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Learn SaaS release 3900.19.0: Update to client Test/Stage environments
We’re applying an updated version of 3900.19.0 (full release number 3900.19.0-rel.20+7105532) to client Test/Stage servers on Tuesday, July 27, 2021.
Updates in this version include:
- In the Ultra Course View, users carrying out a proctored assessment on the latest Chrome versions were redirected to login. By updating the authentication method to use a one-time session token rather than cookies, we allowed proctoring partners to continue with their integration projects. We've fixed the issue.
- In the Original Content Editor, we’ve fixed issues with the height of the editor window and alignment of content in tables. Clients using custom theme packages may need to refresh their theme package from the default Learn 2016 Theme to get these fixes.
- In the Original Experience, a query associated with the disk usage task was consuming CPU time without completing executions. This was affecting performance, especially for Oracle data base clients. We've fixed the issue.
- In the Original Course View, a text in a table cell remained left aligned even though a different text alignment was specified using the TinyMCE. We've fixed the issue.
- In the Original Experience, Assist users could have been impacted by the integration not being visible in the base navigation UI. We've removed previous dependencies to allow displaying Assist through the base navigation, and fixed the issue.
Learn SaaS release 3900.19.0: Update to client Test/Stage environments
We’re applying an updated version of 3900.19.0 (full release number 3900.19.0-rel.13+02039cd) to client Test/Stage servers on Tuesday, July 20, 2021.
Updates in this version include:
- In the Ultra Course View, when making a copy of a course, if quotes were used in custom alt-text descriptions for images, the Ultra assignments and assessments in the course appeared blank. We've fixed the issue.
- In the Ultra Course View, when using the REST API for courses copied from a specific template course, due dates for assignments and other activities couldn't be updated. We've fixed the issue.
- In the Original Experience, some SCORM attempts remained In Progress in the Grade Center, even after a successful completion of the corresponding SCORM quiz. We've worked with our partner to fix the issue and mitigate future problems.
- In the Original Experience, some Learn SafeAssign reports couldn't be rendered. We've fixed the issue.
Learn SaaS release 3900.17.0: Update to client Production environments
We’re applying an updated version of 3900.17.0 (full release number 3900.17.0-rel.51+174af62) to client Production servers on Thursday, July 15, 2021.
Updates in this version include:
- In the Ultra Experience, when making a copy of a course, if there were quotes used in custom alt-text descriptions for images, the Ultra assignments and assessments in the course appeared blank. We've fixed the issue.
- In the Original Course View, some instructors and administrators couldn't save their HTML in the new Content Editor despite having the privilege to do so. We've fixed the issue.
- In the Original Experience, some SCORM attempts remained "In Progress" in the Grade Centre, even after a successful completion of the corresponding SCORM quiz. Rustici identified the potential problem causing the issue. We've made their recommended fixes to mitigate future problems.
- In the Original Experience, some Learn SafeAssign reports could not be rendered. Submissions could remain in a "report in progress" status for days. We've fixed the issue.
Learn SaaS release 3900.19.0: Update to client Test/Stage environments announcement
We’re applying an updated version of 3900.19.0 (full release number 3900.19.0-rel.6+9e601a1) to client Test/Stage servers on Tuesday, July 13, 2021.
Updates in this version include:
New functionality
- In the Ultra Experience, we've added feature toggles. You can read more about this addition in the 3900.19.0 feature release notes.
- In the Original Course View, we've added support for media and files in more places for Tests, Surveys, and Pools. You can read more about this addition in the 3900.19.0 feature release notes.
Improvements and bug fixes
- In the Ultra Experience, we've improved the performance of the new progress tracking feature when the feature toggle was turned on.
- In the Original and Ultra Experiences, some GovCloud clients experienced outage periods. We’ve fixed the issue.
- In the Original Course View, some instructors and administrators couldn't save their HTML in the new Content Editor despite having the privilege to do so. We've fixed the issue.
Microsoft Teams classes in Ultra - 3900.19.0
Blackboard is excited to bring Microsoft Teams classes to the Ultra Course View to expand and support learner interaction and collaboration.
Research feedback, obtained from our global client base, set the base for Blackboard and Microsoft to foster collaboration and engagement, and to provide an integration breakthrough with Microsoft Teams classes. Users can now experience the power of Teams directly from within their Blackboard Learn Ultra course. This integration is the first in a series of upcoming integration capabilities with the Microsoft collaboration suite.
The integration will be available for Ultra courses only as part of the 3900.19.0 Learn SaaS release. The Microsoft Teams classes integration provides the following set of capabilities:
- Learn administrator setup and Microsoft 365 global admin approval.
- Enrollment synchronization between Ultra course enrollments and Microsoft Teams class participants.
- Automatic Microsoft Team class creation and Team activation control (Instructor/Team Owner availability management).
- Student and instructor course level launch of Microsoft Teams classes.
- Support for institution email data mapping to minimize user account enrollment issues.
- Support for Learn Preview User.
- Ultra course enrollment size of up to 1800 students. As we continue to enhance the integration, we'll aim to reach higher enrollment numbers.
The integration allows a course instructor to synchronize course membership data from Learn Ultra to the Microsoft Active Directory and create a Team class for their course. Students enrolled in the course will automatically enroll in the Team class. The instructor will have to activate the Team to give students access to it. Students will be able to launch their Team class directly from their Ultra course.
As part of this integration, there is a new entitlement to achieve both configuration and synchronization. The new entitlement is Course/Organization Outline > Microsoft Teams > Configure. To provide this new entitlement to a custom role, all Ultra courses must have a full system-provided instructor role enrolled before this action takes place.
Important Information for Testing
Clients who want to test the Microsoft Teams classes integration in their Blackboard Test and/or Staging instance are highly recommended to follow these steps:
- Engage with their Microsoft Account team to request a Microsoft Test Tenant under their Institutional Licensing Agreement.
- Alternatively, clients can request a trial at https://aka.ms/edutrial. This trial lasts 6 months. If you need to extend the trial for a longer period of time, please contact your Microsoft account representative.
- Ensure that your Microsoft Test Tenant ID is added to the Microsoft access Inclusion list. Requesting this can be done by filling out https://aka.ms/lmsintegration. Using a Microsoft Test Tenant with your Blackboard Test or Staging environments prevents introducing potential data duplication issues when you come to deploy the integration in your Blackboard Learn Production system.
Important Information for Data Synchronization
The Microsoft Teams classes integration relies on the institution email SIS field to map to the correct Microsoft Azure Active Directory’s User Principal Name (UPN). If there is no institution email provisioned, it will default to the user's existing email. It’s recommended that the institution email is properly set for every user to ensure correct data synchronization and avoid data conflict.
Ultra progress tracking (Alpha release) - 3900.19.0
Please note that this feature will be released on Test/Stage and Production as a limited release in August, with a broader "Beta release" in September. It will be generally available starting with the October release.
Starting in August, Ultra Course View will allow students to mark and track their progress inside their courses. This new feature comes from direct client feedback and it aligns with how students and instructors think about pace and progress. Progress tracking will be initially released as an “Alpha stage” feature. This means that the feature will be limited to only new courses where no activity has taken place. Instructors will need to make a decision before their course has started whether they want to try progress tracking or not. Those who choose to turn the feature on will provide Blackboard with valuable input about how the feature functions so that we can improve it in future releases.
In addition to the feature itself, we're introducing feature flagging as part of the release of progress tracking. Progress tracking will be behind a feature toggle. This means that administrators can decide whether they want to give instructors the ability to turn this feature on at the institution level. The ability to decide when to allow access to the feature will be for a limited time only.
As noted earlier, progress tracking will be released as an “Alpha stage” feature. The feature will only be available to NEW COURSES once an administrator has turned the feature on. In other words, instructors will be able to turn progress tracking on for their students if there hasn’t been any activity inside the course. Student preview activity also counts as activity, so if anything has been done from student preview mode, instructors won’t be able to turn this feature on.
Once turned on, students can visually identify what tasks they have started, completed, or haven't interacted with. Students can also manually update their progress on specific items. This is a new level of personalization in Ultra, and it should help students see progression through their course.
Finally, while this is a starting point, it’s the beginning of the journey. This “Alpha stage” feature will be released to a set of institutions. In its initial phase, this Alpha release will only be available for English-speaking countries. We have a number of exciting enhancements that will expand the benefits of marking progress to not just students but also instructors. In later milestones we'll expand this capability to all institutions, and provide valuable insights and information on the student’s progress to higher roles.
Modern release strategy: feature toggles - 3900.19.0
One of the benefits of moving to SaaS has been the ability to introduce changes to our solutions much faster than we historically could. However, with constant change, users can feel anxious or experience change fatigue. We understand that feeling, so as part of the August release, Blackboard is introducing the option to have newly developed features behind a feature flag.
Not every feature will have this option. It will be added for features that are determined to be potentially disruptive to actively running courses. Features that have the flag option will have them for a limited amount of time. Having this feature will allow administrators greater flexibility as to when they release complex, large features to their users.
This feature will be available only in English for this release, but will be available in all languages in the next release.
Original Course View Tests, Surveys, and Pools: Support for media and files in more places - 3900.19.0
In Original Course View Tests, Surveys, and Pools, there are limits for which test question options support file attachments and embedded media. In this release, we’ve expanded the places where files and media can be embedded, allowing instructors and content authors to create more interactive and visual questions. These question types and fields now support attached files and media using the Add Content button in the editor:
- Calculated formula: Question text
- Essay: Answer text
- Matching: Question/Answer pairs
- Multiple Answer: Answer options
- Multiple Choice: Answer options
- Ordering: Answer options
- Short Answer: Answer text
Note: In release 3900.0.0, we introduced the ability to copy and paste images into these fields. Due to performance concerns, this was removed in 3900.6.0. This enhancement replaces that workflow to once again be able to support not only images, but now also links to files.
Ultra: Navigation menu - 3900.19.0
Ultra Course View is getting a new navigation menu! As part of our August release, the top menu will be changed to text based vs. the iconography we currently have. On top of that, we’ve made the top menu sticky. This means that it will remain visible to users even after they have scrolled down the page.
In addition to these changes, we’ve also removed Student Preview from the Details and Actions menu and placed it in the new header. This will allow instructors access to student preview whenever they are on any top navigation page (e.g. Calendar, Gradebook, etc.)
We're excited about this feature because it's an example of how we are evolving Ultra Course View to be more intuitive for the user. This is also the first step we're taking to improve Ultra Course View. Up next will be allowing instructors to add a banner image to their course homepage.
Ultra gradebook: Advanced filtering options - 3900.19.0
Gradebook in Ultra Course View is getting advanced filtering options! As part of our August release, higher course roles will be able to filter their gradebook view by multiple variables like users, groups, items, and categories. Our new approach provides a more dynamic experience where multiple filters can be used on demand. The filters applied can also be bookmarked and accessed later.
Besides seeing the filters in the gradebook, the user will be able to move back and forth among the students’ submissions that are included in the selected filters.
We are truly excited about this feature as it promotes an easier grading process for higher roles in the institutions. Gradebook filters will make segmenting the grading process of large courses easier.
Ultra calendar: Links - 3900.19.0
Given the rapid shift to online learning, virtual office hours or synchronous collaboration sessions have become quite common. Instructors want the ability to easily link sessions to calendar invitations so students can have the best opportunity to successfully find where they need to be.
With this release, Ultra now supports hyperlinks in the calendar location field. Instructors can link any virtual tool of their choice in the calendar event, and students can launch the virtual session from the calendar itself.
Ultra peer review: Submission linking and calendar links - 3900.19.0
This release adds new functionalities to peer reviewed assignments in Ultra Course View.
Now, instructors can access the submissions reviewed by a student right from that student's grading panel. They can easily select a specific submission and grade a student’s review in context.
Students also have direct access to the submissions available for their review from either the Due Date or the Calendar views. This makes it easier for them to act when reviewing their pending tasks.
Original Content Editor: Format consistency between edit and display - 3900.19.0
The Content Editor for Original Experience and Original Course View was last updated in November 2020 (3900.0.0). Since then, there have been inconsistencies in the way content is formatted when editing content and when viewing it.
With this release, settings like font, size, color, and spacing are more consistent. When existing content is selected, the editor tool bar updates to display its current font, size, and header settings. This creates a better WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) experience.
The CSS changes associated with these improvements could impact clients using custom theme packages. We recommend testing.
- CSS in a custom theme package could disrupt the consistency between content edit and display in the Content Editor.
- Overly-broad CSS changes in a custom theme package could be applied to the Original Content Editor in unexpected ways. These may need to be corrected in a custom theme package and uploaded to Learn. Alternately, fall back to the default Learn 2016 Theme.
- There may be circumstances in which the Content Editor’s styles are preventing custom CSS from presenting. We are planning an enhancement in an upcoming release to include the opportunity to customize the CSS of the Content Editor within the custom theme package.
API updates - 3900.19.0
We've made some noteworthy API additions, including providing Ultra Discussion APIs for reading both single and collections of discussion topics and posts.
For more information about our Rest Public APIs, please refer to: https://developer.blackboard.com/portal/displayApi
Highlight on bug fixes - 3900.19.0
The bug fixes in this Learn release include:
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In the Ultra Course View, the Give full credit to everyone option wasn't working for tests using Random Question Pool. We've fixed the issue.
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In the Ultra Course View, in a course discussion, certain student replies didn't appear when they were part of a thread started by an inactive student. We've fixed the issue.
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In the Ultra Experience, some instructor announcements randomly lost their formatting. We've fixed the issue.
You can view all maintenance items in Behind the Blackboard. Our Known Issue articles provide information for individual bug fixes, and may include bug descriptions and which Learn versions were affected. You can filter bug fixes by SaaS release for easier navigation. View the 3900.19.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.
Learn SaaS release 3900.17.0: Update to client Production environments
We’re applying an updated version of 3900.17.0 (full release number 3900.17.0-rel.43+eee598e) to some client Production servers on Friday, July 2, 2021. Only GovCloud clients in the US Eastern timezone and other GovCloud clients who could not be updated yesterday will receive the update during evening hours.
Learn SaaS release 3900.17.0: Delay for release to client Production environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re delaying the Blackboard Learn SaaS 3900.17.0 release to GovCloud client Production servers in the US East timezone, previously scheduled for Thursday, July 1, 2021.
Also, an issue identified during today's rollout and already corrected, will cause some clients to receive a new, updated release today.
We’ll provide more updates as soon as we’ve identified a new target date.
Learn SaaS release 3900.17.0: Update to client Production environments
We're applying an updated version of 3900.17.0 to client Production servers on Thursday, July 1, 2021. Due to an issue identified during today’s rollout, clients will receive different build numbers depending on the time their update was performed.
Updates with full release number 3900.17.0-rel.37+505c78f include only:
- In the Original Experience, the installer was leaving the SCORM B2 in a corrupted state after an upgrade failure. We've fixed the issue.
- In the Original Experience, the Rustici Engine required a provider update to fix a library defect and installation snags. We've fixed the issue.
Updates with full release number 3900.17.0-rel.42+b2e6934 include the above fixes as well as:
- In the Original Experience, we've implemented an enhancement to reduce the need for heavy load and to avoid system slow down for the loadAllAchievements process.
- In the Original Experience, a table lock issue prevented upgrades, leading to some outages. We've fixed the issue.
The next full rollout will include all fixes for everyone.
Learn SaaS release 3900.17.0: Update to client Test/Stage environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3900.17.0 (full release number 3900.17.0-rel.31+ea0ceef) to client Test/Stage servers on Tuesday, June 29, 2021.
Updates in this version include:
- In the Ultra Course View, when updating time on conditional availability on assessments, if an instructor selected 'Show On' date too close to the current due time, the date picker reverted the selected date back to the current date, ignoring the instructor's selection. We’ve fixed the issue.
- In the Ultra Course View, for a course running the report All User Activity inside Content Areas, no data was presented on a period where it should be data. Running a different report (e.g. Course activity Overview) for the same course during the same period of time, this last report did present the missing data. We've fixed the issue.
- In the Original Experience, the Self and Peer Assessment process was presenting a performance issue, due to a data file processing that required improvement. We've fixed the issue.
- In the Original and Ultra Course Views, alerts for New Discussion Posts didn't appear in the What's New module for courses, based on term availability. We’ve fixed the issue.
Learn SaaS releases 3900.15.0 and 3900.17.0: Update on releases to client Production environments
We’re updating the information available regarding the Blackboard Learn SaaS 3900.15.0 release to client Production servers, previously scheduled for Thursday, June 3, 2021:
- A maintenance update to client Production environments will take place on Thursday, June 24, to apply high priority fixes.
- The efforts to resolve the SCORM upgrade issues are still ongoing. Clients still running on 3900.13.0 will not be updated on June 24.
We aim to update all Production sites to 3900.17.0 on Thursday, July 1. This will include those clients who are currently on 3900.15.0 as well as those who are still on 3900.13.0.
We’ll provide new updates as soon as we have more information.
Learn SaaS releases 3900.15.0 and 3900.17.0: Update on release to client Production and Test/Stage environments
We’re updating the information available regarding the Blackboard Learn SaaS 3900.15.0 release to client Production servers, previously scheduled for Thursday, June 3, 2021:
- A maintenance update for 3900.15.0 to client Production environments is planned to take place on Thursday, June 24, after an update from Rustici was received. We are in the process of integrating and testing the updates.
- Inclusion of clients still on 3900.13.0 in the release on Thursday is tentative at this point, as it depends on the resolution of all SCORM related issues.
The 3900.17.0 upgrade to all stage/test sites that began on Friday is still in progress. We are expecting to complete it later today, Monday June 21.
We’ll provide new updates as soon as we have more information.
Chatbot enhancements
On June 17, Blackboard Student Success updated Blackboard Chatbot. Chatbot is included in Blackboard Learn at no additional cost, so the Learn experience is also improved:
- Search Blackboard Learn Help documentation for Instructors as well as Students.
- In addition to asking the chatbot questions, users can now also navigate a category hierarchy to discover common topics.
- Resulting help information is now previewed directly in the chat interaction. Users can click to open the full documentation from the Help site.
- The default Help articles reference the Ultra Course View to better support users transitioning to our latest interface and may need more assistance. However, users can easily switch to the Original Course View versions of Help articles as needed.
- Institutions can upgrade to the premium version of Blackboard Chatbot that now supports adding institutional-specific help resources and defining a unique, branded chatbot persona.
Blackboard Chatbot currently supports English language North American SaaS environments using Base Navigation. The June 17 update applies to all production and test/stage environments.
Learn SaaS release 3900.17.0: Update to client Test/Stage environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3900.17.0 (full release number 3900.17.0-rel.24+35b8869) to client Test/Stage servers on Friday, June 18, 2021
Updates in this version include:
- In the Original Experience, some building blocks didn’t launch correctly after a libraries' update. We’ve fixed the issue.
- In the Ultra Course View, student preview users couldn’t access journals. We’ve fixed the issue.
- In the Ultra Course View, students couldn’t access assessments with system-generated access codes, as they contained leading zeros or unnecessary commas within. Now the codes are properly generated. We’ve fixed the issue.
Learn SaaS releases 3900.15.0 and 3900.17.0: Update on release to client Production and Test/Stage environments
We’re updating the information available regarding the Blackboard Learn SaaS 3900.15.0 release to client Production servers, previously scheduled for Thursday, June 3, 2021:
- The release remains on hold for clients in the US-East-1 region while continuing to work with Rustici on the SCORM issue. We do not have a target release date yet.
- For institutions that have already received Learn SaaS 3900.15: there will be no further production upgrades until the SCORM issue has been resolved.
- For institutions that are still using Learn SaaS 3900.13: production upgrade to 3900.15 will not be performed until the SCORM issue has been resolved.
Two issues were identified during the 3900.17.0 release to test/stage on Tuesday. For the benefit of our clients, we're working on a test/stage update, scheduled for Friday, June 18.
We’ll provide new updates as soon as we have more information.
API updates - 3900.17.0
Ability to manage Tool-to-node associations: We’ve made some noteworthy API updates, including:
- Institutional Hierarchy is used by large Blackboard Learn Clients to enable increased administrator management distribution for campus courses and tool availability. Now APIs users have the ability to manage Tool- to-node associations.
For more information about our Rest Public APIs, please refer to: https://developer.blackboard.com/portal/displayApi
Highlight on bug fixes
The bug fixes in this Learn release include:
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In the Ultra Course View, manual grade columns were lacking a Post All grades button on the Submissions page. A Post All button is now present there for instructors to use. We've fixed the issue.
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In the Ultra Experience, Ultra Courses, Organizations, and Grades pages went blank on Safari, when the zoom was below 100%. Now, the pages display the courses the user is enrolled in. We've fixed the issue.
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In the Original Experience, the Content Editor wasn't loading randomly. Now, the Content Editor loads in all use cases. We've fixed the issue.
You can view all maintenance items in Behind the Blackboard. Our Known Issue articles provide information for individual bug fixes, and may include bug descriptions and which Learn versions were affected. You can filter bug fixes by SaaS release for easier navigation. View the 3900.17.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.
Course Role Mapping to LTI Context Roles
Some third-party integrated tools function better when users’ course roles are more specific to the responsibilities they have in their courses. Before, all privileged course users were sent to LTI tools with the context role instructor. Administrators can now edit course roles and choose from a list of LTI Context Roles that may be more appropriate for each.
Default and custom course roles, Original and Ultra courses, and older LTI 1.1 and newer LTI Advantage/1.3 tools are all supported.
To prevent possible disruption for current users, the old default role behavior wasn't changed. Administrators may wish to review all course role configurations after this release, and choose LTI context roles. Any given LTI context role mapping is specific to a course role and will apply to all LTI tools.
Overall grade prompt custom removal
In Grading, there is a prompt composed of an image and text that ask users if they want to add an overall grade. This prompt appears always, whether instructors intend to use it or not. This new feature allows users to dismiss the prompt permanently for a course, if they never intend to use an overall grade for it.
Additionally, if instructors dismiss the prompt, they'll still be able to setup the overall grade from the gradebook settings. If the overall grade is already set up, they'll be able to access the overall settings from the gradebook settings.
Percentage option for overall grade
This enhancement allows instructors to show the overall grade in a way that best aligns to the method in which they currently teach the class. Instructors can select now between Letter (grade schema) and Percentage. The selection will apply to instructors and students in the overall grade.
Gradebook column grading on/off for attendance
With this new feature, instructors can control the visibility of the Attendance columns for students and instructors in the gradebook view, grid and list. They can choose wether they want to use attendance as a grade or not.
While some instructors want or need to track attendance, they don't always need it represented in the gradebook. They can remove attendance columns from the gradebook without affecting the attendance itself.
If instructors want to remove attendance, now they can do so from the attendance settings. Before this enhancement, the option was only available in the gradebook grid.
Group assignment page improvement
In the Ultra experience, we've redesigned the group set configuration page to improve UI performance and allow large courses to be more stable.
- A new functionality allows instructors to paginate through students who aren't currently assigned to a group.
- The avatar is hidden, to help people with vision impairment to navigate through cards more efficiently.
- A search bar now makes easy a specific student lookup or helps filter the display of unassigned students by search criteria. The bar shows predicted results and only unassigned students will be displayed.
- Another new functionality allows users to move to the top of the page when there are enough students shown on the screen.
Performance tuning: 1M stack size increment for all SaaS sites
SH/MH customers may improve Learn thread’s capabilities, memory wise, by updating the bbconfig.max.stacksize.tomcat property value, within the bb-config.properties file to “1M”. This change will take effect when the instance is restarted and in case threads need the extra piece of memory that is being provided, they will have access to it.
Learn SaaS releases 3900.15.0 and 3900.17.0: Update on release to client Production and Test/Stage environments
We’re updating the information available regarding the Blackboard Learn SaaS 3900.15.0 release to client Production servers, previously scheduled for Thursday, June 3, 2021:
- The outstanding SCORM upgrade issue is still unresolved. We are working hard alongside Rustici in order to fix it as quickly as possible, and we don't have a target date for resolution yet.
- For institutions that have already received Learn SaaS 3900.15: there will be no further production upgrades until the SCORM issue has been resolved.
- For institutions that are still using Learn SaaS 3900.13: production upgrade to 3900.15 will not be performed until the SCORM issue has been resolved.
We will also move forward with the Blackboard Learn SaaS 3900.17.0 release to client Test/Stage servers, previously scheduled for Tuesday, June 8, 2021, to Tuesday, June 15, 2021. This new release date aligns with our usual pattern, minimizing its delay as much as possible. Based on institutional feedback we also aim to provide institutions with sufficient time for testing.
The release schedule has been updated to reflect this latter change.
Learn SaaS release 3900.17.0: Delay for release to client Testing environments
As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re delaying the Blackboard Learn SaaS 3900.17.0 release to client Testing servers, previously scheduled for Tuesday, June 8, 2021.
We’ll provide more updates as soon as we’ve identified a new target date.
Bb Annotate enhancements
As part of the Q1 work on Bb Annotate we released the following fixes to known issues that were affecting our clients:
- Some users couldn’t delete an annotation note after they reselected it unless they edited the note again. We’ve fixed the issue.
- The selection of text in the document was not working properly, causing difficulty when highlighting or placing notes into documents. We've fixed the issue.
- When placing a note or comment into the file there was an additional comment count added to it, which caused confusion and the feeling of an unseen reply. We've fixed the issue.
The fixes were deployed for Singapore, Polymall, Korea, and Govcloud regions on March 3, 2021. Customers in Sydney, Europe, Canada, and US regions were updated on May 12, 2021.
Annotate information message
In the Original and Ultra Course Views, formatting space differences may be visible between the original uploaded document and the one rendered online for .docx, .doc, .ppt, and .pptx files. We've added an on-screen information message to let users know about this. The message appears anywhere where Bb Annotate is enabled, including the Mobile View. Instructors and students are able to download the original file as usual.
Looking for older release notes?
Check out the Blackboard Learn Release Notes Archive for more information on past releases.
