Update to client Test/Stage environments (Published May 7, 2024):
An updated version of 3900.93.0 (full release number: 3900.93.0-rel.4+2922547) is being applied to client Test servers on Tuesday, May 7, 2024.
The June 2024 - 3900.93 release is robust with features in 9 areas:
- Instructional design;
- Tests and assignments;
- Communication and collaboration;
- Flexible grading;
- Gradebook;
- Learner progression and personalized experience;
- Integrations;
- Learn core and security; and
- Mobile App
These improvements impact instructors, students, observers, administrators, and all users. Some features do require administrative action.
Instructors:
- AI Design Assistant – output language selector
- Printing for assessments
- Streamlined point value editing for questions
- Post immediately when creating announcements
- Prevent auto-assigning members within self-enrollment groups
- Group members list available in the selected group
- Filter out graded responses when grading by question
- Grader Notes on student grades
- Weighted calculation usability improvements
Instructors and Students:
- Landing page enhancements for Blackboard Learn Mobile app
Students:
- Improved visibility of new grades and feedback in the student gradebook
- Return a true/false question to an unanswered state
Administrators:
- Announcements API enhancements – additional filtering options
Observers:
- Student's overall grade visible to Observers
Everyone:
- Base Navigation – Course and Organization filters and personalization
Instructional Design
AI Design Assistant – Language Selector
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors
Related Topic: AI Design Assistant
To support multi-language use cases, the AI Design Assistant now includes a language selector. Instructors may use the language selector to set the desired language for generated content. This feature is especially beneficial for courses with multi-language requirements.
The language selector is included in all existing AI Design Assistant workflows. A list of supported languages in the language selector is available.
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
Printing for Assessments
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors, users who have privileges to edit an assessment
Instructors can now print assessments. Printing provides a convenient solution for a variety of use cases:
- Accommodating students with specific needs or limited technology access
- Providing a printed assessment for testing in designated centers
- Backup and record keeping
- Conducting offline assessment
- Documentation and compliance
- Maintaining security and integrity
The print option is available in Forms, Tests, and Assignments with questions. Printing also provides the option to save as PDF.
To print an assessment, from Content and Settings, select Print.
Note: We plan to support printing answer keys and question pools and printing from the mobile app in upcoming releases.
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
Streamlined point value editing for questions
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors
Related topics: Edit Tests and Questions
When editing a question, instructors can now access and edit the point value field with just two clicks. Reducing the number of clicks needed to edit the point value of a question saves instructors time and effort. This small change leads to a smoother workflow and enhances the overall teaching and learning experience.
Note: Editing the point values for matching questions requires three clicks.
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
Return a true/false question to an unanswered state
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Students
Students can now return a true/false question to an unanswered state after choosing an answer. Students clear their choice by selecting the same option again. Students may need to clear their answer selection for a test question. For questions that use negative scoring, if a student is uncertain about their answer, their score may be better if they leave it unanswered. In this case, clearing a response makes it easy for them to come back later using the unanswered question filter. This helps students better manage their time during a test.
In the past, a student could only change their answer to a true/false question to a different value.
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
Communication & Collaboration
Post immediately when creating announcements
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors
Related Topic: Announcements
Instructors can now post announcements as part of the drafting and editing processes. This makes the process of creating and posting announcements simpler.
Instructors can still post from the announcements page.
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
Prevent auto-assigning members in self-enrollment groups
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors
Related Topic: Create and Manage Groups
Instructors use self-enrollment groups to provide agency to students on group activities. Currently, at the end of the enrollment period, unassigned students are always distributed into groups. To improve the use of self-enrollment groups for optional activities, instructors can now opt-out of this behavior. Instructors can deselect the option, which does not enroll students who do not self-enroll by the end of the enrollment to any group. This option gives instructors more flexibility when managing self-enrollment groups.
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed. The default behavior is unchanged.
Group members list available within the selected group
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors, Students
Related topic: Create and Manage Groups
Groups and group work form an important part of the learning experience. To improve and centralize member information, we have relocated the members list to the selected group page. This will now display as a member’s tab rather than a separate panel. Here, users can search for members and sort them alphabetically. This change enhances the visibility of the selected groups page and provides the groundwork for adding more features in future releases.
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
Gradebook
Grader Notes on student grades
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors
Related topics: Grade Tests with Flexible Grading, Grade Assignments with Flexible Grading
Instructors can now add private grading notes to student grades. After a score is assigned, the new Feedback & Notes menu option is available. Grader notes form an important part of the academic record. These notes may serve as documentation for a grading decision or grade adjustment. Grader notes are private to graders and not visible to students.
Those with grading privileges can access Feedback & Notes from two places:
- The Grades tab in the Gradebook by selecting a specific score.
- The Submissions list page for an assessment, select the More menu for a student
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
Improved visibility of new grades and feedback in the student gradebook
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Students
To ensure that students are aware of any new grades in the course we have added an indicator to the Gradebook tab. When there are new grades, the number of new grades appears on the tab.
After selecting the tab, items with new or updated grades appear at the top of the student gradebook and display a purple indicator. The purple indicator disappears and the count on the tab reduces when the student selects the item or reviews their submission.
We also reviewed the use of color in the gradebook based on student feedback. Now, we mark late assessments with a "(Late)" label to reduce stress sometimes associated with the use of the color red. In the past, late submissions appeared with a red assessment icon and label.
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
Weighted calculation usability improvements
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors
Related topics: Calculate Grades
Responding to client feedback, we have made two improvements for gradebook weighting:
- The label “0% per item” appeared for categories excluded from weighting. This caused confusion so we removed it.
- We updated the calculation rules panel to make it easier to understand the selected settings.
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
Learner Progression & Personalized Experience
Student's overall grade visible to Observers
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Observers
Related Topic: Observer Role
Observers are users who can only view the progress and performance of specified students. We now display the overall grade in the Grades tab along with other grades. This improves student monitoring for observers. If an instructor sets the overall grade to be visible to students, it will be visible to observers.
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
Announcements API enhancements - additional filtering options
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience, Original Experience
Ultra Course View, Original Course View
Impact: Administrators
Related Topic: Learn APIs
Announcements play a crucial role in course communication. They ensure that students stay informed about important deadlines and course materials. Administrators and developers now have additional REST API capabilities to streamline integrations and save time. New announcements filtering options allow administrators and integrated tools to retrieve data more efficiently. This optimizes audit and search processes, reducing query volume and data processing after retrieval.
New filter options:
- Creation Date: Retrieve announcements based on their specific creation date
- Modified Date: Retrieve announcements based on their last modification date
- Availability: Filter announcements based on their availability status
For administrators: The required privileges for Announcements API remain unchanged.
Learn Core & Security
Base Navigation - Course and Organization filters and personalization
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience, Original Experience
Ultra Course View, Original Course View
Impact: All
The courses and organizations tabs in Base Navigation are some of the most accessed places in Blackboard Learn. We received feedback in numerous focus groups and were inspired by client ideas posted in the Idea Exchange. We heard the pages should fit more institutions’ situations and give users more options to customize. This release includes the following improvements:
We removed the carousel for navigating between terms. There is now a term selector and filter you can use on its own or with other filters.
You can set filters, make term choices, and add text searches. All of these are clearly displayed below the search box. Remove these search settings or filters to see more courses or organizations. Remove them by selecting the close icon “x” on each.
Your selections and filters are remembered automatically even if you log out or switch devices. Set up the pages the way you like, and we’ll keep it that way until you change it.
The terms selector has specific logical behaviors to help users:
- “Current Courses” and “Current Organizations” are the default term selections. If terms aren’t used or all your courses/organizations are open or use continuous duration, you’ll default to the “All Terms” selection option instead.
- You can now choose to view “All Terms” to see everything regardless of term.
- The “Upcoming Courses” and “Upcoming Organizations” term options will only display if you have upcoming courses/organizations.
For administrators: This feature is available for all environments with Base Navigation enabled. There are no configurations needed.
Mobile App
Landing Page Enhancements for Blackboard Learn Mobile App
Blackboard Learn SaaS, Blackboard Learn 9.1
Ultra and Original Experience
Ultra and Original Course View
Impact: Instructors, Students
To enhance usability and streamline user interaction in the mobile app, we added filters to the following landing pages:
- Courses
- Organizations
- Grades
Users now can use filters at the top of each landing page, allowing them to refine their search results.
When a user applies a filter, its tag appears at the top of the landing page. Users can remove filters by unselecting the respective tag.
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations
