Course Layout & Navigation

Original to Ultra Transition:

• Restricting Original Course View Copy workflow

General Layout & Navigation:

• 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

• Send a message to a group from Group Spaces

Content Design

• Content Designer: Enhanced Documents 

• Convert Content Areas to Learning Modules

  • Note: this has been enabled at Fairfield University

• Math formula enhancement

AI Tools:

• Image Generation Improvements

Assessments & Grading

AI Tools:

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

Assessment Settings:

• Supporting multiple performance criteria in release conditions

• Multiple rules for release conditions

• Default question points value changed from 10 to 1 

• Anonymous student responses for Forms

• Multiple attempts for Forms assigned to groups

• 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 

• 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

• Improved navigation between students in Flexible Grading

• Hide unenrolled students from the gradebook 

• Status information removed from the gradebook download file

Groups:

• Self-enrollment group improvements

Discussions

• Anonymous posts for Discussions 

• Ability to ‘Follow’ Discussions for Enhanced Engagement Assessment

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 

• Image Generation Improvements

Course Layout & Navigation

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

• Content Designer: Enhanced Documents

  • Customize page layout with multiple columns

  • Embed knowledge checks into course content

• Broken Link Checker

• Multiple Release Condition Rules by individual users or groups

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

Assessments & Grading

All Assessments/Content

• AI Socratic Exercise - AI conversations as an assessment question type

Tests

• Ability for students to de-select answers on True/False questions

• Item Statistics (including average and standard deviation)

Forms

• Anonymous Forms

Discussions:

• Follow discussions

  • Improved notifications

Gradebook

• Document grade adjustments with private notes

• Mastery of Learning Outcomes

AI Tools

• AI Socratic Exercise - AI conversations as an assessment question type