Release Notes for Learn SaaS
This page contains features and updates currently on Learn SaaS Test/Stage and Production environments. Visit Archived SaaS Release Notes to see features and updates in older versions. Visit In-Product Updates to learn more about in-product updates.
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Learn SaaS release 3900.102.0
Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.102.0
Release to Test/Stage: Tuesday, 17 September 2024 | Release to Production: Thursday, 3 October 2024
Ultra Experience
Original Course View, Ultra Course View
For full feature details, please review the corresponding notes for the Learn 3900.102.0 version included below on this page. Details can be found Behind the Blackboard.
Latest release: 3900.102.0-rel.20+6df1f8d to Test/Stage servers to take place on 1 October 2024.
For more information on updates and bug fixes, please visit Behind the Blackboard.
October 2024 – 3900.102 Release
The October 2024 - 3900.102 release is robust with features in 9 areas:
- Instructional design;
- Mastery learning and learner pathways;
- Tests and assignments;
- Communication and collaboration;
- Flexible grading;
- Gradebook;
- Integrations;
- Mobile; and
- Upgrade to Ultra
These improvements impact instructors, students, and administrators. Some features do require administrative action.
Instructors:
- Usability improvements for Documents
- Video Studio: Enhanced caption support for uploaded files
- Usability improvement for Knowledge Checks
- Generate question banks
- Quickly access items that need grade reconciliation
- Show unavailable students in the gradebook
- Brightspace conversion improvements
Instructors and Students:
- Award Course Badges with Achievements
- Award Open Badges Automatically with Anthology Milestone
- Enhancements to student submission review page
- Flexible Grading performance improvements
All users:
Instructional Design
Usability improvements for Documents – 3900.102
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors
Related Topic: Create Documents
We made several usability improvements for Documents.
- For uploaded files, we've restored the default of View and Download in the Edit File Options.
- If there isn’t enough space when resizing blocks with keyboard navigation, the option to expand right is hidden.
- The Redo button now continues to display and function after removing an HTML block.
- The cursor function works as expected when dragging a block.
- We've restored the Content Collection option in the Insert content + in the Content block.
- For institutions that have not enabled support for the Content Designer for Documents, we've restored the option to generate a question bank directly from a Document.
For administrators: A new configuration option is on the Ultra configuration page in the Administrator Panel: “Enable support for customizing Ultra document layouts.” The default state is on.
Video Studio: Enhanced caption support for uploaded files - 3900.102
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors
Related Topic: Video Studio (admin page), Video Studio (instructor page)
Video Studio gives instructors the ability to easily upload or record audio and video within Documents, creating a more engaging learning experience. We have enhanced the capabilities of Video Studio to help create a more accessible learning environment. Now Video Studio auto-generates captions for all file types.
Video Studio is a premium solution. We are offering customers a free trial until June 30, 2025. This will provide access to the full version of Video Studio as a feature flag. Video Studio is set to OFF as a default in test/stage environments. If you want to enable it in your institution’s production environment, you can do that for free until the end of June 2025. Customers will have to purchase Video Studio to continue to use it beyond this date.
For administrators: For configuration and settings, see the Administrator page for Video Studio.
Usability improvement for Knowledge Checks– 3900.102
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors
We modified the default for the Difficulty metric to display as "--" until there is at least one attempt. We also updated the answer instruction text for instructors to align with the instructions given in a test. It now reads "Choose one or more correct answers."
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
Mastery Learning and Learner Pathways
Mastery tab in the gradebook – 3900.102
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors, Students, Administrators
This feature will be available on September 17, 2024.
The new Mastery tab in the Gradebook allows instructors and students to see how their activities align with institutional goals. Based on the goal performance scale set by your institution, the tab displays the mastery of each alignment.
The Mastery tab enables instructors to:
- View the level of mastery per alignment for each student.
- View how each student is performing against those alignments.
- Drill down view for individual student mastery performance.
Image 1. The instructor view of the Mastery tab
The Mastery tab enables students to:
- Access a visual display of their mastery performance.
- View specific skills and competencies that they need to master. This insight helps students understand where they should concentrate their efforts. This leads to more targeted and effective learning.
- Access their performance as it relates to each specific criterion. This allows them to identify areas for improvement and work towards mastery.
- Focus on key areas where mastery was not achieved. This fosters a growth mindset and a deeper understanding of the course content.
Image 2. Instructor view of a student’s mastery of goals
The color schema used in the Goal Performance Scale (shown in Image 5) indicates levels of mastery. Instructors can select View Scale to view the Goal Performance Scale from the Mastery tab..
Image 3. Instructor view of the Mastery tab with View Scale selected
Goals tab
Students can drill down on the Goals tab to individual content items to see how goals align with their mastery progress.
Image 4. Student view of details of mastery on the Goals tab
Configuring the Performance Scale (Administrators)
The performance scale is an institutional configuration. This allows for consistent aggregation across courses. It also creates consistency for students in mastery-based programs.
Administrators can configure the number of levels as well as the labels and colors for each.
Image 5. Goal Performance Scale (Administrator only)
Notes:
- Students will always see the Goals tab and instructors will always see the Mastery tab. When there are no goals aligned, the tab will be empty. The Mastery tab will display to other users depending on privileges. If their course role or system role allows them to create or view goal alignment, users will see the tab.
- Users can select the student column header on the Mastery tab to sort students by last name.
- Instructors can preview what the Goals tab will look like for students.
- The calculation method is points-based. To weigh different items, different point values should be assigned. For example, an instructor wants to weigh performance on a rubric criterion ten times greater than a matching question on a test. Therefore, the rubric row should be set to 50 points and the matching question to 5 points.
- The calculation method prioritizes more granular alignments. Priority is given to alignments on individual rubric rows or test questions, and other alignments are then ignored. When the alignments are only on the assessment itself, those alignments will apply to all the assessment’s test questions or rubric criteria.
For administrators: The Administrator panel has a new configuration option on the Ultra Experience Management page: Enable support for Mastery Tab in Gradebook. The default state is OFF. Note that if enabled, students will see the Goals tab even when goals are not aligned to content items. In addition, all instructors will see the Mastery tab. The ability to control this feature at the course level will be available in a future release.
Award Course Badges with Achievements – 3900.102
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors, Students
Related topic: Achievements
Achievements is a new capability for Ultra courses to help keep students motivated and congratulate them for their participation in a course. With Achievements:
- Instructors can create course badges and set criteria for students to earn the badges.
- Instructors can view which students earned a course badge.
- Students can review the requirements to earn a course badge.
- Students can view both earned and unearned course badges.
- Leaders can use achievements in Ultra organizations.
Achievements support learning in many ways:
Supports self-directed learning pathways. Instructors can give learners tasks, goals, or quests with clearly defined criteria. Learners have more flexibility in how they approach their activities; they might choose to focus on a particular area of development before moving on to another. This flexibility can replace a set sequence to personalize learning.
Engages and motivates learners. Some learners respond to extrinsic motivations. They feel accomplishment when they complete tasks. Teaching methods can use achievements to add game mechanics to a course.
Adds transparency to learning. Course badges that define the skills and competencies in a course can help students:
- Follow how they’re developing competencies.
- Understand and articulate to others what they’re learning.
With this release, there are two achievement types: course badges and Open Badges.
Create course badges
Users with privileges to manage achievements can:
- Create, publish, and delete course badges.
- Select a badge image from a badge library.
- Set performance criteria for one or more assessments in the course. With multiple performance criterion, students must meet all to earn the course badge.
- Preview how the course badge appears to students.
Image 1. Instructor view of the Achievements tab with saved course badges and the New Course Badge button
Image 2. Instructor view of the new course badge screen where you can set the title, description, badge image, and earning requirements
View recipients of achievements
On the Achievements tab, instructors can view the recipient count for each course badge. Select an achievement to review details about the recipients, including the date and time they earned the course badge. To review the settings for the badge, select Badge Settings.
Image 3. Instructor view of the Recipients tab displays course badge earners
Review achievements as a student
On the Achievements tab, students can review the details of badges and the requirements to earn them. They can also determine which badges they’ve earned, and which remain unearned. When a student earns a badge, the badge displays the date and time the badge was earned.
Image 4. Student view of the Achievements tab with details of earned and unearned course badges
Notes:
- When overall grade or a calculated column is a performance criterion, that calculation itself is not enough to earn the achievement. Students must have scores for all gradable items used for the calculation. This requirement prevents a running total issuing a badge before a student completes all tasks.
- When a gradable item has multiple attempts, it is calculated using one of the following: last attempt, first attempt, highest score, lowest score, or average of all attempts. If you need to change this setting, we recommend doing so before grading submissions. If you change it after grading, calculation updates may not award new achievements to students. If you encounter this issue, you can update student grades again for the item.
- An earned achievement isn’t revoked if an instructor changes a student’s grades.
- Custom badge images aren’t supported in this release.
- Student preview isn’t supported in this release.
- Once an achievement is published, it can’t be changed. If there is a configuration error, delete the achievement and create it again.
- Achievements from Original course view do not convert when copying or importing a course.
- Achievements can’t be copied from one Ultra course to another. We plan to support this in a future release.
Considerations for early adoption:
- The Achievements tab appears for all students, even when achievements aren’t used in the course. We plan to improve this in a future release.
- Student preview isn’t supported in this release.
- Course copy for achievements isn’t supported in this release.
- Administrators can restrict who can manage achievements and view recipients of badges. Manage privileges for Achievements in Course Role and System Role configurations.
- The Achievements management pages found in the Administrator panel main page and the Tools area are only for Original. These don’t apply to Achievements in Ultra.
For administrators: This feature is opt-in using the administrator toggle Achievements in Ultra. Enable it in the Ultra configuration page of the administration panel.
Award Open Badges Automatically with Anthology Milestone – 3900.102
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors, Students, Academic leaders
Achievements in Blackboard can be linked to Open Badges in Anthology Milestone. When linked, earned Open Badges are issued automatically to the student’s profile in Blackboard.
Anthology Milestone is a solution for managing institutional micro-credentials and badges. It can issue transferable Open Badges that offer several benefits for education, professional development, and career advancement:
- Verified and Trustworthy: Transferable Open Badges are digital credentials that are securely checked for authenticity. They prove that the skills and achievements they represent are reliable and recognized by schools and employers.
- Easy to Share: These badges can be shown on different platforms like LinkedIn, personal websites, digital resumes, and social media. This makes it easy for people to keep a consistent record of their skills and achievements, no matter where they work or study.
- Supports Lifelong Learning: Transferable Open Badges allow people to collect and show their skills over time, helping them continue learning throughout their lives.
- Personalized: Individuals can choose and organize their badges to reflect their unique skills, learning experiences, and career goals. They can manage and display their badges with a free Achievement Studio account or transfer them to another system.
- Clear and Trustworthy: The information included in Open Badges makes it clear what skills were demonstrated and how they were assessed.
- Works Across Platforms: Open Badges follow open standards, so they can be used and recognized on different systems and platforms.
- Inclusive: Open Badges can recognize a variety of skills, including those that might not be acknowledged by traditional education, like soft skills, informal learning, and community involvement.
Set up Open Badges with Achievements
An administrator must first set up the Anthology Milestone integration.
Once enabled, users with privileges to manage achievements in Blackboard can:
- Add an Open Badge to a course or organization.
- Set performance criteria required to earn the badge.
Add an Open Badge
On the Achievements tab, select Use Open Badge. Search for and select an Open Badge from Milestone. Then work with the badge like any other. For more information, see Achievements.
Image 1. Instructor view of the Achievements tab with Milestone integration enabled. The Use Open Badge button appears on the tab
Image 2. Instructor view of the Select an Open Badge screen. It displays a list of Open Badges from Milestone
Set performance criteria and preview the badge
After you select an open badge, you can set performance criteria for one or more assessments in the course. With multiple performance criterion, students must meet all to earn the Open Badge.
In the Summary section, you can preview how the Open Badge will appear to students in Blackboard.
Image 3. Instructor view of Earning Requirements where you can set the performance criteria required to earn the Open Badge and preview the how the badge appears for students
Students earning Open Badges
When students earn an Open Badge, they receive an email at the address associated with their Blackboard profile. Students can manage their earned Open Badges using an Achievement Studio account. To manage their Open Badge, the Achievement Studio account profile should include the same email address.
From Achievement Studio, students can:
- View an Open Badge
- Add it to a collection
- Download it
- Get a sharing link
For more information about student tasks in Achievement Studio, see Badges Overview.
Image 4. Student view of an Open Badge in Achievement Studio
Enable Anthology Milestone
If you license Anthology Milestone, you can integrate it into the Achievements tool in Blackboard. When using Ultra courses in Blackboard, instructors and course builders can link performance criteria to Open Badges in Milestone.
Currently, there are not distinct production and test/stage instances of Milestone. Therefore, we recommend only integrating Milestone with your production instance of Blackboard. This is to avoid accidentally issuing authentic Open Badges from a testing environment.
To set up the integration, contact Product Support for Milestone. In the request, provide the following:
- State your request to integrate Milestone with Blackboard.
- Provide the tenant ID of your production Blackboard instance.
- Access the Administrator Panel.
- Navigate to Building Blocks and click the link to list Installed Building Blocks.
- In the context menu for Foundations Connector, select Settings.
- The Tenant ID is second in the list.
Notes:
- Administrators must set up the integration with Milestone.
- Open Badges can be used in Ultra courses and organizations.
- Users without an email address won’t be able to use the Open Badge picker. Students must have an email address in their Blackboard profile to receive Open Badges they earn.
- Any user with privileges to manage achievements can link to Open Badges. We plan to limit this access in a future release.
- An earned achievement isn’t revoked if an instructor changes a student’s grades.
- Deleting an achievement that’s linked to an Open Badge doesn’t delete that badge in Milestone.
- Student preview isn’t supported for earning Open Badges.
For administrators: This feature requires licensing Anthology Milestone. The integration is configured as an LTI tool. A new LTI placement type adds appropriate Open Badge tools into the Achievements tool. This placement type should not be used for other LTI tools.
You can manage the Achievements privileges in Course Role and System Role configurations. In this release, there aren’t separate privileges for users who can set up Open Badges versus course badges using Achievements. You may want to consider a limited rollout of Achievements until we address this with separate privileges in an upcoming release.
Tests & Assignments
Generate question banks - 3900.102
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors
Related Topic: Question Banks
Creating questions is time consuming. Instructors now have the option to generate questions in a question bank. Generating question banks from course materials provides inspiration and saves time.
To generate a question bank, select the Auto-generate option from the + on the Question Banks page.
Image 1. Auto-generate a question bank
From the menu, instructors can select content items. These content items provide context for the questions. Instructors can further refine the questions they ask by entering a description of the learning objectives or topic.
Image 2. The context picker for creating new questions
Instructors can select the type of question to generate, such as multiple choice or fill in the blank. The complexity of the questions can also be adjusted. Instructors choose which questions to include in the question bank.
Image 3. The Auto-Generate Question Bank page
For administrators: The option to generate questions only appears for instructors when the tool is on. Select Building Blocks from the Administrator Panel, then select Installed Tools. Locate "AI Design Assistant and Unsplash" and select Settings from the dropdown. The default state is off. You must also activate privileges. Assign the “Use AI Design Assistant” privilege for the appropriate Course Roles (for example, Instructor).
Enhancements to student submission review page – 3900.102
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Students, Instructors
The student submission review page makes it easier for students to access instructor feedback on their submissions.
We made several enhancements to this page:
- When an instructor selects student preview, they can now access the student submission review page.
- Students can now access offline submissions from this page.
- Students now have a Read more option for overall and attempt feedback.
We also made general usability improvements, including additional labels and other indicators, to help students easily find the information they need.
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
Communication & Collaboration
Email notifications for followed discussions – 3900.102
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: All users
Related Topic: Discussions
To encourage participation in discussions, we expanded notifications to include email. Emails are sent when users opt for Email me right away notifications.
Key Enhancements:
User Notification Settings: New notification options allow users to manage their emails for discussions they follow. To help with consistency, these settings align with the user's settings for their activity stream.
- Activity on my responses
- Activity on responses I have replied to
- Responses from instructors
- Responses for followed discussions
- Replies for followed discussions
Administrator Settings: New administrator controls allow institutions to set defaults for user notification settings. These are enabled by default:
- Discussion activity on the current user’s responses
- Discussion activity on responses the current user has replied to
- Discussion responses from instructors
- Discussion responses and replies for followed
Image 1. The notification settings available for the Email me right away option
Image 2. An example of an email for discussion activity
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed. However, administrators can change these notification settings to default off, always off, or always on if desired.
Quickly access items that need grade reconciliation – 3900.102
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors
With parallel grading, multiple people can share grading responsibilities for a course. For example, an instructor can divide up the grading tasks among teaching assistants and other graders. The designated reconciler reviews all grades and feedback to determine the final grade.
A Needs reconciling section now appears on the gradebook Overview tab. In this section, reconcilers can easily access all items ready for reconciliation.
Image 1. The reconciler's view of the Needs reconciling section on the gradebook Overview tab
This section is hidden when the grader has no items for reconciliation.
Graders can select Reconcile now to open the Submissions tab for the item. They can review grades and feedback from others before determining the final grade.
The Gradebook tab displays an exclamation point when there are items to reconcile or post.
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
Show unavailable students in the gradebook – 3900.102
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors
Instructors may have students in their courses whose access to Blackboard is temporarily restricted. For example, if a student has a payment pending, an administrator can set the student’s user account as unavailable until the hold is lifted.
In direct response to user feedback, we’ve made changes to how unavailable students appear in the gradebook. Now unavailable students appear in the gradebook for their enrolled courses, but their avatar has a strikethrough to indicate the unavailable status.
Image 1. Instructor view of the gradebook showing an unavailable student
To completely hide unavailable students from their gradebooks, instructors can use the Students Visibility setting introduced in the last release.
When the hide unenrolled students from the gradebook option is turned on, unavailable and unenrolled students are hidden from these gradebook areas:
- Grades page
- Students page
- Calculation student list
- Gradable items student list
- Submission tab for an assessment
- Group Submissions tab for an assessment
- Student Activity tab for an assessment
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
Flexible Grading
Flexible Grading performance improvements – 3900.102
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Students, Instructors
We made several adjustments to improve the performance of Flexible Grading. Users will experience faster loading when:
- Scrolling in the Student list (instructors)
- Posting all grades (instructors)
- Viewing the rubric (instructors and students)
For larger classes with more than 2000 enrollments, the Flexible Grading page loads 25% faster!
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
Mobile
Email notifications for followed discussions – 3900.102
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: All users
Instructors and students sometimes need to pay special attention to one or more discussions or threads in a course. Users can now easily follow specific discussions to receive email updates on new contributions. Institutions can set notification defaults for discussion activity and responses for followed discussions. This feature makes it easier for users to monitor and engage with class discussions from the Blackboard Mobile App.
For Administrators: You can configure this feature in the Administrator Panel by selecting Notification settings and enabling/disabling your institution’s preferences.
Upgrade to Ultra
Brightspace Conversion Improvements - 3900.102
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View and/or Original Course View
Impact: Instructors
Related Topic: Migrate from D2L Brightspace
Question Library and Sections
We further refined the conversion of courses from Brightspace. The question library and sections in Brightspace now convert to question banks. This enhancement is important for converting quizzes that include question pools and sections.
Important notes:
- The question library and sections will be flattened. Nested question banks are not supported in Blackboard.
- Any sections without questions will not convert to question banks.
Gradebook Columns
Numeric, selectbox, text, and pass/fail grade Items in Brightspace are now preserved when converting a Brightspace course to Blackboard. Formula and calculated grade Items are not preserved and are dropped from the gradebook. Instructors should check if their formula or calculated grade items can be rebuilt in Blackboard’s calculated column. For more information, see Calculate Grades.
For Administrators: These features and improvements are available for all Ultra and Original courses. There are no configurations needed.
Learn SaaS release 3900.100.0
Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.100.0
Release to Test/Stage: Tuesday, 13 August 2024 | Release to Production: Thursday, 5 September 2024
Original Experience, Ultra Experience
Original Course View, Ultra Course View
For full feature details, please review the corresponding notes for the Learn 3900.100.0 version included below on this page. Details can be found Behind the Blackboard.
Latest release: 3900.100.0-rel.38+07d2c83 to Production servers to take place on 26 September 2024.
For more information on updates and bug fixes, please visit Behind the Blackboard.
September 2024 – 3900.100 Release
The September 2024 - 3900.100 release is robust with features in 7 areas:
- Instructional design;
- Tests and assignments;
- Flexible grading;
- Gradebook;
- Learner progression and personalized experience;
- Learn core and security; and
- Upgrade to Ultra
These improvements impact instructors, students, and administrators. Some features do require administrative action.
Instructors:
- Student Activity Log
- View items that need grading and posting in the new Overview tab
- View late submissions that need grading
Instructors and Students:
- Content Designer: Knowledge Check in enhanced Documents
- AI Conversation
- Wiris upgrade and benefits
- Exclude attempt when grading
Students:
- Review instructor feedback on the student submission review page
- Access assignment feedback hidden by release conditions
Administrators:
Instructors and Administrators:
All users:
Instructional Design
Content Designer: Knowledge Check in Documents – 3900.100
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors and Students
Related Topic: Create Documents
The Content Designer for Documents now includes a Knowledge Check block. The Knowledge Check enhances the learning experience. Knowledge checks allow students to engage with content and receive immediate feedback. Instructors are also empowered with valuable insights to tailor their teaching strategies.
Key Features:
- Question Types: Multiple choice and multiple answer questions
- Feedback: Pre-populated correct and incorrect answer feedback, which instructors can edit
- Student Interaction: Students can select an answer and submit it. They receive immediate feedback on whether their answer is correct or incorrect. Knowledge checks allow unlimited attempts.
- Metrics: Instructors can access detailed metrics including:
- Number of students participating
- Total number of attempts
- Average number of attempts to reach the correct answer
- Maximum number of attempts to reach the correct answer
- Level of difficulty metric
- Percentage of students selecting each answer option
Image 1. Instructor view - Knowledge Check creation
After saving the Knowledge Check, instructors may resize and move it as desired within the document.
Image 2. Animation of student experience interacting with Knowledge Check
Image 3. Instructor view of Knowledge Check metrics
Grading for Knowledge Checks isn't supported at this time. There are also no notifications specific to Knowledge Checks.
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. You must enable the option on the Ultra Experience Management page in the Administrator Panel. It's called "Enable support for customizing Ultra document layouts." This setting is on by default. You can toggle this option on or off. If you turn off this option, it may affect content created with or changed by enhanced options. Note that this option will be available until December 2024. At that time, we will remove the option. Enhanced Documents will be the default.
Content Designer: Video Studio in Documents – 3900.100
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors, Students, Administrators
Related Topic: Video Studio (admin page), Video Studio (instructor page)
Video Studio is a premium solution. We are offering customers a free trial until June 30, 2025. This will provide access to the full version of Video Studio as a feature flag. Video Studio is set to OFF as a default in test/stage environments. If you want to enable it in your institution’s production environment, you can do that for free until the end of June 2025. Customers will have to purchase Video Studio to continue to use it beyond this date.
Instructors have recording capabilities in Announcements and Feedback features. Now they have the ability to upload or record audio and video within Documents. The lightweight, deeply integrated Video Studio solution promotes a more engaging learning experience.
When creating a Document, a new block option is available to create audio and video files from a camera, audio recording, or from screen recordings. Additionally, it is possible to upload audio and video files.
Image 1. New Audio/Video block in a Document
Image 2. Recording and uploading options available in Audio/Video block for a Document
When a user starts recording, there is a 3 second countdown before the recording begins. Users can pause, resume, retake, or end the recording as needed.
Image 3. Start recording process
After a user ends the recording, the uploading process begins. During this time, the user can preview the result and edit the title. Users can select Save to add the audio or video into a Document. After saving the video, auto captioning for videos is available.
Image 4. Add video details, preview, and save options
Image 5. Automatic captioning for videos is available
For administrators: These new video capabilities require a license for Video Studio. Also, the "Enable support for customizing Ultra document layouts." setting on the Ultra Experience Management page in the Administrator Panel must be on. The videos created using Video Studio will not count towards your existing storage entitlement. The following existing privileges are used for the Video Studio solution:
- Course/Organization (Content Areas) > Create Materials: To create videos. Includes all operations like save, finish, check Video upload Status. Not needed for playback.
- Course/Organization (Content Areas) > Delete Materials: To delete videos.
Course Content Page Enhancements– 3900.100
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: All users
User experience (UX) plays a vital role in student engagement and learning. We're committed to continuous improvement of the Blackboard Ultra course view. It's important to us that we meet the needs of our users—both educators and students. We're excited to deliver several changes to improve the Course Content page. Client feedback is at the center of the changes we’ve made.
The improvements include:
- Greater visual depth
- Improved page structure
- Differentiation among course elements
- An enhanced presentation of top-level and nested content
Greater Visual Depth and Content Page Structure
Creating a more appealing and engaging interface has been a key theme in client feedback. To support this, we've created greater visual depth to the Course Content page. This provides a more enjoyable and inviting experience for end users.
The new design incorporates:
- Subtle gradients and softer edges
- A more cohesive color palette with inviting, warmer tones
- More intuitive navigation, which reduces cognitive load and increases focus on the content
Image 1. Instructor view: Course Content page visual depth improvements
Image 2. Student view: Course Content page visual depth improvements
Content presentation enhancements
We've improved the differentiation among learning modules, folders, and content items. Currently, users sometimes find it challenging to distinguish among these elements. This can lead to confusion and inefficiency in navigating course materials.
Image 3. Instructor view: Content item presentation for a Learning Module
Image 4. Instructor view: Content item presentation for a Folder
Image 5. Student view: Content item presentation for a Learning Module
Image 6. Student view: Content item presentation for a Folder
These improvements create a more organized and improved user experience.
To learn more about the visual style changes and to access supporting resources, visit the community blog post here.
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
AI Conversation – 3900.100
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: All users
Related Topic: AI Conversation
It's tough to have 1:1 conversations with every student, especially in large courses. Some instructors are asking students to use AI services for topic-related activities to help. But, with many services and limited instructor visibility, results can vary.
To better serve instructors who want to use AI with students, we're launching a new activity called AI Conversation. This is a Socratic questioning exercise guided by AI. AI Conversation lets students explore their thoughts on a topic.
There are two elements to the activity:
- AI Conversation
- This lets students think critically about the topic that the instructor designs.
- Reflection question
- This asks the student to share their thoughts on the activity. The reflection question also lets the student flag any bias or errors from the AI as part of our Trustworthy AI Approach. Reflection helps students understand the responsible use of AI services.
Instructors have the following configuration options:
- A topic for the AI Conversation
- An AI persona including a name, avatar (can be uploaded or generated), and personality trait
- Complexity level of responses
- Edit the reflection question, guiding the student on how best to reflect on this activity
On submission, the instructor can review the AI conversation transcript and the student's reflection. The AI Conversation is a formative assessment by default, but you’re not restricted to this option.
Image 1. Instructor setting up a topic, AI Persona, and Reflection question
Image 2. Instructor previewing the AI Conversation before making it visible to students
Image 3. A Student participating in the AI Conversation
Image 4. Instructor view of a submitted AI Conversation and reflection question
For administrators: In the building block, ‘AI Design Assistant and Unsplash,' a new option called ‘AI Chat Conversation’ is available. The default state is 'off.' When this feature is ‘on,’ the privilege needs to be assigned to course roles as necessary, such as Instructor. The privilege that needs assigning is ‘Use AI Design Assistant.' When that role creates an AI Conversation in a course that’s visible to students, students will be able to complete the activity. Note that toggling this feature to ‘off’ after deployment will stop the AI Conversation services. Therefore, any AI conversation activities visible to students will not operate as expected.
Tests & Assignments
Review instructor feedback on the student submission review page - 3900.100
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Students
Assessment feedback gives students insights into their strengths and weaknesses. It also helps them refine their skills and knowledge.
We are introducing a new student-facing submission review page for assignments. The new page makes all instructor feedback on a submission more accessible. We are planning to add this same feature for tests in a future release.
Students can access the new assignment submission review page from these locations:
- The gradebook feedback button for the assignment.
- The small panel that displays when students access an assignment from the Course Content page.
If a student submits multiple attempts, they can review each on the submission review page. By default, the student sees the appropriate graded attempt. The instructor defines which attempt to grade in the assignment's final grade calculation setting.
The new assignment submission review page displays the following information and feedback formats:
- Assessment content
- Student submission with inline feedback
- Submission timestamp
- Submission receipt
- Final grade and calculation model
- Attempt grade and feedback
- Override grade and feedback (if applicable)
- Optimized display of rubrics information and criterion feedback
Image 1. The feedback button lets students access the new assignment review page from their gradebook
Image 2. Students can access the new assignment submission review page by selecting the "3 submitted" link and the "Your Grade" label on the assignment’s settings panel
Image 3: Student view of the assignment submission review page, displaying the inline feedback, attempt feedback, and rubric information
Image 4: Student view of the assignment submission review page; in this example, the instructor has overridden the final grade and provided override feedback; the inline feedback and rubric information are also visible
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
Access assignment feedback hidden by release conditions - 3900.100
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Students
Students must access feedback on past submissions. Feedback review is vital for their academic growth. Now students can access all feedback on their submission, even if the assignment is hidden by a release condition. We are planning to ensure that students have access to all feedback on tests, discussions and journals in future releases.
Image 1. Instructor view of release conditions settings with a date/time release condition combined with the Hide state
Image 2. Student gradebook view of an assignment hidden by a release condition; the ‘Content isn't available’ label indicates the student can’t make further submissions
Image 3: Student view of the assignment submission review page for the hidden assignment; all instructor feedback is displayed
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
Flexible grading
Exclude attempt when grading – 3900.100
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors, Students
Allowing students to submit multiple attempts for an assessment can help them stay on track. It can improve the quality of the assessment and boost student success.
However, there are some circumstances where an attempt doesn’t need to be graded. For example, the student may have submitted the wrong file, or their submission may be incomplete or an outlier.
We added a new option to help instructors remove submissions from the grading workflow without having to delete them. When grading a student, you can now select Exclude Attempt to remove it from the Needs Grading workflow.
If an attempt is excluded, the Excluded label appears above the attempt grade and in the attempt selector. If you need to remove the attempt exclusion, select from the menu.
Grade calculations ignore excluded attempts. Students aren’t automatically granted an additional attempt if an attempt is excluded. You can grant additional attempts to the student via the exception's workflow.
You can exclude any submitted attempt by a student. If you exclude an attempt when the student has no remaining attempts, you receive a warning that their final grade can’t be calculated.
When students review their submissions, a banner notification appears on excluded attempts.
Image 1. Instructor view of the Exclude attempt menu option
Image 2. Instructor view of the Exclude label above the grade and in the attempt selector
Image 3. Warning that a student has no remaining attempts and the final grade can't be calculated
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
View items that need grading and posting in the new Overview tab – 3900.100
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors
To help instructors stay on top of their grading workload, we added an indicator to the Gradebook tab to let you know when there are new submissions to grade. The indicator displays the number that needs grading. If the count goes higher than 99, it displays as 99+.
We also added a new gradebook Overview tab to improve task orientation and grading efficiency. This tab contains two sections: Needs Grading and Needs Posting.
Needs Grading section
If you face a substantial grading workload, the Needs Grading section is a useful tool for prioritizing your tasks. It allows you to see all items ready for grading and a count of the total number of outstanding grading tasks in your course.
This section displays up to five items at a time, ordered by the oldest ungraded submission. For an item, select Grade now to quickly access the submissions you need to grade. If your course has more than five items that need grading, you can use the buttons at the bottom of section to navigate through all pending tasks.
Needs Posting section
The Needs Posting section increases accessibility of assessments with grades that need posting. For an item, select Post now to its grade If there are more than five items that need posting, you can use the buttons at the bottom of section to navigate through the pending tasks.
Image 1. Instructor view of the new Needs Grading count on the Gradebook tab and the Needs Grading section on the new Overview page
Image 2. Instructor view of the new gradebook Overview page where the Needs Grading and Needs posting sections appear
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
View late submissions that need grading – 3900.100
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors
When enabled, the Automatic Zeros gradebook setting gives a zero score to students who haven’t made a submission by the due date.
To help instructors to find and grade late assessment submissions, they are now indicated as Needs Grading on the Grades and Gradable Items gradebook pages.
Image 1. Instructor view of the updated Gradable Items page; the status the assignment now displays 1 to grade for a late submission that needs grading
Image 2. Instructor view of the updated Grades page; the column status displays 0 Graded | 0 Posted and a New Submission label indicating the late submission that needs grading
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
Learner Progression & Personalized Experience
Student Activity Log – 3900.100
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors
Related Topic: Student Activity Log
Instructors often need to review student activity. Student activity helps inform decisions in academic disputes and aids in troubleshooting. You can also analyze the course participation of students at risk.
Instructors can use student participation to support financial aid decisions. For example, requests for tuition fee reimbursements if a student hasn't participated in a course. Course participation records can also help with awarding scholarships.
Now the Student Overview page has a student activity log. Instructors and other higher roles can use the report to check what a particular student did in a course.
Image 1. Student activity log report located in the student overview page
The Activity log can be filtered by event type and can look to the past 140 days. Any information older than that won’t be stored in this report. The log can take up to 20 minutes to update from the last time a student performs an action.
The following events can be found in the report:
- Course Access
- Assessment Started
- Assessment Draft saved
- Assessment Submitted
- Assessment Auto-submitted
- Discussion Access
- Discussion Draft saved
- Discussion Edit
- Discussion Reply
- Discussion Response
- Document Access
- Journal Access
- LTI Item Access
- SCORM item Access
For administrators: A new privilege is available to control role-based access to the student activity log report. Go to Manage Privileges, choose the role you want to add the privilege to, and then select "Course/Organization > Student/Participant > Activity Log."
Integrations
Wiris Upgrade and Benefits – 3900.100
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View, Original Course View
Impact: Instructors, Students
We’ve upgraded the Wiris engine and equation editor to the latest versions to improve performance. Version 8.10.2 of the engine and version 7.23 of the editor improves rendering of subscript and superscript formulas. This upgrade provides a better experience for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics courses.
Image 1. Before the Wiris upgrade
Image 2. After the improvement
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra and Original courses. There are no configurations needed.
Group Attempts Grading Management via Public REST API – 3900.100
Blackboard Learn SaaS, Blackboard Learn 9.1
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Administrators
Related Topic: Blackboard APIs
Group assignments are a crucial component of collaborative learning in Blackboard. Group assignments enable students to work together on projects and submit their collective efforts for evaluation. Effective management and grading of these group submissions are vital for accurately assessing group performance and providing meaningful feedback. Previously, we introduced CRUD operations for managing group assignment attempts. Now we have provided enhanced capability of the Group attempts endpoints to include comprehensive grading functionalities.
- Score. The numeric grade assigned to a group’s submission.
- Notes. Additional notes that an instructor can include regarding the group’s performance or submission details.
- Feedback. Detailed feedback provided to the group, helping students understand their performance and areas for improvement.
This update ensures that instructors can efficiently grade group submissions directly through the public API, enhancing the overall workflow for managing group assessments in Blackboard.
For administrators: The required privileges for Group attempts endpoints can be validated for each endpoint in the API documentation.
Learn Core & Security
Calendar Event Management – 3900.100
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View, Original Course View
Impact: All users
Institutions can now control which users can create events in the Base Navigation Calendar with a new system-level entitlement Calendar>Create Personal event. This update gives institutions greater control over calendar event creation within their learning environment.
If the Calendar>Create Personal event entitlement is not granted:
- Users can’t create personal events in the Base Navigation Calendar.
- Calendar tool is hidden in Base Navigation if users have no existing events in their calendars and lack this entitlement. Users don’t have permission to import Calendar events from external files (Settings).
When users possess the privilege of the Calendar>Create Personal event entitlement:
- Users can create personal events using the Base Navigation Calendar.
- The add calendar option is displayed.
- The Calendar tool appears in Base Navigation.
- Users can import Calendar events from external files (Settings).
For administrators: This feature is available for all System role users including None. There are no configurations needed.
Upgrade to Ultra
Brightspace Conversion Improvements - 3900.100
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience and/or Original Experience
Ultra Course View and/or Original Course View
Impact: Instructors and Administrators
Related Topic: Migrate from D2L Brightspace
- Embedded Multimedia for Assignments and Discussions
- Embedded Multimedia via Media Library Now Supported
- Arithmetic and Significant Figures Question Types
Embedded Multimedia for Assignments and Discussions
We’ve updated the conversion process from Brightspace to Blackboard for Assignments and Discussions. Images embedded in Assignments and Discussions will now convert. Instructors will no longer need to reupload images or multimedia after converting from Brightspace
Embedded Multimedia via Media Library Now Supported
Previously, multimedia added to the Rich Content Editor in Brightspace using the Media Library did not convert properly. Images and multimedia would fail to load, requiring users to reupload them after converting their courses. This issue has been resolved, and multimedia added from the Media Library will convert.
Arithmetic and Significant Figures Question Types
We’ve improved the way we convert Arithmetic and Significant Figure Questions from Brightspace to Blackboard. We preserve more information related to the questions and questions can now be edited to resolve issues that can't be resolved during conversion.
When converting Arithmetic and Significant Figure Question Types from Brightspace to Blackboard, it's important to carefully review all converted questions to ensure accuracy and functionality. Equations constructed using plain text in Brightspace may not accurately transfer to Blackboard, leading to potential errors or formatting issues. These discrepancies can impact the clarity and correctness of the questions, which affects the assessment's validity.
We advise instructors to thoroughly examine each converted question and verify the accuracy of the equations. In some cases, it may be necessary to rebuild the equations partially or entirely to align with Blackboard's formatting and calculation standards. Ensuring the precision of these questions is essential before making the test available to students. Taking the time to review and correct any issues will help maintain the integrity of the assessment and provide a fair testing experience for all students.
For administrators: These features and improvements are available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
Looking for older release notes?
Check out the Blackboard Learn Release Notes Archive for more information on past releases.
