Course Layout & Navigation

Original to Ultra Transition:

• Restricting Original Course View Copy workflow

General Layout & Navigation:

• Individual date adjustments from Batch Edit 

• Persistent navigation for Learning Modules

• Reply all in messages

Mobile Improvements:

• Landing page enhancements for Blackboard Learn Mobile app 

• Long names visible and sorting controls for the Student Activity report for assessments on small devices and mobile app 

Communication

• Send a copy to email when scheduling announcements

Content Design

• Convert Content Areas to Learning Modules - Note: this has been enabled at Fairfield University

Assessments & Grading

AI Tools:

• AI Design Assistant – Context picker for Learning Modules, Assignments, Discussions, and Journals 

Assessment Settings:

• Default question points value changed from 10 to 1 

• Supporting multiple performance criteria in release conditions

• Duplicate questions in Assessments, Forms, and Question Banks 

• Reuse questions in Forms

• Likert answer options expanded to include 4 and 6 

• Multiple attempts for Forms assigned to groups

• Anonymous posts for Discussions 

• Improvements to the Group Submissions page

Printing Assessments:

• Print answer key for assessments

• Improvements to prevent printing a question across pages

Gradebook Improvements:

• Improved Gradebook navigation

• Weighted Calculation Improvements

• Add question feedback when grading a test by question

• Auto-submitted indicator in attempt logs 

• Overall grade information added to gradebook download 

• Edit gradebook category for Partner Cloud content 

• Student feedback remains visible to students regardless of release condition settings

• Usability improvements for flexible grading 

• Add question feedback when grading by student in Flexible Grading 

• Calculations changed from using BigDecimal to BigFraction

• Needs Grading improvements for assessments allowing multiple attempts

• Needs Grading improvements for Students and Questions tabs

• Recording audio and video when adding per question feedback

Groups:

• Self-enrollment group improvements

AI Tools

UnSplash uses your content to generate search terms for royalty-free images to embed in your course. It can also be used to Generate AI images.

Design Assistant generates course structure, test questions, authentic assessment, discussion, and journal prompts, and rubric suggestions based on existing content or key words entered into the tool. These suggestions are aligned with Bloom’s Taxonomy.

• AI Design Assistant – Context picker for Learning Modules, Assignments, Discussions, and Journals 

Course Layout & Navigation

Base Navigation

• Improved filtering and term selection

Announcements

• A number indicator in the top navigation will show any new announcements to increase visibility

  • Students can mark announcements as read/unread

• Post announcements from the creation window

Communication

• Ability to reply to Emails

• Improvements to self-enroll groups

• Reply to Messages from Email if Allow Replies is checked

Content Design

• Broken Link Checker

• Multiple Release Condition Rules

• Suggested text for image alternative text using AI (Requires instructor review to ensure description is contextual)

Assessments & Grading

Tests:

• Ability for students to de-select answers on True/False questionsPrint blank tests for paper-based administration. Option to print as a PDF which can be later be converted to Word Doc for editing.

  • Scheduled release will exclude question pools when printing.

• Item Statistics (including average and standard deviation)

• Provide audio/video feedback on individual questions when grading

Forms

• Anonymous Forms

Discussions:

• Follow discussions

  • Improved notifications

Gradebook

• Indicator for new grades and feedbacks on the course navigation in student view

• Overall Grade: weighted calculation improvements

• Document grade adjustments with private notes

AI Tools