SaaS Monthly Updates

Blackboard SaaS will be updated on the first Thursday of each month, unless otherwise stated. Check back here for new features and updates.

December 5, 2024

  • Ultra Courses:
    • Learning Modules with LTIs: Instructors who use learning modules and LTIs will now see the arrows in their student view when moving through the learning module LTI items. This will help with navigation within the module.
    • New post indicator for replies in Discussions: When a user views a discussion board, they will now see a “New” post indicator for both new posts and new replies to posts that they have not yet seen.
    • Link to attempt log in activity log: When viewing the activity log for a student, instructors will now see an icon that will take them directly to the attempt log for the assessment.
    • Late submissions updates: Instructors will now see a “Late” submission in the banner when viewing a submission that was submitted late. The text for the submission date has also changed.
    • Override indicator: Instructors who have overridden a grade, or graded on the assignment instead of the attempt, the grade will now indicate that it has been overridden. Additionally, the “Undo override” option has been added to the Discussion Board grading panels.
  • Resolved Known Issues:
    • Announcement view count does not increase when viewed by clicking email link
      • When an instructor sends an announcement and checks the “Send email copy to recipients” box to send as an email, if a student clicks on the email announcement to open within Blackboard, the view count will not change when they are redirected to the course.
    • Assignment instructions removed when accessing due date panel without saving
      • When creating an assignment and adding instructions, if the instructor clicks on the Due Date option to open the side panel without saving the instructions, the instructions will be removed when the panel opens.
    • Current grade displays incorrectly when using the letter grade schema
      • When viewing the current grade in a course where the grades are displayed as a letter on the mobile app, the student will see an “F” regardless of the actual grade in the course.
    • Decorative images disrupts JAWS or other screen reader navigation
      • When using a decorative image within Blackboard, Blackboard creates it as a button instead of an image, which will disrupt JAWS or other screen readers as they navigate through the page.
    • Inconsistent behavior in assessment due date countdown display
      • When viewing the assessment due date, the number of days, weeks, or months will display incorrectly and may omit the smallest number (i.e. 2 weeks and 1 day may display as 2 weeks).
    • Messages are failing to load via push notification
      • When attempting to access a new message via a push notification from the Blackboard mobile app, the message will not load and a blank screen or error message appears.
    • Screen Reader not correctly reading Ultra Document text
      • When a user is using a screen reader and is viewing an Ultra Document with iFrames, the content inside the iFrames will not be read.

November 7, 2024

  • Ultra Courses:
    • Ultra Document Block Resizing Improvements: Improvements have been made to the vertical resizing of a block within an Ultra document. This will help for blocks that are too tall to fit on one screen at a time or have multiple blocks along one edge.
    • Ultra Document Empty Indicator: When an instructor creates a block on an Ultra document but does not add anything to the block, Blackboard will now provide a line of text, only visible to the instructor, that the block is empty and to click on the block to activate and add content.
    • Skip Link to Content: There is now a “Skip to course information” bar added to courses that have a large image header on the content page within the course. This will allow users to skip directly to the first piece of content without having to scroll, and is especially helpful for users who navigate with the keyboard or have assistive technology needs.
    • Print Tests with Question Pools: Instructors can now print tests that have questions from a question pool. When printing a test, it will generate a new question list and answer key for each version printed.
    • Improvements for Assignment File Submissions: When students upload a file for an assignment submission, there are now improvements in how Blackboard handles the files, including: managing multiple file uploads and waiting for one document to upload before attaching another; file size limit notifications; and corrupted file alerts.
    • Discussion Board Replies: A reply to a discussion post will now be indented to better distinguish between an initial response and any replies to the response.
    • Editing Discussion Board Topics: Instructors will no longer be able to delete the Discussion Topic instructions. The only option will be Edit.
    • Download Student Activity Log: Instructors will now be able to download a student’s activity log while viewing the log. The log will be downloaded as a CSV and will only include the first 1000 events. If there are more than 1000 rows, additional filters may be applied within Blackboard and will apply to the downloaded log.
    • Changes to Batch Edit: Since the “change dates to a specific date and/or time” is the most popular option while editing items within the Batch Edit menu, it has been set to the default option.
  • Mobile App:
    • Updates to the Blackboard App Theme: To reflect Anthology Inc.’s rebranding, the Blackboard Learn App will now be known simply as the Blackboard App. In addition, the app will now feature a new name and app description, as well as a new app icon and splash page shown while the app is loading.
  • Resolved Known Issues:
    • Assignments with multiple attempts will not update when a new submission is made
      • When a student submits a new attempt for an assignment with multiple attempts, the gradebook will not automatically show the most recent attempt when the instructor opens the assignment.
    • Course settings menu does not work when on the groups tab
      • When an instructor is on the Groups page within a course, an clicks on the Course Settings menu in the top right, it will not open.
    • Journal feedback disappears upon grading submissions
      • When adding feedback to a journal entry and posting the grade, the feedback disappears when accessing the entry again.
    • Setting release conditions breaks when using scores with decimals
      • When an instructor creates a release condition rule based on a performance criteria, and the test selected for the criteria has a score containing decimals, the release condition rule breaks, and the instructor receives an “Oops!” error message.
    • Space added in front of content in tables during conversion process
      • When a course is converted from Original to Ultra, any table that has been created will have an additional space added before the content in each cell in the table during the conversion process.
    • Student activity report not showing student list
      • When an instructor views the student activity report, it will not load the list of students.
    • Student activity time in downloaded log shows in UTC
      • When an instructor downloads an activity report or access log for an assignment or tests, the time that is displayed in the downloaded log shows as UTC time.
    • Unable to add performance release conditions using overall grade
      • When setting a performance-based release condition, using the Overall Grade when it is displayed with points, an error messages will be displayed and the release conditions will not be set.
    • Undo button stops working in Assignment text editor
      • When an instructor is editing an Assignment and clicks outside of the text box, once they click back in, the Undo button on the text editor no longer works.

October 3, 2024

  • Ultra Courses:
    • Ultra Document updates: New updates to the Ultra Document item were added, including: returning the default file option to View and Download; keyboard navigation options when resizing blocks; and redo button and cursor function updates.
    • Knowledge Check updates: An update to the new Knowledge Check feature has been released that modifies the default difficulty metric to display as “–” until there is at least one attempt. Additionally, answer instruction text now reads “choose one or more correct answers” to align with the instructor’s ability to select more than one correct answer for the question.
    • Student Submission Review Page updates: New updates to the submission review page for students have been added, including: the ability for preview user accounts to view the submission review page; the ability for students to access offline submissions from this page; additional labels and other indicators for ease of access; and a “read more” option when viewing overall or attempt feedback.
    • Followed Discussion Emails: Users can now choose to have an email notification when using the “Follow Discussion” option.
    • Flexible Grading performance improvements: Improvements were made to the flexible grading panels, including faster load times when scrolling through the student list, posting grades, or viewing the rubrics.
  • Resolved Known Issues:
    • Unable to launch Cengage on iOS devices
      • When accessing a Cengage link on an iOS device using the Blackboard mobile app, the Cengage link won’t load.
    • Group discussions do not show new post icon except for group 1
      • When an instructor has group discussions, only group 1 (or the first group in the list) will show an icon for a new submission. Any other groups will not show the new post icon, even if there are new posts to read.
    • Screen Reader not reading attachment titles
      • When a user is using a screen reader, the title of an attachment will not be read as they navigate the page.
    • Screen Reader not reading sub-menus on homepage
      • When a user is using a screen reader, sometimes the screen reader will not read the three dot sub-menu when navigating through the homepage.
    • Sorting announcements by status column causes error
      • When sorting the announcements by the “status” column, an error message appears and the announcements are no longer accessible.
    • Ultra document content not visible when copying learning modules with force sequence enabled
      • When copying a Learning Module with force sequence enabled, the Ultra Document content is not visible to students, even if the document itself is visible.

Previous Updates

Tentative Future Updates

Blackboard Inc. has released the following dates for updates to Blackboard. Please note that Towson University has no control over these dates and that they are subject to change.

January 2, 2025
February 6, 2025

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