What’s New in Blackboard – August 2024

The Blackboard team at Anthology has been especially inspired this month when it comes to new features and updates. The Blackboard 3900.98 release scheduled for August is an exciting one, with feature improvements in the areas of Instructional Design, Test and Assignments, Mastery Learning and Learning Pathways, Communication and Collaboration, Flexible Grading, and more. These improvements impact administrators, instructors, and students. Read on to discover highlights from the upcoming Blackboard release!

Note: The below updates pertain to customers using the Ultra interface. For complete release notes, visit the Blackboard help site.

1. Instructional Design - Content Designer: Enhanced Documents

Content design is key to creating an engaging course that supports learner needs. The Document feature is a useful option for creating and presenting a variety of visual elements. We have made significant enhancements to Documents to provide new and robust options for content design. Instructors will be delighted that all enhancements work beautifully using a mouse, trackpad, or the keyboard. All enhancements are mobile friendly for instructors and students as well. 

We've removed the option to generate questions from Documents. Generating questions from within a test using the context picker in the AI Design Assistant is the preferred method.

Enhanced Document with diverse content laid out in rows and columns

Empty Document with block options

Instructors can now design Documents by selecting from a variety of block types: 

• Content block 
  Add content via the content editor 
• HTML block 
  Add content via HTML or CSS in the Document
  (Note: An administrator must configure an alternate domain for the HTML block to appear. Learn more about setting up an alternate domain.)
• File upload block 
  Browse for files on the local machine to upload to the Document 
  (Note: Administrators can define the maximum size of a file that users can upload.) 
• Cloud upload block 
  Login to a cloud service and select a file to add into the Document 
• Content Collection block 
  Browse the Content Collection and select a file to add to the Document 
• Convert a file block 
  Browse for files on the local machine; once selected, the system converts the file into the Document format. Supported file types include PDF, PowerPoint (ppt, pptx, pps), and Word (doc, docx, odt). 

In this release, the option to convert a file is only available in the main authoring space. In the  Add Content  panel (the + menu), the option to convert a file doesn’t appear. We'll correct this in an upcoming release. 

Instructors can also open the left panel by selecting the + and choosing the desired block. 

Empty Document with the blocks panel opened

Document menu bar:

To provide greater efficiency when designing content, we added a menu bar to Documents. The menu bar remains in view as the instructor scrolls the Document to view, add, or edit content. The menu bar contains the  Edit  option when in the view state. After selecting  Edit, the menu bar displays the following options: 

• Edit 
• Add Blocks 
• Undo/Redo 
• Cancel 
• Save 

Add blocks from the left panel or select the purple + to add a block as a row

Resizing and moving blocks: 

Instructors can create appealing layouts by resizing and dragging/dropping blocks into columns and rows. 

• Each row includes a menu with options to move or delete the block. 
• Each block includes a menu with options to edit, move, resize, or delete the block. 

Move, expand, and shrink options via keyboard controls

For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. A new configuration option is on the Ultra configuration page in the Administrator Panel: “Enable support for customizing Ultra document layouts.” The default state is on. This option will be available until December 2024. At that time, we will remove the configuration option and enhanced Documents will be default. 

This option can be toggled on or off. Be mindful of potential impacts to content created with or modified by enhanced options if you turn this option off.

2. Instructional Design - Video Studio within Enhanced Documents (Requires Premium License)

Video Studio is targeted to be available in Test/Stage environments on August 8, 2024.

Instructors have recording capabilities in Announcements and Feedback features. Now they have the ability to upload or record audio and videos directly within enhanced Documents. The lightweight, deeply integrated Video Studio solution promotes a more engaging learning experience.

When creating an enhanced Document, a new block option is available to create audio and video files from a camera, audio recording, or from screen recordings. Additionally, it is possible to upload audio and video files.

New Audio/Video block in an enhanced Document 

Recording and uploading options available in Audio/Video block for an enhanced Document

When a user starts recording, there is a three second countdown before the recording begins. Users can pause, resume, retake, or end the recording as needed.

Start recording process

After a user ends the recording, the uploading process begins. During this time, the user can preview the result, edit the title, and add a description. Users can select  Save  to add the audio or video into an enhanced Document. After saving the video, auto captioning for videos is available.

Add video details, preview, and save options

Automatic captioning for videos is available

For administrators: These new video capabilities require a license for Video Studio. The videos created using Video Studio will not count towards your existing storage entitlement. The following existing privileges are used for the Video Studio solution:

• Course/Organization (Content Areas) > Create Materials: To create videos. Includes all operations like save, finish, check video upload status. Not needed for playback.
• Course/Organization (Content Areas) > Delete Materials: To delete videos.

3. Tests and Assignments - Improvements to creating assignments

Instructors need robust, easy-to-use tools when creating their assessments. 

To create a better experience, the new Assignment page includes these improvements: 

• A new  Instructions  box where instructors can use the full content editor to craft assignment instructions
• There are no options to add questions to an assignment 
• The  Settings  panel now includes only options relevant to assignments 
• Blank attempts are no longer created when students view assignment instructions. The system only creates an attempt when students add content to the file drop zone/content editor. Note: Group or timed and proctored assignments continue to create attempts when students view the instructions

Assignments created before this release will continue to create blank attempts when students view the instructions. We'll address this issue in a future release. 

The New Test page remains unchanged. Instructors can access all the same question types and settings options. Attempts are still automatically created when students view the test questions. 

Instructor view of the New Assignment page with the new Instructions box

Instructor view of adding instructions to an assignment

Students view of the new Assignment Information panel and the View Instructions option

Student view of the assignment instructions

For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.

4. Mastery Learning and Learning Pathways - Multiple rules for release conditions

Instructors need to release course content based on performance criteria to sequence students on learning paths correctly. Sometimes they also need to release content to different groups using different criteria. For example, graduate students may be required to perform additional activities or perform at a higher level than other students. To support this needed flexibility, instructors can now create multiple rules for release conditions. 

You can create rules for release conditions based on these criteria: date, time, and grade range performance criteria. You can also create rules for specific individual learners, groups, or for all members.

Release Conditions page

This release also improves copying content from Original courses. Rules and criteria now copy from Original adaptive release settings. The supported criterion types are date, time, grade range, and memberships (individual or groups). Only supported criteria types are copied from Original to Ultra courses. These criteria types are removed automatically during a copy:

• Attempt for a gradable item (student submitted the assignment or test)
• Student marked an item reviewed

As before, we recommend reviewing settings after copying content from Original courses.

For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed. For Test/Stage environments, availability will be on July 24.

5. Tests and Assignments - Anonymous student responses for Forms

Anonymous responses in forms encourage honest and candid feedback from students and help participants feel safe and secure knowing their identities are protected. Anonymity leads to more genuine responses that convey the respondents' true opinions and experiences. Additionally, it increases participation rates and the overall quality of the results. 

Instructors can now collect anonymous submissions in Forms. The new  Anonymous submissions  option appears in the  Grading & Submissions  section of  Form Settings. 

Anonymous submissions option

When you select  Anonymous submissions, these settings are enabled by default: 

• Due date
• Prohibit late submissions 
• Prohibit new attempts after due date 
• Complete/incomplete is selected as the grading schema for non-graded forms 
• When grading, the submission earns the points assigned; you can’t edit or override the points earned

Additional important details to note: 

• Anonymous forms cannot be administered to groups. 
• Class conversations are not supported when Anonymous submissions is selected. 
• To ensure anonymity, student activity, exceptions, exemptions, and accommodations are not supported. 
• To ensure anonymity, student progress/statistics are not captured. 
• Modifications to form questions and settings are not permitted if the form has submissions and the due date has passed. 

From the  Submissions  tab for a form, you can view an anonymized list of student participants along with the following information and options: 

• Student submission status
• Grading status and grade: At submission, the grading status is set to Complete and the grade is marked (for example, 5/5) 
• Post: Graded forms post automatically 
• Download all: You can download all form submissions

To view responses, select an anonymous student from the list. You can enter overall feedback for their submission. 

From the Gradebook, before the due date for an anonymous form, "Anonymous" appears in the cell for each student. After the due date, the cells display: 

• For ungraded forms: the text "Submitted" or "Not submitted" 
• For graded forms: the grade 

From the  Grades  tab, you can select  Download Gradebook  to download responses to forms with anonymous submissions.

When converting Original courses containing surveys to Ultra courses, surveys convert to anonymous forms by default. 

We've taken care to ensure students know when their submission to a form is anonymous. The  Anonymous  icon and label appears on: 

• The Content Page 
• The  Form  panel where they start the attempt and view their submission 
• The  Details & Information  section that appears while responding to the form 

Student view – Anonymous label and icon for a form

For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.

Explore these updates and more in the full Blackboard 3900.98 release notes.