Anthology Illuminate Release Notes

Illuminate October 2024 Release

Continuous Delivery | Release to Production 23 October 2024
Illuminate, Updated Features

Our October 2024 release includes:

Data Q&A available in Canada & Sydney 

In addition to being available in the EU and US, Data Q&A is now available for clients hosted in the Canada and Sydney regions. We’re adding support for more regions in the future. Using Data Q&A, viewers can ask questions based on available topics and receive an answer in the form of a dashboard. The dashboard has multiple visualizations, as well as a text-based summary generated by AI. 

Data Q&A is not currently available to viewers with restricted access to data. Only institutions that have adopted Institutional Authentication and opted in to Data Q&A in Settings can use Data Q&A.

Find out more about Data Q&A

New Global Settings 

The Global Settings page now includes a control for session timeout. Clients can select a timeout between 15 minutes and 8 hours. It also includes an institutional email field. We recommend that clients populate this email with the most appropriate address to receive notifications of system outages, planned maintenance windows, and other important information.

Find out more about Global Settings

Native authentication password rotation 

Although we encourage all clients to use Institutional Authentication for greater security and to unlock additional features, Illuminate native authentication is still supported. Native authentication refers to signing in with an individual Illuminate account. In order to improve security for this method, we are enforcing password rotation every 90 days. Users may update their password at any point by following the “Forgot password” link on the login page.

Illuminate September 2024 Release

Continuous Delivery | Release to Production 5 September 2024
Developer, Security

IP Address Restriction enabled for Snowflake Service Accounts

Coverage: Illuminate Included and Enhanced Reporting Module 
Users impacted: Users with developer role in Illuminate and BBDATA_USER_ROLE in Snowflake
Related Topics: IP address restriction for Snowflake service accounts 

We are committed to data security for all our clients. Now, institutions can give and restrict access to Snowflake service accounts to specific IP addresses. This reduces the risk of unauthorized access to sensitive data.

With a restricted IP address, users won’t be able to access a Snowflake service account or change a Snowflake account password. 

Service accounts are accounts that sign in to Snowflake with a username and password. 

Image 1. Service account in the Snowflake sign in page.

You can allow and restrict a specific IP address or range of IP addresses

This example query allows a specific IP address (1.1.1.1) and restricts a range of IP addresses from (192.168.1.0 to 192.168.1.255) for a service account called SVC_BLACKBOARD_DATA. 

USE ROLE BBDATA_USER_ROLE; 

ALTER NETWORK POLICY NP_SVC_BLACKBOARD_DATA set ALLOWED_IP_LIST = ('1.1.1.1'); 

ALTER NETWORK POLICY NP_SVC_BLACKBOARD_DATA set BLOCKED_IP_LIST = ('192.168.1.0/24'); 

Image 2: Query in Snowflake to allow a specific IP address and restrict a range of IP addresses.

You can find more examples of IP address restriction on the IP address restriction help page.

Illuminate July 2024 Release

Continuous Delivery | Release to Production 24 July 2024
Reporting, Updated Features

Our July 2024 release includes:

AI Design Assistant Adoption Report 

Previously available only to clients opting into the Illuminate Preview program, this report is now generally available to all clients. It reports on usage of the AI Design Assistant in Blackboard Ultra over time, by institutional hierarchy node, course, and instructor. 

Find out more about the AI Design Assistant Adoption Report

Data Q&A 

Previously only available as part of the Illuminate Enhanced Reporting upgrade, Data Q&A is now available as a feature of Illuminate. Data Q&A is included at no additional cost for clients hosted in the US and EU regions, with further regional support to follow. Using Data Q&A, you can ask a question based on available topics and receive an answer in the form of a dashboard with multiple visualizations, as well as a text-based summary generated by AI from the visualizations. 

Data Q&A is not currently available to Viewers with restricted access to data, which will follow in an update to the topic, and is only available to institutions that have adopted Institutional Authentication.

Find out more about Data Q&A

Improvements to reports:

• Student Performance and Grade – This report has been updated to improve visual and filtering consistency. 
• Learning Platform Adoption – The 4-level Institutional Hierarchy filters have been added to all tabs except the Originality Tool Adoption tab. 
• Collaboration Session Activity Report – This report now supports role-based access. 
• Learning Tools Adoption Report – This report now supports role-based access. 
• LMS Trends Report – This report, which is available to advisors within Anthology Reach, now has printing enabled.

Data model improvements: 

• A new canonical sub-model has been deployed for CRM use cases, based on data available in Anthology Reach. 

This sub-model is not yet populated and is deployed in order to generate feedback and prioritization of future expansion. We are working towards data ingestion for Reach clients and will share progress in a future release.

Illuminate Developer Canonical Data Model changes

Continuous Delivery | Release to Production 24 July 2024
Developer, CDM Changes, Data Dictionary

Blackboard Data Developer Canonical Data Model changes

Continuous Delivery | Release to Production 24 July 2024
Developer, CDM Changes, Data Dictionary

Illuminate April 2024 Release

Continuous Delivery | Release to Production 30 April 2024
Reporting, Updated Features

Our April 2024 release includes:

• Improvements to our Home Page for a consistent and better user experience.

  Role-Based Access is now available for clients using Institutional Authentication with SAML as their identity provider. This feature allows access to compartmentalized reports, enabling administrators to give users the permissions to log into reporting and access data only from the nodes they are associated with.
  Now, administrators can assign roles and permissions to allow or restrict user access to specific reporting areas.

  Find out more about Role-Based Access and Roles and Permissions

  In Custom Reports, a feature of the Illuminate Enhanced Reporting premium upgrade, Authors can now easily create visualizations through simple drag-and-drop actions, selecting metrics from pre-built datasets already connected in their instances. This eliminates the requirement for SQL skills. 
  Pre-built datasets included are:

  • Person Course Summary
  • Learning Filters All Roles
  • RLS Filters

  Additionally, Authors can now choose to cache data and refresh it based on their preferred schedule. They can also upload flat files like CSVs or Excel spreadsheets, enabling seamless incorporation of external data into Enhanced Reporting.

• Other improvements and bug fixes:
  In Learning:

  • In the Social and Collaborative Engagement Report we solved an issue with the Institutional Hierarchy Levels and the Tool type filters. In the Virtual Engagement tab, we also fixed an issue with the x-axis of the stacked bar for the student distribution by participation in Collaborate sessions. Those values are now correctly sorted.
  • The Student Summary Report now supports Role Based Access.

  In Leading:

  • In the Learning Platform Adoption Report, we fixed the filters for the ‘What institution roles access LMS sessions?’ visualization and implemented several performance improvements.
  • The Course Administration Report now supports Role Based Access.

Illuminate Developer Canonical Data Model changes

Continuous Delivery | Release to Production 30 April 2024
Developer, CDM Changes, Data Dictionary

Illuminate March 2024 Release

Continuous Delivery | Release to Production 26 March 2024
Reporting, Updated Features

Our March 2024 release includes:

• One new report in the Leading area:

  To provide a better understanding of how tools are being used and adopted in the Institution, we have improved the Learning Tools Activity and Use report.  

  The Learning Tools Adoption Report now includes key information on tools usage, identifies which courses and Institutional Hierarchy Nodes use specific tools, and allows for easy comparisons of tools usage across different timeframes.

  The report has two tabs:

  • Overview
  • Comparison

  Find out more about the Learning Tools Adoption Report.

• For institutions with Anthology Student, new SIS filters and attributes were incorporated into the Student Performance and Grades and the Social and Collaborative Engagement reports:

  • Course Modality 
  • Grade Level 
  • Program 
  • Course Retake 
  • Primary Instructor 

  A distinct indicator (🔹) identifies data sourced from the Student Information System (SIS) allowing institutions without SIS data to recognize why certain elements are not populated. The overall functionality of the report remains unchanged.

Illuminate Developer Canonical Data Model changes

Continuous Delivery | Release to Production 26 March 2024
Developer, CDM Changes, Data Dictionary

Illuminate February 2024 Release

Continuous Delivery | Release to Production 21 February 2024
Reporting, Updated Features

Our February 2024 release includes:

• Illuminate has a new URL: https://illuminate.blackboard.com/. Users can still access Illuminate using the previous URL.

• In Settings, under the Snowflake Account Settings tab, a credit burndown chart is now available for better control of the institution's monthly credit usage.

  
• Other improvements and bug fixes:
  • In Learning, in the Student Summary Report: We fixed an issue with the Course ID value. It now appears in the Course summary Report for consistency between reports. Additionally, in the Activity Log Tab, we are now filtering out “Root” and “Interactive” elements from the item column.
  • In Teaching, in the Instructional Practice Report: We resolved an issue with the filter controls of the Virtual Classroom Engagement Tab and updated the Collaborate Session calculations for consistency within the report.
  • In Leading, in the Course Administration Report: We addressed an issue related to the percentage of new updated items. Previously, it filtered out any items created before the course creation date, resulting in always showing a 100% percentage and an artificially low item count. This issue was solved by modifying the logic behind the course item count to consider items created or modified after the course creation time, thus removing the template items.
  • In Leading, in the Learning Platform Adoption Report: The LMS Activity Tab now includes 4 levels of Institutional Hierarchy, allowing Institutions to set their own context and zoom in on the data they need.
• In Custom Reports, Authors can enjoy a better user experience with an improved frame and expand/collapse actions.

Illuminate Reporting January 2024 Release

Continuous Delivery | Release to Production 24 January 2024
New Features, Updated Features

Our January 2024 release includes:

• In Teaching, the Course Summary Report is now supported for Role Based Access for clients with Institutional Authentication using Blackboard Learn as the identity provider.

• In Custom Reports, Authors can now seamlessly share dashboards with report viewers within their institution. 

  More about Role Based Access

Illuminate Developer Canonical Data Model changes

Continuous Delivery | Release to Production 24 January 2024
Developer, CDM Changes, Data Dictionary

Illuminate Enhanced Reporting November 2023 Release

Continuous Delivery | Release to Production 15 November 2023
New Features

Our November 2023 release includes:

• Custom Reports is now available for all clients with Enhanced Reporting. This new enhanced feature will allow you to create custom reports that meet your needs and deploy them alongside our standard (pre-built) reports.
   
  

  Find out how Custom Reports works.

• Data Q&A is now available to all clients with Enhanced Reporting. This new feature will allow you to explore your institutional data regardless of your technical expertise by asking questions in natural language and getting customizable visual answers, saving time and effort.
   
  

  Find out how Data Q&A works.

Illuminate Developer Canonical Data Model changes

Continuous Delivery | Release to Production 15 November 2023
Developer, CDM Changes, Data Dictionary