Release Notes 2022

Learn SaaS release 3900.54.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.54.0
Release to Test/Stage: Tuesday, 8 November 2022 | Release to Production: Thursday, 1 December 2022
Original Experience, Ultra Experience
Original Course View, Ultra Course View

For full feature details please review the corresponding notes for the Learn 3900.54.0 version included below on this page. Details can also be found on Behind the Blackboard.

Latest release: 3900.54.0-rel.23+9ce60e6 to Production servers to take place on 15 December 2022.

For more information on updates and bug fixes, please visit Behind the Blackboard.

December 2022 – 3900.54 Release

The December 2022 - 3900.54 release is complete with features in seven areas:

• assessment and grading;
• richer course and content design;
• data and analytics;
• integration, extension, and management;
• course upgrading;
• security; and
• usability.

These improvements primarily impact instructors and students. Some features do require administrative action.

Instructors:

• Question Banks Descriptions & Search
• Needs grading for first and last attempts
• Drag-and-drop improvements
• Course Links
• Single student progress report
• Simpler Exit Actions for Student Preview
• Improvements for copying content
• Readability/accessibility improvements copying or converting Original content into Ultra Course View

Instructors and students:

• LTI Tools Icons Synchronization

All users:

• Password policies when users change their passwords

Administrators:

• REST APIs to Read Rubrics and Goals
• Security change in release 3900.54 may be incompatible with some Building Blocks

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Security change in release 3900.54 may be incompatible with some Building Blocks

Blackboard Learn SaaS, Learn 9.1
Ultra Experience, Original Experience
Ultra Course View, Original Course View
Impact: Instructors, Students, Administrators

Anthology constantly works to improve the security stance of Blackboard Learn and proactively reacts to vulnerabilities identified in third-party and open source libraries used in the application. Recently, security experts published a vulnerability for an open source library used in the Learn application. This vulnerability is now addressed in the 3900.54 release.

Depending on whether third-party providers also use this library and how they manage it in their Building Blocks, some Building Blocks and versions of Building Blocks may be incompatible with 3900.54. The impact is specific to third-party (add-on) Building Blocks only. This change doesn't affect Building Blocks that are part of the Learn core application, and doesn't affect integrations using Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI), REST APIs, or Ultra Extension Framework (UEF).

For administrators: We encourage administrators to test third-party (add-on) Building Blocks as soon as possible, to prepare for the 3900.54 release. If you provide a Building Block that’s affected, contact Anthology product support for remediation details.

Return to December 2022 – 3900.54 Release description

Integration, Extension, and Management

REST APIs to Read Rubrics and Goals – 3900.54.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS, Blackboard Learn 9.1
Ultra Experience, Original Experience
Ultra Course View, Original Course View
Impact: Administrators

Rubrics are a valuable tool for instructor-to-student communication about performance expectations. Rubrics also help instructors with consistent and unbiased grading. Rubrics may also enable students to self-assess their performance on an assessment. Some rubrics may also be aligned to Goals. In a recent release, we included an option for REST API to read rubrics. Now we are happy to make available a new public Goals API.

This new API provides a suite of GET endpoints that allow users to read:

• Goals
• Goal Sets
• Goal Set Types
• Goal Categories

This allows developers to read matrices of criteria that enable measurements of student performance.

For administrators: The REST integration user must have the privilege “Administrator Panel (Tools and Utilities) > Goals.”

Return to December 2022 – 3900.54 Release description

Icon Display and Synchronization for Third-Party App Content (LTI) – 3900.54.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS, Blackboard Learn 9.1
Ultra Experience, Original Experience
Ultra Course View, Original Course View
Impact: Instructors, Students

Content from third-party apps are a significant portion of materials and activities in many courses. Generic icons for these materials made it difficult for users to understand their purpose. Now unique icons can be displayed for each third-party content type. These icons can be set by the tool provider or by the institution administrator. When an icon is not set, third-party contents show a generic icon.

The updated icons apply to contents that are selected or created in the third-party app. Adding a simple link to a tool that can be accessed in Books and Tools (Ultra) or Course Tools (Original) do not display the custom icon at this time.

Images uploaded for icons must be JPG or PNG files and 50x50 pixels.

Image 1. A third-party app icon in the Course Outline of Ultra Course View

Image 2. A third-party app icon in a Content Area of Original Course View

For administrators: We recommend Administrators review LTI placement configurations after this release because icons will now display to users in more places. Icons set for the placement type Deep Linking Content Tools will display in the Course Outline and Content Areas. Other placement types will continue to display generic icons. Tool providers may also set the icons. An administrator can retrieve icons set by tool providers using the “Synchronize placements” action. When the provider sets icons, they will replace and override institutional icon choices because they are the owner of their branding.

Return to December 2022 – 3900.54 Release description

Security

Password policies and logging when users change their passwords – 3900.54.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS, Blackboard Learn 9.1
Ultra Experience, Original Experience
Ultra Course View, Original Course View
Impact: Administrators

Most institutions use an identity provider (e.g. Azure Active Directory) to manage and authenticate users. Sometimes, some users are created in Learn. These users may be allowed to set their own passwords in Learn. Now, administrators can determine length and complexity requirements for these passwords. This can improve the security stance of Learn environments when the default authentication provider is used.

The administrator can set a password length requirement between 8 and 32 characters. The default is 12 characters. The administrator can individually set whether upper- and lower-case letters, numbers, and special characters are required.

The authentication logs now capture password change events. This only applies to Learn password changes, not to password changes in an identity provider. There are three event types:

• A user changed their own password.
• An administrator or other privileged user changed another user’s password. The event details will show who changed the password.
• A user reset their password using the forgotten password feature in Learn.

Image 1. A user changes their password in Original Experience.

Image 2. A user changes their password when Base Navigation is enabled.

For administrators: We recommend administrators review this configuration when users see the password reset option in Learn. The settings appear in the Administrator Panel on a new Password Settings page. Only a full System Administrator can access the configuration page. The default settings enforce the following policies: a minimum of one numeric and one special character, and the minimum length is set to 12. Administrators may also wish to review that system roles are configured correctly so users don’t see Learn’s password reset option when an identity provider is used (single sign-on). In this release, policies are enforced when a user is changing their own password. This includes when using the password reset tool. Password policies aren’t enforced when a support user changes the password of another user. Password policies aren’t enforced when using SIS Framework, Building Blocks, or REST APIs to change passwords.

Image 3. An administrator configures the password length and complexity policies.

Image 4. Authentication logs include Password Change events.

Return to December 2022 – 3900.54 Release description

Learn SaaS release 3900.52.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.52.0
Release to Test/Stage: Wednesday, 12 October 2022 | Release to Production: Thursday, 3 November 2022
Original Experience
Ultra Experience

For full feature details please review the corresponding notes for the Learn 3900.52.0 version included below on this page. Details can also be found on Behind the Blackboard.

Latest release: 3900.52.0-rel.22+0f5d4f9 to Production servers to take place on 3 November 2022.

For more information on updates and bug fixes, please visit Behind the Blackboard.

November 2022 – 3900.52 Release

The November 2022 - 3900.52 release is complete with features in five areas:

• assessment and grading;
• richer course and content design;
• data and analytics;
• integration, extension, and management; and
• course upgrading.

These improvements primarily impact instructors and students. Some features do require administrative action.

Instructors:

• Course Activity Report under the Analytics tab
• Grade History Improvements
• Gradebook view saved
• Enhanced Student Grades Overview
• Gradebook Icon tooltips
• Content Collection in Ultra Documents
• Grading navigation improvements in Journals
• Preserve Course Image setting

Instructors and students:

• Hotspot Question
• Page Breaks in Tests and Assignments
• Richer Student feedback options for manually added columns
• Ultra Course Content and Original Content Areas display LTI tool icon
• Unread Messages indicator for Courses and Organizations

Students:

• Auto save enhancements for lost connections

All users:

• Messages tab shows only to enrolled users

Administrators:

• REST APIs to Utilize/Reference Content Collection Items

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Integration, Extension, and Management:

Ultra Course Content and Original Content Areas display LTI tool icon – 3900.52

Blackboard Learn SaaS, Learn 9.1
Ultra Experience, Original Experience
Ultra Course View, Original Course View
Impact: Instructors, Students

Inclusion of learning tools is important to some instructors. These tools help provide diverse and engaging course content. In the past, the icons for LTI tools were not meaningful for students and instructors. Now administrators can link LTI tools to appropriate icons. This provides users with greater confidence as they engage with LTI tools in the course.

Image 1. Administrators can add LTI tool icon of choice

Image 2. Instructors may add LTI tools to their course

Image 3. Student view of the LTI content

For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. To add the icon, navigate to Administrator Tools | LTI Tool Providers | Placement Information.

Return to November 2022 – 3900.52 Release description

REST APIs to Utilize/Reference Content Collection Items - 3900.52

Blackboard Learn SaaS, Learn 9.1
Ultra Experience, Original Experience
Ultra Course View,Original Course View
Impact: Administrators

The Content Collection is a helpful file storage tool. Some users store files for courses. Users may also store files for sharing across the institution or with external users. In the 3900.41 release, we enabled REST APIs to read all files in all Content Collection. Now developers can use REST APIs to reference Content Collection files from other Public APIs and features. The following can be referenced:

• File attachments in Original and Ultra Courses
• BbML embedded files
• User Avatars
• Student Attempts
• Course Content Files

An administrator must allow this access for a third-party app. This improvement is part of ongoing work to expand the capabilities of the Content Collection REST APIs.

For administrators: Access the Administrator panel -> System roles to assign the "Read-only access to the content system file system" permission to the API user.

Return to November 2022 – 3900.52 Release description

Learn SaaS release 3900.50.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.50.0
Release to Test/Stage: Tuesday, 13 September 2022 | Release to Production: Thursday, 6 October 2022
Original Experience
Ultra Experience

For full feature details please review the corresponding notes for the Learn 3900.50.0 version included below on this page. Details can also be found on Behind the Blackboard.

Latest release: 3900.50.0-rel.21+840a19d to Production servers to take place on 26 October 2022. The build number doesn't increase from last week's as this is an Ultra UI only update. Also, it includes Bb Annotate iterative conversion improvements and bug fixes.

For more information on updates and bug fixes, please visit Behind the Blackboard.

October 2022 – 3900.50 Release

The October 2022 - 3900.50 release is complete with features in four areas:

• assessment and grading;
• richer course and content design;
• integration, extension, and management; and
• course upgrading.

These improvements primarily impact instructors and students. Some features do require administrative action.

Instructors:

• Improved access to Student Grades Overview
• Student Progress report for course content
• Preserving the forced sequencing setting on Learning Modules during course upgrades

Instructors and students:

• Math Formulas accessible with screen readers

Students:

• Enhanced auto save capability in the Content Editor in Tests & Assignments

All users:

• Global HTML Filter Requirement Change
• Messages for courses with +100 people
• Improvements to Blackboard App Settings
• Base Navigation - Grades: Reduce height of course tiles for courses without grades
• Course Name in browser tab

Administrators:

• Granular Content Copy - Improvements to Legacy Content

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Course Messages recipient picker improvement for courses with more than 100 participants – 3900.50

Blackboard Learn Original
Original Experience
Original Course View
Impact: All users

Course Messages is a useful tool for course communication.

In the past, the recipient picker did not work as expected in courses with more than 100 participants. When a user clicked the “Add recipients” button, the Compose Message page collapsed and was unusable.

Now users may add recipients as expected.

Image 1. Recipient picker for courses with more than 100 users

When users select recipients, a recipient chip is created. If the user wishes to edit the list of recipients, the user should remove the chip and select the desired recipients.

Image 2. Recipient chip with all selected recipients

For administrators: There are no configurations needed.

Return to October 2022 – 3900.50 Release description

Integration, Extension, and Management:

Global HTML Filter Requirement Change – 3900.50

Blackboard Learn SaaS, Learn 9.1
Original Experience
Original Course View
Impact: All users

We conduct continuous reviews of Blackboard Learn to improve our security. Learn has an HTML filter in the Original Experience and Original Course View. This filter removes scripts that users add in the content editor. This helps prevent cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities.

In the past it was possible for an administrator to turn off this filter. Starting with this release, the filter will always be on. Administrators can still allow certain users to bypass the filter. They can grant users the privilege Add/Edit trusted content with scripts. As before, we recommend administrators restrict the number of users with this privilege.

The Ultra Experience and Ultra Course View do not use this filter. In the Ultra Course View, HTML blocks render in an iframe from a separate domain. This prevents XSS risk to the Learn application.

For administrators: There are no configurations needed. This change will happen automatically. It will not be possible to turn off the global HTML filter.

Return to October 2022 – 3900.50 Release description

Improvements to Blackboard App Settings – 3900.50

Blackboard Learn SaaS, Learn 9.1
Ultra Experience, Original Experience
Ultra Course View, Original Course View
Impact: All users

Users expect to have access to their courses on mobile devices. The transition between mobile and desktop applications should be seamless and frustration free. To support effortless movement between the two, we added settings categories and mobile-specific categories. A new design of this section provides simplified toggles for configurating your preferences.

Image 1. Stream notification option in the Settings section

Image 2. Stream notification settings

Image 3. Disrupted connectivity alert

For administrators: This feature is available for all users of the Mobile App. Users with enabled automatic updates on their devices are not required to do any actions. Users with disable automatic updates on their devices must download the update.

Return to October 2022 – 3900.50 Release description

Learn SaaS release 3900.48.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.48.0
Release to Test/Stage: Tuesday, 16 August 2022 | Release to Production: Thursday, 1 September 2022
Original Experience
Ultra Experience

For full feature details please review the corresponding notes for the Learn 3900.48.0 version included below on this page. Details can also be found on Behind the Blackboard.

Latest release: 3900.48.0-rel.18+c7edfda to Production servers to take place on 22 September 2022.

For more information on updates and bug fixes, please visit Behind the Blackboard.

September 2022 – 3900.48 Release

The September 2022 - 3900.48 release is complete with features in four areas:

• assessment and grading;
• richer course and content design;
• diversity, equity, and inclusion; and 
• integration, extension, and management.

These improvements primarily impact instructors and students, but value is truly added for all users. Some features do require administrative action.

Instructors:

• Rubric Copy between Courses
• Question Bank Sorting Controls
• Discussion replies are available on the individual discussion grading page
• Grade History: Non-Posted Grades included
• Set points for manually added gradable items
• Prevent copying an entire course into the same course

Instructors and students:

• Summary list of annotations for inline grading

Students:

• Test Timer Notifications
• Improved Access to Feedback

Administrators:

• Blackboard Home: Additional Site Health and Utilization Reports

All users:

• Display Name Choice
• Microsoft Immersive Reader for Anthology Ally for LMS
• Activity Stream navigation improvements

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Summary list of annotations for inline grading – 3900.48

Blackboard Learn SaaS, Learn 9.1
Ultra Experience, Original Experience
Ultra Course View, Original Course View
Impact: Instructors, Students

File submissions can be annotated inline when grading. Now a side panel will summarize all comments in a list. Selecting a comment will navigate the instructor or student to the location of that comment in the document. This change makes it easier to find all comments and feedback in a student’s submission.

This functionality will be released in September, independently from the 3900.48 release.

Rollout schedule by region:

• Korea (prod-ap-northeast-2) - Tue 06 Sep  1pm EDT
• Singapore (prod-ap-southeast-1) - Tue 06 Sep  2pm EDT
• South Africa (prod-af-south-1) - Tue 06 Sep  7pm EDT
• GOV US (prod-us-gov-west-1) - Wed 07 Sep  6am EDT
• Sydney (prod-ap-southeast-2) - Wed 07 Sep 11am EDT
• EU (prod-eu-central-1) - Wed 07 Sep  7pm EDT
• Canada (prod-ca-central-1) - Thu 08 Sep  8am CET
• US (prod-us-east-1) - Thu 08 Sep  8am CET

For administrators: There are no configurations needed.

Return to September 2022 – 3900.48 Release description

Richer Course and Content Design

Microsoft Immersive Reader for Anthology Ally for LMS – 3900.48

Blackboard Learn SaaS, Learn 9.1
Ultra Experience, Original Experience
Ultra Course View, Original Course View
Impact: Instructors, Students, Administrators, Course Builders

Many classrooms today, both physical and digital, include participants with diverse needs. To better support learning needs and preferences, alternative formats are key. Alternative formats let all participants access course content according to their preferences.

Anthology Ally for LMS now includes a new alternative format: Microsoft Immersive Reader. Microsoft Immersive Reader helps students improve their reading, comprehension, and grammar skills. All course participants are empowered by Anthology Ally with Microsoft Immersive Reader.

From the Ally Alternative Format menu, users may select the Immersive Reader option and select download.

Image 1: Select the Anthology Ally Icon

Image 2: Select Immersive Reader Alternative Format

Image 3: Immersive Reader View

This functionality will be released on August 31 independently from the 3900.48 release and as part of the Ally release.

Your institution will need to license Anthology Ally for LMS to use this functionality.

For administrators: There are no configurations needed.

Return to September 2022 – 3900.48 Release description

Integration, Extension, and Management

Blackboard Home: Additional Site Health and Utilization Reports – 3900.48

Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Original Experience
Impact: System administrators

Blackboard Home gives administrators insights into how their Learn site is being used. The previous release of Blackboard Home focused on storage usage metrics.

The September release has updates related to site health and utilization. It also helps administrators understand adoption of Ultra Course View.

As before, administrators can see metric changes over time. They can also use the time picker to look at specific timeframes. In this release, there are six new reports.

• Unique users. See the count of active unique users over time.
• Logins. See the count of user logins over time. Multiple logins by the same user are counted multiple times.
• Requests Per Minute. See the average requests per minute served by the Learn application. This reflects the traffic volume (throughput) of the site. Request volume includes traffic from web browsers, mobile apps, and integrated systems.
• Application Performance Index (Apdex). This is a measure of the timeliness of the user experience. It is impacted by both the application performance and users’ bandwidth. Apdex is on a scale from 0 to 1. A 0 is an unsatisfactory slow experience; 1 is very fast loading. The apdex measure is a standard managed by an open standards organization. It is meant to act as one indicator of a satisfactory user experience.
• Uptime. This report helps administrators identify outages where users were impacted. An outage for this report is defined in the Service Level Agreement.
• Ultra adoption. Administrators managing sites with instructor choice for Ultra course adoption need to track adoption and use trends. This report shows the share of active Original and Ultra courses.

Administrators can now switch between viewing different environments. This includes looking at test/stage environments separate from production. Each site will display its deployed version, URLs, deployment location, and information about direct database access (DDA) if enabled.

This functionality will be released in September independently from the 3900.48 release. Details will be shared later on this page.

For administrators: Blackboard Home is only available for Learn SaaS. There are no configurations needed if Blackboard Home was previously enabled. In some environments, it can be necessary to perform the following action to allow access. Go to Administrator Panel > LTI Tool Providers. Find “Blackboard Home” and edit it. Enable “Role in Course” to send role information to Blackboard Home and click submit. Only full system administrators can access Blackboard Home.

Image 1: Course count over time shows the share of courses that are Original, Ultra, Undecided, and in Ultra Preview.

Image 2: Site utilization visualizations include throughput and user count reports.

Image 3: Site health reports including uptime and Application Performance Index (Apdex).

Return to September 2022 – 3900.48 Release description

Learn SaaS release 3900.46.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.46.0
Release to Test/Stage: Wednesday, 20 July 2022 | Release to Production: Thursday, 4 August 2022
Original Experience
Ultra Experience

For full feature details please review the corresponding notes for the Learn 3900.46.0 version included below on this page. Details can also be found on Behind the Blackboard.

Latest release: 3900.46.0-rel.27+79a83af to Production servers to take place on 25 August 2022.

For more information on updates and bug fixes, please visit Behind the Blackboard.

August 2022 – 3900.46 Release

The August 2022 - 3900.46 release is replete with features in three areas: assessment and grading; richer course and content design; and integration, extension, and management. These improvements primarily impact instructors and students. Some features do require administrative action.

Instructors:

• Improved management of question banks
• Advanced calculation for Overall Grade
• Delete Student Preview User
• Import/Export Group Sets and Members
• Explicit declaration of Messages handling
• Granular Content Copy – Copy Status in Course Tasks and Logs
• Granular Content Copy – Retain links to assessment questions
• Progress Tracking – Status and Filter updates for Submission View
• Bb Annotate undo/redo functionality: Roll out deployment

Instructors and students:

• Unified Blackboard App
• Congruent Mobile App and Desktop Experiences for Ultra Course View
• Microsoft OneDrive – Create a Collaborative Document
• Microsoft Teams Meetings
• Improvements to LaTeX question support
• Due Date Exceptions
• Messaging in Private Courses

Students:

• Enhanced auto save capability in the content editor in Tests & Assignments
  On the Submission page, instructors and students were unable to download files attached from Cloud Storage. Due to this issue, this feature has been removed from this release to be included in a future one.

All users:

• File upload indicator for Original Course View
• Force Email Copy for all Messages

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Richer Course and Content Design:

Microsoft OneDrive: Create a Collaborative Document - 3900.46

Blackboard Learn SaaS, Learn 9.1
Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View
Original Experience, Original Course View
Impact: Instructors, Students

Collaborative documents provide students opportunities to engage with one another and course content. Instructors can now create a Microsoft OneDrive collaborative document in the Ultra and Original Course Views.

Supported file types:

• Microsoft Word
• Microsoft Excel
• Microsoft PowerPoint

In the Ultra Course View, a new choice, Cloud Document, appears on the menu after selecting “Create” from the plus sign to add content.

Ultra Course View Flow

Image 1. Improved workflow for adding content from OneDrive

An instructor can choose Cloud Document from the “Create Item” panel and select “One Drive.” The following options are displayed:

• 'Open from OneDrive' to create a document link
• 'Start a new Collaboration' to create a collaborative document

Image 2. Start a new collaboration

Instructors may need to sign into a Microsoft account to continue.

Instructors can select an existing document or create a new file for collaboration.

Image 3. Create a new collaboration

All student members of the course will be able to access the file. The students may select Edit Document to begin collaborating on the file.

Image 4. Students select Edit Document to begin collaborating on the document

Any existing file linked to OneDrive stays unchanged. These files will remain read only.

In the Original Course View, a link appears in the content add tools menu and/or the add content button (+) in the content editor. The system administrator can decide the specific name in the Original Course View.

Original Course View Flow

Image 5. Adding Microsoft Cloud Collaboration document in Learn Original

An instructor can choose to create an item or edit an existing item and select the + symbol from the content editor. Select the "Microsoft Cloud Collaboration document" to continue.

Image 6. Start a new collaboration

Instructors may need to sign into a Microsoft account to continue.

Instructors can select an existing document or create a new file for collaboration.

All student members of the course can access the file. 

Image 7. Students select "Edit Document" to begin collaborating on the document.

For administrators: Please register the LTI Tool Provider in the Administrator Panel. Only users in the same Microsoft tenant can collaborate on documents.

Return to August 2022 – 3900.46 Release description

Unified Blackboard App– 3900.46

Blackboard Learn SaaS, Blackboard Learn 9.1
Ultra Experience, Original Experience
Ultra Course View, Original Course View
Impact: Instructors, Assistants, and Graders

In the past we had two separate mobile apps: the Blackboard App and the Blackboard Instructor App. The two apps caused confusion for many instructors. They did not realize that they needed to use a different app to manage their courses.

With this release, we are consolidating to a single app for both instructors and students. The user experience will change based on the user’s role within a course. Instructors can use the updated Blackboard app for both Original and Ultra courses.

Action needed: Support for the Blackboard Instructor iOS and Android apps ends in September 2022. Instructors, Assistants, and Graders should download the Blackboard app for iOS or Android.

For administrators: There are no configurations needed. We encourage admins to notify instructors of the need to download a different app.

Return to August 2022 – 3900.46 Release description

Bb Annotate undo/redo functionality: Roll out deployment - 3900.46.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS, Learn 9.1, Managed Hosting, Self-Hosted
Ultra Experience and Original Experience
Ultra Course View and Original Course View
Impact: Instructors, roles with grading permissions

We will do a phased roll-out deployment for the new undo/redo functionality of Bb Annotate. This new capability will allow instructors to easily edit their annotations. The schedule is:

Region/Date

• ap-southeast-1-p: Aug 1, 2022
• af-south-1: Aug 2, 2022
• ap-southeast-1: Aug 3, 2022
• us-gov-west-1: Aug 4, 2022
• ap-northeast-2: Aug 5, 2022
• us-east-1, eu-central-1, ap-southeast-2, and ca-central-1: Aug 11, 2022

The deployment will include some downtime, and we will avoid high traffic hours in each specific region.

The downtime will only be for Bb Annotate not the entire Learn environment.
It is expected to be around 1 hour long. During this time users will see a maintenance message inside the Bb Annotate framework.

Return to August 2022 – 3900.46 Release description

Learn SaaS release 3900.44.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.44.0
Release to Test/Stage: Tuesday, 21 June 2022 | Release to Production: Thursday, 7 July 2022
Original Experience
Ultra Experience

For full feature details please review the corresponding notes for the Learn 3900.44.0 version included below on this page. Details can also be found on Behind the Blackboard.

Latest release: 3900.44.0-rel.23+b930328 to Production servers to take place on 28 July 2022.

For more information on updates and bug fixes, please visit Behind the Blackboard.

July 2022 – 3900.44 Release

The July 2022 - 3900.44 release is robust with features in four areas: assessment and grading; richer course and content design; diversity, equity, and inclusion; and integration, extension, and management.

Instructors:

• Select a points overall grade calculation
• Download grade history
• Edit the points a student earns on an assessment question
• Copy question banks
• Convert Blank Pages in Original Course View to Documents in Ultra Course Views
• Recategorize journals and discussions
• Improvements to user interface for multiple choice questions
• Description field length increased to 750 characters

Instructors and students:

• Points overall grade display
• Prohibit backtracking in assessments with questions presented one at a time
• Files render inline in Course Content, Folders, and Learning Modules
• Quality and accessibility improvements of math formulas
• Improvements to Group Feedback and Grade Overrides
• LTI Item name change to Content Market

Students:

• Test question filtering improvements

Administrators:

• Institution Role Mapping to LTI Institution Roles
• Launch LTI course links
• Blackboard Home Improvements

All users:

• Utilize pronoun and name pronunciation options in the Original Course View
• Updated panel for Messages

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Quality and accessibility improvements of math formulas - 3900.44

Blackboard Learn SaaS, Learn 9.1
Ultra Experience, Original Experience
Ultra Course View, Original Course View
Impact: Instructors, Students

Instructors and students often use math formulas in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) courses. In the past, formulas might render slowly or lose quality when zoomed. Now we will render math formulas as images in Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format. This allows users to zoom in or enlarge formula images without losing quality. This change also improves accessibility for users with low vision.

Image 1. Before rendering images in SVG format

Image 2. After rendering images in SVG format

Users can create math formulas using the text editor. Some content types include a description. The description appears on the Course Content page. Some notifications on the Activity Stream also display the description. When a description for a discussion or journal includes a math formula, we replace the formula image with '[Math formula].' When the user selects the content or notification, the math formulas will render as images.

Image 3. Example discussion description that includes a math formula.

Image 4. Example discussion topic that has math formulas.

For administrators: There are no configurations needed.

Return to July 2022 – 3900.44 Release description

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Display Pronouns and Pronunciation in Original Course View - 3900.44

Blackboard Learn SaaS, Learn 9.1
Original Experience
Original Course View
Impact: All users

The November 3900.26 and February 3900.32 releases included these features for Ultra Course View. This release adds full support for Original Course View. It also adds limited capabilities for Original Experience without Base Navigation enabled.

This release continues to deliver on planned diversity and inclusion improvements. Institutions can allow users to express their personal pronouns. This fosters greater respect among students and with faculty.

Institutions can also enable name pronunciation. Users can add text guidance to describe the pronunciation of their names for other users. Users can record the pronunciation of their names. The recording tool counts down to when the recording begins. The recording may be up to 20 seconds long. For accessibility reasons, text guidance must be allowed if name recording is enabled. Recordings are compressed and included in storage use calculations.

If a user has pronoun or pronunciation information, it is displayed on a profile card. Selecting any avatar icon in Original Course View displays the profile card. All avatars are selectable in user lists, course tools, and grading workflows.

Image 1. Pronouns and pronunciation for a student when the instructor views an assignment submission.

Image 2. Pronouns and pronunciation in discussion.

Base Navigation is required for the following features:

• Administrator can enable pronunciation recording
• Administrator can configure pronoun options for user choice
• Users can select their own pronouns
• Users can create or play back pronunciation recordings

All deployments support the following, including Original Experience:

• Display pronouns and pronunciations in Original Course View
• Integrate pronoun and pronunciation guidance text from a user information system
• Administrators can manually set user pronouns and pronunciation guidance text
• Users can manually set pronunciation guidance text

Known issue in Safari browsers: There is a known issue creating or playing pronunciation recordings in Safari. The issue is because of a mismatch of compression codecs that Safari supports.

For administrators: Manage these features in Administrator Panel > Customize User Information. You may add pronouns and pronunciation guidance text through data integration. This includes REST, flat file, LIS, XML, and IMS methods.

Return to July 2022 – 3900.44 Release description

Institution Role Mapping to LTI Institution Roles - 3900.44

Blackboard Learn SaaS, Learn 9.1
Ultra Experience, Original Experience
Ultra Course View, Original Course View
Impact: Administrators

Some third-party integrated tools function better when users’ institution roles are more specific. This is especially true for tools accessed outside of courses. In the past, Learn did not send institution role information to LTI tools. Learn will now send to LTI tools users’ mapped primary institution role information. Secondary institution roles are not supported.

When administrators edit institution roles, they may select from a list LTI Institution Roles that their tools expect.

The mappings are supported for all deployment types. Mappings apply to both user experiences and course types. You can map the Learn default institution roles or any custom ones made by the institution. We support mapping for LTI 1.1 or 1.3/Advantage.

To prevent disruption for current users, the default role behavior remains unchanged. Administrators may edit each role configuration and choose the best LTI role for each. LTI institution role mapping applies to all LTI tools.

Return to July 2022 – 3900.44 Release description

Administrator launch for LTI course links - 3900.44

Blackboard Learn SaaS, Learn 9.1
Ultra Experience, Original Experience
Ultra Course View, Original Course View
Impact: Administrators, System Support Roles, Node Administrators

In the past, administrators would receive an error when selecting an LTI link in a course. To remediate the error, administrators would have to enroll in the course. Because only course members could launch LTI links, enrollment was a requirement.

Now administrators no longer need to enroll in the course.

The tool shows the user with an LTI system role of “Administrator” and an LTI context role of “Administrator.” The administrator or support user will not appear in tool requests for course membership. The tool shows them as an administrator, not an instructor. A tool must follow the LTI specification and be able to give a proper experience to an administrator user.

This change applies to the mobile application as well since LTI links are handed off to the responsive web browser.

Return to July 2022 – 3900.44 Release description

Blackboard Home Improvements – 3900.44

Blackboard Learn SaaS, Learn 9.1
Ultra Experience, Original Experience
Ultra Course View, Original Course View
Impact: Administrators

Administrators need access to timely information about storage and usage. We released Blackboard Home in the June 2022 - 3400.41 release. In response to client feedback, we have made four improvements:

• Added a new ‘Courses’ Tab under Insights with two pie charts to show the number of Active and Total courses. Pie charts display the number of courses on Ultra and Original

Image 1. New Courses Tab

• Included more support links in the My Support section

Image 2. More general support options from My Support menu

• Updated the language on the Logins subtab of Insights. We made this change to more clearly define unique logins and how they are counted.

Image 3. Updated description for Unique Logins

• A major change we added is the new option to download the metrics in .csv format. At the moment, it's available for Storage, Users, and Logins graph types, but not for Courses.

You asked, we listened: this feature was added as per initial feedback from one of our clients who took part on the Beta release. Thank you for helping us improve our platform for the benefit of all.

Image 4. Option to download the metrics in .csv format

For administrators: This feature is an LTI 1.3 application and managed via DevPortal. Application must be enabled via Administrator Panel > LTI Tool Providers > Blackboard Home. LTI application must be configured to send the user fields "Role in Course". Administrators are unable to further limit access. If the application is not present, you may just need to resynchronize the LTI Tool Providers via: Administrator Panel > LTI Tool Providers > Synchronize LTI 1.3 Tools > Submit.

Return to July 2022 – 3900.44 Release description

Learn SaaS release 3900.41.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.41.0
Release to Test/Stage: Tuesday, 10 May 2022 | Release to Production: Thursday, 2 June 2022
Original Experience
Ultra Experience

For full feature details please review the corresponding notes for the Learn 3900.41.0 version included below on this page. Details can also be found on Behind the Blackboard.

Latest release: 3900.41.0-rel.22+d0bc71c to Production servers on 23 June 2022.

For more information on updates and bug fixes, please visit Behind the Blackboard.

June 2022 – 3900.41 Release

The June 2022 - 3900.41 release is rich with new features and improvements in three areas: assessment and grading; richer course and content design; and integration, extension, and management.

Instructors:

• Enhancement to Overall Grade weighting – item and category weighting in Ultra courses

Instructors and students:

• Added support for multiple attempts in group assessments in Ultra courses
• New Overall Grade calculation option (running total or not) in Ultra courses
• Attachments render inline for Ultra Documents and Ultra Assessments
• Journals display more than 50 entries

Administrators:

• Blackboard Home: storage and utilization reports for Original and Ultra Experience (SaaS only)
• REST APIs to read all Content Collection files for SaaS and Learn 9.1

All users:

• Changed behavior for pasting JavaScript in Original Course View Content Editor
• Support Max File Upload Limit for Ultra Courses
• Improvements to Permissions in Ultra courses

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Changed behavior for pasting JavaScript in Original Course View Content Editor - 3900.41

Blackboard Learn SaaS, Blackboard Learn 9.1
Original Experience
Original Course View
Impact: All users

The Original Course View Content Editor allows users to paste JavaScript into their HTML. JavaScript can add rich capability to web content but can be malicious. The Content Editor removes JavaScript automatically for most users when saved. This way, scripts cannot harm other users. Only authorized users can keep JavaScript when they save.

In the past, the Content Editor would temporarily render pasted scripts in the edit view. A user copying a script from a bad actor could inadvertently run a script against themselves.

A user could still run malicious JavaScript against their own device, but not by using the Content Editor. For users authorized to save scripts, JavaScript will still render after they save.

For administrators: This feature is available for all Original courses. There are no configurations needed. The existing permission for the ability to save scripts is called, “Add/Edit trusted content with scripts.”

Return to June 2022 – 3900.41 Release description

Blackboard Home: storage and utilization reports – 3900.41

Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience, Original Experience
Ultra Course View, Original Course View
Impact: Administrators

Administrators need access to timely information about storage and usage. They use this to compare actual usage against contracted limits. We send administrators monthly reports of peak usage metrics. Using Insights Reports, admins can also look at many daily metrics over time to find the peaks. Blackboard Home now provides up-to-date peak usage metrics. The reports show peak usage over a configurable number of months. These metrics include billable storage and users, displayed together with the contracted limits. There are also reports for login counts and current storage use segmented by file type. Blackboard Home has not yet replaced the Insights Report. Both reports will appear for now. Blackboard Home appears to full System Administrators in the Admin panel.

Blackboard Home will become available to all Blackboard Learn SaaS instances with the next SaaS Feature Release in June, scheduled for June 2nd, 2022. This includes production, stage, and test environments. Blackboard Home is only for Learn SaaS.

Image 1. Peak storage usage

Image 2. File type breakdown

Image 3. Peak User Counts

For administrators: This feature is an LTI 1.3 application and managed via DevPortal.
Application must be enabled via Administrator Panel > LTI Tool Providers > Blackboard Home. LTI application must be configured to send the user fields "Role in Course". Administrators are unable to further limit access.
If the application is not present, you may just need to resynchronize the LTI Tool Providers via: Administrator Panel > LTI Tool Providers > Synchronize LTI 1.3 Tools > Submit.

Watch a video about storage and utilization reports appearing in the Blackboard Home

The following narrated video provides a visual and auditory representation of some of the information included on this page. For a detailed description of what is portrayed in the video, open the video on YouTube, navigate to More actions, and select Open transcript.

Video: Storage and Utilization reports in the Blackboard Home shows how Blackboard Home provides up-to-date peak usage metrics.

Return to June 2022 – 3900.41 Release description

REST APIs to read all Content Collection files - 3900.41

Blackboard Learn SaaS, Blackboard Learn 9.1
Ultra Experience, Original Experience
Ultra Course View, Original Course View
Impact: Administrators

The Content Collection stores files used in courses. It also stores files needed for other features of Blackboard Learn. Some third-party apps need access to these files to function. In the past, tool developers may have used Building Blocks APIs to read these files. Now developers can use REST APIs to read all files in all Content Collection directories. An administrator must authorize this access for a third-party app. The admin should assign permission “Read-only access to the Content System filesystem” to the API user. This improvement is part of ongoing work to expand the capabilities of the Content Collection REST APIs.

Return to June 2022 – 3900.41 Release description

Learn SaaS release 3900.39.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.39.0
Release to Test/Stage: Friday, 22 April 2022 | Release to Production: Thursday, 5 May 2022
Original Experience
Ultra Experience

For full feature details please review the corresponding notes for the Learn 3900.39.0 version included below on this page. Details can also be found on Behind the Blackboard.

Latest release: 3900.39.0-rel.27+6e72bbb off cycle release to Production servers on 13 May 2022.

For more information on updates and bug fixes, please visit Behind the Blackboard.

May 2022 – 3900.39 Release

This release features a variety of improvements. Some improvements center on assessment and grading and better, more efficient workflows. Other features focus on refinement based on instructor, student, and administrator feedback.

The May 2022 - 3900.39 release includes several new features.

Instructors:

• Weighted Overall Grade calculation improvements
• Prohibit late submissions – usability improvements
• Support "undo" and “redo” capability in Bb Annotate
• Granular Content Copy improvements

Students:

• Test question filtering

Administrators:

• In-product Updates and User Engagement Surveys improvement

All users:

• Session time-out warning improvement
• Improvements to permissions (system and course roles with corresponding permissions)
• Manage image title attribute in Original course Content Editor

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Support "undo" and “redo” capability in Bb Annotate - 3900.39

Blackboard Learn SaaS, Managed Hosting, Self-Hosted
Ultra Experience and Original Experience
Ultra Course View and Original Course View
Impact: Instructors, roles with grading permissions

We've paused the release of the new undo/redo capability in Bb Annotate due to an issue causing loss of information on comments. The root cause of it has been identified, and we'll communicate a new target date for the deployment in the following days. We're sorry for any inconvenience this may cause, as we understand this is a critical timing, and a critical tool for the grading process.

Many instructors today enjoy the efficiency and effectiveness of using Bb Annotate. Assignments with file submissions include the Bb Annotate feature. This release adds new functionality to include an "undo" and "redo" option. An instructor may undo a change and then if inclined, redo it.

Image 1. Before - Bb Annotate toolbar.

Image 2. After - undo and redo buttons on the Bb Annotate toolbar

"Undo" and "redo" will not apply to comments. All other annotations are included for this capability.

For administrators: This feature is not aligned to the deployment dates for 3900.39. This feature will be released on 19 May 2022. There are no configurations needed.

Return to May 2022 – 3900.39 Release description

Manage image title attribute in Original course Content Editor - 3900.39

Blackboard Learn SaaS, Managed Hosting, Self-Hosted
Original Experience
Original Course View
Impact: All users

The Content Editor in Original courses allows users to add image attributes. Now it also supports adding the "title" attribute. This attribute adds text tips to images. We still recommend prioritizing alternative description. An alternative description makes content more accessible, while a title doesn't.

Image 1. Before

Image 2. After

Return to May 2022 – 3900.39 Release description

Learn SaaS release 3900.37.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.37.0
Release to Test/Stage: Tuesday, 15 March 2022 | Release to Production: Thursday, 21 April 2022
Original Experience
Ultra Experience

For full feature details please review the corresponding notes for the Learn 3900.37.0 version included below on this page. Details can also be found on Behind the Blackboard.

Latest release: 3900.37.0-rel.37+c829417 off-cycle release to Production servers on 29 April 2022.

For more information on updates and bug fixes, please visit Behind the Blackboard.

April 2022 – 3900.37 Release

Educators consider many areas as they design high-quality, engaging courses. This release features improvements for instructors and students around assessment. Other features focus on intuitive and time saving workflows and surfacing data insights.

The April 2022 - 3900.37 release includes several new features.

Instructors:

• flexible question presentation including one question at a time
• efficiency for content creation via content duplication (granular content copy within the current Ultra course)
• improved control over when students' see assessment results, which helps with academic integrity
• choice and control for grades auto-posting
• the calculated numeric question type supports assessment across various disciplines
• download assessment results to support external analysis and evaluation
• reporting for submission receipts for easier student support
• improved access to the Course Activity Related to Grades report
• enhanced Blackboard Instructor app

Instructors and students:

• code snippet option in the rich text editor to add value in programming, logic, math, and other computing courses
• In-Product updates and user engagement surveys a to support client feedback
• Session time-out warnings for Original Courses to help prevent loss of authored content

Students:

• greater insights with improved access to the How Am I Doing? performance report

Administrators:

• easier management over the option to display the gradebook username by course role
• addition of branded URLs in scheduled notification emails
• manage hierarchy level administrators by API, which is helpful for segmenting access to Blackboard Data reporting
• improvements to permissions

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Granular Content Copy within the current Ultra Course - 3900.37

Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors, Course Builders

Course copy is an important feature for building out and updating courses. Instructors desire flexible approaches to support how they design and build courses. To better equip instructors, we have added a way to copy content within a single course. This new workflow supplies a way to duplicate content for quicker course building. Instructors can access the Copy Content menu to search for the current course. From there it is easy to navigate content and select content to copy or duplicate.

Supported content types include:

• Folders
• Documents
• Tests, including group tests
• Assignments, including group assignments
• Links to websites
• SCORM packages
• Discussions and Journals
• Learning Modules and individual items within a Learning Module

Image 1. Instructor view - Copy Content from an Ultra course within the Same Ultra Course

Image 2. Instructor view - Copy items from within a Learning Module

For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.

Watch a video about granular content copy enhancements

The following narrated video provides a visual and auditory representation of some of the information included on this page. For a detailed description of what is portrayed in the video, open the video on YouTube, navigate to More actions, and select Open transcript.

Video: Granular content copy enhancements shows how to copy content within a single course.

Return to April 2022 – 3900.37 Release description

Branded URLs in Scheduled Notification Emails - 3900.37

Blackboard Learn SaaS, Managed Hosting, Self-Hosted
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Original Experience
Original Course View
Impact: All users

Some institutions use domain branding. Different authentication providers (IdPs) can have an association with a specific domain. When this is the case, notification emails reflect the domain in the URL for each individual user. This functionality supplies support for all authentication types for each individual user. When a user clicks into a notification email, they will authenticate to that domain.

Recently scheduled notifications sent daily had correct URLs in links. This release improves links for emails sent because of a user action (e.g., a user may share a portfolio or send an announcement).

For administrators: No action is necessary. This update is structural only.

Return to April 2022 – 3900.37 Release description

Learn SaaS release 3900.34.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.34.0
Release to Test/Stage: Tuesday, 15 February 2022 | Release to Production: Thursday, 3 March 2022.
Original Experience, Ultra Experience

For full feature details please review the corresponding notes for the Learn 3900.34.0 version included below on this page. Details will also be found on Behind the Blackboard.

Latest release: 3900.34.0-rel.63+d2ece0b to Production servers on 24 March 2022.

Due to the way that our release calendar lines up in March, we will release 3900.34 to production on Thursday, 3 March. It will remain for a week in both Test/Stage and Production environments while version 3900.37.0 is released to Test/Stage on Tuesday, 15 March.
Any changes to version 3900.34 after the initial release to Production will go directly to the Production environment.

For more information on updates and bug fixes, please visit Behind the Blackboard.

March 2022 – 3900.34 Release

The March 2022 - 3900.34.0 release includes several new features.

Instructors:

• more intuitive workflows for forced sequence in learning modules
• automatic grades release for 3rd party tools using LTI Advantage

Instructors and students:

• inclusion of Microsoft OneDrive files in courses

Students:

• a new header on tests to improve their testing experience

Administrators:

• automatic cleanup of user-created archive and export packages
• improved access to automatic archive packages from within courses
• an API update and several bug fixes

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Automatic grades release for 3rd party tools using LTI Advantage - 3900.34.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS, Learn 9.1 MH/SH
Original & Ultra Experience, Original & Ultra Course Views
Impact: Instructors and Students

We support the latest interoperability standards for adding 3rd-party apps into your courses. We use LTI Advantage from IMS Global. In the past, scores from integrated apps would not auto-post in Ultra Course View. This required instructors to act so students could see their grades.

The specification for LTI Advantage was ambiguous about how to handle grade visibility. We partnered with the IMS organization to update the standard. Now the LTI Advantage / LTI v1.3 tools can define whether grades should auto-post to students.

Updated behavior for tools

• Ultra Course View: We now default to auto-post grades for LTI Advantage tools. Instructors will not have to remember to post grades. One exception exists when a tool indicates that grades should not post to students.
• Original Course View: The behavior for LTI Advantage tools remains unchanged. Grades auto-release when the tool sends scores. One exception exists when the Grade Center column is not visible.

New capability for tools

We also now support the ability for an LTI Advantage tool to manage the release of grades. When appropriate, grades auto-post to students. TurnItIn, for example, plans to use this approach in an upcoming release.

• Ultra Course View: If a tool sets that grades should not auto-post, scores sent to the Learn Gradebook only display to instructors. Instructors can choose to post grades for students, or the tool can auto-release grades later.
• Original Course View: If a tool sets that grades should not auto-post, scores sent to the Learn Grade Center appear behind a “Needs Grading” status indicator. Students and instructors see that students have submitted work but not the result. When the tool releases grades, all students will see their scores.

The improvements in this release are specific to LTI Advantage/LTI 1.3 tools. Behavior for older LTI 1.1 tools remains unchanged. For older LTI 1.1 tools in Ultra Course View, new scores sent from tools are always auto posted.

For developers and tool providers: LTI Advantage has a new Line Item attribute - gradesReleased. You can specify it in a Deep Linking message or an Assignment and Grades service call. You only need to update your tool if you want to send scores to Learn but release them to students later. The default value for gradesReleased is true if you do not specify the attribute. When set to false, students will not see scores sent to the gradebook. When the attribute is true, students see current scores and future updates. If you use the gradesReleased=false attribute and want to maintain compatibility with Original Course View, you will need to manage the release of grades. Instructors do not have a post action in Original Course View to release grades. Instructors do have the post action in Ultra Course View.

Return to March 2022 – 3900.34 Release description

Automatic cleanup of user-created archive and export packages - 3900.34.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS, Learn 9.1 MH/SH
Original and Ultra Experience, Original and Ultra Course Views
Impact: Users with permission to create course packages (Administrators; in some cases, instructors, course builders, and other privileged users)

Export and archive packages within a course will now have auto-delete settings. This automatic cleanup enables institutions to reduce storage space used. The auto-cleanup also allows administrators to control storage growth. This also saves time and reduces frustration for administrators.

In the past, all packages remained in the course until the deletion of the packages or the course. The retention of the course packages resulted in extensive storage usage.

Existing user-generated course packages will be set to expire in 90 days from the 3900.34 upgrade. This gives more time to copy packages to external storage if needed. In the course package list view, the expiry date for these packages will reflect a 90-day expiry. Packages are deleted on the expiry day.

Course packages created after the upgrade to 3900.34 will expire and auto-delete 30 days after the creation date.

We will notify users of this behavior in three ways:

• When creating the package, the interface informs the user of this time constraint.
• The notification that a package is ready to download informs the user of the time constraint.
• In the course package list view for the course, the removal date displays for each package.

This improvement does not change the way administrators delete courses. These changes only apply to the export/archive packages stored within the course. There are no changes to the behavior of automatic archive creation or deletion.

For Administrators: Please leverage your own communication channels to reinforce this change to affected users.

Return to March 2022 – 3900.34 Release description

Access automatic archive packages from within courses - 3900.34.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS
Original and Ultra Experience, Original and Ultra Course Views
Impact: Administrators, others to whom admins grant permissions

In SaaS, daily archives are auto created for active courses. Administrators can retrieve lost data from these archives. These archives are available for 30 days. Now privileged users can now access and download archive packages from the course. The daily archives often lessen the need for other users to create their own packages. This change in access reduces storage space used. The access change saves time and reduces frustration for privileged users and administrators.

For Administrators:

• This permission is not on by default for instructors. Required permission: Course/Organization Control Panel (Packages and Utilities) > Archive Course/Organization, including user passwords
• Automatic archive packages include highly sensitive personal information for users. If you use the default authentication type in Learn, the package includes an encrypted version of users' passwords. When this is the case, we recommend that you do not enable this feature for instructors.
• The password values in the Learn database pose no security risk if you use an identity provider (IdP) for authentication (e.g., SAML/LDAP) without fallback to the default Learn authentication.
• We recommend that you review policies about storing and handling sensitive personal data. These archives contain highly sensitive data. Please ensure it is appropriate to grant users privileges to access these archives.
• There are no changes to the restore process with this enhancement. Only administrators can retrieve user data through a restore process. We always recommend restoring courses into a non-production environment. This helps to ensure no disruption to current courses/users in production.

Return to March 2022 – 3900.34 Release description

API Updates:
Adaptive Release API Support: User Predicate APIs and Group Predicate APIs (Ultra and Original) - 3900.34.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience and Original Experience
Impact: All clients and partners

Instructors value the option to release course content according to various criteria. Using APIs, developers can now manage the release of content by group membership. Added with this release are PUTs endpoints:

• one that will receive a list with only the userId set
• one that will receive a list with only the groupId set

For more information about our REST Public APIs, please explore the Learn API at: https://developer.blackboard.com/portal/displayApi

Return to March 2022 – 3900.34 Release description

Highlight on bug fixes - 3900.34.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience and Original Experience

The bug fixes in this Learn release include:

• Date picker uses the default server time zone rather than the user’s time zone: The date/time selector for course duration on course management pages uses the default server time zone rather than the user’s time zone.
  
  This applies to course properties management:

  • in the administrator panel
  • in course settings for the Original Course View when instructors have access to course properties
  • To provide greater clarity, we have added a time zone indicator to display the time zone that applies. For example, a Learn environment with a default time set to US Eastern Standard Time (EST) would display UTC –05:00.

  Integration behaviors remain unchanged:

  • course duration times set through REST APIs should use UTC
  • times set through SIS Framework should use server default time.

  Also, users can configure the availability dates with hours precision from the user interface. This configuration does not affect the integrations.

• Notifications are not created for some users: In the past, because of performance reasons, we omitted notifications for users with 500 or more enrollments. Now if the number of enrollments for a user falls below 500, the notifications resume. Please remember that this process will run only every 24 hours.

• Unable to change course role in Ultra courses due to "Save" button disabled: Users with the appropriate privileges were unable to save role changes made in other users' profiles. The issue was that the "Save" button was disabled. We have corrected this behavior.

You can view all maintenance items on 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. You can view the 3900.34.0 maintenance issues details on Behind the Blackboard.

Return to March 2022 – 3900.34 Release description

Learn SaaS release 3900.32.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.32.0
Release to Test/Stage: Tuesday, 11 January 2022 | Release to Production: Thursday, 10 February 2022.
Original Experience, Ultra Experience

For full feature details please review the corresponding notes for the Learn 3900.32.0 version included below on this page. Details can also be found on Behind the Blackboard.

Latest release: 3900.32.0-rel.35+f6a6242 to Production servers on 17 February 2022.

For more information on updates and bug fixes, please visit Behind the Blackboard.

February 2022 – 3900.32 Release

The February 2022 - 3900.32.0 release includes several new features.

Instructors:

• prohibit late submissions and new attempts after due date
• granular course copy in an Ultra course now includes content from Original courses

Instructors and students:

• add text guidance and a short audio clip for name pronunciation

Administrators:

• branded URLs in scheduled notification emails for institutions using domain branding
• three other improvements, an API update, and several bug fixes.

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Pronunciation display and recording - 3900.32.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience and Original Experience (pronunciation description only)
Impact: All users

When enabled, all users can add text guidance and an audio recording of their name to their user profile. Users can use the text guidance to describe the pronunciation of their names for other users. Users can record the pronunciation of their name. The recording tool counts down to when the recording begins. The recording may be up to 20 seconds long.

If enabled, text guidance and audio recordings appear with pronouns in these locations:

Assessments

• Group Assessments
  • A user can see group pronunciation information in the overview panel.
  • A user can see group members’ pronunciation information while taking the assessment.
• Peer Review
  • A user entitled to see peer reviewers’ names can see their pronunciation information. This information displays above their feedback when viewing a student’s attempt.

Course Roster

• Roster
  • Users can see other users’ pronunciation information in the course roster view.
• User Management
  • A user can see pronunciation information when searching for users to enroll.
  • A user can see a user’s pronunciation information when editing users in the course roster.
  • A user can see a user’s pronunciation information when editing their accommodations.

Communication Tools

• Discussions
  • Users can see other users’ pronunciation information with their responses.
• Messages
  • Users can see other users’ pronunciation information when searching for message recipients.
  • Users can see other users’ pronunciation information in the message panel.

Gradebook

• Instructors and graders can see users’ pronunciation information in the grid view.
• Students can see their own pronunciation information when viewing their own grades.

Groups

• A user can see the pronunciation information of users in a group.
• Instructors can see the pronunciation information of students in the group management view.

User profile

• A user can see their own pronunciation information in their profile page.
• A user can see their own pronunciation information when editing their profile.

System administrators should configure this feature. Define preferences from the Customize User Information option in the Users section. Enabling the audio recording option also enables the textual pronunciation description. We have designed this rule for accessibility reasons. You may choose to manage the pronunciation description field through data integration.

Providing this functionality to all users is important to us. We will complete this feature work for other experiences in an upcoming release.

Base Navigation and Original Course View:

For now, if enabled, users can create audio recordings of their name pronunciation. Users may also add a pronunciation description. The pronunciation description appears to users who have privileges to edit others’ profiles. The information will not appear to students in courses.

Original Experience and Learn 9.1:

For now, administrators can enable a text field for pronunciation description. Users may add a pronunciation description. The pronunciation description displays to those with privileges to edit other users’ profiles. Pronunciation information will not display to students in courses.

Known issue in Safari browser:

There is a known issue creating or playing pronunciation recordings in Safari. The issue is because of a mismatch of compression codecs that Safari supports. Safari users will receive warnings about the issue in the interface.

Return to February 2022 – 3900.32 Release description

Branded URLs in Scheduled Notification Emails - 3900.32.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience and Original Experience
Impact: All Users

Some institutions use domain branding. Different authentication providers (IdPs) have an association with a specific domain. When this is the case, notification emails reflect the domain in the URL for each individual user. This functionality provides support for all authentication types for each individual user. When a user clicks into a notification email, they will now authenticate to that domain.

System administrations do not need to take any action. This update is structural only. Changes apply only to emails sent per the notification settings that each user has made.

Return to February 2022 – 3900.32 Release description

Other improvements - 3900.32.0

Force Completion changes to better support Multiple Attempt Tests

Blackboard Learn SaaS, Learn 9.1
Original Experience
Impact: Instructors, Students

In Original Course View, enabling Force Completion on a test or survey has new behaviors. The Force Completion option now requires a time limit and automatic submission. We made this change to enforce the submission of incomplete or abandoned attempts. This change is important so that instructors can access and grade these attempts. Instructors may also create a multiple attempt assessment with the Force Completion option. This change ensures that students can now start new attempts in this scenario.

Gender Field update: Other

Learn SaaS, Learn 9.1
Ultra Experience and Original Experience
Impact: All users

We have updated the gender field to include a new parameter for "other." This change is important as we strive to focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion in Learn. As part of this work, we have updated REST APIs and SIS Frameworks to map a value of "X" to "other." As a categorical field, gender is primarily important for institutional reporting. The gender field is an option for inclusion in two Learn reports:

• Enterprise Surveys
• Outcomes reports

Note for Administrators: We recommend that administrators do not enable the gender field. Instead, enable the pronouns option for personal expression in teaching and learning. Pronouns provide a more valuable option for self-expression when interacting with course members.

Text on Page update: Exceptions setting consistency

Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Impact: Instructors

In the Assessment view list, the descriptive text reads "Edit settings." In the Submission view, the descriptive text reads "Exceptions." We updated both texts, which now read "Add or edit exceptions." This change provides a more consistent experience and improves clarity. We also changed the title of the peek panel. The title was "Edit Submission Settings" but is now "User or Group Exceptions."

Content Editor improvements for Original Course View

Blackboard Learn SaaS, Learn 9.1
Original Experience, Original Course View
Impact: Instructors, Students

• Pasting from Google Docs now gives an option to keep styling or simplify the HTML.
• Users can move the spellchecker window so that it does not cover the text the user is checking for errors.
• Missing icons for table row and column cut/copy/paste will now appear.

Return to February 2022 – 3900.32 Release description

API updates: Adaptive/Conditional Release API Support - 3900.32.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience and Original Experience
Impact: All clients and partners

Instructors value the option to release course content according to various criteria. Using APIs, developers can now manage the release of content by group membership.

For more information about our REST Public APIs, please explore the Learn API at: https://developer.blackboard.com/portal/displayApi

Return to February 2022 – 3900.32 Release description

Highlight on bug fixes - 3900.32.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience and Original Experience

The bug fixes in this Learn release include:

• Future courses shown as "ended" to students: When a student tried to access a course that began on a future date, the student received this error:
      "This course has ended. You can no longer access this course."
  This message is now updated to provide clearer information.
      "You can't access this course right now. Your instructor will allow access when the course is ready."
• Students received error when trying to access group assessment:
  When a student tried to access a group assessment, the student received this error:
      "Oops! Something went wrong. Please reload the page."
  We corrected this error. Students can now access the group assignment as expected.
• Incorrect submission date on assignment submission receipt:
  The assignment submission receipt included the timestamp when the student started the attempt. The timestamp now shows the time/date the student submitted the attempt.
• Feedback was not saved if the instructor did not click save before updating and saving the grade:
  Feedback was not saved if the instructor did not click save before updating and saving the grade. This problem occurred only in Ultra courses. We have corrected this error. Both the grade and feedback save as expected.

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 3900.32.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.

Return to February 2022 – 3900.32 Release description