Richer Course and Content Design

Inline file rendering of files in Course Content, Folders, and Learning Modules – 3900.44

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

Content creation and presentation are key for designing engaging courses. Various files will now render inline in Course Content, folders, and learning modules. Instructors can set the behavior of these files for users:

  • view and download (default)
  • view only
  • download only

Image 1. Instructor view - Edit File Options

Instructor view - Edit File Options

Supported file types:

Supported file types
Adobe Acrobat Documents (PDF)Microsoft Word (DOC, DOCX)Microsoft PowerPoint (PPT, PPTX)
Microsoft Excel (XLS, XLSX. XLST, CVS, TSV)OpenOffice Documents (ODS, ODT, ODP)Standard text file (txt)

Non-supported file types will always be downloadable for users.

For the file types: .xlsx, .xls, .xlst, .csv, and .tsv, inline viewing is only supported for files up to 10 Mb in size. Files over 10 Mb are downloadable only.

 

Some image, video, and audio file types will now open in a large panel. Users can view or play back media in the browser:

Images:

Supported image types
JPEGGIFPNG

Audio:

Supported audio types
m4ampegmp3ogg
mp4flacwav 

Video:

Supported video types
mp4

Image 2. Several types of files in Course Content

Several types of files in Course Content

Image 3. Audio recording - inline display and playback

Audio recording - inline display and playback

Image 4. Document inline display

Document inline display

Image 5. Image inline display

Image inline display

Image 6. Presentation inline display

Presentation inline display

Image 7. Video inline display and playback

Video inline display and playback

For administrators:
- Inline rendering applies to new and existing files in the course. Existing files will be set to ‘view inline and download’ by default. Instructors can change the files to 'view only' or 'download only' if preferred.
- We convert supported content types to PDF on demand when a user accesses them. This conversion provides an improved user experience. We cache these files for 30 days. Files converted to PDF as part of this feature do not count towards your storage quota.
- Hyperlinks in files are disabled.
- Inline file rendering is not available for Gov Cloud clients.

 

Return to July 2022 – 3900.44 Release description