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Learn SaaS release 3900.95.0
Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.95.0
Release to Test/Stage: Tuesday, 11 June 2024 | Release to Production: Thursday, 11 July 2024
Original Experience, Ultra Experience
Original Course View, Ultra Course View
For full feature details, please review the corresponding notes for the Learn 3900.95.0 version included below on this page. Details can be found Behind the Blackboard.
Latest release: 3900.95.0-rel.93+e583816 to Production servers to take place on 1 August 2024.
For more information on updates and bug fixes, please visit Behind the Blackboard.
July 2024 – 3900.95 Release
The July 2024 - 3900.95 release is robust with features in 8 areas:
- Tests and assignments;
- Communication and collaboration;
- Flexible grading;
- Gradebook;
- Learner progression and personalized experience;
- Learn core and security; and
- Upgrade to Ultra
These improvements impact instructors, students, and administrators. Some features do require administrative action.
Instructors:
- Print answer key for assessments
- Improvements to prevent printing a question across pages
- Needs Grading improvements for assessments allowing multiple attempts
- Send a copy to email when scheduling announcements
- Improvements to the Group Submissions page
- Needs Grading improvements for Students and Questions tabs
- Recording audio and video when adding per question feedback
Students:
Instructors and Administrators
- Brightspace Conversion Improvement: Embedded Images and Multimedia
- Moodle Conversion Improvement: Graded Discussions
Administrators:
- ‘Reply to Email’ feature for Messages
- Test and Discussion events included in the Activity Accumulator and synthetic events clean-up
- Default Organization View settings
All users:
Tests & Assignments
Print answer key for assessments – 3900.95
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors
Related topic: Print Assessments
Instructors can now print an answer key for their assessments. A printed answer key is helpful for grading any printed assessment.
Printing provides a convenient solution for a variety of use cases:
- Accommodating students with specific needs or limited technology access
- Providing a printed assessment for testing in designated centers
- Backup and record keeping
- Conducting offline assessment
- Documentation and compliance
- Maintaining security and integrity
The print answer key option is available in Tests and Assignments with questions. Instructors may also save answer keys as a PDF.
To print an answer key from an assessment, navigate to the assessment. Select Print from the Content and Settings tab.
We plan to support printing question pools and printing from the mobile app in upcoming releases.
Image 1. Print answer key option
Image 2. Select desired print options
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
Improvements to the Group Submissions page – 3900.95
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors
Some instructors prefer to assess their students using group assessments. To improve the user experience, we made several improvements to Group Submissions page. These improvements address overall performance and reduce the load time.
Performance tested scenarios in a course with 5000 students enrollments and 1000 groups:
- Loading the Group Submissions page from the content item: Load time reduced from 260s (about 4.5 minutes) to 34s (87% performance improvement)
- Loading the Group Submissions page from the Gradable Items gradebook view: Load time reduced from 260s (about 4.5 minutes) to 29s (88% performance improvement)
- Opening a Group Submissions from the Gradebook Grades view: Load time reduced from 276s (about 4.5 minutes) to 15s (95% performance improvement)
For administrators: These improvements are available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
Improvements to prevent printing a question across pages – 3900.95
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors
In response to client feedback, we enhanced the print functionality for assessments to ensure a more user-friendly experience. For the following use cases, questions now print so that a question is not separated incorrectly on the physical or digital paper page break (e.g., in PDFs). This improves readability and ease of use for instructors and students alike.
- Question headers will split the question number and points possible across pages
- Question header will not split the header from the question text
- Question answer icons and text will not split across pages
- Tables, lists, and images will not split across pages
- Very large text answer options may span pages, but the answer choice icon (e.g. option A) will display next to the first line of text rather than aligning to the center of the option
- In matching questions, the prompt/answer heading will not split from the answer pairs
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
Needs Grading improvements for assessments allowing multiple attempts – 3900.95
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors
Related topics: Grading & Submissions and Grade Multiple Attempts
The value of multiple attempts on an assessment ranges from support of mastery learning to reducing student anxiety. To help instructors grade assessments with multiple attempts, we have added new settings.
When an instructor chooses to allow multiple attempts, there is now a way to see which attempt(s) display as Needs Grading.
From the ‘Attempts to grade’ menu. The options are:
- First attempt
- Last attempt (default)
- All attempts
Example: An assessment allows 3 attempts; a student made 3 submissions
| Option | Attempt(s) counting towards Needs Grading | Needs Grading count |
|---|---|---|
| First attempt | The first attempt submitted by the student | 1 |
| Last attempt | The last attempt submitted by the student | 1 |
| All attempts | All attempts submitted by the student | 3 |
Instructors will always have access to all attempts submitted by a student in the grading interface. The Attempts to grade setting only controls which attempts display as Needs Grading.
If All attempts is selected, the instructor must also select the calculation method for the student’s grade.
From the Final grade calculation menu, the options are:
- Average
- Highest (default)
- Lowest
Image 1. Updated 'Attempts to grade' setting
Image 2. New 'Final grade calculation' setting
Image 3. Updated Submissions page with the Needs Grading filter applied; in this example, the instructor elected to grade the last attempt, which is now also displayed
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
Communication & Collaboration
Send a copy to email when scheduling announcements – 3900.95
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors
Related Topic: Announcements
Managing communication with students is an important instructor task. Instructors often plan certain communications in advance. Now instructors can schedule an announcement for a future date and select that it will send an email copy. The announcement tool will send the email copy on the day and time the announcements are posted.
In the past, instructors could schedule an announcement that would present to students on the selected day and time. Instructors could also immediately post an announcement and send an email copy to students at the same time.
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
Flexible Grading
Needs Grading improvements for Students and Questions tabs – 3900.95
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors
Related Topics: Grade Assignments With Flexible Grading and Grade Tests With Flexible Grading
We continue to improve the grading experience for instructors. Now, the Needs Grading filter for the Student and Questions tabs reflect the 'Attempts to grade' assessment setting.
The Needs Grading filter on the Student tab will now only display students with ungraded attempts that count towards Needs Grading.
The Needs Grading filter on the Questions tab will now only display questions with ungraded responses from attempts that count towards Needs Grading.
Instructors will always have access to all attempts submitted by a student in the grading interface. The ‘Attempts to grade’ setting only controls which attempts need to be graded for the student to be removed from the Needs Grading workflow.
Example: An instructor configures a test with multiple attempts and chooses to grade the last attempt. Two students, Jessica Evans and Nathalie Williams, have made two attempts each. All four attempts are ungraded.
Image 1. Students tab with Needs Grading filter applied; two students display on the tab.
Consider the image above. After the instructor grades Jessica Evans' last attempt, Jessica will no longer appear on the Students tab even though her first attempt is ungraded.
Image 2. Questions tab with the Needs Grading filter applied
Continuing with the example, one essay question is displayed along with 2 responses to grade. The instructor is grading Jessica Evans. The attempt selector defaults to the last response to that question based on the assessment settings. After the instructor grades Jessica’s last response to the essay question, Jessica's responses will no longer appear on the Questions tab even though the response from her first attempt is ungraded.
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
Recording audio and video when adding per question feedback – 3900.95
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors
Related topic: Grade Tests With Flexible Grading
When grading by student or question, instructors can now provide contextual feedback as recorded audio and video. Instructors can add recorded feedback to all question types. Question level feedback promotes deeper understanding and personal growth among students. Question level feedback enhances overall submission feedback and automated feedback for auto-graded questions.
Audio and video feedback recordings do not count towards the institution storage quota.
Image 1. Question feedback recording option when grading a test by student
Image 2. Instructor view of the question feedback recording option when grading a test by question
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
Gradebook
Improved navigation when accessing feedback – 3900.95
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Students
Some instructors choose to add feedback on a student’s overall submission and individual attempts. We've improved students' access to this valuable feedback. Now students can view overall and attempt-level feedback from the gradebook.
Image 1. Student’s gradebook with the Grade & Feedback panel displaying the overall submission feedback for Assignment 1; the student can also select the feedback icon on Attempt 1 to review feedback specific to that attempt
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
Learner Progression & Personalized Experience
Test and Discussion events included in the Activity Accumulator and synthetic events clean-up – 3900.95
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience and Original Experience
Ultra Course View and Original Course View
Impact: Administrators
Administrators and faculty need to review user activity. This user activity helps inform decisions in academic disputes and aids in troubleshooting.
Administrators can now view more granular events for what students did on assessments and discussions in the “activity_accumulator” table.
New events are saved in the “event_type” column.
| Event name | Rule |
|---|---|
| ASSESSMENT_SUBMIT | A student submits a test or an assignment |
| ASSESSMENT_DRAFT | A student saves a draft on a test or an assignment |
| DISCUSSION_RESPONSE | A student posts a response on a discussion |
| DISCUSSION_REPLY | A student posts a reply on a discussion |
| DISCUSSION_DRAFT | A student saves a draft in a reply or response to a discussion |
| DISCUSSION_EDIT | A student edits a reply or response to a discussion |
Note: The “activity_accumulator” includes only submissions the student makes. Auto submissions made by the system are not yet included.
Image 1: Query results of user interactions in a course including discussion and assessment events in the “activity_accumulator” table
We also cleaned up the “activity_accumulator” table to prevent the generation of synthetic and duplicate events. This makes student activity review simpler and more transparent.
- Indirect user interactions may generate synthetic events. For example, a student might access a page where content was displayed without accessing content itself might generate a synthetic event. These synthetic events could lead to confusion, making it difficult to differentiate real user interactions and clutter databases. Now, no synthetic events are generated.
- Duplicated events were generated with a single user interaction. This could give the impression a user was more active than they were. Now, each user interaction registers a single event.
- When opening a folder, learning module, or other container, “CONTENT_ACCESS” events were registered for all items inside the container. Now, only the access for the container is registered.
Behaviors you can expect on existing events:
- “COURSE_ACCESS” events are generated only when a user accesses the course.
- “CONTENT_ACCESS” events are generated only when a user accesses that course content. This applies for all course content items: documents, assessments, discussions, journals, LTI activities, SCORM packages, etc.
As before, the “activity_accumulator” table can receive requests from Course Content public APIs. If you’re using the following API endpoints, take into account these new events and cleanup:
- GET /learn/api/public/v1/courses/{courseld}/contents
- GET /learn/api/public/v1/courses/{courseld}/contents/{contentld}
- GET /learn/api/public/v1/courses/{courseld}/contents/{contentld}/children
Key considerations:
- These changes apply to new events. Historic events will remain the same.
- The activity_accumulator table registers events of all users no matter the role. These changes apply to students and any other role that made these interactions.
- User actions made in mobile app are also included in the “activity_accumulator” table.
For administrators: To track user interactions in the Activity Accumulator table this feature needs to be activated. Go to Tools and Utilities in the administrator panel. Select System Reporting, then Auto-Reporting options. Select Yes in the event tracking field. The default state is on.
Enhanced privacy controls for Student IDs – 3900.95
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Administrators
Related topic: Customize User Information
We aim to support our clients' unique policies and use cases relating to personal information. Administrators can already:
- Restrict the display of certain fields for all users within the environment
- Reveal usernames to selected staff members through role-based privileges
With the new role-based privileges, administrators can now customize access to student IDs.
For example, instructors can be granted visibility of student IDs. This is helpful for distinguishing between students with similar names. At the same time, administrators can apply restrictions to prevent other roles from viewing student IDs.
We've also added a new privilege: “Show student/participant ID even when hidden from other users.” This privilege provides an extra layer of control by allowing specified users to see Student IDs. This ensures that only designated personnel have access to this information when necessary.
In the past, to view the student ID, a user was required to have access to edit the student information. This is no longer necessary.
Image 1. Customize User Information configuration from Administrator Tool Panel; select Customize User Information in Users section to access this page
For administrators: We recommend reviewing and modifying privileges according to your institution’s policies. With the introduction of a new privilege, we advise verifying custom roles.
‘Reply to Email’ feature for Messages – 3900.95
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Impact: Administrators
Related Topic: Messages
We aim to support institutions' specific policies and procedures about email communications. To help, administrators can now control how users interact with Messages sent as emails. When allowed, users can reply to Messages sent as an email.
There are two new settings for Ultra Messages:
- Allow email replies to messages from non-students/non-participants (instructors/leaders, administrators)
- Allow email replies to messages from students/participants
When drafting the message, instructors may choose whether they want to allow replies. When selected, replies from students will be directed to the instructor's email address registered in the system. Allowing replies helps interactions to be more efficient and will foster smoother communication.
Image 1. Messages for Organizations and Courses configuration from Administrator Tool Panel
For administrators: By default, both settings are deselected. This setting can be selected for students, non-students, or both.
Default Organization View settings – 3900.95
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Organization View, Original Organization View
Impact: Administrators
Related topic: Organizations
Administrators can now set the default experience for organizations:
- Original Organization View
- Ultra Organization View
- Instructor Choice
The Default Organization View options now align with the Default Course View options.
Image 1. Default Organizations Properties from Administrator Tool Panel
For administrators: System administrators can set the default organization view by navigating to System Admin> Organizations module >Default Organization Properties.
Upgade to Ultra
Brightspace Conversion Improvement: Embedded Images and Multimedia – 3900.95
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience and Original Experience
Ultra Course View and Original Course View
Impact: Instructors and Administrators
Related Topic: Migrate from D2L Brightspace
We have improved the way we convert HTML Documents from Brightspace to Ultra. Now, embedded images and multimedia are preserved for HTML Documents. HTML Documents from Brightspace convert into Content Items or Ultra Documents, depending on the course view. We now preserve embedded images and multimedia for either output.
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
Moodle Conversion Improvement: Graded Discussions – 3900.95
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience and Original Experience
Ultra Course View and Original Course View
Impact: Instructors and Administrators
Related Topic: Migrate from Moodle
We have improved the way that we convert Discussions from Moodle to Ultra. Now, graded discussions and their settings convert. We now bring over the points and grade category for the discussion. This change simplifies the process for those migrating from Moodle. Instructors will no longer need to update converted discussions to be graded.
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
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