Archived Learn SaaS Release Notes

Learn SaaS release 3900.30.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.30.0
Release to Test/Stage: Tuesday, 7 December 2021 | Release to Production: Thursday, 6 January 2022.
Original Experience, Ultra Experience

For full feature details please see the corresponding notes for the Learn 3900.30 version included below on this page. Details can be found on Behind the Blackboard.

Latest release: 3900.30.0-rel.39+97a2be2 to Production servers on 24 of January 2022.

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

Bb Annotations: Save preferences / Settings 

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery | Blackboard Learn 9.1
Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View, Original Course View, Original Experience

For this improvement, we constantly work with our partners to align the product functionality with the pillars of efficiency and pedagogy, now we are pleased to present this update for Bb Annotate tool, available for both Original and Ultra Courses which is built around the common and really used workflow: the grading process.

Since the initial deployment of Bb Annotate, we have identified that saving preferences is a great need for instructors and grading roles, avoiding the need to reset common preferences when switching from submission to submission. For this release, we will be able to go through the inline grading process in the Course, saving common preferences for Annotation tools, and having the possibility to save custom Stamps to add to the submissions, these new functionalities are user-defined, which means that user preferences and custom stamps will persist through all courses.

With this release, we help our instructors and grader roles to improve their productivity, decreasing work time in a “do it once and then forget” way and encouraging the use of the application as a preferred tool for feedback.

Enhancement is going to be out in January, the exact date may differ from the release update and even be different across regions. This improvement will be released to client Production environments with the 3900.30.0 release.

Learn SaaS release 3900.28.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.28.0
Release to Test/Stage: Tuesday, 16 November 2021 | Release to Production: Thursday, 2 December 2021.
Original Experience, Ultra Experience

For full feature details please review the corresponding notes for the Learn 3900.28.0 version included below on this page.

Last release: 3900.28.0-rel.22+1a80aa0 to Production servers on 16 December 2021. Replaced by version 3900.30.0 on Production on 6 January 2022.

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

Assist disclaimers for third-party tools

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.30.0 | Release to Test/Stage and Production 6 January 2022
Original Experience, Ultra Experience

The Assist updates are micro-service changes that will affect all Test/Stage and Production instances on the same day. On this first launch for a third-party tool, as a user, you'll see and need to accept a legal disclaimer anywhere Assist is used. You can set later not to see the disclaimer again for each tool.

Ally File Transformer in Blackboard Assist (global availability)

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.30.0
Ultra Experience, Original Experience, Base Navigation, and Blackboard App

The Ally File Transformer helps students to personalize their learning experience. It can convert files into alternative formats that better fit their needs, devices, and learning preferences. Ally File Transformer, as a free part of Blackboard Assist, is available by default but can be turned off.

• Available at no cost with Blackboard Assist enabled. An Ally license is not required.
• It converts files to alternative, more accessible formats including HTML, ePub, electronic braille, audio, BeeLine reader and to a PDF that’s undergone optical character recognition (OCR).
• For institutions licensing Ally, the Ally File Transformer allows students to convert their own files or files they've found via research or project work.
• The Ally File Transformer comes automatically with Blackboard Assist. There is an option to turn it off, if preferred, in the Administrator Panel > Partner Cloud Settings.

Previously available for North American higher education clients, the Ally File Transformer will now be available with Blackboard Assist for clients globally on January 6. Blackboard Assist is available for all Learn SaaS clients except for US K12.

Blackboard Assist (business/government availability)

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.30.0
Ultra Experience, Original Experience, Base Navigation, and Blackboard App

Assist offers your learners one central hub within Blackboard Learn to find and access the services they need to flourish. Previously, Blackboard Assist was not available to clients with business or government licenses. From January 6, 2022 these clients will also have the chance to enable Assist.

Enable Blackboard Assist within Blackboard Learn and you will:  

• Give learners one place to find vital support services: Blackboard Assist’s prominent placement in Blackboard Learn helps make learners increasingly aware of all connected support resources.
• Get learners to take advantage of available services: Blackboard Assist’s around-the-clock availability through both the desktop and Blackboard app means that learners can access these support resources whenever and wherever they need them. Featuring services offers an additional way to capture your learners’ attention.  
• Gain access to Ally File Transformer: Blackboard’s Ally File Transformer helps learners to personalize their learning experience. It can convert files into alternative formats that better fit their needs, devices, and learning preferences.

Bb Annotations - Save preferences and settings: Delay for release to client Production environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery | Blackboard Learn 9.1
Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View, Original Course View, Original Experience

As part of our commitment to release quality, and transparency to our users, we’re delaying the Bb Annotations: Save preferences and settings release previously scheduled in tandem with version 3900.28.0 on December 2, 2021. This will now be included in the 3900.30.0 release to client Production sites on January 6, 2022.

Learn SaaS release 3900.28.0: Update to client Test/Stage environments

We're releasing an updated version of 3900.28.0 (full release number 3900.28.0-rel.11+732fc84) to client Test/Stage servers on Tuesday, November 30, 2021.

Updates in this release include:

• In the Original and Ultra Experiences, the way the system handles an error produced while a document is uploaded again to the Annotation server, changed. Now the Annotation server provides a flag to let the system know when to upload a document again.
• In the Original Experience, when students tried to submit files in a group assessment, they got a UI red ribbon error reading “Failed to submit", but they could see the successfully submitted file after refreshing. We've fixed the issue.

Learn SaaS release 3900.26.0: Update to client Production environments

We're releasing an updated version of 3900.26.0 (full release number 3900.26.0-rel.27+c56b21e) to client Production servers on Thursday, November 25, 2021.

Updates in this release include:

• In the Ultra Experience, the announcements page wasn't loading in specific cases where announcements contained tables. The logic replacing tables for the text ‘Table with contents’ in the announcement's preview was causing an error and affected the whole announcements panel. We've fixed the issue.
• In the Original Experience, when students tried to submit files in a group assessment, they got a UI red ribbon error reading 'Failed to submit', but they could see the submitted file after refreshing. We've fixed the issue.

Learn SaaS release 3900.28.0: Update to client Test/Stage environments

We're releasing an updated version of 3900.28.0 (full release number 3900.28.0-rel.8+671a810) to client Test/Stage servers on Tuesday, November 23, 2021.

Updates in this release include:

• In the Ultra Experience, administrators who had access to all courses but weren't enrolled in a course weren't allowed to open or edit that course's banner. We fixed the issue and now, administrators can edit the course banner in any course, even if they aren't enrolled in it.
• In the Ultra Experience, the Course Faculty list feature has changed based on client feedback:
  • When a system admin has set course messages to read-only, message links will no longer be displayed by instructor names for students.
  • Also, the Faculty list will only show the teaching roles of instructor, facilitator, and any custom role with “Treat Users with this Role like Instructor” set true. It'll now exclude other non-teaching roles such as course builder or grader.
• In the Ultra Experience, the accommodations functionality was merged in release 3900.28.0, but the translation of its corresponding strings wasn't. We've fixed the issue and completed the string translation in the latest version.
• In the Ultra Experience, the announcements page wasn't loading in specific cases where announcements contained tables. The logic replacing tables for the text ‘Table with contents’ in the announcement's preview was causing an error and affected the whole announcements panel. We've fixed the issue.

Learn SaaS release 3900.26.0: Update to client Production environments

We're releasing an updated version of 3900.26.0 (full release number 3900.26.0-rel.24+b3048ed) to client Production servers on Thursday, November 18, 2021.

Updates in this release include:

• In the Ultra Experience, the Course Faculty list feature has changed based on client feedback:
  • When a system admin has set course messages to read-only, message links will no longer be displayed by instructor names for students.
  • Also, the Faculty list will only show the teaching roles of instructor, facilitator, and any custom role with “Treat Users with this Role like Instructor” set true. It'll now exclude other non-teaching roles such as course builder or grader.
• In the Ultra Experience, administrators who had access to all courses but weren't enrolled in a course, couldn't open or edit that course's banner. We fixed the issue and now, administrators can edit the course banner in any course, even if they aren't enrolled in it.

Learn SaaS release 3900.28.0: Release to client Test/Stage environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.28.0 | Release to Production 2 December 2021
Original Experience, Ultra Experience

We're releasing a new Learn version 3900.28.0 (full release number 3900.28.0-rel.5+d4503d3) to client Test/Stage servers on Tuesday, November 16, 2021. The details on new features and updates will be published in the corresponding individual feature release notes.

Point-based and point-range rubrics - 3900.28.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.28.0 | Release to Production 2 December 2021
Ultra Experience

We are excited to add point-based and point-range rubrics to Learn Ultra courses. Point-based and point-range rubrics provide instructors the flexibility that is expected for a variety of grading procedures and use cases. Instructors may customize rubrics with different point scales to support various pedagogical approaches and instructional practices. Likewise, faculty may opt to use decimals, organize columns with points or points ranges ascending or descending, and utilize total points that sum up to 99,999.00.

With this addition, we continue to expand the capabilities of Learn Ultra and make the transition from Original Course View to Ultra Course View seamless. We've been careful to design point-based rubrics so that those created in Original courses migrate to Ultra as part of a course conversion. The December 2021 release of these improvements is perfect timing for instructors to take advantage of these new rubric features in their winter and spring 2022 classes!

Accommodations: Support more granular control - 3900.28.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.28.0 | Release to Production 2 December 2021
Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View

We have frequently heard from our clients that instructors need greater granularity of control for specifying any extra time a student may need on timed assessments. The next phase for Accommodations includes the option for faculty to set the percentage of extra time for those students who need more time to complete a timed assessment.

When adding a time limit accommodation, faculty may specify any percentage of extra time that is needed to honor a time limit accommodation. This change provides greater flexibility to the instructor supporting both the students’ needs and the instructor’s assessment strategy.

More on accommodations

Ultra course banner: Image description - 3900.28.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.28.0 | Release to Production 2 December 2021
Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View

Visual components of courses are helpful for aesthetic and identification purposes. To ensure that all visual elements are accessible, we are building on recent improvements to the Ultra Course banner. In this release, we have added the option for instructors to include an image description when uploading a banner image in the course. Faculty may also add an image description to existing course banner images. We are also providing greater control for instructors to mark images as decorative whenever images are not primary content. Providing visually appealing courses that adhere to accessibility best practices and standards is truly key to engaging all students and ensuring an equitable learning experience.

Both Original and Ultra courses include the option to add an image description to the course cards from the Courses page on the Ultra Base navigation.

Set visibility for group sets - 3900.28.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.28.0 | Release to Production 2 December 2021
Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View

Adding to the current functionality of Group Sets, the next phase of our work on course groups provides faculty an option to change the visibility for custom or randomly created group sets. A new choice to hide course groups from the students’ view gives instructors the option to use groups to discretely organize students based on their performance, interests, adopted knowledge, and other criteria.

Instructors may also change the visibility option preferred for each group set from the course groups page when creating a group set.

Instructors can see the visibility status of group sets when applying filters in the Gradebook grid view, setting up conditional release, and associating a group set to content such as an assessment or discussion.

To ensure that faculty maintain the appropriate interaction among students, the self-enrollment option will be automatically set as disabled when any course group’s visibility is set to “hidden from students”. And content association will always be possible when course group’s visibility is available to students.

For a few users, visibility settings of current hidden group sets in Ultra may not match the specifications explained above. If you note any inconsistencies in your Learn visibility configuration, please contact Client Support. We've got your back.

File upload size limit (Original Course View) - 3900.28.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.28.0 | Release to Production 2 December 2021
Original Course View

Setting limits on users’ uploads helps institutions contain storage utilization, maintain institutional policies, and encourage use of resources better suited to online use or limited bandwidth. This release includes the following capabilities:

• Administrators can set a file size limit in megabytes for all files uploaded into courses. This restriction is applied to uploads in the Original Course View. This is configured in Administrator Panel > System Configuration.
• Administrators can optionally configure recommended alternative storage locations that will appear in warning messages when the file limit is surpassed, directing users to more appropriate services the institution licenses, supports, or recommends.
• In Original courses, users who attempt to upload files that are larger than the specified restriction will receive a warning, indicating the filenames of files that were rejected. When adding multiple files at once, each file is considered individually and accepted or rejected based on their individual sizes.
• The file size limit isn’t applied when uploading course import or SCORM packages.
• Blackboard mobile apps have an existing file size limit for both Original and Ultra courses that is set to 250MB. That is unchanged with this release.

In a future release, the configured file size limit will also be applied to Ultra Course View.

Force completion and timer - 3900.28.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.28.0 | Release to Production 2 December 2021
Original Course View

To ensure a secure testing environment and to support academic honesty and integrity, we have made an important update to the behavior of Force Completion to solve a specific issue found with core student assessments. Prior to 3900.28, the timer and force complete options were not strictly linked such that the Force Completion flow was triggered when a student accessed an in-progress test attempt. To both improve the workflow and resolve an outstanding issue, beginning with the 3900.28 release, we have linked the Timer option and Force Completion capabilities. This change now incorporates 2 updates:

• If the student attempts to open an in-progress test in a second window a message opens and informs the student that the assessment is already in progress and there is no option to continue or reopen the same test.
• The status of the test in the primary window remains unchanged and continues to progress until the time limit expires and the test auto-submits.

This change impacts only Original course assessments. Third-party remote proctoring solutions are not impacted. The Timer can still be used without Force Completion.

Microsoft Teams integration

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.28.0 | Release to Production 2 December 2021
Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View

We are excited to announce continued improvements to the Microsoft Teams classes integration, which demonstrates our commitment to providing best-in-class tools and technologies for the Ultra Course View. This release includes the following capabilities:

• When an Administrator disables the integration, only an Administrator can re-enablement the integration on a course-by-course basis. This option is only possible when the integration has been re-enabled by the Administrator on the Learn instance. 
• When the course is marked as completed or the integrations are disabled, any Teams synched with the course will be put into archive status and the synch will be stopped. If the course is re-opened or re-enabled, the course changes will resynch with the archived Team and that Team will be reactivated.  

API updates - 3900.28.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.28.0 | Release to Production 2 December 2021
Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View, Original Experience

We’ve made some noteworthy API updates:

• Ultra Discussion APIs: Management of discussion topics/posts (Ultra only). We’ve made some noteworthy API updates, including the management (creating, updating, deleting and grading) of discussion posts in Ultra course.
• Adaptive Release API Support: PATCHs, PUTs and DELETEs for Rule APIs and Rule Criteria APIs (Ultra and Original). We’ve made some noteworthy API updates, including: the ability to manage the release or visibility of a course content based on timing or student success criteria.

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

Highlight on bug fixes - 3900.28.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.28.0 | Release to Production 2 December 2021
Ultra Course View, Ultra Experience, Original Experience

The bug fixes in this Learn release include:

• Issues with Discussion board and Discussion analysis: Discussion analysis showed no information and the Discussion board visible/hidden menu was too small to use. These issues have been fixed and the UI now behaves as expected, and allows for better working space.

• Student assessment answers show "None given" and "saved question 0 multiple times": The access log for assessments displayed confusing and inaccurate messages. The log now displays messages as expected.

• Issues with special characters causing erratic behavior: The platform was having issues interpreting some characters,  causing special characters to appear in the subject of Original course messages in the global navigation updates, and the “What's New” Module. It also caused inadvertent posting of an announcement and emails sent to users to fail when an ampersand was in the course name. This behavior has been fixed and now works as expected.

• Student preview does not work properly on Ultra courses: The 'Reset preview' text box was shown in white over white, which made the message invisible unless the user highlighted it. Also, selecting the 'Reset' button didn't reset the actual coursework for the student preview user. These issues have been fixed by changing the color of the text and correcting the behavior of the 'Reset' button.

• Adding LTI option to the questions feedback: To give instructors more tools for providing feedback on student evaluations, the present development makes the LTIs available in the question feedback RTE. The following plugins were enabled in the automatic feedback editor: LTI content, YouTube inserts and Cloud files access.

• Spacing issues on Ultra documents - Course restore: The line spacing between a heading and paragraphs was affecting legibility. After resolving the spacing issues for courses that are currently in the database, the issue remained for course documents that were restored in Ultra. The space issue was adjusted and corrected for courses that weren't in the database when the upgrader was executed.

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 3900.28.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.

Learn SaaS release 3900.26.0: Release to client Production environments

We released an updated version of 3900.26.0 (full release number 3900.26.0-rel.22+4fb8410) to client Production servers on Saturday, November 13, 2021. Please note that the build number remains the same as last week.

Updates in this release include:

• In the Ultra Experience, some content in the tables wasn't appearing correctly. We've fixed the issue.
• In the Ultra Experience, instructors couldn't edit the fill in the blank questions after submitted by students. We've fixed the issue.
• In the Ultra Course View, the entire discussion UI was freezing if a user had a lot of enrollments. We've fixed the issue.

Learn SaaS release 3900.26.0: Release to client Production environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.26.0 | Release to Production 4 November 2021
Original Experience, Ultra Experience

We’re releasing an updated version of 3900.26.0 (full release number 3900.26.0-rel.22+4fb8410) to client Production servers on Thursday, November 11, 2021.

Updates in this release include:

• In the Ultra Course View, when grading discussion boards, the entire discussion thread wasn't appearing. We've fixed the issue (2).
• In the Ultra Experience, assessments weren't submitted after students selected 'Submit', cancelling altogether the submission prompt. We've fixed the issue (2).
• In the Ultra Experience, multiple options for matching questions weren't supported with voiceOver for IOS phones, and gestures didn't allow a correct interaction with controls or inputs, affecting the experience for IOS users who had voiceOver enabled and tried to select an answer in an exam or quiz. We've fixed the issue (1).
• In the Original and Ultra experiences, In a multi node environment, when the administrator changed the Safe HTML policy, it wasn't reflected in the other nodes of the application. We've fixed the issue and now, the Safe HTML policy updated will reflect in all nodes across the application immediately(1).
• In the Original Experience, after the latest upgrade on November 4, multiple sites in the APAC, US Central, US Mountain, and US Pacific regions experienced periods of unresponsiveness or degradation, due to a database index that wasn't recreated as part of the 3900.26 upgrade. We've fixed the issue.

For client sites already on 3900.26.0 before November 11 release:
(1) These fixes were deployed on November 4.
(2) These fixes were deployed on November 8. 

Learn SaaS releases 3900.26.0 and 3900.28.0: Update on release to client Production and Test/Stage environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.26.0 | Release to Production 4 November 2021
Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.28.0 | Release to Production 2 December 2021
Ultra Experience, Original Experience

Due to a critical issue reported in discussion forums during the latest release, we’re performing an unscheduled update today, Monday 8 November, 2021, to the Blackboard Learn SaaS 3900.26.0 release (full release number 3900.26.0-rel.18+de6a634) to client Production environments in APAC and US Pacific, Mountain, and Central time zones. This update will only apply to production sites which have already been upgraded to 3900.26.0, and won't impact Europe or US Eastern time zones.

The issue addressed in this release is:

• In the Ultra Course View, when grading discussion boards, the entire discussion thread wasn't appearing. We've fixed the issue.

As a result of the delay completing the full roll-out of 3900.26.0 to production environments, we will postpone the Blackboard Learn SaaS 3900.28.0 release to client Test/Stage servers, previously scheduled for Tuesday, November 9, 2021, to Tuesday, November 16, 2021. This new release date aligns with our usual pattern. 

The release schedule has been updated to reflect this latter change.

Learn SaaS release 3900.26.0: Release to client Production environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.26.0 | Release to Production 4 November 2021
Original Experience, Ultra Experience

We’re releasing an updated version of 3900.26.0 (full release number 3900.26.0-rel.15+621c3b2) to client Production servers on Thursday, November 4, 2021.

Updates in this release include:

• In the Ultra Experience, multiple options for matching questions weren't supported with voiceOver for IOS phones, and gestures didn't allow a correct interaction with controls or inputs, affecting the experience for IOS users who had voiceOver enabled and tried to select an answer in an exam or quiz. We've fixed the issue.
• In the Original and Ultra experiences, In a multi node environment, when the administrator changed the Safe HTML policy, it wasn't reflected in the other nodes of the application. We've fixed the issue and now, the Safe HTML policy updated will be reflected in all nodes across the application immediately.

Learn SaaS release 3900.26.0: Update to client Test/Stage environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.26.0 | Release to Production 4 November 2021
Original Experience, Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View

We’re applying an updated version of 3900.26.0 (full release number 3900.26.0-rel.13+180c3aa) to client Test/Stage servers on Tuesday, November 2, 2021.

Updates in this release include:

• In the Ultra Course View, the Ultra Extension Framework hover events weren't triggered for the new course menu. We've added the analytics hover event for Eesysoft on the new course menu links, and we've fixed the issue.
• In the Ultra Course View, the Enable/Disable feature, and the Save and Submit buttons weren't behaving properly for assessments that have text questions only. The assessments were enabled in the presence of an answer, but couldn't be disabled when the answer was removed. We've fixed the issue.
• In the Ultra Experience, the feature flag progress tracking was removed without making available the toggle for administrators. When announced in the Community site some users requested to recover the feature flag toggle while the administrator flow is completed, and we listened. We've fixed the issue.
• In the Original and Ultra Experiences, whenever a tab was loaded, individual records for all modules on the accessed page were logged. While on Ultra the impact was negligible, on the Original Experience this could account for between 25% to 75% of data, slowing down the execution of reports for more relevant details. We've fixed the issue.
• In the Original and Ultra Experiences, some clients were still experiencing overlapping issues on Wiris math formulas after the latest fix we provided. The Stix font family wasn't used when the overlapping happened. We've fixed the issue for formulas created from this point onwards. Formulas created before this fix need to be modified again manually, using the Wiris editor.
• In the Original Experience, in the Administrator Panel's Tools and Utilities section, there was a generic label with a broken link. We’ve fixed the issue.
• In the Original Experience, when the Learn version was being upgraded on Windows servers, the script that completed the process generated an execution error. We've fixed the issue, and made sure the upgrading process now finishes successfully.
• In the Original Experience, when admins copied a course with embedded LTI links within the Rich Text Editor to a new or existing course, those links broke. They were still pointing back to the old course where users of the new course didn't have permissions. We've definitely fixed the issue for both links and embedded LTI calls, but the LTI links in the Original editor created before this release won't copy correctly. They'll have to be recreated.

Learn SaaS release 3900.26.0: Update to client Test/Stage environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.26.0 | Release to Production 4 November 2021
Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View

We’re applying an updated version of 3900.26.0 (full release number 3900.26.0-rel.2+6bc051d) to client Test/Stage servers on Tuesday, October 26, 2021. Please note that the build number remains the same as last week.

Updates in this release include:

• In the Ultra Course View, students' usernames were not displayed after due date accommodation was enabled for groups, the roster or the discussions page. We've fixed the issue.

Learn SaaS release 3900.23.0: Update to client Production environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.23.0 | Release to Production 7 October 2021
Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View

We’re applying an updated version of 3900.23.0 (full release number 3900.23.0-rel.27+bf491df) to client Production servers on Thursday, October 21, 2021. Please note that the build number remains the same as last week.

Updates in this release include:

• In the Ultra Course View, the entire discussions UI was freezing if a user had a lot of enrollments. We've fixed the issue.

Learn SaaS release 3900.26.0: Update to client Test/Stage environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.26.0 | Release to Production 4 November 2021
Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View

We’re applying an updated version of 3900.26.0 (full release number 3900.26.0-rel.2+6bc051d) to client Test/Stage servers on Tuesday, October 19, 2021. Please note that the build number remains the same as last week.

Updates in this release include:

• In the Ultra Course View, the entire discussions UI was freezing if a user had a lot of enrollments. We've fixed the issue.

Learn SaaS release 3900.26.0: Release to client Test/Stage environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.26.0 | Release to Production 4 November 2021
Original Experience, Ultra Experience, Original Course View, Ultra Course View

We're releasing a new Learn version 3900.26.0 (full release number 3900.26.0-rel.2+6bc051d) to client Test/Stage servers on Wednesday, October 13, 2021. The details on new features and updates will be published in the corresponding individual feature release notes.

Set and display pronouns in Ultra Course View - 3900.26.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.26.0 | Release to Production 4 November 2021
Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View

As part of planned diversity, equity, and inclusion improvements, this release gives institutions the option to allow users to express to others their personal pronouns. This fosters greater respect between students and with faculty engaging online by letting others know how best to refer to them in their group activities and discussions.

Included in this release:

• Administrators can opt-in to allow use of the new pronoun field.
• Administrators can set the pronoun values users will be able to select, allowing conformance with institutional standards, policy, and culture.
• Administrators can allow users to request additional pronouns to be added to the approved list.
• When allowed, users can select one or more pronoun values to display to others.
• Users in Ultra Course View courses can see the pronouns populated by others in the class.
• Data integration supports populating pronoun values for users through REST, flat file, XML, LIS, and IMS Enterprise methods.

A future release will allow for the display of pronouns in Original Course View courses. User self-selection of pronouns will require that Base Navigation is enabled. When using Original Experience (Base Navigation is not enabled), only data population through data integration will be supported.

Ultra: Course Overview M2 – Banner - 3900.26.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.26.0 | Release to Production 4 November 2021
Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View

We have frequently heard from clients about a desire to include additional visuals into Ultra Course View, for both aesthetic and identification purposes. As a next phase in our work to improve overall navigation and an intuitive course experience, the course card image from base navigation can now be used as a course banner in Ultra courses.

When adding a new course image, instructors can opt to make it visible within the course and are able to easily crop the image to the preferred size and zoom in or out on the uploaded image to select the part they want to focus on. This change also makes it easier for instructors to add a course schedule and for students to identify course faculty members and class meeting days, times, and location.

Providing a visually appealing course, images consistent with Base Navigation, and easy-to-locate course details, is key to engagement and the overall student experience.

Ultra Rich Text Editor Improvements: Tables. New options available when using tables - 3900.26.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.26.0 | Release to Production 4 November 2021
Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View

We recently released the tables function in the Ultra rich text editor. In this release, we are pleased to share that additional formatting options are now available when using tables.

• Text Style
• Alignment options
• List Attachment
• Insert content

These options provide greater flexibility for faculty and students, especially in disciplines where the presentation and formatting of data is particularly important.

Microsoft Teams integration - 3900.26.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.26.0 | Release to Production 4 November 2021
Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View

Blackboard is excited to announce continued improvements to the recently released Microsoft Teams classes integration, solidifying our commitment to providing best-in-class tools and technologies for the Ultra Course View.

To ensure consistency of data processing and to reduce potential synchronization issues between Learn Ultra course view and an institutions Microsoft Tenant, at initial launch in August, Blackboard introduced a new Institutional email field within the Student Information System framework. This was specifically for cloud providers such as Microsoft who use email as their primary user identifier. This was made available for all SIS integration types.

This release includes the following capabilities:

• The ability to allow courses to be Archived and Restored but keeping all institution emails intact. This is a continued change management improvement, and the first of several process improvements planned with this integration.
• Support for large course sizes up to 10,000 enrollments, keeping inline with the maximum number of users that can be supported in a single Microsoft Team.
• Greater system administration messaging within the integration setup flow, to detect Microsoft Tenants that don’t have the Teams Education profile added. This was an enhancement added as a result of our initial beta testing that took place earlier this year.

Progress Tracking M1.2: Permanent Tracking and Feature Flag Removal - 3900.26.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.26.0 | Release to Production 4 November 2021
Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View

As part of our August release, we included our Beta version of progress tracking. From this release on, progress tracking in Ultra Course View (UCV) could be activated in new courses, where no previous activity had taken place. This feature was also the first functionality behind a feature flag. In other words, administrators had the ability to decide whether they want to enable progress tracking at their institution or hold it for a while. We are happy to share that we are removing the current limitations around this feature.

With this release, instructors will be able to enable progress tracking at any time during the term. Enabling this functionality will give students an easy way to keep track of what they have done inside each one of their courses. When enabling progress tracking later than the beginning of the term, participatory items will be retroactively marked as complete. For example, assessments submitted previously by students will be marked as complete. Non-participatory items, like Ultra documents, will still need to be manually marked by students.

This is the next step in our work on progress tracking, and we’re excited to move forward alongside our clients. Future releases will provide additional instructor capabilities, such as the ability to monitor progress made by their students inside their courses.

API updates - 3900.26.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.26.0 | Release to Production 4 November 2021
Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View

We’ve made some noteworthy API updates, including the ability to manage the release or visibility of a course content based on timing or student success criteria:

• Ultra Discussion APIs: Read - Discover (Filters). We’ve made some noteworthy API updates, including filters for the READ Discussion topic(s) and post(s) - collection and individual, where the user can filter before/after creation, or modify dates.

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

Highlight on bug fixes - 3900.26.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.26.0 | Release to Production 4 November 2021
Ultra Course View, Ultra Experience

The bug fixes in this Learn release include:

• 'Needs grading' didn't take effect in Ultra grade journal on 'Grades and Participation' screen: this issue is now fixed and the Needs Grading filter is working as expected.

• Unable to rename file in Ultra assignment: when an instructor tries to rename a file added into an Ultra assignment, a pop up titled "Close Without Saving?" appears when the user navigates away from the page. The edit option is there for instructors to be able to rename assignment's files, and it is now working without errors.

• When the search box was clear in the gradebook grid view, not all columns were restored: when interacting with the search box, the elements (students(rows) and gradable items (columns)) are filtered. Now when the input is clear (by using the X button or removing the text explicitly with the keyboard), and all elements are restored, meaning no filtering.

• Completed Course was not displayed in the vertical message tab for students: this has been fixed. Completed courses are displayed in the messages tab for students.

• The number of unread messages was displayed twice on the Japan Language pack: the  number of unread messages was displayed twice in the Ultra Base navigation on the Japanese Language. This is now fixed.

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 3900.26.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.

Learn SaaS release 3900.23.0: Update to client Test/Stage and Production environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.23.0 | Release to Production 7 October 2021
Original Experience, Ultra Experience

We’re applying an updated version of 3900.23.0 to client Test/Stage servers on Wednesday October 6, 2021. The full release number (3900.23.0-rel.27+bf491df) will remain the same. This version will also be released to client Production servers on Thursday, October 7, 2021, in our regular monthly upgrade.

Updates in these releases include: 

• In the Ultra Experience, when creating system notifications, only 100 institutional roles were showing if more roles than that were present. We fixed the issue.

Learn SaaS release 3900.23.0: Update to client Test/Stage environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.23.0 | Release to Production 7 October 2021
Original Experience, Ultra Experience

We’re applying an updated version of 3900.23.0 (full release number 3900.23.0-rel.27+bf491df) to client Test/Stage servers on Tuesday, October 5, 2021.

Updates in this release include:

• In the Ultra Experience, when instructors sent messages to course users and then marked the course as complete, the unread message count for students wasn't reduced when message was read. We fixed the issue.
• In the Original Experience, when admins copied a course with embedded LTI links within the Rich Text Editor to a new or existing course, those links broke. They were still pointing back to the old course where users of the new course didn't have permissions. We've fixed the issue, but the links within course copies made before this fix still need to be manually fixed.

Learn SaaS release 3900.21.0: Update to client Production environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.21.0 | Release to Production 7 October 2021
Original Experience, Ultra Experience, Original Course View, Ultra Course View

We’re applying an updated version of 3900.21.0 (full release number 3900.21.0-rel.30+4b0740b) to client Production servers on Thursday, September 30, 2021.

Updates in this release include:

• In the Ultra Course View, students couldn't access the feedback when selecting the feedback icon in tests that used Respondus LDB, getting a console error instead. We've fixed the issue.
• In the Original Course View, LTI Contents of Original course in Ultra base navigation calendar were displaying permission errors when selected, preventing users from opening them. We've fixed the issue.
• In the Original and Ultra Experiences, during the September 16 Production SaaS update, an issue with the  deployment configuration management tool prevented log folders and log files from being added and displayed in the Content Management /internal/logs  folder. We've fixed the issue.

Learn SaaS release 3900.23.0: Update to client Test/Stage environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.23.0 | Release to Production 7 October 2021
Original Experience, Ultra Experience, Original Course View, Ultra Course View

We’re applying an updated version of 3900.23.0 (full release number 3900.23.0-rel.20+390fc02) to client Test/Stage servers on Tuesday, September 28, 2021.

Updates in this release include internal enhancements and system optimization.

Learn SaaS release 3900.23.0: Update to client Test/Stage environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.23.0 | Release to Production 7 October 2021
Original Experience, Ultra Experience, Original Course View, Ultra Course View

We’re applying an updated version of 3900.23.0 (full release number 3900.23.0-rel.19+2fb7fc2) to client Test/Stage servers on Tuesday, September 21, 2021.

Updates in this release include:

• In the Ultra Course View, students couldn't access the feedback when selecting the feedback icon in tests that used Respondus LDB, getting a console error instead. We've fixed the issue.
• In the Original and Ultra Experiences, some client Test/Stage instances experienced outages due to an incorrect query during notification cleanup. We’ve fixed the issue.
• In the Original Course View, LTI Contents of Original course in Ultra base navigation calendar were displaying permission errors when selected, preventing users from opening them. We've fixed the issue.
• In the Original and Ultra Course Views, instructors were required to login again to Learn, after they accessed an LTI tool and selected the Return to Learn button. We've fixed the issue.

Learn SaaS release 3900.21.0 and 3900.23.0: Update to client Production and Test/Stage environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.21.0 | Release to Production 2 September 2021
Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.23.0 | Release to Production 7 October 2021
Ultra Experience

We’re applying an updated version of 3900.21.0 to client Production servers and an updated version of 3900.23.0 to client Test/Stage servers on Friday, September 17, 2021. Full Learn release numbers will not change.

Updates in this release include:

• Update to the Ultra UI for iOS 15.

Learn SaaS release 3900.21.0: Update to client Production environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.21.0 | Release to Production 2 September 2021
Original Experience, Ultra Experience

We’re applying an updated version of 3900.21.0 (full release number 3900.21.0-rel.28+dd6c7ec) to client Production servers on Thursday, September 16, 2021.

Updates in this release include general internal enhancements and ongoing system optimization.
For Learn SaaS, we also deployed OS Fonts to address some remaining Wiris Math Editor issues on overlapping formulas. We've fixed those issues.

Learn SaaS release 3900.23.0: Update to client Test/Stage environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.23.0 | Release to Production 7 October 2021
Original Experience

We’re applying an updated version of 3900.23.0 (full release number 3900.23.0-rel.11+a845e27) to client Test/Stage servers on Tuesday, September 14, 2021.

Updates in this release include:

• In the Original Experience, some clients' SafeHTML policy was overwritten by default after rolling restart took place. We've fixed the issue.

Learn SaaS release 3900.21.0: Update to client Production environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.21.0 | Release to Production 2 September 2021
Original Experience, Ultra Experience

We’re applying an updated version of 3900.21.0 (full release number 3900.21.0-rel.25+75ad05d) to client Production servers on Thursday, September 9, 2021.

Updates in this release include:

• In the Ultra Course View, the gradebook wasn't finish loading when courses were using SCORMs with adaptive release. We've fixed the issue.
• In the Ultra Course View, instructors couldn't delete uncompleted SCORM package's attempts from students, and the process was producing 405 status codes instead. We've fixed the issue.
• In the Original Experience, some clients' SafeHTML policy was overwritten by default at irregular intervals, usually after upgrades took place. We've fixed the issue.
• In the Original Experience, a distribution notification alert processing was causing stability issues and peaking the use of memory for a few clients. We've fixed the issue. Affected sites might still receive some backlog alerts.

Ultra: Submission Receipt - 3900.23.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.23.0 | Release to Production 7 October 2021
Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View

Students need a way to ensure their work has been correctly submitted into the system. There are times where a student believes they have submitted their work when, in fact, it wasn't sent at all, or it wasn't sent successfully.

This new functionality provides students with a unique tracking number that confirms their academic submission. Students can copy and save this number as proof of their work, and evidence for academic disputes.

A modal window with the tracking information will appear to students after they submit their work. They can also receive an email with that information if they have a registered email, and download a similar text file to keep for their records.

Rubric Criterion Increase - 3900.23.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.23.0 | Release to Production 7 October 2021
Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View

Rubrics are grading tools that help instructors to assess student performance and give feedback in detail. Before, Ultra allowed a maximum of 10 columns and rows. To provide more flexibility for the grading processes, Blackboard now decided to increase the limit up to 15 columns and rows.

We are conscious of the different pedagogical approaches and practices. We support institutions and instructors who prefer to grade students with a greater level of granularity.

More on rubrics

Ultra: Rich Text Editor improvements: Add table - 3900.23.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.23.0 | Release to Production 7 October 2021
Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View

For deeper versatility in the Rich Text Editor, this 3rd milestone brings the Add Table functionality to our users. Tables are a common way for instructors and students to align and organize content in a customized manner, better suited to their own preferences.

For the time being, only a few options are not yet available when using tables:

• Text Style
• Alignment options
• List
• Undo
• Attachments
• Insert content

API updates - 3900.23.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.23.0 | Release to Production 7 October 2021
Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View, Original Course View

We’ve made some noteworthy API updates, including the ability to manage the release or visibility of a course content based on timing or student success criteria:

• Adaptive Release API Support: GET and POST methods for Rule APIs and Rule Criteria APIs

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

Highlight on bug fixes - 3900.23.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.23.0 | Release to Production 7 October 2021
Ultra Course View, Ultra Experience

The bug fixes in this Learn release include:

• In the Ultra Course View, when creating assignments with the auto zero set on, any past due standard assignments and basic LTI links are marked with automatic zeros after their due date. However, items deployed using partner cloud were never marked. We've fixed the issue and now the partner cloud and the manual column set the automatic zeros as required.

• In the Ultra Course View, in the instructor view, the help bubble icon on a discussion board disappeared once an instructor had created and closed the discussion. When accessing the discussion again, the icon disappeared as well. We've fixed the issue.

• In the Ultra Experience, an instructor added a SCORM package to a course content with a grade category TEST/ASSIGNMENT, and then created another test with a release condition based on the performance of the SCORM content. However, the SCORM test didn't appear for students. We've fixed the issue.

• In the Ultra Course View, when users tried to add content to a course by selecting the plus sign "+" for adding content, then selecting on "+ Create", a menu on the right was displayed. If the user then selected the 'X' for canceling the action on that menu, the content area didn't refresh properly. 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 3900.23.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.

Learn SaaS release 3900.23.0: Release to client Test/Stage environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.23.0 | Release to Production 7 October 2021
Original Experience, Original Course View, Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View

We’re releasing a new Learn version 3900.23.0 (full release number 3900.23.0-rel.7+ad745cb) to client Test/Stage servers on Tuesday, September 7, 2021. The details on new features and updates will be published during the course of that day.

Learn SaaS release 3900.21.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.21.0 | Release to Production 2 September 2021
Ultra Course View, Ultra Experience, Original Experience

The regular release of 3900.21.0 (full release number 3900.21.0-rel.21+e2c25ca) to client Production servers on Thursday, September 2, 2021 will include some additional updates.

• In the Ultra Course View, when a custom language pack was installed, the Ultra gradebook filter panel wouldn’t display. We’ve fixed the issue.
• In the Ultra Course View, new menu icons were missing analytics-Id DOM tags, which caused some third-party integrations to break. We’ve fixed the issue.
• During a Learn SaaS upgrade, a few clients experienced outages when a drop constraint command inadvertently locked a table that a certain building block relied on. We’ve fixed the issue.

Learn SaaS release 3900.21.0: Update to client Test/Stage environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.21.0 | Release to Production 2 September 2021
Original Experience, Original Course View, Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View

We’re applying an updated version of 3900.21.0 (full release number 3900.21.0-rel.19+e6e7e83) to client Test/Stage servers on Tuesday, August 31, 2021.

Updates on this release include:

• In the Ultra Course View, the automatic zero functionality wasn't working for some content items with release conditions that were partially visible within a course. It wasn't working for Ultra courses or Original to Ultra converted courses. We've fixed the issue.
• In the Ultra Experience and Ultra Course View, for course announcements and instructor feedback features, users couldn't use the A/V recording option for Collab in the Rich Text Editor. We've fixed the issue.
• In the Original and Ultra Course Views, the Wiris math editor was sometimes displaying overlapped formula symbols, due to an improper font family type setting, making it difficult to read. We've fixed the issue and set a default font family, but please be aware that any formulas currently corrupted need to be manually edited.

Learn SaaS release 3900.19.0: Update to client Production environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.19.0 | Release to Production 5 August 2021
Original Experience, Ultra Experience

We’re applying an updated version of 3900.19.0 (full release number 3900.19.0-rel.38+a5c3f13) to client Production servers on Thursday, August 26, 2021.

Updates on this release include:

• In the Original and Ultra Experiences, the Telemetry/LDP Export with Snowflake, Blackboard reports and the Consulting Central B2, were failing for some users, who were receiving error messages and a Snowflake exception. We've fixed the issue.

Learn SaaS release 3900.21.0: Update to client Test/Stage environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.21.0 | Release to Production 2 September 2021
Original Experience, Ultra Experience

We’re applying an updated version of 3900.21.0 (full release number 3900.21.0-rel.15+3067e88) to client Test/Stage servers on Tuesday, August 24, 2021.

Updates on this release include:

• In the Original and Ultra Experiences, the Telemetry/LDP Export with Snowflake, Blackboard reports and the Consulting Central B2, were failing for some users, who were receiving error messages and a Snowflake exception. We've fixed the issue.
• In the Original Course View, attendance activity in the gradebook was triggering many session spikes affecting the system's capacity. We've made improvements for better performance and fixed the issue.
• In the Original Course View, instructors weren't able to create math equations for content within courses on alternate domains, unless it's the default domain at the Blackboard configuration properties. We’ve fixed the issue.
• In the Original and Ultra Course Views, users created using a SIS integration were seeing an error page when trying to load the Content Market page. We updated the integration and fixed the issue.

Learn SaaS release 3900.19.0: Update to client Production environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.19.0 | Release to Production 5 August 2021
Ultra Experience, Original Experience

As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3900.19.0 (full release number 3900.19.0-rel.36+070b377) to client Production servers on Thursday, August 19, 2021.

Updates in this version include:

• In the Original Course View, instructors weren't able to create math equations for content within courses on alternate domains, unless it's the default domain at the Blackboard configuration properties. We’ve fixed the issue.

Ultra: Assignment Attempts Screen Improvements - 3900.21.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.21.0 | Release to Production 2 September 2021
Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View

Evaluating student-submitted content is a continuous job critical to the learning process. We know it's important to instructors and graders to improve the content view and create a practical grading process. That's why we keep enhancing grading workflows.

To help instructors, teaching assistants, and graders have a better view of the content they're grading, we've widened the screen of the submission area. It also includes a collapsible and expandable panel where users can navigate through tabs such as rubrics, feedback, and originality report.

On top of that, instructors and students can navigate the submission view and the panel tabs with different scroll bars. Independent scroll bars allow instructors or graders to scroll up and down the submission content without affecting the side tab navigation or the header. Now, instructors can use rubrics in a more practical way and provide feedback focused on a specific part of the submission.

These improvements will enable users to better navigate through content in the submission view, grade it with rubrics if applicable, or give feedback based on content provided in order to enhance student knowledge.

More on grading an assignment with multiple attempts

Partial Credit for Fill In the Blank Questions - 3900.21.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.21.0 | Release to Production 2 September 2021
Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View

Fill in the blank questions are a great assessment tool to test knowledge at different levels and contexts. In our September release, we're expanding the grading capabilities of this question type.

This improvement will support those instructors who wish to grade student attempts at a more granular level. It will also benefit students based on their associated effort on these complex questions, and provide them with a more accurate representation of their proficiency

Allow Instructors to Show or Hide the "Additional Content" Section at the End of Assessments - 3900.21.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.21.0 | Release to Production 2 September 2021
Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View

At the end of Ultra Assignments and Tests there is section called “Additional Content” where students can add text, images and files to complete their submissions or support their answers. This section was always included by default and could confuse students into thinking they needed to complete this extra requirement. Instructors would like to choose when this should be an option or not.

In this release, Blackboard has added a toggle to allow instructors to show or hide the “Additional Content” section. This gives greater control to instructors over what’s displayed to their students during assessments. If an assessment only has text or support visuals but doesn’t have questions, this section will be the space for the submission and will be activated always. If an assessment has questions, this section will hold additional content, for students to add supporting evidence, and the instructor can enable or disable it.

• Instructor view:

• Student view:

Email Styling Enhancements - 3900.21.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.21.0 | Release to Production 2 September 2021
Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View

Email notifications are reminders to help instructors and students keep track of important updates in their courses. In this release, we've made an email styling enhancement to the following email areas:

• New announcement
• New message
• Assessment overdue soon
• Assessment overdue
• Daily digest

To provide better context, the course ID appears now above the course name. Message content will now follow the justification that the author selected. This makes messages easier to read and allows greater customization for the author. The footer now explains when notification settings can be managed. Finally, the new general style is cleaner and should align better to user expectations. We're excited because users will receive the valuable information contained in their emails in the best possible way.

Peer Review Assignments: Improved Handling for Disabled Students and Deleted Attempts - 3900.21.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.21.0 | Release to Production 2 September 2021
Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View

We’ve improved the user experience of a peer review assignment when a student is removed from a course (disabled or unavailable), and when a student’s submission is deleted during the peer review process.

When an instructor deletes a student submission containing peer reviews, they'll receive a warning message, as they'll lose those reviews. The list of affected students will be visible.

When grading or viewing peer reviews, the submission from a disabled or unavailable student will still be available.

If a student started or completed a review on a student submission that is no longer available (because it belongs to a disabled or unavailable student), they'll see they no longer have access to it. The student can start a different review if they’d like or if asked by the instructor. An instructor can see when a student completed a review that’s no longer available, giving the opportunity to let the student know they don’t need to complete another review if that’s preferred.

Highlight on bug fixes - 3900.21.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.21.0 | Release to Production 2 September 2021
Ultra Course View, Ultra Experience, Original Experience

The bug fixes in this Learn release include:

• In the Ultra Course View, an instructor attempting to grade an assessment submission with rubrics and then cleaning the rubric with the grading's bar grading pill, was seeing the bar's grading pills empty and colorless, unlike the rubric's grading pill. We've fixed the issue.

• In the Ultra Course View, when changing the way students were sorted in the gradebook for a course's discussion, assignment, test or attendance, students were sorted alphabetically by first name instead of being sorted by last name. We've fixed the issue.

• In the Ultra Experience, within the Grade Center of a course set as Unavailable, the Last Access column was showing students as if they had accessed the course instead of showing no activity. We've fixed the issue.

• In the original Course View, the preview mode for the TinyMCE editor was displaying a grey background. We've updated the editor and made it transparent, for better readability of contents.

• In the Original Course View, there was an inconsistency in the TinyMCE editor between edit and display modes for list items regarding their line spacing. We've fixed the issue.

• In the Original Course View, there were differences of color for certain HTML tags within the TinyMCE editor, between the display and edit modes. We've fixed the issue.

• The course cards in Base Navigation now better reflect the access state for students when viewed by instructors. There are several settings that determine whether students can access a course including the availability setting, course duration dates, and term dates. Previously, a course would appear as “private” or “open” depending only on the availability setting and didn’t consider duration or term date restrictions. Now the displayed state of a course card will consider these settings and better reflect students’ ability to access the course.

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 3900.21.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.

Learn SaaS release 3900.19.0: Update to client Production environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.19.0 | Release to Production 5 August 2021
Ultra Experience, Original Experience

As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3900.19.0 (full release number 3900.19.0-rel.35+4040100) to client Production servers on Saturday, August 7, 2021.

Updates in this version include:

• Some integrations using the Course Content API got stuck in an infinite looping condition that caused degradation and small outage periods. We’ve fixed the issue.

Ally File Transformer in Blackboard Assist (North America availability)

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.19.0 | Release to Test/Stage and Production 5 August 2021
Ultra Experience, Original Experience, Base Navigation, and Blackboard App

The Ally File Transformer helps students to personalize their learning experience. It can convert files into alternative formats that better fit their needs, devices, and learning preferences.

• Available at no cost with Blackboard Assist enabled. An Ally license is not required.
• It converts files to alternative, more accessible formats including HTML, ePub, electronic braille, audio, or BeeLine reader. Also, to a PDF that’s undergone optical character recognition (OCR).
• For institutions licensing Ally, the Ally File Transformer allows students to convert their own files, or files they've found via research or project work.
• The Ally File Transformer comes automatically with Blackboard Assist. There is an option to turn it off, if preferred, in the Administrator Panel > Partner Cloud Settings.

The Ally File Transformer will be available with Blackboard Assist for Higher Education clients in North America on August 5. Availability for clients outside this region is expected later this year.

Learn SaaS release 3900.19.0: Update to client Production environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.19.0 | Release to Production 5 August 2021

Ultra Experience, Original Experience

We’re applying an updated version of 3900.19.0 (full release number 3900.19.0-rel.31+ccd7094) to client Production servers on Thursday, August 5, 2021.

Updates in this version include:

• In the Ultra Course View, when a basic assessment was created in a private course and then the course was opened, unintentionally peer notifications were generated for all basic assessments. We've fixed the issue. The fix will cleanup the stream notifications that were incorrectly created.
• In the Original Experience, when instructors who are enrolled in very large courses (e.g. more than 10,000 enrollments) accessed the system, or navigated the course's landing page, clients experienced slow or no access. We've fixed the issue.

Learn SaaS release 3900.19.0: Update to client Test/Stage environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.19.0 | Release to Production 5 August 2021

Original Experience

We’re applying an updated version of 3900.19.0 (full release number 3900.19.0-rel.27+6b0ef49) to client Test/Stage servers on Tuesday, August 3, 2021.

Updates in this version include:

• In the Original Course View, any image in the data picker component (icons, chevrons, etc.) used within courses, always appeared broken. We've fixed the issue.

Learn SaaS release 3900.19.0: Update to client Test/Stage environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.19.0 | Release to Production 5 August 2021

Original Course View, Original Experience

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

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.19.0 | Release to Production 5 August 2021

Ultra Course View, Original Experience

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

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.17.0 | Release to Production 1 July 2021

Original Experience, Ultra Experience

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

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.19.0 | Release to Production 5 August 2021

Original Experience, Ultra Experience

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 Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.19.0 | Release to Production 5 August 2021
Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View

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:

1. Engage with their Microsoft Account team to request a Microsoft Test Tenant under their Institutional Licensing Agreement.
2. 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.
3. 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.

Learn more about the institution email

Ultra progress tracking (Alpha release) - 3900.19.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.19.0 | Release to Production 5 August 2021
Ultra Course View

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

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.19.0 | Release to Production 5 August 2021
Ultra Experience

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

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.19.0 | Release to Production 5 August 2021
Original Course View

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

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.19.0 | Release to Production 5 August 2021
Ultra Course View

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

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.19.0 | Release to Production 5 August 2021
Ultra Course View

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

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.19.0 | Release to Production 5 August 2021
Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View

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

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.19.0 | Release to Production 5 August 2021
Ultra Course View

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

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.19.0 | Release to Production 5 August 2021
Original Experience, Original Course View

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

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.19.0 | Release to Production 5 August 2021
Ultra Experience, Original Experience

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

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.19.0 | Release to Production 5 August 2021
Ultra Course View, Ultra Experience

The bug fixes in this Learn release include:

• 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.

• 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.

• 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

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.17.0 | Release to Production 1 July 2021
Original Experience and Ultra Experience

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

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.17.0 | Release to Production 1 July 2021
Ultra Experience, Original Experience

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

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.17.0 | Release to Production 1 July 2021
Original Experience

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

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.17.0 | Release to Production 1 July 2021
Original Experience, Ultra Experience

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 release 3900.15.0: Update to client Production environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.15.0 | Release to Production 3 June 2021
Original Experience, Ultra Experience and Ultra Course View

As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3900.15.0 (full release number 3900.15.0-rel.33+c15f06f) to client Production servers on Thursday, June 24, 2021. Please remember that the efforts to resolve the SCORM upgrade issues are still ongoing. Clients still running on 3900.13.0 will not be updated this time.

Updates in this version include:

• In the Ultra Course View, users with Course Builder roles couldn't create journals or any type of content on Ultra courses. We’ve fixed the issue.
• In the Ultra Course View, course announcements became single paragraphs of unformatted text, after making a copy of a course. We've fixed the issue.
• In the Original and Ultra Experiences, the function CONTENT_IS_AVAILABLE(), was a potential driver of performance problems for some clients. We made significant improvements, for the benefit of both courses and organizations's users.
• In the Original and Ultra Experiences, a critical DB performance issue was present whenever a grade refresh occurred. Also, due to a SameSite restriction of the Chrome browser impacting the major workflow of Cengage B2, users weren't able to import contents. We’ve fixed both issues.
• In the Original Experience, the Downtime Maintenance Schedule date picker worked as expected only when the en_US language pack was set as the user's language. When using other language packs (e.g. en_UK), and error appeared when selecting a desired date. We've fixed the issue.

Learn SaaS releases 3900.15.0 and 3900.17.0: Update on releases to client Production environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.15.0 | Release to Production 3 June 2021
Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.17.0 | Release to Production 1 July 2021
Ultra Experience, Original Experience

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

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.15.0 | Release to Production 3 June 2021
Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.17.0 | Release to Production 1 July 2021
Ultra Experience, Original Experience

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

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.15.0 and v3900.17.0 | Release to Test/Stage and Production 17 June 2021
Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View and Base Navigation

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

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.17.0 | Release to Production 1 July 2021
Original Experience and Ultra Experience

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

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.15.0 | Release to Production 3 June 2021
Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.17.0 | Release to Production 1 July 2021
Ultra Experience, Original Experience

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

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.17.0 | Release to Production 1 July 2021
Ultra Experience, Original Experience

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

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.17.0 | Release to Production 1 July 2021
Original Experience, Ultra Experience

The bug fixes in this Learn release include:

• 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.

• 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.

• 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

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.17.0 | Release to Production 1 July 2021
Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View, Original Experience and Original Course View

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

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.17.0 | Release to Production 1 July 2021
Ultra Experience

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

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.17.0 | Release to Production 1 July 2021
Ultra Experience

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

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.17.0 | Release to Production 1 July 2021
Ultra Experience

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 whether 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

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.17.0 | Release to Production 1 July 2021
Ultra Experience

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

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.17.0 | Release to Production 1 July 2021
Ultra Experience, Original Experience

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

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.15.0 | Release to Production 3 June 2021
Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.17.0 | Release to Production 1 July 2021
Ultra Experience, Original Experience

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

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.17.0 | Release to Production 8 June 2021
Ultra Experience, Original Experience

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.

Learn SaaS release 3900.15.0: Delay for release to client Production environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.15.0 | Release to Production 3 June 2021
Ultra Experience, Original Experience

As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re delaying the Blackboard Learn SaaS 3900.15.0 release to client Production servers, previously scheduled for Thursday, June 3, 2021.

• Issues have been identified with the SaaS Downtime Maintenance Schedule (impacting INTL admins when the system locale is not en_US), and, for a few clients, a SCORM issue.
• The release has been rolled out for most clients.
• The release is being held for some clients on the US East Coast.

We’ll provide more updates as soon as we’ve identified a new target date.

Learn SaaS release 3900.15.0 update: Customer Self Service Maintenance Scheduler for Postgres Upgrade

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.15.0 | Release to Production 3 Jun 2021
Ultra Experience

We try our best to have the highest uptime available for Learn SaaS, but there are often some actions that require we take a customer’s site down to perform maintenance. The database upgrade to Postgres 12.5 is one such upgrade that will require some downtime.

We're releasing a new process to reduce the amount of coordination and communication efforts between clients and Blackboard Support. With this release, we give administrators the control in their production environments to schedule their maintenance window in the administrator panel, and select themselves a date and a time that allows for minimal disruption to their users.

You can learn more detailed information on Behind the Blackboard.

Learn SaaS release 3900.15.0: Update to client Production environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.15.0 | Release to Production 3 Jun 2021
Original Experience

As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3900.15.0 (full release number 3900.15.0-rel.17+fc81d0d) to client Production servers on Thursday, June 3, 2021

Updates in this version include:

• In the Original and Ultra Experiences, users couldn’t download files attached to Organization discussion boards. Instead, they were redirected to Learn’s front page. We’ve fixed the issue.

Learn SaaS release 3900.15.0: Update to client Test environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.15.0 | Release to Production 3 June 2021
Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View

As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3900.15.0 (full release number 3900.15.0-rel.14+031309f) to client Test servers on Tuesday, June 1, 2021

Updates in this version include:

• In the Ultra Experience, an admin couldn't set a custom language pack as the default until the system had assigned it an Ultra locale first. This process could take hours, or even days, instead of some minutes. We've fixed the issue and now admins can enable system default.
• In the Ultra Experience and Ultra Course View, when an automatic zero was set for assignments delivered late, an assignment that was never submitted was just marked as late, without the zero grade. We’ve fixed the issue.

Learn SaaS release 3900.15.0: Update to client Test environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.15.0 | Release to Production 3 June 2021
Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View

As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3900.15.0 (full release number 3900.15.0-rel.11+9c51902) to client Test servers on Tuesday, May 25, 2021

Updates in this version include:

• In the Ultra Experience and Ultra Course View, when an instructor was grading an assignment, the page refreshed each time when moving between different sections using tab navigation. We've fixed the issue.

Bb Annotate enhancements

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery | Blackboard Learn 9.1
Ultra Course View, Original Course View

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.

Learn SaaS release 3900.13.0: Update to client Production environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.13.0 | Release to Production 6 May 2021
Original Course View

As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3900.13.0 (full release number 3900.13.0-rel.36+ee2113e) to client Production servers on Thursday, May 20, 2021

Updates in this version include:

• In the Original Course View, the Last updated time/date stamp in the full grade center view has been removed to improve performance. The upper-right corner of the full Grade Center in an Original Course displayed a time/date stamp indicating the last change by any user. This display caused significant performance issues in courses with large enrollments or when many users graded concurrently, thus it has been removed. If reviewing when changes were made in the Grade Center, you still see this information, including the last update, under Reports > View Grade History.
• In the Original Course View when base navigation is enabled, when embedding a new Kaltura content item within text, then moving on to the base navigation activity stream and refreshing it, the link would show HTML content and an inactive link instead of providing a proper, readable link to the Kaltura video. We've fixed the issue.

Learn SaaS release 3900.15.0: Update to client Test environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.15.0 | Release to Production 3 June 2021
Ultra Experience, Original Course View

As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3900.15.0 (full release number 3900.15.0-rel.9+82a89d6) to client Test servers on Tuesday, May 18, 2021

Updates in this version include:

• In the Original Experiences, an accessibility issue was present in threads within forums as the Thread Reply, Quote, Edit or Delete buttons were inoperative using the keyboard via the tab, space or enter keys. We've fixed the issue.
• In the Original Course View, the Last updated time/date stamp in the full grade center view has been removed to improve performance. The upper-right corner of the full Grade Center in an Original Course displayed a time/date stamp indicating the last change by any user. This display caused significant performance issues in courses with large enrollments or when many users graded concurrently, thus it has been removed. If reviewing when changes were made in the Grade Center, you still see this information, including the last update, under Reports > View Grade History.
• In the Original Course View when base navigation is enabled, when embedding a new Kaltura content item within text, then moving on to the base navigation activity stream and refreshing it, the link would show HTML content and an inactive link instead of providing a proper, readable link to the Kaltura video. We've fixed the issue.

Learn SaaS release 3900.13.0: Update to client Production environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.13.0 | Release to Production 6 May 2021
Original Experience

As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3900.13.0 (full release number 3900.13.0-rel.31+9040981) to client Production servers on Thursday, May 13, 2021.

Updates in this version include:

• In the Original Experience, some courses with many milestone achievements with a display in the past, were causing performance issues when loading their contentStatus. We've fixed the issue.

Learn SaaS release 3900.13.0: Update to client Production environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.13.0 | Release to Production 6 May 2021
Ultra Experience

As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3900.13.0 (full release number 3900.13.0-rel.24+cf04977) to client Production servers on Tuesday, May 11, 2021.

Updates in this version include:

• In the Ultra Experience, we've enabled colorless grading pills. Rubric grade pills are now monochromatic for both kinds of rubric in the following content types: Single attempt, multiple attempt, group, offline submission, multiple graders and anonymous grading assessments; individual and group discussions, and journals.
• In Ultra Experience, when creating a new group assessment with a grading rubric enabled, the Grading Sidebar was not updating. When going from the first group attempt to the next one with the rubric open, it showed the rubric and feedback of the previous attempt. We've fixed the issue.

Highlight on bug fixes - 3900.15.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.15.0 | Release to Production 3 June 2021
Original Experience, Ultra Experience

The bug fixes in this Learn release include:

• In the Ultra Experience, when Ultra Stream Notifications were sent to a specific, targeted role, the system announcement was sent correctly to the specific users with that institution role, but the Admin Announcement UI indicated the notification was sent to everyone. causing confusion for admins. We've fixed the issue.

• In the Ultra Experience, in tests, the student's browser needed to be refreshed manually in order to show them tests hidden by conditional availability, even after these conditions were met. We've fixed the issue.

• In the Ultra and Original Experiences, there were software updates related to server performance causing customer email alerts: Administrators were receiving Failed to Phone Home emails for software updates on SaaS environments. They will no longer see those emails. Also, as part of this change, the Update Status column has been removed from the Installed Tools page for Building Blocks. We've fixed the issue.

• In the Original Experience, after a Learn user had disabled their profile image from view, other users were still able to see it as it remained publicly available. 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 3900.13.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.

Support for Right to Left

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.15.0 | Release to Production 3 Jun 2021
Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View

Blackboard is pleased to introduce full Right to Left language support in Learn Ultra and to bring this capability to our Arabic and Hebrew speaking markets.

We've included in this release:

• Full Right to Left flipped user interface across Ultra including base navigation, Ultra Course View and System Admin. 
• Enhancements for the Ultra Rich Text Editor  that allow our users who write in Right to Left languages to adjust the text direction display.
• System level Arabic and Hebrew language support and Ultra Course View  language enforcement.

Feedback by criterion

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.15.0 | Release to Production 3 Jun 2021
Ultra Course View, Blackboard App

Rubrics are an essential tool when thinking about grading workflows. With this addition, rubrics inside Ultra courses are more useful to instructors. Segmented feedback provides more flexibility and detail to messages sent from instructors to students when grading an assignment. Students can have a better understanding of the why behind their grade, as per their instructor or grader prerogative.

Feedback by criterion is available wherever rubrics appear, like discussions, anonymous assignments, single and multiple attempts assignments, among others.

When using the parallel grading workflow, the option will be available to all graders, but the only feedback by criterion students will see, is the one given by the reconciler. The workflow remains around rubrics, and thus, feedback inside rubrics for the delegated workflow will remain the same.

This new feature is a step forward in our commitment to keep improving the rubrics roadmap.

A/V Recordings option in announcements

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.15.0 | Release to Production 3 Jun 2021
Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View

With this new option, instructors can now insert audio and video recordings in their course announcements.

Peer Assessment: Peer Notifications

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.15.0 | Release to Production 3 Jun 2021
Ultra Experience

This feature aims to expand previous releases of the Peer Assessment functionality. Students and instructors can learn about relevant changes in submissions via the Activity Stream. Instructors get notifications when new reviews arrive, and students get them when their reviews are graded.

Peer Assessment: Batch edit

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.15.0 | Release to Production 3 Jun 2021
Ultra Experience

This feature aims to expand previous releases of the Peer Assessment functionality. Instructors can edit peer review items in batches. They can adjust the due date of separate items at the same time by delaying or advancing the date in a given batch.

Reset Signed URL configuration

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.15.0 | Release to Production 3 Jun 2021
Original Experience

This feature improves content delivery, accessibility and performance for China users, serving all files via our CDN Servers. The server will auto-configure and set up the user’s session to use or not to use signed URLs during login. Administrators can manually adjust exceptions by contacting Blackboard Support.

Course Auto-Archive performance and efficiency improvements

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.15.0 | Release to Production 3 June 2021
Ultra Experience, Original Experience

This improvement fixes known issues causing archive-related instability and implements a safety-net to stop archiving courses that repeatedly fail. It also improves efficiency of auto-archives by adding more sources that the system can store as a reference instead of copying them as file data. Last but not least, it ensures that auto-archives are enabled for all sites as part of each release.

Learn SaaS release 3900.13.0: Update to client Test environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.13.0 | Release to Production 6 May 2021
Ultra Experience, Original Experience

As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3900.13.0 (full release number 3900.13.0-rel.19+fa9ae0b) to client Test servers on Tuesday, May 4, 2021

Updates in this version include:

• In the Original and Ultra Experiences, for LTI links with the proctoring changes added, the Deep Linking response wasn't handling properly array aud fields. We've fixed the issue.
• In the Original and Ultra Experiences, Organizations, content items or files created with attachments could not be edited, and the user received an error message when attempting to modify them. We’ve fixed the issue.
• In the Ultra Experience, briefly after the Ultra Experience was enabled on their Production environment, admin users were receiving to many emails from [email protected], even from courses they were not enrolled in. We've fixed the issue.
• In the Ultra Experience, users were unable to post results for certain groups, getting instead an error message. We've fixed the issue.

Learn SaaS release 3900.10.0: Update to client Production environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.10.0 | Release to Production 22 April 2021
Ultra Experience, Original Experience

As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3900.10.0 (full release number 3900.10.0-rel.36+d29e3aa) to client Production servers on Monday, May 3, 2021

Updates in this version include:

• In the Original and Ultra Experiences, Organizations, content items or files created with attachments could not be edited, and the user received an error message when attempting to modify them. We’ve fixed the issue.

Learn SaaS release 3900.10.0: Update to client Production environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.10.0 | Release to Production 22 April 2021
Ultra Experience, Original Experience

As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3900.10.0 (full release number 3900.10.0-rel.33+0562ff2) to client Production servers on Thursday, April 29, 2021

Updates in this version include:

• In the Ultra Experience, briefly after the Ultra Experience was enabled on their Production environment, admin users were receiving to many emails from [email protected], even from courses they were not enrolled in. We've fixed the issue.

Learn SaaS release 3900.13.0: Update to client Test environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.13.0 | Release to Production 6 May 2021
Ultra Experience

As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3900.13.0 (full release number 3900.13.0-rel.11+371689d) to client Test servers on Tuesday, April 27, 2021

Updates in this version include:

• In the Ultra Experience, users enrolled with Facilitator role were getting an error message when changing assignment availability in Ultra courses as opposed to be able to change the visibility of the items. We've fixed the issue.

Learn SaaS release 3900.10.0: Update to client Production environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.10.0 | Release to Production 22 April 2021
Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View

As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3900.10.0 (full release number 3900.10.0-rel.29+3b9a0fc) to client Production servers on Thursday, April 22, 2021

Updates in this version include:

• In the Ultra Experience, for mobile users (Instructor App), instructors can normally access Assessments RWD Ultra Screen in preview mode, but in the latest version this screen was rendered in editable mode. We fixed the issue.
• In the Ultra Experience, users enrolled with Facilitator role were getting an error message when changing assignment availability in Ultra courses as opposed to be able to change the visibility of the items. We've fixed the issue.
• In the Ultra Experience, in large courses with more than 1000 students using discussions, the JVM was running out of memory or presenting performance delays. We've fixed the issue.

Highlight on bug fixes - 3900.13.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.13.0 | Release to Production 6 May 2021
Original Course View, Ultra Course View

The bug fixes in this Learn release include:

• In the Ultra Course View, when an assignment was created with Anonymous Grading, some daily notifications and digest email received after submissions were made, contained the names of the students who have submitted them. We've fixed the issue.

• In the Original Course View, in tests, some calculated numeric questions were wrongly marked as correct when the student introduced a combination of numeric values and letters in an answer that should be numerical only. We've fixed the issue and added a further explanation on the Help pages regarding supported types of input for scientific notation, units and constants.

• In the Original Course View, when recipients were selected for an enterprise survey response period, there was no way to identify or exclude child sections of merged courses, which caused some students to receive two copies of each survey. 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 3900.10.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.

Proctoring Services Framework

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.13.0 | Release to Production 6 May 2021
Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View

In the Ultra Course View, we are pleased to announce the delivery of a proctoring framework to allow proctoring providers to integrate their solutions with Learn Ultra. To support high stakes secured proctored examinations has become an important component of online learning provision. With the rapid shift to blended and fully online learning due to the Covid-19 pandemic, many institutions have pivoted towards proctoring solutions to improve their capabilities to support online digital secured examinations. Thus, Blackboard has put together the necessary efforts and provide a mechanism to allow Proctoring solutions to be supported in the native Learn Ultra assessment flow.

With this release, Blackboard has developed a framework to allow proctoring providers to integrate their solutions into the native test settings of the Ultra Course View. By working closely with a number of key proctoring providers and the IMS Global Organization, Blackboard's Proctoring Framework has been built with a core focus on standards and interoperability in mind.

By leveraging and certifying against the very latest IMS LTI Proctoring standard and combining this open standards based approach with Blackboard’s own Premium APIs, we have been able to provide an extensible framework allowing partners and clients to build and deploy their integrations in Ultra. Alongside all Proctoring partners we are already working closely with, we expect to see many additional solutions and services within the assessment security realm aligning to this specification in the coming months.

Blackboard is the first and currently only LMS provider to be certified against this latest Proctoring specification.

The Proctoring Services Framework includes the following features to support instructor creation and student completion:

• Configuration of proctoring provider: instructors can choose to configure a proctoring solution for a native Ultra test. Selecting the desired integration from the corresponding drop-down list will allow the proctoring integration to display their native settings inline.
• New proctor secured detail and iconography: both instructors and students will see clear contextual detail and iconography in the assessment peak panel and also on the course outline indicating a test has been proctor secured.
• Student launch: students who need to complete a proctor secured test in Ultra, will follow the same procedure for access as with a non-proctor secured test, but will include additional security settings as per the proctoring solution prior to assessment access.
• Native Ultra assessment security: instructors can combine the flexibility of a proctor-secured test alongside the existing native Ultra access code functionality, supporting a more enhanced security flow for students taking an online test.
• Native Ultra assessment setting support: instructors can continue to utilize the existing settings functionality with a proctor-secured assessment, including but not limited to class conversations, multiple attempts, grading categories, grading schema, automated feedback settings and additional tools depending on the selected question types used.

Proctor-secured assessments do not support group assignments

Dropping grades inside categories for overall grade calculation

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.13.0 | Release to Production 6 May 2021
Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View

In the Ultra Experience and Ultra Course View, we are pleased to announce the delivery of dropping grades inside categories for overall grade calculations, as we understand flexibility is key in a LMS when we talk about managing final grades calculations for students, and there are different ways in which instructors and institutions would like to set what is considered in the overall grade calculations.

From this release on, instructors and other privileged roles will be able to decide if they want to add additional rules to how their overall grade is calculated when using calculation by categories. They'll be able to drop as many grades as they want (lowest/highest), as long as there are more items inside the category than dropped items, or to choose just the lowest or highest grade to be considered for that category. This feature serves a great variety of use cases, for instance, to help students at the end of the term or to remove outliers (highest/lowest) grades in order to get a better sense of students’ performance.

When rules are in place, students can gain access to their overall grade calculation details and see if some additional rules have been set by their instructors, which gives them clarity on how their grades are calculated and why their calculations might defer from the ones displayed in their gradebook.

Ultra messages: Unread message indication

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.13.0 | Release to Production 6 May 2021
Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View, Original Course View

We are pleased to announce the inclusion of Unread message indication for messages on the Base Navigation. This was a highly requested feature from our community, and we are excited to bring this capability to our clients. This solution will provide a clearly identifiable number count highlighting any new messages received for both Original and Ultra courses. When a user selects the Messages tool on the base navigation, the red number count will change to a red pill icon as to reduce distraction, but navigating away from this page will again show the unread message count. This capability will provide a greater level of transparency and engagement when new messages are sent and received for all users, and continues our commitment to enhancements for the Messages tool in Ultra.

Upgrade notifications for administrators

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.13.0 | Release to Production 6 May 2021
Original Experience, Ultra Experience

In the Ultra and Original Experiences, System administrators for Learn deployed in SaaS can opt-in to receive email notifications when an upgrade process starts and completes. This is particularly helpful for SaaS clients who want to be able to communicate with their support teams and user communities, with greater specificity when feature changes are available or bug fixes have been implemented. Users with the full System Administrator role can opt-in at Admin Panel > Notifications > System Alert Settings. Each administrator must opt-in individually to receive emails.

Learn SaaS release 3900.10.0: Delay for release to client Production environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.10.0 | Release to Production 22 April 2021
Ultra Experience, Original Experience

As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re delaying the Blackboard Learn SaaS 3900.10.0 release to client Production servers, previously scheduled for Thursday, April 15, 2021, to Thursday, April 22, 2021. No other urgent fixes or security items are scheduled with this release, so we've decided to stay aligned with the regular weekday for Production releases (Thursday).

The release schedule has been updated to reflect this change.

Learn SaaS release 3900.10.0: Update to client Test/Stage environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.10.0 | Release to Production 15 April 2021
Original Course View

We’re applying an updated version of 3900.10.0 (full release number 3900.10.0-rel.23+d32af8a) to client Test/Staging environments on Tuesday, April 13, 2021.

Updates in this version include:

• In the Original Course View, for some instances, when an authorized user attempted to enroll another user in a given course, even from within the course, they received an error message related to the necessary privileges required to perform the enrollment. We've fixed the issue.

Learn SaaS release 3900.10.0 and 3900.13.0: Delay for release to client Production and Test/Stage environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.10.0 | Release to Production 15 April 2021
Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.13.0 | Release to Test stage 20 April 2021 | Release to Production 6 May 2021
Ultra Experience, Original Experience

As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re delaying the Blackboard Learn SaaS 3900.10.0 release to client Production servers, previously scheduled for Thursday, April 8, 2021, to Thursday, April 15, 2021. No other urgent fixes or security items are scheduled with this release, so we've decided to stay aligned with the regular weekday for Production releases (Thursday).

We will also replace the Blackboard Learn SaaS 3900.12.0 release previously scheduled for Tuesday, April 13, for the 3900.13.0 release to client Test/Stage servers to take place on Tuesday, April 20, 2021. This delay also aligns with our usual pattern, to release a new Test/Stage version the Tuesday after a Production release, allowing us to include additional work in the upcoming May release. 

The release schedule has been updated to reflect this change.

Learn SaaS release 3900.10.0: Update to client Test/Stage environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.10.0 | Release to Production 8 April 2021
Ultra Course View

We’re applying an updated version of 3900.10.0 (full release number 3900.10.0-rel.18+b85c058) to client Test/Staging environments on Tuesday, April 6, 2021.

Updates in this version include:

• In the Ultra Course View, we added a new guidance message to inform instructors about the new conditional release users & groups feature. The message was seen on documents by students as well, but it was only intended for users entitled to modify content availability. We've fixed the issue.
• In the Ultra Course View, when a student provided peer feedback that included an image, this attachment failed to download or wasn't even visible when the feedback was reviewed. We've fixed the issue.

Learn SaaS release 3900.10.0 and 3900.12.0: Delay for release to client Production and Test/Stage environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.10.0 | Release to Production 1 April 2021
Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.12.0 | Release to Production 6 May 2021
Ultra Experience, Original Experience

As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re delaying the Blackboard Learn SaaS 3900.10.0 release to client Production servers, previously scheduled for Thursday, April 1, 2021, to Thursday, April 8, 2021. No other urgent fixes or security items are scheduled with this release, so we've decided to stay aligned with the regular weekday for Production releases (Thursday).

We will also delay the Blackboard Learn SaaS 3900.12.0 release to client Test/Stage servers, previously scheduled for Tuesday, April 6, 2021, to Tuesday, April 13, 2021. This delay also aligns with our usual pattern, to release a new Test/Stage version the Tuesday after a Production release. 

The release schedule has been updated to reflect this change.

Learn SaaS release 3900.10.0: Delay for Continuous Delivery update to client Test/Stage environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.10.0 | Release to Production 1 April 2021
Ultra Course View

As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re delaying the Blackboard Learn SaaS 3900.10.0 (full release number 3900.10.0-rel.18+b85c058) update to client Test/Staging servers, previously scheduled for Tuesday, March 30, 2021. We’ll update this note as soon as we’ve identified a new target date.

Learn SaaS release 3900.10.0: Update to client Test/Stage environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.10.0 | Release to Production 1 April 2021
Ultra Course View, Original Course View

We’re applying an updated version of 3900.10.0 (full release number 3900.10.0-rel.17+81ba8fd) to client Test/Staging environments on Tuesday, March 23, 2021.

Updates in this version include:

• In the Ultra and Original Course Views, all course content pages displayed an error if the Blackboard Store B2 was installed and set to be available or unavailable. We've fixed the issue and removed the Blackboard Store B2 (which reached its end of life in 2016) with this upgrade.

Learn SaaS release 3900.8.0: Update to client Production environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.8.0 | Release to Production 4 March 2021
Ultra Experience, Original Experience

As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3900.8.0 (full release number 3900.8.0-rel.37+0b5fb53) to client Production servers on Thursday, March 18, 2021

Updates in this version include:

• In the Ultra Experience, when questions were imported from an Original unit, some of them got randomly and unnecessarily duplicated in the Ultra Question Banks. We've fixed the issue.
• In the Original and Ultra Experiences, the Change Hostname option within the Admin authentication SAML settings returned the user to the Admin Panel page instead of changing the host name. We've fixed the issue.

Learn SaaS release 3900.10.0: Update to client Test/Stage environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.10.0 | Release to Production 1 April 2021
Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View, Original Course View

We’re applying an updated version of 3900.10.0 (full release number 3900.10.0-rel.11+c24ca4f) to client Test/Staging environments on Tuesday, March 16, 2021.

Updates in this version include:

• In the Ultra Experience, when questions were imported from an Original unit, some of them got randomly and unnecessarily duplicated in the Ultra Question Banks. We've fixed the issue.
• In the Original and Ultra Experiences, the Change Hostname option within the Admin authentication SAML settings returned the user to the Admin Panel page instead of changing the host name. We've fixed the issue.
• In the Original Experience, when a Calculated Formula question was used in a test, if the answers used the exponential form (E-2, E-4, etc), with significant figures expressing the result, some right answers were marked as wrong, depending of the position of the decimal point. Also, the correct answer format field wasn't verified, students were able to answer a question with an incorrect format and the system would mark it as correct. We've fixed both issues.

API updates - 3900.10.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.10.0 | Release to Production 1 April 2021
Ultra Experience, Original Experience

Add lastLogin filter to User Collection Get endpoint: We’ve made some noteworthy API updates, including:

• Users of APIs now have the ability to filter user requests based on the lastLogin parameter.

For more information about our Rest Public APIs, please refer to: https://developer.blackboard.com/portal/displayApi

Highlight on bug fixes

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.10.0 | Release to Production 1 April 2021
Original Course View

The bug fixes in this Learn release include:

• In the Original Course View, automatically disable notifications for users with > n enrollments (with a default value for n = 500) has been enabled. Now admins are able to automatically disable the generation of new notifications for users when the user has more than a certain configurable number of enrollments. Note that Institutions that create large enrollment volumes for support staff should use Institutional Hierarchy instead.

• In the Original Course View, in the responsive Mobile View for the 2016 theme, Instructors, teaching assistants, course builders, graders and facilitators couldn't see the Instructor Gear icon which, in turn, contains the Student Preview and Edit Mode buttons. We've fixed the issue.

• In the Original Course View, a student could receive a past due notification for an on-time submission sporadically. We've put in place proactive measures to monitor this behavior in order to fix it in a future release.

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 3900.10.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.

Assignment with Peer Review for Qualitative Peer Assessment

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.10.0 | Release to Production 1 April 2021
Ultra Course View

In the Ultra Course View, we started to implement the developments we've projected to improve the Peer Review Assessments experience. This is a synthetized description of what we've prepared for this release.

Peer assessment is a practice becoming more common because it encourages development of students’ critical thinking abilities, gives them practice in critique of others in a professional manner, and allows for measurement of students’ analysis and communication skills. With this release, qualitative peer review can be enabled for an Assignment in the Ultra Course View. It’s simple for instructors and students to use, and has the following features:

• Set different due dates for the initial assignment submission and the completion of peer review: Instructors can set how many reviews are expected from each student. Peers are assigned randomly and automatically.
  
• Late submitters and reviewers remain part of the task and can continue to participate: Instructors can clearly see who was late. This is a huge improvement over the implementation in Original Course View and superior to implementations found it other learning management systems where students who are late on anything can no longer participate.
• Tracking: Instructors can track students’ progress toward completion.
• Rubrics: Students can see the rubric that will optionally be used for the grade. Instructors can grade using a rubric.
• Complete, single view: When grading, the instructor can see all this information in a single view: the student’s submission, feedback provided by the students’ peers, and the feedback the current student gave to their peers.
  
• Anonymous mode for students: The identities of peers are hidden from students but viewable by instructors.
• Censoring: Instructors can hide reviews deemed inappropriate or harmful.

As this is a first release of the Peer Review option for Assignments, there are some relevant use cases that aren’t part of this development, but are planned as future improvements. Some of them include:

• Quantitative peer reviews: While a peer can view a rubric for guidance on providing feedback, the rubric can’t be used by students to provide a score.
• Non-anonymous mode for students: Names of peers are always hidden from students. If an instructor wants students to know who they evaluate, it is necessary to request students to add their names to their submissions. Hidden names from instructors are not supported in this release.
• Groups: There is no direct group support yet. However, because the review period excludes non-submitters automatically, it’s possible to set up multiple assignments with Peer Review enabled and set Conditional Availability by group membership. This way, assigned peers will always be members within a student’s group. Group submissions aren’t supported in this release.
• Multiple prompts with essay questions: In this release, only a single text prompt is supported for an Assignment with Peer Review. If there are multiple topics to which s student is to respond and receive feedback, those should all be outlined in a single prompt or broken up into several assignments.
• Separate grades for students’ submissions and their reviews: In this release, there is a single grade and rubric for an assignment. If the instructor wishes to communicate different scores for those two parts of the process, those can be outlined in the feedback.

Conditional availability by users or groups

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.10.0 | Release to Production 1 April 2021
Ultra Course View

In the Ultra Course View, we are pleased to announce the inclusion of a highly requested feature: conditional release by users and groups.

From this version on, Instructors and other roles with elevated rights, will be able to grant differentiated access to content based on their ultimate goals. As a new option to the conditional availability rules, already present in Ultra courses (date/time and performance-based rules), faculty can now allow certain students to have access to specific content while selecting one or both existing rules mentioned above.

This new feature will be an incredible addition to those who want to create remedial paths to certain students, give different content to undergraduate and postgraduate students in a course, among other use cases.

Disable notifications for users with high enrollments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.10.0 | Release to Production 1 April 2021
Ultra Experience, Original Experience

In both Original and Ultra Course Views, we've improved the timeliness and performance of notifications for all users (including emails, push notifications, Stream, and MyBlackboard) by no longer generating these notifications for users with more than 500 enrollments.

A user with this large volume of course enrollments will still have access to all course resources but won’t receive notifications regardless of their settings.

Typically, users enrolled in so many courses are support staff or instructional designers. We recommend administrators to configure these users to be node administrators instead, with privileges to enroll and unenroll themselves from any course in the appropriate Institutional Hierarchy nodes, and with access to all the courses they may need without enroll them. Enrollment availability or enablement states are not considered for a user to count as to have over 500 enrollment records.

Embed LTI Content in Original Content Editor

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.10.0 | Release to Production 1 April 2021
Original Experience, Original Course View

In the Original Experience and Original Course View, the ability to support access to third-party content within the Content Editor by the use of LTI is an important milestone for institutions, partners, and tool creators who look to transition from Building Block mashups to the Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) standard from IMS Global. Appropriate LTI course tools will appear for instructors, course builders, teaching assistants, and students in the Add Content menu as additional tools alongside Building Block mashup tools. Two methods are supported: either the tool can add a link in the editor, or if the tool designates that the resource should be embedded, it will be inserted into an iframe in the Content Editor and rendered automatically.

Rich Text Editor improvements

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.10.0 | Release to Production 1 April 2021
Ultra Experience

In the Ultra Experience, the Rich Text Editor improvements contemplated for this release are related to paragraph format change and allow the creation of more rich and customizable pages. They include:

• Clear formatting
• Text alignment

• Line height

• Undo

Scripts for Learn SaaS to bulk download course archives

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.10.0 | Release to Production 1 April 2021
Ultra Experience, Original Experience

In order to comply with data retention policies and reduce utilized space, administrators often want to move course archives to another location for longer-term storage. In SaaS, course archives are created automatically, and daily back-ups of course archives are stored in the cloud. We’ve included these scripts written in Python in the Course Settings and Auto Archive Settings pages to allow admins to copy archives locally or to an AWS S3 bucket prior to deleting them from Learn.

Learn SaaS release 3900.8.0: Update to client Test/Stage environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.8.0 | Release to Production 4 March 2021
Ultra Course View, Original Experience and Original Course View

We’re applying an updated version of 3900.8.0 (full release number 3900.8.0-rel.32+30fa709) to client Test/Staging environments on Tuesday, March 2, 2021.

Updates in this version include:

• In the Ultra Course View, when an instructor is grading with a rubric a student's submission with a very long description in its content, the instructor needed to scroll down in order to see the submission and scroll up to see the rubric. We made this flow more comfortable, so the instructor can now see the submission and the rubric at the same time.
• In the Original Course View and the Original Experience, within the Content Editor, a user won't be able to use copy and paste functionalities to transfer images from other sources. The user can include images with the Add Content workflow, as it used to be before version 3900.0. We've made this change to address performance problems that arose with certain large or numerous images. We’ll review whether it's possible to reintroduce this capability in the future.
• In the Original Course View, when an XSS filter is applied to sanitize the content for different fields present in the plugin modules section, the fields are sanitized for both trusted and untrusted users as well. This behavior only occurred when a course tool was created via importing a package with the Import Package & Utilities  functionality. We fixed the issue.

Learn SaaS release 3900.6.0: Update to client Production environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.6.0 | Released to Production 4 Feb 2021
Original Experience, Original Course View

As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3900.6.0 (full release number 3900.6.0-rel.32+4fc1198) to client Production servers on Thursday, February 25, 2021

Updates in this version include:

• In the Original Course View and the Original Experience, within the Content Editor, a user won't be able to use copy and paste functionalities to transfer images from other sources. The user can include images with the Add Content  workflow, as it used to be before version 3900.0. We've made this change to address performance problems that arose with certain large or numerous images. We’ll review whether it's possible to reintroduce this capability in the future.

Learn SaaS release 3900.8.0: Update to client Test/Stage environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.8.0 | Release to Production 4 March 2021
Ultra Course View, Original Course View

We’re applying an updated version of 3900.8.0 (full release number 3900.8.0-rel.28+7eb0c69) to client Test/Staging environments on Tuesday, February 23, 2021.

Updates in this version include:

• In the Ultra Course View, in Assignments, Assessments and Journals, when a student inserted a math formula image it was replaced with a broken image and ALT text and the instructor couldn't see it properly in order to grade the submission. We fixed the issue.
• In the Ultra Course View, when copied from an Original course, incompatible discussion board availability settings were retained, blocking access to current students. We fixed the issue.
• In the Ultra Course View, when feedback was about to be recorded for an Assignment using Chrome, a misleading error message appeared instead of the expected recording controls and prevented the user to continue. We fixed the issue.
• In the Original Course View, students were unable to view iframe content in the Notes area for Contacts, Tasks and Glossary posted by their instructor including YouTube and Kaltura uploaded content. We fixed the issue.

Learn SaaS release 3900.6.0: Update to client Production environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.6.0 | Release to Production 4 February 2021
Ultra Course View, Original Course View

The scheduled Production release of 3900.6.0 (full release number 3900.6.0-rel.27+4fc382c) during off-hours on Thursday, February 18, 2021 includes this additional update.

• In the Original Course View, students were unable to view iframe content in the Notes area for Contacts, Tasks and Glossary posted by their instructor including YouTube and Kaltura uploaded content. We fixed the issue.

Learn SaaS release 3900.8.0: Update to client Test/Stage environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.8.0 | Release to Production 4 March 2021
Ultra Course View

We’re applying an updated version of 3900.8.0 (full release number 3900.8.0-rel.22+d9cd600) to client Test/Staging environments on Tuesday, February 16, 2021.

Updates in this version include:

• In the Ultra Course View, when an instructor entered grades in each category of rubric for an assignment with rubrics, the page reloaded and the focus was taken away from the comments and/or grade fields. We fixed the issue.

Learn SaaS release 3900.8.0: Update to client Test/Stage environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.8.0 | Release to Production 4 March 2021
Ultra Course View, Original Course View

As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re applying an updated version of 3900.8.0 (full release number 3900.8.0-rel.19+5f99a51) to client Test/Stage servers on Friday, February 12, 2021

Updates in this version include:

• Some Test/Stage environments encountered a deadlock during startup and couldn’t be upgraded. We’ve reverted the changes made while we gather the required diagnostic information to implement a permanent solution.
• In the Ultra and Original Course Views, in Mobile, course messages had duplicated content in their push notifications and appeared encoded and unreadable to users. We’ve reverted the changes made while we verify a permanent solution.
• In the Ultra Course View, in Mobile, course messages' push notifications were sent to sender users. We’ve fixed the issue (updated).
• In the Original Course View, the Goal Performance Dashboard was failing on SaaS Servers for certain reports. We've fixed the issue.

Learn SaaS release 3900.6.0: Update to client Production environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.6.0 | Release to Production 4 February 2021
Ultra Course View

The scheduled Production release of 3900.6.0 (full release number 3900.6.0-rel.24+5fa90d1) during off-hours on Thursday, February 11, 2021 includes one additional update.

• In the Ultra Course View, when an instructor entered grades in each category of rubric for an assignment with rubrics, the page reloaded and the focus was taken away from the comments and/or grade fields. We fixed the issue.

API updates - 3900.8.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.8.0 | Release to Production 4 March 2021
Ultra Experience, Original Experience

Ability to manage user-to-node associations: We’ve made some noteworthy API updates, including:

• Users of APIs now have the ability to create, update, or delete institutional hierarchy node associations between users and Institutional Hierarchy associations nodes.

For more information about our Rest Public APIs, please refer to: https://developer.blackboard.com/portal/displayApi

Highlight on bug fixes

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.8.0 | Release to Production 4 March 2021
Ultra Course View, Original Course View

The bug fixes in this Learn release include:

• In the Ultra Course View, when a user created a TurnItIn assignment using the LTI 1.3 integration and clicked to access the LTI content on the Activity Stream, the peak panel was displayed empty. We've fixed the issue.

• In the Original Course View, after a refractor process from SOAP to REST when grades were called from the Grade Centre, the REST public API was considerably slower. We managed to improve the response time and fixed the issue.

• In the Original Course View, where a calculated formula rounding was required, the number 5 was rounded down rather than rounded up for some values. We've fixed the issue.

• In the Original Course View, after a performance improvement for the Blog View response times was made in the 3900.0 release, the workflow for grading non-participants was affected. When an instructor wanted to find non-participant users to grade them with zero, students were not visible in the blog or journal. We've reversed the related improvement changes until we find a permanent solution.

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 3900.8.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.

Localize EMAIL and SMS notification messages to user's preferred language

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.8.0 | Release to Production 4 March 2021
Ultra Experience and Original Experience

In both Ultra and Original Experiences, system notification emails were always sent in the SYSTEM DEFAULT language. Now, system notifications sent by email and SMS will be sent in the USER’s chosen language instead. This aligns Learn with our goal to provide individual choice wherever possible. Users continue to have control over their notification types and modalities in their notification settings.

System and Institutional Role Ids

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.6.0 | Release to Production 4 February 2021
Ultra Experience, Original Experience

Starting with the 3900.6.0 SaaS release, System and Institutional Role Ids will no longer be changeable after creation. This impacts Role management Java and REST APIs and the Learn Administrator user experience for Role creation. Please take extra care when creating your System and Institutional Role Ids.

Client-facing impact:

• For Learn administrators, custom roles created via System Admin > Institution Roles will no longer allow the Role ID attribute to be edited after creation.
• For partner developers, the method blackboard.data.role.PortalRole#setRoleID may no longer be used to change the Role ID of existing roles.

Annotate information message

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery | Blackboard Learn 9.1
Ultra Course View, Original Course View

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.

Learn SaaS release 3900.6.0: Update to client Production environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.6.0 | Release to Production 4 February 2021
Original Course View

The scheduled Production release of 3900.6.0 (full release number 3900.6.0-rel.16+e5c4a95) during off-hours on Thursday, February 4, 2021 includes one additional update.

• In the Original Course View, when an instructor added content to a discussion (forum) thread that contained an iframe, the student couldn't see the content within the iframe. We fixed the issue.

Learn SaaS release 3900.6.0: Update to client Test/Stage environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.6.0 | Release to Production 4 February 2021
Ultra Course View

We’re applying an updated version of 3900.6.0 (full release number 3900.6.0-rel.15+bd9f50f) to client Test/Staging environments on Tuesday, February 2, 2021.

Updates in this version include:

• In the Ultra Course View, the originality report option was displayed while grading the assessment, when safe-assign was not enabled. We've fixed the issue.

Learn SaaS release 3900.6.0: Update to client Test/Stage environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.6.0 | Release to Production 4 February 2021
Ultra Course View

We’re applying an updated version of 3900.6.0 (full release number 3900.6.0-rel.12+0cc66df) to client Test/Staging environments on Tuesday, January 26, 2021.

Updates in this version include:

• In the Ultra Course View, when an instructor edited a group set's settings and deleted the end date for self enrollment, an error caused the system to close the self enrollment option for students. We've fixed the issue.
• In the Ultra Course View, embedded LTI links returned from deep linking didn't send the custom parameters back. We've fixed the issue.

Learn SaaS release 3900.4.0: Addition to client Production release

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.4.0 | Release to Production 7 January 2021
Ultra Course View

We’re applying an updated version of 3900.4.0 (full release number 3900.4.0-rel.23+718491f) to client Production environments on Thursday, January 21, 2021.

Updates in this version include:

• In the Ultra Course View, instructors were unable to access the rubrics for anonymous assessments. We've fixed the issue.

Learn SaaS release 3900.6.0: Update to client Test/Stage environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.6.0 | Release to Production 4 February 2021
Ultra Course View, Original Course View

We’re applying an updated version of 3900.6.0 (full release number 3900.6.0-rel.12+0cc66df) to client Test/Staging environments on Tuesday, January 19, 2021.

Updates in this version include:

• In the Ultra Course View, instructors were unable to access the rubrics for anonymous assessments. We've fixed the issue.
• In the Ultra Course View, when LTI 1.3 profiles were automatically enabled, a default course tool was created for use in LTI Advantage services that could appear without the administrator's approval. We've made a quick fix to avoid this appearance in the course tools area. In a future release, a profile change will drive this fix.
• In the Original Course View, enterprise surveys with open questions followed by a page break displayed an error when a user tried to move to the next page, and the survey couldn’t be completed. We've fixed the issue.

Learn SaaS release 3900.4.0: Addition to client Production release

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.4.0 | Release to Production 7 January 2021
Ultra Course View, Original Course View

We’re applying an updated version of 3900.4.0 (full release number 3900.4.0-rel.23+718491f) to client Production on Thursday, January 14, 2021.

Updates in this version include:

• In the Original Course View, a recent fix to the Grade Center scrolling behavior caused problems loading custom color palettes. We’ve reverted the Grade Center scrolling behavior until both issues are resolved.
• For sites on Ultra base navigation, when a user opened the Student Activity page in an Original Course View course, the course disappeared and the user returned to the Ultra base navigation page. We’ve fixed the issue.
• In the Ultra Course View, when LTI 1.3 profiles were automatically enabled, a default course tool was created for use in LTI Advantage services that could appear without the administrator's approval. We've made a quick fix to avoid this appearance in the course tools area. In a future release, a profile change will drive this fix.

API updates - Blackboard Premium APIs

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.6.0 | Release to Production 4 February 2021
Ultra Experience

Premium APIs: In this release, Blackboard’s Premium APIs transition from technical preview to general availability. Blackboard Premium APIs are REST-based application interfaces that add capabilities and value for institutions, partners, and other third-party tool creators beyond simple data exchange and available open standards. The first set of available Premium APIs is a collection called the Ultra Extension Framework (UEF) APIs.

The UEF APIs allow an integrated tool to communicate securely with Learn. With the UEF, integrated tools are aware of where users are in Learn and what they’re interacting with. The UEF is typically used with standards such as LTI Advantage to integrate a tool’s user interface and REST APIs to exchange data. The UEF allows a tool to engage with users when and where they need to rather than hoping that users visit fixed tool locations. Institutions and third parties who use the UEF will have the opportunity to create more personalized experiences in Blackboard Learn than can be achieved in other learning platforms.

The UEF enhances Learn’s Ultra Base Navigation and Ultra Course View with a robust set of capabilities:

• Real-time telemetry provides detailed user navigation behavior information so integrated apps can respond in very personalized ways.
• Help provider registration allows the default behavior of the Learn Ultra help tool (the question mark bubble icon) to be overridden with another support solution.
• User interface element rendering gives integrated applications the ability to populate UI elements and content, including banners, modals, interface panels, and notifications to users only when and where they’re needed, creating unique and tailored experiences for each user.

For more information on the UEF, please refer to https://docs.blackboard.com/learn/uef/getting-started

Using Premium APIs: During technical preview, we handled access to Premium APIs manually for early access participants. Now that they are generally available, access is formally managed in the Developer Portal. Appropriate Developer Groups can give designated applications access to Blackboard’s Premium APIs. Premium APIs are not directly visible to, or usable by, end users.

Blackboard’s Premium APIs, including the Ultra Extension Framework, are available to all clients and Blackboard Partnership Program members at the Bronze level and higher. Developers who want to use Premium APIs must have configured their Developer Portal Groups accordingly. Please, contact Support with your request or send an email to [email protected] if you have additional questions. Visit the Blackboard Partners page for more information about partnership levels.
 

Examples of the use UEF: 

• Qwickly is leveraging the UEF (a Premium API) to provide instructors the option to display the attendance Check-in entry tool from directly within the Ultra course experience. This enhanced integration results in fewer clicks and eliminates the reliance on an external tool launch. 

• EesySoft uses Premium APIs to deliver a highly personalized user experience based on where the user is and what they’re currently doing within the Learn Ultra application. 

Course archive quarantine

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.6.0 | Release to Production 4 February 2021
Ultra Course View, Original Course View

We’ve improved the performance of the course archives process when an archive fails due to specific, particular circumstances. 

After three unsuccessful archive attempts, the course will be quarantined for evaluation. Administrators will receive an email notification that a course has been quarantined. Once the email notification is received, the administrator can check the quarantined courses list and reach out to Blackboard Support for further assistance, similar to the process for an export course issue. 

• A notification will be sent to the administrator every time a new course enters quarantine.
• The functionality is enabled by default. To disable it, the system administrator should contact Blackboard Support.

Highlight on bug fixes

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.6.0 | Release to Production 4 February 2021
Ultra Course View, Original Course View

The bug fixes in this Learn release include:

• Adaptive Release and Test Exceptions: The text under Test Availability Exceptions and Review Status sections related to organizations and courses is now showing as expected.

• The Group Assignment Submission page was confusing to students: Whenever the first student from a group clicked on the assignment, he/she arrived to a submission page with an option to submit the assignment. If this student navigated away from this page without selecting Cancel, then all group members that log in afterward would see a page with previous submission information (i.e. a "review submission history" page) that suggested there was an ungraded attempt already submitted. The student then had the option to continue.
  Now, the system still shows the Upload Assignment page since no attempt was ever actually submitted.

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 3900.6.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.

New navigation tab in the Assessment View

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.6.0 | Release to Production 4 February 2021
Ultra Course View

Instructors and students will find a new navigation tab at the right side of the screen when they navigate the Assessment View. This new navigation tab helps users to access all the options and features available for the current assessment from one single place. This tab will be visible to both students and instructors once a student sends the first submission.

The options available from the new side tab are:

• Originality Report: Users will be able to select their service provider, including SafeAssign.
• Rubrics: Instructors will be able to grade the assessment with rubrics. Both students and instructors can check the grades that have been assigned by the instructor for each criterion. Instructors will also be able to more easily override and undo override actions.
• Feedback: Instructors and peers will be able to provide general feedback about the assessment.

Learn SaaS release 3900.4.0: Addition to client Production release

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.4.0 | Release to Production 7 January 2021
Ultra Experience, Original Experience

The scheduled Production release of 3900.4.0 (full release number 3900.4.0-rel.20+93e130c) during off-hours on Thursday, January 7, 2021 includes one additional update.

• Client credentials bearer tokens didn't grant access to Learn when using Applications with Premium API Access enabled. We fixed the issue.

Learn SaaS release 3900.4.0: Update to client Test/Stage environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.4.0 | Release to Production 7 January 2021
Ultra Course View, Original Course View

We’re applying an updated version of 3900.4.0 (full release number 3900.4.0-rel.17+f210f75) to client Test/Staging environments on Tuesday, December 29, 2020.

Updates in this version include:

• In the Ultra Course View, the course groups tool wasn't visible if an institution had a large number of tools installed. We've fixed the issue.
• In the Original Course View, the rich text editor didn't display an HTML preview after a media link was pasted. We've fixed the issue.

Learn SaaS release 3900.4.0: Update to client Test/Stage environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.4.0 | Release to Production 7 January 2021
Ultra Course View, Original Course View

We’re applying an updated version of 3900.4.0 (full release number 3900.4.0-rel.14+d8ea606) to client Test/Staging environments on Tuesday, December 22, 2020.

Updates in this version include:

• In the Ultra Course View, the minimal rich text editor displayed some incorrect icons and tooltips and some unnecessary buttons. We've fixed the issues.
• In the Original Course View, the content editor removed link tags and URLs with Javascript in image and anchor tags whether or not the user had the Add/Modify Trusted Content permission. We’ve fixed the issue.
• In the Original Course View, when an alternate domain is enabled, allowing guest access to course files could deny signed-in users the ability to access the files. We’ve fixed the issue.
• We've added a page to the Admin Panel to allow the ability to enable an alternate domain for serving content files, and specify the host name for the alternate domain. You’ll find the Alternate Domain for Serving Content page in the Security section of the Admin Panel.

Learn SaaS release 3900.2.0: Update to client Production environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.2.0 | Release to Production 3 December 2020
Ultra Course View, Original Course View

We’re applying an updated version of 3900.2.0 (full release number 3900.2.0-rel.34+4ad580a) to client Production environments on Thursday, December 17, 2020.

Updates in this version include:

• In the Ultra Course View, the Question Analysis report for tests presented incorrect results at some institutions. We’ve fixed the issue.
• In the Ultra Course View, some students didn’t have permission to access a group assignment. We’ve fixed the issue.
• In the Original Course View, the Link to Wiki page option was missing from the new Content Editor experience. You can now find it under the Add content dialog. Learn more about linking to other wiki pages.

Learn SaaS release 3900.4.0: Update to client Test/Stage environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.4.0 | Release to Production 7 January 2021
Ultra Course View, Original Course View

We’re applying an updated version of 3900.4.0 (full release number 3900.4.0-rel.10+9fc85c4) to client Test/Staging environments on Tuesday, December 15, 2020.

Updates in this version include:

• If HTML content written by instructors or administrators referenced hosted content served from an alternate domain, the iframe didn’t load properly. We’ve fixed the issue.
• In the Ultra Course View, the Question Analysis report for tests presented incorrect results at some institutions. We’ve fixed the issue.
• In the Ultra Course View, some students didn’t have permission to access a group assignment. We’ve fixed the issue.
• In the Original Course View, the Link to Wiki page option was missing from the new Content Editor experience. You can now find it under the Add content dialog. Learn more about linking to other wiki pages.

Learn SaaS release 3900.2.0: Update to client Production environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.2.0 | Release to Production 3 December 2020
Ultra Course View, Original Course View

We’re applying an updated version of 3900.2.0 (full release number 3900.2.0-rel.31+0a50fe3) to client Production environments on Thursday, December 10 and Friday, December 11, 2020.

Updates in this version include:

• If HTML content written by instructors or administrators referenced hosted content served from an alternate domain, the iframe didn’t load properly. We’ve fixed the issue.
• In the Original Course View, test questions linked from a question pool had a difficulty score of 0% regardless of how students answered. We’ve fixed the issue.

Learn SaaS release 3900.2.0: Partial delay for update to Production environments

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.2.0 | Release to Production 3 December 2020
Ultra Experience, Original Experience

As part of our commitment to release quality, we’re partially delaying the regular maintenance update to Blackboard Learn SaaS 3900.2.0 Production environments, previously scheduled for Thursday, December 10, 2020.

• Production environments aligned to Europe and US Eastern time zones will be updated as usual on Thursday, December 10, 2020.
• Production environments aligned to Asia-Pacific, US Central, US Mountain, and US Pacific time zones will be updated on Friday, December 11, 2020.

API updates

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.4.0 | Release to Production 7 January 2021
Ultra Experience, Original Experience

We’ve made some noteworthy API updates, including:

• Added an endpoint that separates child courses from their set parents so that API users can now undo parent/child course relationships via APIs.

Building block self-service

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.4.0 | Release to Production 7 January 2021
Ultra Experience, Original Experience

With this release, SaaS administrators can now install and uninstall building blocks on their SaaS instance without depending on Blackboard Support. This change gives our clients the flexibility of managing their own installations instead of waiting for the Support team. Administrators can install and uninstall building blocks in Admin Panel > Building Blocks > Installed Tools. Installation and removal of a building block will trigger an automated rolling restart. No additional action is needed from the administrator.

Blackboard understands this is an exciting update for our clients. It is worth pointing out that we continue to expand our REST APIs as well as deepening our LTI support. It's important to note that a combination of REST API/LTI is preferred to ensure integration support in the Ultra experience. REST APIs/LTI are the modern standard that SaaS companies use when interfacing with their systems. More and more of our partners are developing towards REST APIs/LTI, and we continue to look forward to the time where our REST API/LTI framework is robust enough to handle all use cases that building blocks currently support.

End of SOAP Web Services capabilities

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.4.0 | Release to Production 7 January 2021
Ultra Experience, Original Experience