Blackboard Updates 2017-2023: Home

Release Notes for 3900.80 (December 14, 2023) 

For full feature details for both Original and Ultra Courses, please review the corresponding notes for the Learn 3900.80 version included below on this page. Details can also be found Behind the Blackboard. 

The December 2023 - 3900.80 is robust with features in 8 areas:

• Instructional design;
• Tests and assignments;
• Flexible grading;
• Gradebook;
• Integrations;
• Learn core and security;
• Mobile app; and
• Upgrade to Ultra

These improvements impact instructors, students, and administrators. Some features do require administrative action.

Instructors:

• Authentic Discussion and Journal prompts
• Large rubric support
• Group assessment due date exceptions
• Goal alignment to questions in banks
• Prevent students from earning full credit when selecting all answers choices on a multi-select question with partial credit
• Sorting controls in Students and Questions tab
• Grid view sorting controls
• Automatic zero gradebook improvement
• Canvas conversion improvements: Support for Multiple Grade Schemes

Instructors and students:

• Additional image insertion and generate options
• Mobile App: Enhancements to Grades

All users:

• Removal of First Time User Experience pop-ups
• Improved mobile experience for Course Content page

 

Release Notes for 3900.78 (November, 2023) 

For full feature details please review the corresponding notes for the Learn 3900.78.0 version. Most changes in this update are for Ultra Courses. 

Release Notes for 3900.76 (October, 2023) 

For full feature details for both Original and Ultra Courses, please review the corresponding notes for the Learn 3900.76 version included below on this page. Details can also be found Behind the Blackboard. 

• Collaborative documents foster active engagement and dynamic interaction among participants. Instructors can now create a Google Workspace collaborative document.

  Supported file types include:

• Google Docs
• Google Sheets
• Google Slides
• In the Original Course View, a link appears in the Build Content menu and/or the add content button (+) in the content editor. The system administrator can decide the specific name in the Original Course View. An instructor can choose to create an item or edit an existing item and select the + symbol from the content editor. Select the “Google Cloud Collaboration document” to continue. Instructors may need to sign into a Google account to continue. Instructors can select an existing document or create a new file for collaboration. All student members of the course can access the file with permission to edit.

 

Release Notes for 3900.74 (September 7, 2023) 

For full feature details for both Original and Ultra Courses, please review the corresponding notes for the Learn 3900.74 version included below on this page. Details can also be found Behind the Blackboard. 

• Ensuring accessible and inclusive experiences for our students is of paramount importance. We have taken a significant step forward by implementing automatic captioning for audio and video content used in assessment feedback and announcements. This feature enhances accessibility and fosters inclusivity. Auto-captioning also supports diverse language preferences, aligning with the user's chosen language in Learn.

• Collaborative documents foster active engagement and dynamic interaction among participants. Instructors can now create a Google Workspace collaborative document.

  Supported file types include:

• Google Docs
• Google Sheets
• Google Slides

 

 

Release Notes for 3900.71 (August 3, 2023) 

For full feature details for both Original and Ultra Courses, please review the corresponding notes for the Learn 3900.71 version included below on this page. Details can also be found Behind the Blackboard. 

• The course banner image provides a sense of identity for the course. The image establishes a connection between the content and the course participants. To provide a better user experience, we have improved the image setting workflow

• The Courses page is a popular entry point to courses for instructors and students. For both list and tile views of Courses, we've added course start dates or start now prompts. These indicators help users understand what's happening with each course.

  Now the course status appears both in the image on the course and as text beneath the course title. When a course is Private and has a start date defined in the future, the date also displays.

• We have partnered with Google to create a new LTI integration for Google Workspace tools in Learn. This new intuitive workflow allows instructors to add Google Workspace files to:

• The course content area
• Learning Modules
• Folders

• File linking for Google Workspace is important for many reasons:

• File linking provides a link to a Google Workspace file. Linking reduces duplicate copies of a file in courses. This helps to reduce on-screen clutter and storage space usage.

• The instructor may need to sign into their Google Workspace account to view and select their files. After adding the Google file, the instructor can allow Class conversations to the file and align Goals and Standards. The instructor can also add a description before saving. Instructors can view and edit the Google file inline. The instructor can rename the file and control the student visibility.

  When the instructor makes the file(s) visible to the student, their view is read-only.

•  

• We have updated our system to enhance security and meet IL4 certification requirements. Administrators can now restrict users from accessing Learn on more than one device at the same time. At login, users receive a notification that they will be logged out from any other devices.

  This feature can benefit institutions that would like to increase academic honesty during assessments by restricting the number of devices used by a single user.

  Linking allows instructors to edit the file, with all links to the file reflecting the most current version. This approach provides greater efficiency and saves the instructor time.
• Google Workspace files can be edited inline, improving the user experience.
• File linking enhances the student experience since access to the file is in context.

 

Release Notes for 3900.69 (July, 2023) 

For full feature details please review the corresponding notes for the Learn 3900.69 version included below on this page. Details can also be found Behind the Blackboard.

The July 2023 - 3900.69 release is replete with features in six areas:

• Assessment and grading;
• Richer course and content;
• Data and analytics;
• Mobile app;
• Integration, extension, and management; and
• Course upgrading

These improvements impact instructors, students, and administrators. Some features do require administrative action.

Instructors:

• Partial and negative credit improvements for the Multiple Choice / Multiple Select question type
• Tab navigation for Assessments
• Add exceptions for anonymously graded assessments
• Exceptions panel updates
• Delete Grade Schemas
• File deletion in the course also removes the file from the Content Collection
• Manage Course Duration in Course Settings Panel
• Import Instructure Canvas course packages
• Improved flattening logic

Instructors and students:

• Formative label and Gradebook filter
• Complete/incomplete grade schema
• Send reminders to non-submitters for anonymously graded assessments

Students:

• Start, Continue, and View Assessment options and file submission updates
• Progress Tracking and Start / Continue / Completed options for Learning Modules

All users:

• Resizing media
• Improvements to the Grades landing page
• Manage Messages at institutional level
• Self-enroll for Ultra Courses and Organizations

 

Release Notes for 3900.67 (June 1, 2023) 

The June 2023 - 3900.67 release is robust with features in six areas:

• Assessment and grading;
• Richer course and content;
• Data and analytics;
• Communication and social engagement;
• Integration, extension, and management; and
• Course upgrading

These improvements impact instructors, students, and administrators. Some features do require administrative action.

Instructors:

• Add Exemptions for Anonymous Assessments
• Add Exceptions from Gradebook Grid View and Student Overview page
• ‘Base calculation on points earned out of total graded points’ support for Custom Calculations
• Upload questions from a file to tests
• Support for anonymous grading of tests
• Journals Grades & Participation list filters

Instructors and students:

• Course Links improvements
• Announcements in the top navigation
• Course Term display logic improvements

Students:

• Original Course View: Improved Assignment Submission page

All users:

• Additional Level of Content Nesting
• Prevent passwords exposed in data breaches

 

Release Notes for 3900.65 (May 18, 2023) 

For full feature details please review the corresponding notes for the Learn 3900.65.0 version included below on this page.

The May 2023 - 3900.65 release is robust with features in five areas:

• Assessment and grading;
• Richer course and content;
• Data and analytics;
• Integration, extension, and management; and
• Course upgrading

These improvements impact instructors, students, and administrators. Some features do require administrative action.

Instructors:

• Grading attempt selector improvements
• Question Banks - Reuse Questions option
• Add Exemptions via the gradebook grid view
• Rubrics improvements
• Send Messages from the Submission page
• Remove category assignment requirement when editing LTI items via the gradebook
• Hotspot question zoom in / out
• Drag and drop desktop folders to upload to the Course Content page
• Instructor’s Notes on Student Overview
• Improved conversion for Flickr Mashups
• Improved conversion for Discussion Forums and Threads

Instructors and students:

• Prevent backtracking in tests with page breaks
• Control where Web Links open

All users:

• Symbol font removed in Original Course View
• Personal information restricted in passwords

 

Release Notes for 3900.62 (April 6, 2023) 

For full feature details please review the corresponding notes for the Learn 3900.62.0 version included below on this page

The April 2023 - 3900.62 release is robust with features in five areas:

• Assessment and grading;
• Richer course and content;
• Data and analytics;
• Integration, extension, and management; and
• Course upgrading

These improvements impact instructors, students, and administrators. Some features do require administrative action.

Instructors:

• Multiple Grading Schemas: Add, Edit, Copy
• Submission page sorting controls
• Gradable Items View usability improvements
• Discussion navigation improvements
• Deactivated students no longer show in student progress reports
• New access points to Student Overview
• Course Activity Report accessibility improvements

Instructors and students:

• Hotspot question: Circle Shape and Usability Improvements
• Bb Annotate: Enhanced comments
• Cloud document “Refresh” button improvement

All users:

• Course Content Title Search
• Primary Instructor improvements
• Course Upgrading: Remove HTML for plain text fields
• Updated Text for Copies and Imports

 

Release Notes for 3900.60 (April 2023) 

We commit to providing accessible and inclusive solutions for all users. Many users navigate Ultra using assistive technologies. To better support instructors using assistive technology, we have made several accessibility improvements to the Course Activity Report:

• The description of the Course Activity Report includes a “Learn more” link. Now the screen reader states this link, directing the instructor to the related Help documentation.
• Instructors can sort data on any column. Now screen readers indicate if column sorting is in ascending or descending order.
• Instructors can select many students to send messages. Now screen readers state the number of students selected.
• Screen readers now state when an instructor selects or deselects all students.
• In medium and small screens some options of the Course Activity Report combine in a single drop-down menu. Now screen readers state that the 3-dot menu contains more options.

Image 1. The screen reader indicates the “Learn more” link directs the user to the related help page

Image 2. The screen reader indicates that sorting is applied to the Overall Grade in descending order

Image 3. The screen reader indicates that 2 students are selected

Image 4. The screen reader indicates that the 3-dots button displayed in medium and small screens contains more options

For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed. To experience these improvements, users need to turn on a screen reader tool using the assistive technology installed on their personal devices.

 

 

Release Notes for 3900.58 (March 2023) 

Before this release, the only way to prevent posts in a discussion was by defining a due date. Instructors now have a checkbox option in the Discussion Settings panel. When checked, participants cannot edit or delete posts in a discussion.

Image 1. Instructor view - Deactivate Post Activity in the Discussion Settings panel

Image 2. Student view – Discussion view after the instructor has elected to prevent editing

Release Notes for 3900.56 (January 5, 2023) 
Blackboard has released notes on its latest service pack.

Base Navigation: Visibility controls for the Course and Organization Catalog, Hide Organizations tab

Institutions have different policies and use different tools. Some institutions do not use Organizations. Previously, administrators couldn’t hide the Organizations tab in Base Navigation. This could confuse users. Now, the availability of the Course Catalog and Organization Catalog can be configured independently. This lets administrators configure how Organizations are used at the institution:

• If an institution doesn’t want to use Organizations, they should turn off the Organization Catalog and not enroll users in Organizations. This will hide the Organizations tab in Base Navigation from all users.
• If an institution wants to use Organizations for some users but hide the Organizations tab from others, they should turn off the Organization Catalog. Administrators would then enroll appropriate users into Organizations. When a user has an active enrollment in an Organization, they see the Organizations tab in Base Navigation. Users without an Organization will not see the Organizations tab in Base navigation.
• If an institution wants all users to see the Organizations tab in Base Navigation, they should turn on the Organization Catalog. This is the default setting.

Original Course View: “Needs Grading” retains tasks when AWS auto-scales

Because Learn SaaS is in the cloud, the application scales on demand. When more users are on Learn, the cloud provides more resources. In the past in Original Course View, this cloud scaling could disrupt instructors grading student work. Instructors navigating to their next task in “needs grading” would see an error.

Now instructors can navigate to their next task even when the application scales. In some cases, instructors can’t return to completed tasks. If this happens, instructors receive clear instructions to return to the Grade Center where they can review these submissions.

Release Notes for 3900.54 (December 1, 2022) 
Blackboard has released notes on its latest service pack.

Icon Display and Synchronization for 3rd Party App Content (LTI)

Content from third-party apps are a significant portion of materials and activities in many courses. Generic icons for these materials made it difficult for users to understand their purpose. Now unique icons can be displayed for each third-party content type. These icons can be set by the tool provider or by the institution administrator. When an icon is not set, third-party contents show a generic icon.

Release Notes for 3900.52 (November 1, 2022) 
Blackboard has released notes on its latest service pack.

Content Areas Display LTI Tool Icon

Inclusion of learning tools is important to some instructors. These tools help provide diverse and engaging course content. In the past, the icons for LTI tools were not meaningful for students and instructors. Now administrators can link LTI tools to appropriate icons. This provides users with greater confidence as they engage with LTI tools in the course.

Unread Messages indicator for Courses and Organizations

In the past it was difficult for users to know which courses and organizations contained unread messages. Now there is an unread messages indicator for courses and organizations on the Messages tab in the Ultra Base Navigation. This indicator helps users know where to direct their attention.

 

 

Release Notes for 3900.50 (October, 2022) 
Blackboard has released notes on its latest service pack.

The October 2022 - 3900.50 release is complete with features in four areas:

• assessment and grading;
• richer course and content design;
• integration, extension, and management; and
• course upgrading.

These improvements primarily impact instructors and students. Some features do require administrative action.

Instructors:

• Improved access to Student Grades Overview
• Student Progress report for course content
• Preserving the forced sequencing setting on Learning Modules during course upgrades

Instructors and students:

• Math Formulas accessible with screen readers

Students:

• Enhanced auto save capability in the Content Editor in Tests & Assignments

All users:

• Global HTML Filter Requirement Change
• Messages for courses with +100 people
• Improvements to Blackboard App Settings
• Base Navigation - Grades: Reduce height of course tiles for courses without grades
• Course Name in browser tab

Release Notes for 3900.48 (September, 2022) 
Blackboard has released notes on its latest service pack.

The September 2022 - 3900.48 release is complete with features in four areas:

• assessment and grading;
• richer course and content design;
• diversity, equity, and inclusion; and 
• integration, extension, and management.

These improvements primarily impact instructors and students, but value is truly added for all users. Some features do require administrative action.

Instructors:

• Rubric Copy between Courses
• Question Bank Sorting Controls
• Discussion replies are available on the individual discussion grading page
• Grade History: Non-Posted Grades included
• Set points for manually added gradable items
• Prevent copying an entire course into the same course

Instructors and students:

• Summary list of annotations for inline grading

Students:

• Test Timer Notifications
• Improved Access to Feedback

All users:

• Display Name Choice
• Activity Stream navigation improvements

Release Notes for 3900.44 (July 7, 2022) 
Blackboard has released notes on its latest service pack.

Copy Question Banks - Instructors spend a great amount of time building and refining assessment questions. Reusing these questions across courses is of utmost importance. Now instructors can copy question banks from Original and Ultra courses. This saves time and provides greater efficiency.

From the Copy Content menu, instructors may select the Question Banks folder from the desired course. To copy all banks the instructor may select the checkbox for the Question Bank folder.
To copy individual banks the instructor may select the Question Banks folder to open it. Select the checkbox for each bank to copy.
Copied Question Banks appear in the Question Banks area. Select 'Manage banks' in the Details & Actions menu to review all question banks in the course.

Personal Pronouns & Pronunciation - This release continues to deliver on planned diversity and inclusion improvements. Institutions can allow users to express their personal pronouns. This fosters greater respect among students and with faculty.

Institutions can also enable name pronunciation. Users can add text guidance to describe the pronunciation of their names for other users. Users can record the pronunciation of their names. The recording tool counts down to when the recording begins. The recording may be up to 20 seconds long. For accessibility reasons, text guidance must be allowed if name recording is enabled. Recordings are compressed and included in storage use calculations.

If a user has pronoun or pronunciation information, it is displayed on a profile card. Selecting any avatar icon in Original Course View displays the profile card. All avatars are selectable in user lists, course tools, and grading workflows.

Known issue in Safari browsers: There is a known issue creating or playing pronunciation recordings in Safari. The issue is because of a mismatch of compression codecs that Safari supports.
 

Release Notes for 3900.41 (June 23, 2022) 
Blackboard has released notes on its latest service pack. None relate to user experience in Original Course View.

 

Release Notes for 3900.46 (August 4, 2022) 
Blackboard has released notes on its latest service pack.

Microsoft OneDrive: Create a Collaborative Document 

Collaborative documents provide students opportunities to engage with one another and course content. Instructors can now create a Microsoft OneDrive collaborative document in the Ultra and Original Course Views.

Supported file types:

• Microsoft Word
• Microsoft Excel
• Microsoft PowerPoint

 

An instructor can choose to create an item or edit an existing item and select the + symbol from the content editor. Select the "Microsoft Cloud Collaboration document" to continue.

 

Instructors may need to sign into a Microsoft account to continue.

Instructors can select an existing document or create a new file for collaboration.

All student members of the course can access the file. 

Students select "Edit Document" to begin collaborating on the document.

Microsoft Teams Meetings 
Impact: Instructors, Students, and any course role with privileges to engage and access Teams meetings

Microsoft Teams supports communication and collaboration for instructors and students. Now Microsoft Teams Meetings seamlessly integrates in Ultra courses. In the Original Experience and Original course view, users may access Teams Meetings from the Course Tools.

This integration includes easy access recordings and options to manage meeting settings. In addition, and for the Ultra course view only, we built Teams Meetings into the existing Teams classes integration and data sync process. This allows instructors to access the Ultra course roster while scheduling meetings.

With this integration, instructors will be able to:

• Schedule new or reoccurring Teams Meetings
• Invite specific users from the course or the entire course
• Access recordings
• When integrated with Teams Classes, support scheduling of Teams Meetings for dedicated Teams channels (Ultra course view only)
• All scheduled Teams Meetings will populate in the Teams and Outlook calendar

This integration is available on both the desktop and mobile app. The integration supports access to Teams from within the Teams app. Users can also access Teams Meetings from the Original course view. Teams Meetings may be used as a replacement to the existing Microsoft Teams meeting scheduler

Unified Blackboard App 

In the past we had two separate mobile apps: the Blackboard App and the Blackboard Instructor App. The two apps caused confusion for many instructors. They did not realize that they needed to use a different app to manage their courses.

With this release, we are consolidating to a single app for both instructors and students. The user experience will change based on the user’s role within a course. Instructors can use the updated Blackboard app for both Original and Ultra courses.

 

 

File Upload Indicator for Original Course View

Blackboard Learn SaaS, Learn 9.1
Original Experience
Original Course View
Impact: All users

Users sometimes upload large files or have slow upload speeds. In Original Course View, it may not be clear to users that anything is happening. Some pages in Original Course View will now display a file upload indicator after users submit. We added this upload animation to four course tools where large file uploads are most common. Other pages stay the same. The upload indicator will now appear on these pages:

• Assignment Submission
• Content Item
• Discussion Board Thread or Reply
• SCORM

Image 1. Before – no file upload indicator

 

 

Image 2. After – new file upload indicator

 

Release Notes for 3900.39 (May 5, 2022) 

This release features a variety of improvements. Some improvements center on assessment and grading and better, more efficient workflows. Other features focus on refinement based on instructor, student, and administrator feedback.

The May 2022 - 3900.39 release includes several new features.

Instructors:

• Weighted Overall Grade calculation improvements
• Prohibit late submissions – usability improvements
• Support "undo" and “redo” capability in Bb Annotate
• Granular Content Copy improvements

Instructors and students:

• Journals display more than 50 entries

Students:

• Test question filtering - 

  Test-taking anxiety is real. We want students' experiences taking tests to be as worry free as possible. To support students well, we are introducing

• a question filter,
• an unanswered question warning, and
• a choice to hide the timer on timed tests.
  
  The question filter supports common test taking strategies. For example, students may complete questions they know first and skip harder ones. The filter enables students to quickly return to skipped questions. Students may also use the filter to find essay questions
  
  If a student submits a test with unanswered questions, a warning will alert the student. The alert shows the number of unanswered questions. The student may choose to submit the test or keep working. If the student chooses to keep working, the unanswered questions filter auto applies. The unanswered questions display automatically.

In response to student feedback, students may now choose to hide the timer in timed tests. This may help to reduce pressure and anxiety during assessments. When students hide the timer, the timer icon stays visible. Students may view the remaining time as needed.

All users:

• Session time-out warning improvement
• Improvements to permissions (system and course roles with corresponding permissions)
• Manage image title attribute in Original course Content Editor

 

Release Notes for 3900.37 (April 7, 2022) 

Learner support is a key part of exemplary course building and instruction. To better enable instructors to support students, we have expanded submission receipt functionality. For each attempt a student makes, the instructor can search for a receipt confirmation number. This helps instructors find student submissions when extra verification is needed. Using this receipt confirmation number, the instructor can find the following information:

• assessment name
• assessment grade
• the number of attempts for an assessment the student who submitted the assessment
• the size of any file included with the submission; this allows the instructor to insight into what a student has attached for marking
• submission date and time stamp

This information appears on the peek panel for all submitted attempts.

Image 1. Submission date and time stamp, file size, and submission receipt number for all attempts.

The receipt number and size of any attached files appears at the top of the submission view.

Image 2. Submission receipt number, date and time stamp, and file size on the submission view.

Video: Submission receipt enhancements shows expanded submission receipt functionality for instructors and students.

In-product updates and user engagement surveys - 3900.37

 

To help users understand changes and effectively use new features, we are introducing in-product updates. Product updates are brief mentions of what is new in the Original Course View. Product updates will vary by role. For example, instructors will have different updates from students.
We strive to be data-informed to help make our products better. Feedback and input from those who use our products every day is a critical part of this process. User engagement surveys are brief polls launched to a small sample of users. Each survey has its own purpose. For example, a survey might ask users to rate their overall experience of a feature or workflow. A user can easily dismiss a survey and will not see the survey again. Only a small set of users will see the survey. The collected feedback will help us improve the product and prioritize our roadmap. We will share survey results with our clients.
 

For instructors and administrators:

• Product updates and user engagement surveys do not support right to left languages.
• These new settings apply to Base Navigation and include Original and Ultra courses.
• Both options are off by default in the April release. In the May release, the options will be on by default. Administrators will be able to opt out if desired.
• Administrators can define the setting for their institution: Administrator Panel | Configure Ultra Experience.

Session timeout warning for Original Course View

When a user is idle for over three hours the session ends, although your institution may have have a shorter log out for idle behavior. A user must login again to continue to use Learn. If a user saves a page or selects a button, the session refreshes and stays active for three more hours. There can be times a user is working but considered idle.

This happens because the browser is not sending data to Learn. Some examples are when a user is:

• authoring a Discussion Board post,
• authoring an Assignment submission in the text editor in Learn, or
• creating a Content Item.

With this release, users whose session is ending soon will receive a warning. This warning will appear at least six minutes before the session times out. If the user closes the warning before the session ends, the session will extend for three more hours. This is the primary scenario for this improvement. The goal is to help users who have been authoring for an exceptionally long time not to lose their work.

A user away from the computer for an extended time will receive the warning. Yet the user will not be able to extend their session. When the user closes the warning, they will return to the current page instead of returning to the login page. This allows the user to copy anything authored before it is lost. A user in this situation will redirect to the login page when they select any link or button on the page.

Image 1. Session Expiring Soon warning

With this release, for a user who was away from their computer for a long time it will be unclear when the warning appeared. Thus, the user will not know if the session renewed or not. We are considering future improvements for session timeout behavior. This release focuses on helping users who have been idle to the server but engaged in authoring content. The goal is to help these users not lose authored content.

 

Release Notes for 3900.34 (March 10, 2022) 

Automatic grades release for 3rd party tools using LTI Advantage - 3900.34.0

We support the latest interoperability standards for adding 3rd-party apps into your courses. We use LTI Advantage from IMS Global. In the past, scores from integrated apps would not auto-post in Ultra Course View. This required instructors to act so students could see their grades.

The specification for LTI Advantage was ambiguous about how to handle grade visibility. We partnered with the IMS organization to update the standard. Now the LTI Advantage / LTI v1.3 tools can define whether grades should auto-post to students.

Updated behavior for tools

• Original Course View: The behavior for LTI Advantage tools remains unchanged. Grades auto-release when the tool sends scores. One exception exists when the Grade Center column is not visible.

New capability for tools

We also now support the ability for an LTI Advantage tool to manage the release of grades. When appropriate, grades auto-post to students. 

• Original Course View: If a tool sets that grades should not auto-post, scores sent to the Learn Grade Center appear behind a “Needs Grading” status indicator. Students and instructors see that students have submitted work but not the result. When the tool releases grades, all students will see their scores.

The improvements in this release are specific to LTI Advantage/LTI 1.3 tools. Behavior for older LTI 1.1 tools remains unchanged. 

Microsoft OneDrive - Document Linking - 3900.34.0

 

We have partnered with Microsoft to create a new LTI integration for OneDrive. Once enabled, this integration can be accessed within the Original Course View. This new intuitive workflow allows instructors to add OneDrive files to:

• the Course Content area
• Learning Modules
• Folders

Document linking for Microsoft OneDrive is important for many reasons.

• Document linking provides a link to a document instead of duplicate copies of a file in courses. This helps reduce storage space used.
• Linking allows instructors to edit a single document. All links to the file reflect the most current version of the document. This approach provides greater efficiency and saves the instructor time.
• The OneDrive integration enables instructors to edit the file from an Original course. This is a time saver for instructors.
• Instructors access and manage OneDrive storage from within Learn. This provides a centralized and at-your-fingertips location for access and management.
• Students can access and manage their own OneDrive storage from within Learn. Students can submit content from OneDrive using the rich text editor in Learn. This option provides greater choice and flexibility for content sharing.

The instructor may need to sign into a Microsoft account to view and select files. After adding the OneDrive file, the instructor may rename the file link in the course. The instructor can control the student visibility/availability setting. The instructor can enter full screen to edit the content of the file. When selecting this option, a new browser tab opens, and the file will be editable.

Figure 1. Add a OneDrive file to the Course Content.

 

Figure 2. Select the OneDrive file.

 

Figure 3. To change the name of the file and set visibility, select the file.

 

Figure 4. After changing the title and visibility, the instructor can modify the contents of the file by selecting the "Full Screen" option.

 

Figure 5. The instructor can make edits as desired.

 

The student has a read-only view of the file in the course.

Other existing LTI options in the course remain unchanged:

• Rich text editor (Ultra and Original)
• Build Content (Original)
• Course Tools (Original)

 

Release Notes for 3900.28 (March, 2022) 

Automatic grades release for 3rd party tools using LTI Advantage - 3900.34.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS, Learn 9.1 MH/SH
Original & Ultra Experience, Original & Ultra Course Views
Impact: Instructors and Students

We support the latest interoperability standards for adding 3rd-party apps into your courses. We use LTI Advantage from IMS Global. In the past, scores from integrated apps would not auto-post in Ultra Course View. This required instructors to act so students could see their grades.

The specification for LTI Advantage was ambiguous about how to handle grade visibility. We partnered with the IMS organization to update the standard. Now the LTI Advantage / LTI v1.3 tools can define whether grades should auto-post to students.

Updated behavior for tools

• Ultra Course View: We now default to auto-post grades for LTI Advantage tools. Instructors will not have to remember to post grades. One exception exists when a tool indicates that grades should not post to students.
• Original Course View: The behavior for LTI Advantage tools remains unchanged. Grades auto-release when the tool sends scores. One exception exists when the Grade Center column is not visible.

New capability for tools

We also now support the ability for an LTI Advantage tool to manage the release of grades. When appropriate, grades auto-post to students. TurnItIn, for example, plans to use this approach in an upcoming release.

• Ultra Course View: If a tool sets that grades should not auto-post, scores sent to the Learn Gradebook only display to instructors. Instructors can choose to post grades for students, or the tool can auto-release grades later.
• Original Course View: If a tool sets that grades should not auto-post, scores sent to the Learn Grade Center appear behind a “Needs Grading” status indicator. Students and instructors see that students have submitted work but not the result. When the tool releases grades, all students will see their scores.

The improvements in this release are specific to LTI Advantage/LTI 1.3 tools. Behavior for older LTI 1.1 tools remains unchanged. For older LTI 1.1 tools in Ultra Course View, new scores sent from tools are always auto posted.

For developers and tool providers: LTI Advantage has a new Line Item attribute - gradesReleased. You can specify it in a Deep Linking message or an Assignment and Grades service call. You only need to update your tool if you want to send scores to Learn but release them to students later. The default value for gradesReleased is true if you do not specify the attribute. When set to false, students will not see scores sent to the gradebook. When the attribute is true, students see current scores and future updates. If you use the gradesReleased=false attribute and want to maintain compatibility with Original Course View, you will need to manage the release of grades. Instructors do not have a post action in Original Course View to release grades. Instructors do have the post action in Ultra Course View.

 

Microsoft OneDrive - Document Linking - 3900.34.0

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

We have partnered with Microsoft to create a new LTI integration for OneDrive. If enabled, this new, intuitive workflow allows instructors to add OneDrive files to:

• the Course Content area
• Learning Modules
• Folders

The instructor may need to sign into a Microsoft account to view and select files. After adding the OneDrive file, the instructor may rename the file in the course. The instructor may also set student visibility. To edit the content of the file, the instructor may enter full screen. A new browser tab opens, and the file is now editable.

Figure 1. Add a OneDrive file to the Course Content.

 

Figure 2. Select the OneDrive file.

 

Figure 3. To change the name of the file and set visibility, select the file.

 

Figure 4. After changing the title and visibility, the instructor can modify the contents of the file by selecting the "Full Screen" option.

 

Figure 5. The instructor can make edits as desired.

 

The student has a read-only view of the file in the course.

Other existing LTI options in the course remain unchanged:

• Content Market
• Books and Tools
• Rich text editor

For Administrators: Please register the LTI Tool Provider in the Administrator Panel.

 

Automatic cleanup of user-created archive and export packages - 3900.34.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS, Learn 9.1 MH/SH
Original and Ultra Experience, Original and Ultra Course Views
Impact: Users with permission to create course packages (Administrators; in some cases, instructors, course builders, and other privileged users)

Export and archive packages within a course will now have auto-delete settings. This automatic cleanup enables institutions to reduce storage space used. The auto-cleanup also allows administrators to control storage growth. This also saves time and reduces frustration for administrators.

In the past, all packages remained in the course until the deletion of the packages or the course. The retention of the course packages resulted in extensive storage usage.

Existing user-generated course packages will be set to expire in 90 days from the 3900.34 upgrade. This gives more time to copy packages to external storage if needed. In the course package list view, the expiry date for these packages will reflect a 90-day expiry. Packages are deleted on the expiry day.

Course packages created after the upgrade to 3900.34 will expire and auto-delete 30 days after the creation date.

We will notify users of this behavior in three ways:

• When creating the package, the interface informs the user of this time constraint.
• The notification that a package is ready to download informs the user of the time constraint.
• In the course package list view for the course, the removal date displays for each package.

This improvement does not change the way administrators delete courses. These changes only apply to the export/archive packages stored within the course. There are no changes to the behavior of automatic archive creation or deletion.

For Administrators: Please leverage your own communication channels to reinforce this change to affected users.

Highlight on bug fixes - 3900.34.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience and Original Experience

The bug fixes in this Learn release include:

• Date picker uses the default server time zone rather than the user’s time zone: The date/time selector for course duration on course management pages uses the default server time zone rather than the user’s time zone.
  
  This applies to course properties management:

  • in the administrator panel
  • in course settings for the Original Course View when instructors have access to course properties
  • To provide greater clarity, we have added a time zone indicator to display the time zone that applies. For example, a Learn environment with a default time set to US Eastern Standard Time (EST) would display UTC –05:00.

Release Notes for 3900.28 (February, 2022) 

Pronunciation display and recording - 3900.32.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience and Original Experience (pronunciation description only)
Impact: All users

When enabled, all users can add text guidance and an audio recording of their name to their user profile. Users can use the text guidance to describe the pronunciation of their names for other users. Users can record the pronunciation of their name. The recording tool counts down to when the recording begins. The recording may be up to 20 seconds long.

If enabled, text guidance and audio recordings appear with pronouns in these locations:

Assessments

• Group Assessments
  • A user can see group pronunciation information in the overview panel.
  • A user can see group members’ pronunciation information while taking the assessment.
• Peer Review
  • A user entitled to see peer reviewers’ names can see their pronunciation information. This information displays above their feedback when viewing a student’s attempt.

Course Roster

• Roster
  • Users can see other users’ pronunciation information in the course roster view.
• User Management
  • A user can see pronunciation information when searching for users to enroll.
  • A user can see a user’s pronunciation information when editing users in the course roster.
  • A user can see a user’s pronunciation information when editing their accommodations.

Communication Tools

• Discussions
  • Users can see other users’ pronunciation information with their responses.
• Messages
  • Users can see other users’ pronunciation information when searching for message recipients.
  • Users can see other users’ pronunciation information in the message panel.

Gradebook

• Instructors and graders can see users’ pronunciation information in the grid view.
• Students can see their own pronunciation information when viewing their own grades.

Groups

• A user can see the pronunciation information of users in a group.
• Instructors can see the pronunciation information of students in the group management view.

User profile

• A user can see their own pronunciation information in their profile page.
• A user can see their own pronunciation information when editing their profile.

System administrators should configure this feature. Define preferences from the Customize User Information option in the Users section. Enabling the audio recording option also enables the textual pronunciation description. We have designed this rule for accessibility reasons. You may choose to manage the pronunciation description field through data integration.

Providing this functionality to all users is important to us. We will complete this feature work for other experiences in an upcoming release.

Base Navigation and Original Course View:

For now, if enabled, users can create audio recordings of their name pronunciation. Users may also add a pronunciation description. The pronunciation description appears to users who have privileges to edit others’ profiles. The information will not appear to students in courses.

Original Experience and Learn 9.1:

For now, administrators can enable a text field for pronunciation description. Users may add a pronunciation description. The pronunciation description displays to those with privileges to edit other users’ profiles. Pronunciation information will not display to students in courses.

Known issue in Safari browser:

There is a known issue creating or playing pronunciation recordings in Safari. The issue is because of a mismatch of compression codecs that Safari supports. Safari users will receive warnings about the issue in the interface.

Other improvements - 3900.32.0

Force Completion changes to better support Multiple Attempt Tests

Blackboard Learn SaaS, Learn 9.1
Original Experience
Impact: Instructors, Students

In Original Course View, enabling Force Completion on a test or survey has new behaviors. The Force Completion option now requires a time limit and automatic submission. We made this change to enforce the submission of incomplete or abandoned attempts. This change is important so that instructors can access and grade these attempts. Instructors may also create a multiple attempt assessment with the Force Completion option. This change ensures that students can now start new attempts in this scenario.

Gender Field update: Other

Learn SaaS, Learn 9.1
Ultra Experience and Original Experience
Impact: All users

We have updated the gender field to include a new parameter for "other." This change is important as we strive to focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion in Learn. As part of this work, we have updated REST APIs and SIS Frameworks to map a value of "X" to "other." As a categorical field, gender is primarily important for institutional reporting. The gender field is an option for inclusion in two Learn reports:

• Enterprise Surveys
• Outcomes reports

Note for Administrators: We recommend that administrators do not enable the gender field. Instead, enable the pronouns option for personal expression in teaching and learning. Pronouns provide a more valuable option for self-expression when interacting with course members.

 

Text on Page update: Exceptions setting consistency

Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Impact: Instructors

In the Assessment view list, the descriptive text reads "Edit settings." In the Submission view, the descriptive text reads "Exceptions." We updated both texts, which now read "Add or edit exceptions." This change provides a more consistent experience and improves clarity. We also changed the title of the peek panel. The title was "Edit Submission Settings" but is now "User or Group Exceptions."

Content Editor improvements for Original Course View

Blackboard Learn SaaS, Learn 9.1
Original Experience, Original Course View
Impact: Instructors, Students

• Pasting from Google Docs now gives an option to keep styling or simplify the HTML.
• Users can move the spellchecker window so that it does not cover the text the user is checking for errors.
• Missing icons for table row and column cut/copy/paste will now appear.
•  

Highlight on bug fixes - 3900.32.0

Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience and Original Experience

The bug fixes in this Learn release include:

• Future courses shown as "ended" to students: When a student tried to access a course that began on a future date, the student received this error:
      "This course has ended. You can no longer access this course."
  This message is now updated to provide clearer information.
      "You can't access this course right now. Your instructor will allow access when the course is ready."
• Students received error when trying to access group assessment:
  When a student tried to access a group assessment, the student received this error:
      "Oops! Something went wrong. Please reload the page."
  We corrected this error. Students can now access the group assignment as expected.
• Incorrect submission date on assignment submission receipt:
  The assignment submission receipt included the timestamp when the student started the attempt. The timestamp now shows the time/date the student submitted the attempt.
• Feedback was not saved if the instructor did not click save before updating and saving the grade:
  Feedback was not saved if the instructor did not click save before updating and saving the grade. This problem occurred only in Ultra courses. We have corrected this error. Both the grade and feedback save as expected.

Release Notes for 3700.14 (November 7, 2019) 
Blackboard has released notes on its latest service pack. 

1. The Content Editor didn't load correctly for some users. We've fixed the issue.

2. In the mobile apps, users couldn’t access offline content in courses converted from Original to Ultra Course View. We've fixed the issue

3. Some users got an error message when they downloaded student submissions in certain file formats. We've fixed the issue.

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Release Notes for 3700.14 (November 7, 2019) 
Blackboard has released notes on its latest service pack. 

1. In this release, by default Learn will lock user accounts after 5 failed login attempts. Administrators can disable the feature or edit its limits by selecting Account Lock Settings in the Administrator panel. Administrators can decide the maximum failed attempts allowed within a specified period. They can also choose how long accounts remain locked and whether accounts unlock automatically if users reset their passwords.
2. In this release we removed the ability for the "Guest" account to be enrolled in courses stopping potential data exposure concerns between unauthenticated users. Existing "Guest" account enrollments will remain and be visible to instructors and administrators so they can clean up these existing enrollments through the user interface.
3. Iconography is incredibly important in Learn Ultra. The icon set we currently use was created when we first brought Ultra to the market. We've done a lot of research with our clients regarding what they liked and didn't like about the iconography in the system. Because of that feedback, we've made some adjustments to the icon set. Most notably, the new icons are darker and appear more prominently now.

   

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Release Notes for 3700.11 (October 1, 2019) 
Blackboard has released notes on its latest service pack. 

1. Attendance data isn’t included in a course export or when you copy a course into a new or existing course. The attendance option is removed from the copy and export options.
2. Attendance data is included in an archive/restore and in an exact course copy.
3. Export/import creates an attendance column in the Ultra gradebook and the Original Grade Center that you can’t delete, but no attendance data is added

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Release Notes for 3700.9 (August 15, 2019) 
Blackboard has released notes on its latest service pack. 

1. When instructors prepare a course for an upcoming term, they commonly copy all content, including the gradebook, from the last term’s course. For courses that used the attendance tool, the copied attendance gradebook column was difficult to remove.
   With this release, instructors can delete attendance gradebook columns added during a course copy from the destination course’s gradebook. Instructors can delete copied attendance columns from the gradebook menu. The attendance column that is correctly associated with the course can be deleted if all students’ attendance records are removed first.

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To address recent changes in Oracle’s Java support model, Blackboard Learn is transitioning to adopt a more recent version of Java, Java 11 JDK. Blackboard's new target for adopting Java 11 is 3800.0.0, which is scheduled for SaaS Continuous Delivery release into test on 10 September 2019 and into production on 3 October 2019. You can confirm release dates with the SaaS release schedule.

Release Notes for 3700.9 (August 15, 2019) 
Blackboard has released notes on its latest service pack. 

1. In an Original course, if instructors delete a content folder in a content area that contains graded items with no attempts, the corresponding columns are also deleted from the Grade Center.

2. The banner thumbnail image caused a large number of temporary files to fill the root file structure. We’ve fixed the issue. 

3. Some users received an error message when opening the Grade Center. We've fixed this issue.

 

Release Notes for 3700.7 (August 14, 2019) 
Blackboard has released notes on its latest service pack. 

1. Users experienced extremely slow response times during the upgrade. We’ve fixed the issue.

2. The banner thumbnail image caused a large number of temporary files to fill the root file structure. We’ve fixed the issue.

3. Some users received an error message when opening the Grade Center. We've fixed this issue.

4. When students open an assessment, the Submit button is disabled until they add content or answer at least one question.
5. When a student or instructor uses Box View in an assignment, it opens by default and displays using more screen space.

Release Notes for 3700.5 (July 16, 2019) 
Blackboard has released notes on its latest service pack. 

1. The Discussion Board post count displayed inaccurately.  Blackboard have fixed this issue.
    

Release Notes for 3700.3 (June 21, 2019) 
Blackboard has released notes on its latest service pack. 

1. To ensure privacy, only instructor names—not instructor usernames—appear to students throughout the Ultra experience.
2. Previously, the Courses page in the Ultra experience listed a user's oldest courses first. The order has been flipped and now the newest courses are listed first. If a user designates any courses as favorites, those courses still appear first in the list.

Release Notes for 3700.0 (May 10, 2019) 
Blackboard has released notes on its latest service pack. There wre no changes for Original Course View.

​

Release Notes for 3600.0 (April 4, 2019)
Blackboard has released notes on its latest service pack. 

1. Let Collaborate take attendance for you. In this Collaborate release, Blackboard Learn instructors can host a Collaborate session without tracking attendance manually.

Based on criteria you can set, Collaborate tracks if a student is present, late, or absent from a session. Collaborate then sends that information directly to the Attendance page in your Blackboard Learn course.

Attendance from the Collaborate session is counted in each student's average attendance in the course, which can also be used in calculating student grades.

More on Collaborate attendance reporting in Blackboard Learn SaaS 

2. As part of an earlier release, we added entitlements for course roles so administrators can grant additional permissions for users that allow them to view course content but not modify it. In this release, we expand on those entitlements with respect to gradebook access and control.

Grading within a course is multi-faceted. Assigning a grade is only one piece of the process, which can also include grade maintenance, data download and upload, and release of grades. Institution administrators can grant some or all of these permissions to trusted facilitators to help ease the grading responsibility in larger courses.

Explore use cases for the facilitator role and privileges

3. The Activity Stream is the go-to place for instructors and students to understand what’s happening in a course. We’ve improved reporting behavior so third-party content due dates appear in the Activity Stream in a more dynamic way.  

Previously, instructors and students could see an upcoming due date for this type of content. When the due date passed or the content status changed, the notification in the Activity Stream wouldn’t update. With this release, the Activity Stream more accurately reports on third-party content to keep everyone more up to date. Specifically, LTI and manual grade column notifications will update in the Activity Stream when: 

• The item transitions from due to overdue 
• The item’s due date is updated 
• The item is deleted 
• The item is graded 
• The item’s visibility is changed 
• Instructors and students often use calendars to organize and keep track of events. Access to a course calendar is crucial to meeting deadlines and overall success. Having access to all events—both personal and academic—in one place helps keep everyone one track. In this release, users can synchronize their Blackboard Learn Ultra calendars to external calendars.

 

4. Generate a URL to share course calendar details with an external service. Share the URL only with trusted sources. When you connect your Blackboard Learn calendar to an external calendar, all course events appear one year in the past and into the future.

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Release Notes for 3500.11 (March 7, 2019)

Blackboard has released notes on its latest service pack. 

In this release, Activity Stream notification settings are more granular for students and instructors, giving them the option to choose which information they wish to receive.

Settings have been reformatted so users can select to receive all notifications at a high level, like notifications for new discussions. Users can also choose to see updates about specific events or activity in their Activity Streams. For example, an instructor can choose to be notified when a blog entry is edited.

Existing settings are carried over and saved in the new format. Visual cues display if all, some, or none of the notification types are selected.

More on notification settings for instructors

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Release Notes for 3500.9 (January 31, 2019)

Blackboard has released notes on its latest service pack. 

• When an instructor attached a file as feedback on a graded discussion, students encountered errors trying to download it. We’ve fixed the issue.
• When an unread discussion post appeared as a link in the What’s New module, users encountered errors when opening it. We’ve fixed the issue.
• Calculated questions using exponents in answers in the Original Course View were marked incorrect when students input an acceptable answer. We’ve fixed the issue. 
• Instructors encountered an error when trying to use anonymous grading for attempts still in progress. We’ve fixed the issue.
• To improve performance times and user experience, course messages no longer appear in the activity stream

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Release Notes for 3500.7 (January 3, 2019)

Blackboard has released notes on its latest service pack. 

Fixed Issues:

• Grade Journey wasn’t consistently displaying optional data when the extraction was initiated from merged courses.
• Users may have encountered an error when attempting to download a file package in the Content Collection.
• When a student submission was deleted, attached files were orphaned and retained in storage, sometimes unnecessarily.

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Release Notes for 3500.5 (December 6, 2018)

Blackboard has released notes on its latest service pack. 

Fixed Issues:

• Users saw an error when downloading an annotated PDF with comments. Downloads now include a summary list of comments.
• ·  When a student attempted to access an unavailable course in the Ultra experience, the date was recorded in the Performance Dashboard under “Last Course Access.”
• When a user attempted to access Organizations in the Ultra experience while using a touchscreen device, the page would display an error.
• When the Attendance tool was set to unavailable or inactive at the system level, instructors may have encountered error messages in the gradebook.
• Optional data wasn’t consistently included in Grade Journey extractions using REST.
• When an administrator attempted to move a user from one child course to another, the user enrollment wouldn’t change successfully.
• Students may have had trouble accessing the activity stream due to conflicting backend logic regarding grade columns and due dates.
• Special characters in custom Ultra locales weren’t displaying correctly.
• Course reports weren’t enforcing the date format for the system’s chosen language pack.
• Some devices displayed misaligned numbers for options in multiple choice, either/or, and true/false questions.
• Based on user feedback, we’ve updated the activity stream messages regarding student achievement and activity in courses. The new messages aim to reduce confusion and be more encouraging.
• The Availability Override option didn’t work as expected when a start date wasn’t specified. Students with this privilege can now access courses with or without a specified start date.

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Release Notes for 3500.3 (November 1, 2018)
Blackboard has released notes on its latest service pack. 

• In the Original Course View, users designated as Observers were unable to view files added to the course through the Build Content > Add File workflow. We fixed the issue.
• Attachments to course messages in the Original Course View resulted in the Tomcat temp directory disappearing, which led to other areas of Learn malfunctioning. We fixed the issue.
• When an instructor attempted to grade a group assignment using a rubric and the language pack used commas to designate decimal places, the grade would display inconsistently. We fixed the issue.
• In the Original Course View, pattern matching questions with incorrectly formatted regular expressions in the answer were marked wrong. We fixed the issue.

 

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Release Notes for 3500.0 (October 4, 2018)
Blackboard has released notes on its latest service pack. 

Course page changes include:

 

• Delegated grading lets an instructor share grading responsibilities by assigning course members to grade sets of submissions. Grading and feedback from more than one grader can promote reliability, improve consistency, and remove bias. The instructor can reconcile grades and settle on final scores after the graders have completed their assigned submissions.

  
  The ability to reconcile grades was previously limited to instructors and users who were granted the permission by an administrator. In this release, instructors can grant this permission to graders. The Can reconcile grades option appears when the instructor delegates grading. Instructors can choose to grant the permission to any or all graders who are delegated submissions.

  More on Delegated Grading in the Original Course View

• When an instructor reversed the decision to ignore an attempt in the Original Course View, the message displayed on the screen was unclear and didn’t indicate the workflow. We’ve updated it to say Attempt marked as Not Ignored.
• When a user edited a test question in the Original Course View, some options in the text editor didn’t display correctly. We’ve fixed the issue.

 

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Release Notes for 3400.11 (September 6, 2018)
Blackboard has released notes on its latest service pack. 

Course page changes include:

 

• Users were accustomed to downloading annotated files when Crocodoc handled inline file rendering. With the switch to New Box View, this capability wasn’t available and highly requested. Blackboard listened and developed the ability to download annotated files using the New Box View.  In this release, both instructors and students can download certain file types (DOC, DOCX, PDF) with annotations as an annotated PDF. Students can download the annotated file after their submission has been graded.

Visit Inline Grading and New Box View Update on the Blackboard Community for more information and a video demonstration

• Multimedia is essential in many mixed-mode and online courses, and poor performance can lead to a frustrating user experience. To help speed the delivery of online media, such as video, we’ve added configuration options for administrators to control content delivery through signed URLs. Signed URLs allow content to be delivered directly and securely from cloud storage, which provides faster transfers and requires fewer resources to run on the system. A signed URL is equivalent to the actual file after it’s delivered to the browser.

Release Notes for 3400.9 (July 5, 2018)
Blackboard has released notes on its latest service pack. 

Course page changes include:

 

• Addition of a quick drop down for quick past-term navigation
• Original Course View label added to all Original courses
• Original courses descriptions are now available from the expanded course card view
• Term sub-listings are now displayed on the current courses page to let users scan quickly

More on how terms affect the Courses page in the Ultra experience

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Release Notes for 3400.7 (July 5, 2018)
Blackboard has released notes on its latest service pack. 

You can now view 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 3400.7.0 maintenance issues on Behind the Blackboard.

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Release Notes for 3400.5 (May 31, 2018)
Blackboard has released notes on its latest service pack. 

Improvements to User Privacy in Accordance to General Data Privacy Regulation (GDPR)
Blackboard is committed to protecting the privacy of all users. Due to changing regulations globally concerning use of data and privacy, including the European Union General Data Privacy Regulation (GDPR), this release includes updates that impact user experience.

Miscaellaneous Updates

• We've fixed an error that appeared when an instructor attempted to create an assignment using a Portfolio template in the Original Course View
• The number of points possible for an assessment in the Original Course View was inconsistent when a rubric was applied. This issue has been resolved.
• When students uploaded multiple attachments to Self and Peer Assessments, only the first attachment was displayed. This issue has been resolved.
• On the Goal Performance page, the overall progress for a goal was incorrectly aggregating the performance on aligned course items. This issue has been resolved.

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Release Notes for 3400.3 (May 4, 2018)
Blackboard has released notes on its latest service pack. 

 

Course Page Display
The Courses page in Ultra is a simple, quick way to access all of your courses, including those in the past or in the future. But is it really that simple if you're enrolled in a lot of courses?

 

 

In this release, we've enhanced the Courses page to work for instructors and students who are enrolled in a small or large number of courses. Improvements include:

 

• A new search bar lets a user quickly find one key course without scrolling through all of their courses.
• Course cards now occupy the full width of the list so you can easily read the full course name, instructors, and other key information.
• The Courses page now include pagination for longer lists to improve load speeds and prevent information overload.
• Users can now add courses to a Favorites list for quick access. Favorite courses appear at the top of the course list.
• Courses in the Original Course View appear with a grey course card. Ultra course cards contain colors.

Explore the courses page from the instructor perspective

Miscellaneous Changes

• In both Ultra and Original courses, when instructors first access the attendance feature, they’re able to select Add Attendance and add an attendance column after attendance records are generated. In the Ultra Course View gradebook, instructors can delete attendance if no attendance records exist.

Release Notes for 3400.11 (April 6, 2018)
Blackboard has released notes on its latest service pack. 

• Attendance in the Original Experience now supports Internet Explorer 11.
• When a course Collaborate room is in session, an indicator appears on the Course Content page to let others know the room is in use.
• Content items in the Original Course View were unexpectedly moving their position in a list after being edited. This issue has been resolved.
• Some students who had been removed from an Original course were receiving notifications regarding group activity in the course. This issue has been resolved.
• When upgrading Blackboard Learn, the Mobile Building Block’s environment setting was reset and caused issues for users searching for courses via mobile apps. This issue has been resolved.
• After an upgrade, the scrollbar in the Grade Center appeared on the left side of the screen and obscured information. This issue has been resolved.

 

A special note from Blackboard Product Management

Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery - v3300.11.-  9 March 2018

As we move into 2018, we are thinking about and developing our teaching and learning products toward the greater good of a holistic, next generation digital learning environment through the lens of three critical, unifying product themes: academic effectiveness, learner engagement, and education insight. By focusing on these themes, we will unify the development of our products to empower excellence in teaching and learning, inspire genuine interest, attention, and interaction in the learning process, and enable continuous improvement through accurate and deep understanding of the teaching and learning process.

In the Learn SaaS 3300.11.0 release, we focused our development and design on academic effectiveness, learner engagement, and education insight. You’ll see below that we’ve also aligned our feature list in to groups based on value and benefit to you and your users.

• Rubrics in graded discussions
• Conditional release enhancements
• Outcomes Assessment available in the Ultra Course View

 

Clear multiple choice selection
Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3300.11.0 | Release to Production 9 March 2018
Original Course View

Students are now able to clear a selection from multiple-choice questions. This lets students avoid a penalty when they’ve made an initial selection and negative points are associated with answer choices.

 

Miscellaneous updates
Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3300.11.0 | Release to Production 9 March 2018
Original Experience, Ultra Experience

• We've made indexing improvements to help speed up the migration from Crocodoc to New Box View.
• Previously, instructors using the Swedish language pack in the Original Course View were unable to edit text questions. This issue has been fixed.
• In the Original Experience, date selectors broke when a user accessed Blackboard Learn using a browser set to Swedish, Danish, or Spanish. This issue has been fixed.
• In the Ultra Experience, when a user saved content in the editor that included multiple breaks to create white space, the editor automatically removed some space. This issue has been resolved.

 

Release Notes for 3300.08 (February 2, 2018) 

Blackboard has released notes on its latest service pack.  Please remember that Elmhurst University uses Ultra Experience with Original Course View.

 

Grading Group Discussions

To support instructors who design assessments using groups, we've added the ability to assign grades for group discussions. Instructors may want to use discussion groups to help students feel more comfortable conversing in a course because fewer people are involved. Group discussions can also help students feel freer to speak their minds or encourage students with opposing viewpoints to respectfully make their points.
Instructors can now assign grades to groups in a discussion. Assign one grade to the whole group or change an individual group member's grade if you feel their contribution earned a grade different from the group.

• More on how to grade a group discussion

Miscellaneous Updates

• When a student received a 0 score for a graded item, it appeared as negative on the My Grades page in the Original Course View. This issue has been resolved.
• In both experiences, users who requested a new password weren't obligated to enter a new password when navigating to Learn using the recovery link emailed to them. This issue has been resolved.
• When exporting a course from the Ultra experience, some course IDs weren't appearing in Firefox. This issue has been resolved.
• After upgrading to the 3300.0.0 release, the Default Course View option was reset to Original Course View. This issue has been fixed.
• The following Crocodoc to New Box View issues have been addressed:
  • Inline comments were appearing as HTML. 
  • Students replying to instructor comments received an error message regarding session expiration. The vendor has addressed this issue.

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Release Notes for 3300.06 (January 12, 2018) 

 

• Manual recording of attendance in Blackboard Learn

 

Institutions and instructors want to track attendance for various purposes, including at-risk detection, federal financial aid and accreditation compliance, and to support instructor pedagogical preference where being present is a component of a course grade.

 

• More on how instructors can set up and record attendance

 

• Grade calculations

Now, all gradebook columns (online and downloads) and My Grades support up to five decimal points, aren't rounded and are consistent for all display types (score, percentage, letter grade). This new improvement relies on JavaBigData for all calculations, increasing consistency in edge cases where Java methods may have rounded or calculated differently.

• New text editor in targeted notifications

 

We've enhanced the content editor to use more intuitive iconography and organization. Use the options in the menu to format text and paragraphs. You can also insert links and images using a simplified workflow. This new editor will be introduced to other areas of the application over the next few releases.

 

More on targeted notifications in the Ultra experience

 

• Embed videos in the new content editor

The Ultra experience includes a new content editor, which is being introduced to certain areas of the application with each new release. Starting with this release, you can use the Insert Video option to insert an embedded video directly into the updated content editor. Simply paste the video source, add alternative text, and save – the editor automatically embeds the video so it appears alongside the other content you include. Students can watch the video within the same window, without having to navigate to the video's host site.

 

• Additional attempts in Anonymous Grading

Instructors can now grant an additional attempt for scenarios when the student needs one and the prior attempt can't be cleared because it is in an anonymous state.

 

• Support for large monitors

To improve the user experience on larger screens, the Ultra interface now spans the entire browser window. Previously, the Ultra interface was restricted to a maximum width to ensure consistent appearance and behavior. Now, users can increase the amount of screen real estate the Ultra experience occupies, if they prefer.

 

• Students enter group Collaborate rooms with presenter privileges

Within a group assignment or test, group members may want to communicate with each other about the questions, division of labor, or to review each others’ contributions. For institutions who use Collaborate, groups can use a standing Collaborate session to interact in real-time if the instructor has allowed conversations on the item. Now, when students enter the group Collaborate room, they each have presenter privileges to let them take advantage of more features, such as white boards and application sharing.

More on presenting in a Collaborate session

• Miscellaneous updates

• In some environments, when attempting a test or assignment with math equation images, students were unable to view the image. This error was due to the image not being stored in the appropriate permanent storage location and has been resolved.
• When changing course availability in the Ultra experience, the padlock icon was difficult to visually distinguish as open or closed. The padlock icon has been updated to more clearly show the open or closed state.
• Some error messages have been updated to provide more context for users. For example, empty title or message fields in Targeted Notifications say Please type a title or Please type a message respectively, instead of simply Required.
• In the Original Course View, users who connected to and browsed content from McGraw-Hill and returned to Blackboard Learn were unable to exit the course. This issue has been fixed with the improvements made to LTI launch return behavior.

Release Notes for 3900.26 (December 2, 2021) 

• 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.
   

• BB Annotations: Save preferences / Settings
  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.

• Microsoft Teams integration

  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.  

Release Notes for 3900.26 (November 25, 2021) 

• 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.

Release Notes for 3900.23 (October 7, 2021) 

• 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.
• 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 issues

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

• 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.
• 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.

Release Notes for 3900.21 (September 2, 2021) 

• 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 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.
• 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.
• 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.

 

Release Notes for 3900.19 (anticipated September 2, 2021) 
Blackboard has released notes on its latest service pack.

• 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.

Release Notes for 3900.19 (anticipated August 5, 2021) 
Blackboard has released notes on its latest service pack.

• 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.

• 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.

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.

 

Release Notes for 3900.17 (anticipated July 1, 2021) 
Blackboard has released notes on its latest service pack.

• 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.

 

Release Notes for 3900.15 (June 3, 2021) 
Blackboard has released notes on its latest service pack.

• 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.
• 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 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.

• 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.

Release Notes for 3900.13 (May 6, 2021) 
Blackboard has released notes on its latest service pack.

• 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 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.

 

Release Notes for 3900.10 (April 22, 2021) 
Blackboard has released notes on its latest service pack.

• 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 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.
• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

Release Notes for 3900.8 (March 4, 2021) 
Blackboard has released notes on its latest service pack.

• 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.
• 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 Original Course View, the Goal Performance Dashboard was failing on SaaS Servers for certain reports. We've 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.

 

Release Notes for 3900.6 (February 4, 2021) 
Blackboard has released notes on its latest service pack.

• 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, 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.
• 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.

• 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.

 

Release Notes for 3900.4 (January 14, 2021) 
Blackboard has released notes on its latest service pack.

• 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.

• 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.

 

Release Notes for 3300.02 (November 10, 2017) 

Blackboard will release notes with some changes for Ultra experience with Original Course View for 3300.02:

• Ultra users are notified of various events and activities in courses from the Activity Stream. However, users must log in to see this information, and they may want to be made aware of these notifications when not logged into Learn. To support this, we have added capabilities to send notifications through email. Users can choose which notifications to receive and how often from the Activity Stream and Profile.
• Enhanced the content editor to use more intuitive iconography and organization. Use the options in the menu to format text and paragraphs. You can also insert links and images using a simplified workflow. This new editor will be introduced to other areas of the application over the next few releases.
• Instructors and other privileged course members can see the availability state of the course and change the state from the main course view. All privileged users in a course see an open or closed padlock representing the availability state of the course to students. This is in the course edit management areas with tools such as Student Preview and the Edit Mode toggle.
• The math editor found in the Content Editor has been updated to a newer version of WIRIS. This version adds tools specific to chemistry including an embedded periodic table of elements.

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Release Notes for 3300 (October 13, 2017) 

Blackboard will release notes with some changes for Ultra experience with Original Course View for 3300.00:

• New column sub-heading for total points: For each column in the grid view of the gradebook, you can view the total points for each item or calculation and easily see the grade each student earned.
• Instructors no longer see intermittent permissions errors when attempting to view attachments on student submissions
• An issue with editing content items has been resolved
• An issue with embedded media files not playing in assessment questions has been fixed
• Email settings are preserved when copying materials into an existing course
• Students whose course access has been disabled no longer appear in group membership lists
• Timed assessments sometimes automatically submitted student work prior to the time limit. This issue has been resolved.
• The Rubric type dropdown list appears in courses when the Learn 2016 theme is enabled for the environment
• In the Original Course View, due date settings and rubric associations are retained when an entire forum is copied
• When creating a content item in the Original Course View, images attached using the content editor would break if the filename contained the word 'portfolio.' This issue has been fixed.
• In the Original Course View, unavailable graded forums with due dates no longer appear in the To Do module

 

Crocodoc to New Box View update

 

• Instructors grading assignments can view documents in-line and annotate the document to provide feedback for students. In prior versions, this used a licensed technology called Crocodoc that will be discontinued on January 15, 2018. This release allows institutions to switch to a replacement service from Box entitled New Box View that offers similar capabilities. Prior documents with annotations will be automatically migrated without requiring action from administrators.

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Release Notes for 3200.12 (September 15, 2017) 

Blackboard will release notes some changes for 3200.12:

• When uploading a file through the content editor, the error message has been replaced to provide better guidance.
  • Invalid File Type - You tried to upload an unsupported file type. Select a different file and try again. More on supported file types.
• Course visibility confirmation messages have been updated to explain how availability is tied to academic terms. Instructors and course builders have different options for course availability when the course is associated with an academic term:
  • ​​​When a course is associated with an active term, it can be completed but not made private.

  • When a course is associated with a past or future term, it can’t be made available.

• After a course is converted from the Original Course View to the Ultra Course View, users can download and open content attachments missing file extensions/MIME types without needing to choose the appropriate program.

• Gradebook grid view has been refactored to improve performance and reduce bugs.​

•  Instructors can point to a submission timestamp to view more information. Timestamps appear on students' submission pages.

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Release Notes for 3200.10 (August 24, 2017) 

Blackboard will release notes no new features for instructors for 3200.10.

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Release Notes for 3200.6 (June 23, 2017) and 3200.8 (July 28, 2017)

Blackboard will release notes some changes for 3200.8:

• Internet Explorer 11 is supported for the Ultra login page.
• Overdue notifications no longer appear in the activity stream for students who have submitted at least one attempt on time for a multiple-attempt assessment.
• Performance improvements have been made to address memory leaks. Performance began to suffer during longer sessions in which the user navigated to multiple areas of Ultra. This release addresses those issues.
• The text editor's save and cancel behavior has been improved.

"Disappearing" Course Cards
Blackboard Technical Support has determined that when more than 10 courses are marked hidden on the Course Page, courses look as if they have “disappeared” from the instructor’s account. To successfully restore the course cards to the Courses Pages, simply un-hide courses until they number less than 10. This workaround is a temporary solution until a permanent fix is put in place by Blackboard which is still investigating this bug. -- May 30, 2017

 

 

Blackboard will release software 3200.4 on May 26, 2017.

• Now users can edit their personal information, contact information, and system settings in one place in the Profile. The new design reduces the number of clicks and screens a user had to navigate to edit their profile.

• Keeping up with large Discussion Board forums is easier by giving participants a count and filter to just look at new replies from others to posts made the participant.

May 11, 2017

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Blackboard released New Features in software Release 3200.0 on March 31, 2017.

• Students receive email confirmations for submitted coursework. The email receipt is another method for students to keep track of their submissions, in addition to the My Grades page.

• When a user opens a discussion, unread comments are highlighted for simpler navigation. An additional level of replies is also available to keep the discussion going.

April 17, 2017

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Blackboard released New Features in software Release 3100.11.0 on March 3, 2017. Only changes to Ultra Course View were made.

March 6, 2017

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Blackboard released New Features in software Release 3100.9.0 on February 3, 2017.

• Extreme Zooming - some browsers are set to zoom in so much the Grade Center does not display properly.  Simply use Ctrl and - (PC) OR Command and - (Mac) to zoom out and restore view.

February 8, 2017

Blackboard is pleased to announce the General Availability of Blackboard Learn™, Release 9.1 Q4 2016 (Build: 3100.0.0-rel.107+401e22b), available on November 15, 2016.  This notification contains important details of this release.