Release Notes for Learn SaaS
This page contains features and updates currently on Learn SaaS Test/Stage and Production environments. Visit Archived SaaS Release Notes to see features and updates in older versions. Visit In-Product Updates to learn more about in-product updates.
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Learn SaaS release 3900.62.0
Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.62.0
Release to Test/Stage: Tuesday, 7 March 2023 | Release to Production: Thursday, 6 April 2023
Original Experience, Ultra Experience
Original Course View, Ultra Course View
For full feature details please review the corresponding notes for the Learn 3900.62.0 version included below on this page. Details can also be found on Behind the Blackboard.
Latest release: 3900.62.0-rel.16+82edc15 to Test/Stage servers to take place on 21 March 2023.
For more information on updates and bug fixes, please visit Behind the Blackboard.
Learn SaaS release 3900.60.0
Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.60.0
Release to Test/Stage: Tuesday, 7 February 2023 | Release to Production: Thursday, 2 March 2023
Original Experience, Ultra Experience
Original Course View, Ultra Course View
For full feature details please review the corresponding notes for the Learn 3900.60.0 version included below on this page. Details can also be found on Behind the Blackboard.
Latest release: 3900.60.0-rel.41+9d324a9 to Production servers to take place on 23 March 2023.
For more information on updates and bug fixes, please visit Behind the Blackboard.
April 2023 – 3900.62 Release
The April 2023 - 3900.62 release is robust with features in five areas:
- Assessment and grading;
- Richer course and content;
- Data and analytics;
- Integration, extension, and management; and
- Course upgrading
These improvements impact instructors, students, and administrators. Some features do require administrative action.
Instructors:
- Multiple Grading Schemas: Add, Edit, Copy
- Submission page sorting controls
- Gradable Items View usability improvements
- Discussion navigation improvements
- Deactivated students no longer show in student progress reports
- New access points to Student Overview
- Course Activity Report accessibility improvements
Instructors and students:
- Hotspot question: Circle Shape and Usability Improvements
- Bb Annotate: Enhanced comments
- Cloud document “Refresh” button improvement
All users:
- Course Content Title Search
- Primary Instructor improvements
- Course Upgrading: Remove HTML for plain text fields
- Updated Text for Copies and Imports
Administrators:
Bb Annotate: Enhanced comments – 3900.62
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience, Original Experience
Ultra Course View, Original Course View
Impact: Instructors, Students
It is important for instructors to provide rich and meaningful feedback for students. We have improved formatting and editing options for instructors.
- Instructors can now include richer formatting in comments. This includes font colors, bold, underline, and hyperlinks.
- Instructors can now edit already placed comments.
For administrators:This feature might not be available at the same time the release takes place. The deployment information will be updated on status.blackboard.com.
Course Activity Report accessibility improvements – 3900.62
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View, Original Course View
Impact: Instructors
We commit to providing accessible and inclusive solutions for all users. Many users navigate Ultra using assistive technologies. To better support instructors using assistive technology, we have made several accessibility improvements to the Course Activity Report:
- The description of the Course Activity Report includes a “Learn more” link. Now the screen reader states this link, directing the instructor to the related Help documentation.
- Instructors can sort data on any column. Now screen readers indicate if column sorting is in ascending or descending order.
- Instructors can select many students to send messages. Now screen readers state the number of students selected.
- Screen readers now state when an instructor selects or deselects all students.
- In medium and small screens some options of the Course Activity Report combine in a single drop-down menu. Now screen readers state that the 3-dot menu contains more options.
Image 1. The screen reader indicates the “Learn more” link directs the user to the related help page
Image 2. The screen reader indicates that sorting is applied to the Overall Grade in descending order
Image 3. The screen reader indicates that 2 students are selected
Image 4. The screen reader indicates that the 3-dots button displayed in medium and small screens contains more options
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed. To experience these improvements, users need to turn on a screen reader tool using the assistive technology installed on their personal devices.
March 2023 – 3900.60 Release
The March 2023 - 3900.60 release is robust with features in six areas:
- Assessment and grading;
- Data and analytics;
- Mobile app;
- Integration, extension, and management;
- Communication and social engagement; and
- Course upgrading.
These improvements impact instructors, students, and administrators. Some features do require administrative action.
Instructors:
- Improved attempt switching when grading student submissions with multiple attempts
- Sorting Controls on the Anonymous Submissions Page
- Sorting on Overall Grade in the Gradebook Student List View
- Course Activity Report Table Enhancements
- Unsupported Course Cartridge and ePack Features Removed
- Support for concurrent course copies
- Preserve empty content areas
- Preserve font families
- Reschedule announcements
Instructors and students:
All users:
- PDF version of the SafeAssign Originality Report
- Improvements to the user profile
- Password age, re-use, and expiration policies
- Blackboard Assist (K12 availability)
Administrators:
PDF version of the SafeAssign Originality Report – 3900.60
Blackboard Learn SaaS, Managed and Self-Hosting
Ultra Experience, Original Experience
Ultra Course View, Original Course View
Impact: All users
The SafeAssign Originality Report is a valuable teaching and learning tool. Instructors use the report to ensure students express original thoughts and cite sources. Some instructors allow students to view the report. This is helpful for teaching students how to cite their work.
In the past, users could download the report as PDF. However, users could not open the sources from the PDF.
Now, users can open matched sources from the PDF. We also made some usability improvements to the PDF, such as text alignment and font adjustments. To better support peak usage, we made infrastructure improvements.
Image 1. Improved PDF version of the SafeAssign Originality Report
For administrators: Managed and Self-Hosting clients must upgrade to the newest version of the SafeAssign Building Block for these improvements.
Data & Analytics
Course Activity Report Table Enhancements – 3900.60
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View, Original Course View
Impact: Instructors
The course activity page helps instructors understand students' performance. With this information, instructors can:
- Identify struggling or high performing students based on their grade, hours in course, or days of inactivity.
- Message students who have a low grade and/or have not accessed the course recently.
- Receive alerts when a student has not accessed their course in a while or if a student's grade has dropped.
With this update, we have made the following improvements:
- New Table - Updated to be more consistent with other features. Those who use progress tracking will find the feel of the new table should be familiar. The new table makes it easier to select and message students.
- New Days of Inactivity Column - the number of days since a student last accessed your course. Instructors can use this information to identify students that might be falling behind.
- Access Student Overview - click or tap a student's name to see their grades, progress, and activity over the weeks. Instructors can use the Student Overview to get a full picture of a student's performance and engagement in a course.
- More Student Information. Accommodations, name pronunciation, and pronouns are now visible. Instructors can use this information when drafting messages to students.
Image 1. Course Activity Report - new table capabilities and metrics
For administrators: This feature is available for all courses. There are no configurations needed.
REST APIs to read Rubrics associations – 3900.60
Blackboard Learn SaaS, Blackboard Learn 9.1
Ultra Experience, Original Experience
Ultra Course View, Original Course View
Impact: Administrators
Providing access to Rubric associations within our REST API framework offers many benefits:
- additional administrative control for assessments
- flexibility for external third-party integrations
- supports instructor-student communication about performance expectations
In this release we are glad to make available a new Rubrics Associations API. This public API includes a set of GET endpoints. This helps to inform users about existing rubric associations in a course:
- Rubrics associations
- Rubrics associations by rubrics ID
- Rubrics associations by associations ID
For administrators: The REST integration user must have the entitlement “course.rubrics.VIEW” to make use of the new endpoints.
Manage Roster - 3900.60
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View, Original Course View
Impact: Instructors, Students
Institutions often have policies about hiding students' personal information. Institutions can now manage Roster visibility. This level of control is for both Ultra and Original Course Views when Base Navigation is enabled.
Administrators can define the Roster visibility at the institution and node levels for both courses and organizations. When permitted, instructors can define the Roster visibility setting at course/organization level.
The Details & Actions menu in Ultra Course View will not display the Roster to students when it is hidden. Instructors can manage the Student Roster visibility in Original Courses when allowed by the administrator.
For instructors: your institution may enforce a policy and not allow you to change this setting.
Image 1. Instructor view - Roster visibility control
Image 2. Student view - Roster does not appear in the Details & Actions menu when the Roster is hidden
Image 3. Roster visibility controls from the Administrator Tools Panel
Instructors, Teaching Assistants, and Course Builders roles have the privilege to view and edit the Roster by default. For other roles, the following privileges must be configured:
- View Roster: Administrator Panel (Courses) > Courses > Edit > Enrollments or Course/Organization Control Panel (Users and Groups) > Users
- Edit Roster visibility: Course/Organization Control Panel (Customization) > Tool Availability
For administrators: Administrators can configure the Roster visibility from the Administrator Panel > Tools and Utilities > Tools.
Open the padlock to allow individual instructors to edit their Roster tool availability. Lock the padlock to enforce the institutional policy for Roster availability.
Unsupported Course Cartridge and ePack Features Removed – 3900.60
Blackboard Learn SaaS, Blackboard Learn 9.1
Original Experience
Original Course View
Impact: Instructors
In the past for Original Course View, there were two older methods for adding licensed publisher content. These are no longer supported:
- Course Cartridges, a server-based method to download licensed publisher content using one-time keys
- ePack licensed content importing when converting WebCT courses
While we have not supported these for years, users still see options to add Course Cartridges download keys. APIs for ePack conversion are still part of the course import process. In this release, we have removed these. Instructors and admins will no longer see options to enter a Course Cartridge download key.
Image 1. An instructor viewing the “Import Course Cartridge” page in the Original Course View Control Panel—this option will be removed in 3900.60
There are no changes for existing content. Course Cartridge materials that required ongoing license validation have not worked for years. Course Cartridge materials that became standard Learn items—students do not have to enter license keys to access them the first time—will continue to work.
This change is unrelated to other methods to import content or access licensed publisher materials. These other methods are not impacted by this change:
- Partner Cloud
- Importing or exporting a Learn course package
- Importing or exporting a Common Cartridge (an exchange format standard from 1EdTech, formerly IMS Global)
- Course auto-archive
For administrators: This change is for all Original courses. There are no configurations needed.
Security: Registration of all domains required– 3900.60
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience, Original Experience
Ultra Course View, Original Course View
Impact: Administrators
Various methods of verifying users help to make the Blackboard Learn application more secure. One method is to confirm all requests come from authorized domains. Administrators manage this in the Administrator Panel > Hostname Configuration.
In the past, requests from some parts of the application would work even if the requester domain was not registered. In this release, this will no longer be allowed. This improves the security of Blackboard Learn.
Image 1. The hostname configuration page allows administrators to register all domains used to access the Learn application
For administrators: If your institution created additional domains for your Learn environment, you must register them all. This applies to both primary application domains and alternate domains for serving content. For example, an administrator at Monument University created the domains learn.monumentuni.edu for users to access and learn-content.monumentuni.edu to securely serve content. Both must be registered.
Looking for older release notes?
Check out the Blackboard Learn Release Notes Archive for more information on past releases.
