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Learn SaaS release 3900.65.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.65.0
Release to Test/Stage: Tuesday, 11 April 2023 | Release to Production: Thursday, 4 May 2023
Original Experience, Ultra Experience
Original Course View, Ultra Course View

For full feature details please review the corresponding notes for the Learn 3900.65.0 version included below on this page. Details can also be found Behind the Blackboard.

Latest release: 3900.65.0-rel.17+fc3b8f5 to Production servers to take place on 18 May 2023.

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

 

Symbol font removed in Original Course View – 3900.65

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

Unicode is a standard encoding system that allows popular fonts to support characters across various languages. In the past, specialized mapped fonts were used, which replaced one character for another. However, both the author and viewer had to have the exact same font installed on their device, making communication difficult.

In the Original Course View Content Editor, the Symbol  font is an example of a mapped font for Greek. Some browsers and operating systems no longer support the Symbol  font. This can result in students seeing Latin characters when authoring and instructors seeing Greek ones when reading. This has caused confusion for instructors trying to grade student work.

To avoid this confusion, we removed the Symbol  font from the Content Editor in Original Course View. Instead, users can choose other common fonts that support Greek characters. To type in Greek, add the Greek language and keyboard layout to your device's operation settings. This feature is supported in Windows, MacOS, iOS, and Android.

Existing content formatted to use the Symbol  font will remain in that font if the browser supports it.

For administrators: This change is for all Original courses. There are no configurations needed.

Return to May 2023 – 3900.65 Release description

Option to turn off “How Am I Doing?” Report for Students– 3900.65

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

The “How am I Doing” report allows students to see how they perform in comparison to the class.

Certain institutions may prohibit the sharing of this information with students. To support institutions' preferences, administrators can now control the visibility of this report.

Image 1. An administrator toggles the “How Am I Doing?” report for students to “Off”

An administrator toggles the “How Am I Doing?” report for students to “Off”

When report availability is set to "Off" the following changes occur for students:

  • The pie chart icon in Grades tab in base navigation no longer appears.
  • Prior notifications from the “How Am I Doing?”  report are removed in the Activity Stream. No new notifications related to this report are sent.
  • The “My grades and activity” section in the Activity Stream notifications settings panel is removed for students.

Image 2. When the “How am I doing?” report is available to students, the pie chart icon in the Grades tab of the base navigation is visible

When the “How am I doing?” report is available to students, the pie chart icon in the Grades tab of the base navigation is visible

Image 3. When “How am I doing?” is set to “Off,” the pie chart icon in the Grades tab of the base navigation is removed

When “How am I doing?” is set to “Off,” the pie chart icon in the Grades tab of the base navigation is removed

Image 4. When the report is "On,” students receive Activity Stream notifications related to the “How am I doing?” report; students can access links to the report. When the report is not available, these options do not appear to students.

When the report is "On,” students receive Activity Stream notifications related to the “How am I doing?” report; students can access links to the report. When the report is not available, these options do not appear to students.

When the report is turned off, instructors and administrators also experience changes. The option to notify students related to the "How Am I Doing" report no longer display. Instructors will not be able to notify students based on these course alerts in the Course Activity report or Gradebook.

Administrators will no longer see options related to the report in the Notification Settings page.

  • No Recent Activity
  • Grade Low or at Risk
  • Grade Dropped
  • Low Class Activity
  • Grade Increased
  • Grade in Top 10%
  • Class Activity in Top 10%
  • Grade Below Threshold

Key considerations:

  • It may take up to 15 minutes to hide all stream notifications after an administrator turns the report off.
  • If an admin turns off the report and then turns it back on, prior data and notifications will reappear after several minutes.

For administrators: Administrators can find this setting on the Ultra Experience Management page in the Administrator Panel. The default setting is "on" to maintain consistency with existing behavior. This feature requires a cloud service update, which administrators can expect within a week of the 3900.65 release (on or before May 11).

Return to May 2023 – 3900.65 Release description

REST APIs to read Goals alignments – 3900.65

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

Learn courses offer a unique opportunity to see how institutional objectives align with each other and how the objectives relate to internal or external goals. This information can be invaluable to educators and administrators who wish to measure the effectiveness of their curriculum and ensure that their goals are being met.

To make it even easier for institutions to access this important data, we are pleased to announce the release of our new Goal Alignments Public API. This API includes a set of GET endpoints that allow users to retrieve goal alignments data for their courses.

The endpoints included in this API cover two main use cases:

  • retrieving all goal alignments from a course
  • retrieving all alignments for a specific goal across all courses

By providing access to this data in a simple and easy-to-use format, we are empowering educators and administrators to make data-driven decisions. This helps to improve the overall effectiveness of our clients' curriculum.

For administrators: The REST integration user must have the privileges “Course/Organization > Goals Alignments, View” and “Administrator Panel (Tools and Utilities) > Goals” to make use of the new endpoints.

Return to May 2023 – 3900.65 Release description

Toggle records between enabled and disabled states – 3900.65

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

Various record types have different states. For example, an enrollment can be unavailable. This allows instructors to continue to grade student work and submit a final grade even when the student can no longer access the course. An enrollment can also be set to disabled. In this state, the enrollment is locked and hidden from users. A student information system (SIS) might disable an enrollment when a student drops the course.

Previously, administrators had to rely on data integration processes to change a record’s enablement state. This could require processing a file through the integration framework.

Now administrators can toggle the enablement state in the administrator panel. They can modify user, course, organization, and enrollment records. This allows administrators to temporarily re-enable a course or user to access information. It can also allow a help desk representative to grant access to a user waiting on an institutional data process.

When a user first enables or disables a record in the user interface, they must accept a disclaimer. It must only be accepted one time. Manual record changes are captured in the system logs.

Image 1. Administrator manually disables a course

Administrator manually disables a course

Image 2. Administrator re-enables an enrollment record

Administrator re-enables an enrollment record

For administrators: By default, only a full System Administrator (role Z) can use this feature. There are 5 new privileges that can be configured to distribute this privilege to others at the user or node level. This allows granting access specifically to the types of records one should manage.

  • Administrator Panel (Courses) > Courses > Edit > Enrollments > Enable/Disable
  • Administrator Panel (Courses) > Courses > Enable/Disable
  • Administrator Panel (Organizations) > Organizations > Edit > Enrollments > Enable/Disable
  • Administrator Panel (Organizations) > Organizations > Enable/Disable
  • Administrator Panel (Users) > Users > Enable/Disable

Return to May 2023 – 3900.65 Release description

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 Behind the Blackboard.

Latest release: 3900.62.0-rel.42+3609815 to Production servers to take place on 27 April 2023.

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

 

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.

This feature won't be available at the same time the release takes place, nor on April 13th as previously planned, but soon. The deployment information will be updated on status.blackboard.com.

Return to April 2023 – 3900.62 Release description

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

The screen reader indicates that 2 students are selected

Image 2. The screen reader indicates that sorting is applied to the Overall Grade in descending order

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

The screen reader indicates the “Learn more” link directs the user to the related help page

Image 4. The screen reader indicates that the 3-dots button displayed in medium and small screens contains more options

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.

Return to April 2023 – 3900.62 Release description

Primary Instructor improvements – 3900.62

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

The Ultra Course View supports the designation of a primary instructor. In the past, when a course contained more than one instructor any instructor could change the primary instructor setting. To support diverse needs regarding changes to this designation, now administrators may grant this as a privilege for system and course roles:

"Course/Organization Control Panel (Users and Groups) > Users > Set instructor as primary in Ultra Course View"

Administrators can now manage primary instructor designations SIS integration and REST API integration frameworks. The SIS integration framework supports the primary instructor indicator on course memberships through the flat file and XML formats.

The primary instructor designation impacts how course instructors display for a course.

  • When no instructor is selected as primary, the first two instructors display based on alphabetical order in Ultra courses.
  • When there is more than one instructor and only one is designated as primary, only one instructor displays in Ultra courses. The other instructors display when users select "Show more."
  • When there is more than one instructor and two or more are designated as primary, at most two instructors display in Ultra courses.
  • Course cards in the Base Navigation course timeline display primary instructors first for both Ultra and Original courses. Original courses do not have a user interface to set primary instructor so these must be set through integration.

To better support enrollment state management for archive/restore and course copy, we made a change. Now, when membership records are stored/retrieved, the primary instructor indicator is also stored/retrieved. Primary instructor designations are reflected as expected.

Image 1. In the course faculty only one instructor of many displays if only one is indicated as primary

In the course faculty only one instructor of many displays if only one is indicated as primary

For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses and organizations. A user that needs to modify the Primary instructor flag will need this new Privilege: “Course/Organization Control Panel (Users and Groups) > Users > Set instructor as primary in Ultra Course View.”  The primary instructor flag can be set for Original courses using data integration only. This will impact name order in Base Navigation.

Return to April 2023 – 3900.62 Release description

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 30 March 2023.

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

 

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

mproved 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.

Return to March 2023 – 3900.60 Release description

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

Course Activity Report - new table capabilities and metrics

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

Return to March 2023 – 3900.60 Release description

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.

Return to March 2023 – 3900.60 Release description

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

Instructor view - Roster visibility control

Image 2. Student view - Roster does not appear in the Details & Actions menu when the Roster is hidden

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

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.

Return to March 2023 – 3900.60 Release description

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

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.

Return to March 2023 – 3900.60 Release description

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 to 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 wasn’t registered. In the near future, this will no longer be allowed. This improves security of Blackboard Learn.

Image 1. The hostname configuration page allows administrators to register all domains used to access the Learn application

he hostname configuration page allows administrators to register all domains used to access the Learn application

For administrators: If your institution created alternate domains for your Learn environment, you must register all of them.

Return to March 2023 – 3900.60 Release description

Learn SaaS release 3900.58.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.58.0
Release to Test/Stage: Tuesday, 10 January 2023 | Release to Production: Thursday, 2 February 2023
Original Experience, Ultra Experience
Original Course View, Ultra Course View

For full feature details please review the corresponding notes for the Learn 3900.58.0 version included below on this page. Details can also be found on Behind the Blackboard.

Latest release: 3900.58.0-rel.36+3daac77 to Production servers to take place on 16 Ferburary 2023.

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

 

Attendance tool available in GovCloud – 3900.58

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

Attendance can be an important factor in determining a student’s level of participation. Sometimes this is used for part of a student’s grade. Previously, the Attendance tool was unavailable to United States government clients hosted in GovCloud. Now government clients can enable this tool.

For each class meeting, instructors can mark whether a student is present, late, absent, or excused. The attendance records for each student appear in a single column next to other grades. On the Attendance page, profile pictures appear. The profile pictures help instructors identify students. Instructors can use attendance as part of grade calculations the same as assignment grade columns.

Image 1. An instructor accessing the Attendance tool in Ultra Course View

An instructor accessing the Attendance tool in Ultra Course View

Image 2. An instructor accessing the Attendance tool in the Original Course View Control Panel

An instructor accessing the Attendance tool in the Original Course View Control Panel

Image 3. An instructor marks attendance for today’s class session

An instructor marks attendance for today’s class session

For administrators: The Attendance tool is not verified for use under FedRAMP certification. If you comply with that security standard, you might choose not to adopt Attendance. In GovCloud, the Attendance tool is off by default. An administrator must enable it with these steps:

- Go to Admin Panel > Building Blocks > Installed Tools.
- In the context menu for Attendance, choose “Set Available.”
- Accept the notice about FedRAMP compliance.
- Go to Admin Panel > Tools.
- Enable Attendance for courses and organizations as appropriate.

Return to February 2023 – 3900.58 Release description

Learn SaaS release 3900.56.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.56.0
Release to Test/Stage: Tuesday, 6 December 2022 | Release to Production: Thursday, 5 January 2023
Original Experience, Ultra Experience
Original Course View, Ultra Course View

For full feature details please review the corresponding notes for the Learn 3900.56.0 version included below on this page. Details can also be found on Behind the Blackboard.

Latest release: 3900.56.0-rel.31+e33c6d6 to Production servers to take place on 26 January 2023.

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

 

January 2023 – 3900.56 Release

The January 2023 - 3900.56 release is complete with features in five areas:

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

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

Instructors:

Instructors and students:

All users:

Other - Support roles:

Return to top of the Release Notes page

Bb Annotate

Icon that indicates the release note is a new feature

Bb Annotate: Create categories inside the content library - 3900.56

 

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

Creating and reusing comments is a useful practice for instructors. When using Bb Annotate, instructors can use the content library to store comments across courses. Now instructors can also organize comments into categories. Categories helps instructors find the comments they want to use. The process of providing student is more efficient with the new option. Existing comments will be part of a general comments category until instructors decide to move them to a new one.

Now instructors will be able to:

  • Create as many categories as needed
  • Move comments to new or existing categories
  • Collapse or expand the categories to easily locate the comments

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

Return to January 2023 – 3900.56 Release description

Original Course View: “Needs Grading” retains tasks when AWS auto-scales – 3900.56

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

Because Learn SaaS is in the cloud, the application scales on demand. When more users are on Learn, the cloud provides more resources. In the past in Original Course View, this cloud scaling could disrupt instructors grading student work. Instructors navigating to their next task in “needs grading” would see an error.

Now instructors can navigate to their next task even when the application scales. In some cases, instructors can’t return to completed tasks. If this happens, instructors receive clear instructions to return to the Grade Center where they can review these submissions.

For administrators: There are no configurations needed. 

Return to January 2023 – 3900.56 Release description

Release notes for earlier versions available in English only:

Return to top of the Archived Release Notes page