally, the theme improves the responsiveness of Original courses in the Ultra experience.
The Learn 2016 theme replaces the Learn 2015 theme in the theme manager. We do not recommend using the 2015 theme with the Original experience, regardless of deployment type. The new Learn 2016 theme is intended for use with the Original experience.
Important notes:
- Institutions retain the option to customize the login page in the Original experience.
- The course menu navigation collapses automatically on small devices (less than 768 pixels wide). Users open the navigation menu to make a new selection; then the menu collapses again, in order to maximize screen space for content and tools.
- Modules on tabs or a course module page will shrink to size on larger devices; on smaller devices, columns will collapse to a single column and the modules will stack.
- Instructors cannot use course themes with the Learn 2016 theme, because they are not responsive.
- The theme cannot present content responsively if the content itself isn't responsive. Content authored with the Content Editor must be authored responsively in order for it to conform to a mobile device. For example:
- Images should be added and displayed at 100%, rather than as fixed pixel sizes.
- Tables used to organize or present content should be avoided, since they typically have specified cell and table sizes that won't work with mobile devices.
McGraw-Hill Building Block
The Building Block, v2.3.2016020053, is preinstalled and turned on by default for all clients on SaaS Standard deployments.
Pearson MyLab & Mastering Building Block
The Building Block, v3.201.201602007, is preinstalled and available to all clients on SaaS Standard deployments.
Wiley Plus Building Block
The Building Block, v2.001.201602531, is preinstalled and available to all clients on SaaS Standard deployments. It is inactive by default.
Qwickly Building Block v3.2.0
An updated version of the Building Block, v3.2.0, is preinstalled and available to all clients on SaaS Standard deployments. It is turned off by default. For details, visit Qwickly's website.
Grade Extract
Maintenance note to K-12 clients utilizing the Gradebook Extract Building Block.
Due to a conflict between solutions included in the SaaS deployment, Gradebook Extract was updated to utilize a new data model. Unfortunately, this update will result in the disruption of previously scheduled extracts. All configuration pertaining to structure, columns, and files are maintained. Only the scheduler configuration will be lost.
To resume the scheduled extracts, the administrator must navigate to System Admin > Building Blocks > Installed Tools > Gradebook Extract > Settings > Schedule and Notification Configuration and resubmit the page after reviewing its contents. Any questions or concerns regarding this operation can be escalated to ICM through a Behind the Blackboard ticket.
Learn, Analytics for Learn, and Building Block compatibility
Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3000.1.0 | Release to Production 3 May 2016
Users upgrading their Learn environment to Learn version Q2-2016 and above must use the new Analytics for Learn + Building Block combination to support integration: Analytics for Learn version 4.3 + and Building Block version 4.0 +. This requires an upgrade to the A4L warehouse, and must be scoped and scheduled in advance of the Learn upgrade to avoid interruption of service. Please contact your account representative if you have any questions about whether your A4L warehouse will be impacted by your Learn upgrade.
Release notes for earlier versions
Release notes for earlier versions are available in English only.
