About this release
With the Q4 2015 release, we made a series of improvements to Learn based on client feedback and our ongoing commitment to product quality, simplified workflows, and introducing new innovations to help students, instructors, and educational programs. Below you'll find a summary of what's new in this release, along with links to get more detailed information.
Related articles
Supported Technologies for Self-Hosted Systems
Browser Support for Q4 2015 Release
New features and updates
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Goal Performance Dashboard | A competency-based education building block to map goals to courses within Learn. The Goal Performance Dashboard evaluates evidence of competencies individually, allowing for true measurement of knowledge. |
| Grades Journey | Grades Journey integrates your institution's Student Information System with Learn. Grades Journey allows you to exchange grade information between two separate systems. |
| Grades Reporting | Multiple fixes have been done in this release. Visit Behind the Blackboard for more information. |
| PowerSchool SIS Integration | As part of the innovative classroom, SIS Central two-way integration is now available for PowerSchool customers who license Blackboard Learn 9.1 October 2014 release or higher.
With this release, Blackboard's SIS Central will provide bi-directional integration between all Blackboard Learn deployment options and the PowerSchool Student Information System. The Blackboard Learn PowerSchool Integration provides a hands-free, seamless synchronization of users, classes, enrollments, assignments, and grades between Blackboard Learn and PowerSchool. |
| Notifications | Certain clients may have experienced performance issues and outages when common notification queries were processed on their servers. Learn 9.1 Q4 2015 addresses many of these issues. |
| Announcement Date Restriction Default | When creating an announcement, "Not Date Restricted" is now selected by default. |
| Escaping Special Characters | When a user uploads a file to Learn and the filename contains special characters (such as / \ : ? * " < > | ), the system replaces the special character with an underscore ( _ ). |
| Reply-to Header | This release fixes an issue with email sent from Learn. Some email clients do not use the reply-to header of emails sent by BbLearn to populate the "To:" field when the user replies to an email. As a result, some students were confused when they received email from do-not-reply@<bblearn_domain> instead of their instructor's email address. |
| Content Folders | A hotfix is available for clients who applied the Cumulative Update 3 (CU3) for Learn 9.1 October 2014 and are experiencing difficulty accessing content folders within their system. |
| Browser Support | Learn 9.1 now supports the Microsoft Edge browser. Some new browser releases no longer support NPAPI plugins. Without these plugins, some Learn features may not render correctly. |
| HTML5 Support | The Content Editor now supports HTML5 Audio and Video playback in Chrome and Edge browsers. |
| WebEQ Conversion | ANGEL and WebCT Vista packages will convert WebEQ match equations to WIRIS. |
User interface
Some elements of the user interface have changed with this release.
| Feature | Description | To Learn More |
|---|---|---|
| Discussion Threads | Users can navigate from thread to thread without having to return to the main Discussions page. | Administrators |
Accessibility updates
| Feature | Description | To Learn More |
|---|---|---|
| Discussion Boards | Forum descriptions are read on the Create Thread page. This improves accessibility for users with screen reader technologies. | Accessibility |
| Assessments | When creating a hot spot question, an Image Alternate text box is now available. This improves accessibility for users. | Instructors |
| Content Editor | The default heading size for all of the embedded headings has been increased so they are properly read in both the view and edit state in the Content Editor. | Administrators |
Bug fixes and known issues
A comprehensive list of bug fixes contained in this release can be found on Behind the Blackboard. The following table displays the top bug fixes for Learn 9.1 Q4 2015 Release.
| Component | Issue Description and Behind the Blackboard Article |
|---|---|
| Assessments | Test completion status bar floats and covers test questions. |
| Grading | Unable to print more than one page of a student grade report. |
| Notifications | NullPointerException error appears when accessing the default Notification Settings in course or Organization Settings. |
| Course Tools | Course purge fails with no data found. |
| Assessments | Students may see an unexpected No Backtracking error when taking assessments. |
| Content Management | Web links that start with http:// throw an error in courses. |
| Discussion Boards | Print preview of Discussion Forum Thread Collection page is cropped. |
| YouTube | Users are unable to embed YouTube videos using YouTube Mashup or Video Everywhere. |
| My Blackboard | My Blackboard updates tool does not display update details. |
| Assessments | Calculated formula questions do not go to next screen or answer box is not visible. |
Security updates
| Component | Description |
|---|---|
| Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Ciphers | Blackboard recommends using only high strength ciphers.
Learn 9.1 Q4 2015 ships with high strength ciphers configured via the bb-config.properties item: |
