January 7, 2021 (v3900.4)
Feature | About | Ultra Course | Original Course | To Learn More |
---|---|---|---|---|
Formatting tools | Format content in a variety of different ways, including font colors, font sizes, and font style. A redesigned tool base provides a secondary bar that displays additional options, which is helpful on smaller screens. Students and faculty will see these changes everywhere they encounter the rich text editor in Ultra courses. | Yes | Yes | TBD |
User activity log | Currently, there isn’t an easy way to capture what a user was doing at the time an issue occurred. With this update, users will now be able to capture their most recent session data -- the last 30 actions the taken in Blackboard -- and send it to DoIT staff, which can be used to identify root issues or escalate to Blackboard support. This feature will be available in the Support Panel as well as anywhere the “Oops! Your name is not on the list” message can occur. | Yes | Yes | TBD |
December 3, 2020 (v3900.2)
Feature | About | Ultra Course | Original Course | To Learn More |
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HTML / CSS support in Ultra documents | Instructors can create, edit, and delete custom HTML/CSS code blocks in Ultra course documents. Instructors can select Add HTML when creating a document to add their own HTML and CSS and fully customize the appearance of their Ultra course documents. Use of this feature will require that we have some means to host the content, primarily to avoid malicious scripts impacting the entire Learn system. | Yes | Yes | TBD |
Journal grading improvements | Participation view can now support over 1,000 students at once. Instructors can clearly see when students post new journals and comments, and can view a single submission. Instructors can also use Ultra’s grading tools, including feedback and rubrics, to create and post grades. Both participation and submission views link to the gradebook. By default, students will be allowed to delete and edit their journal entries and comments, but instructors can also now choose to disable this permission. | Yes | Yes | TBD |
Test Feedback Release Settings | Instructors can enable more granular controls on when and what type of feedback is given to students when taking an assessment. Instructors can set up timed release to automated question feedback, correct answers, and question scores. They can also select when to show feedback: after submission, after due date, at a specific date, or after the assessment is graded. Students will see if and when feedback will be available for a specific assessment after they submit an attempt. | Yes | Yes | TBD |
Gradebook tweaks | In the Student List View, instructors will receive additional search capabilities, column sorting options, and enhanced page controls for both large and small devices. | Yes | Yes | N/A |
Additional Improvements & Bug Fixes
- TBD
November 6, 2020 (v3900.0)
Feature | About | Ultra Course | Original Course | To Learn More |
---|---|---|---|---|
Content editor update | Original courses will receive an updated, easier-to-use, more powerful Content Editor. Adding content has been simplified, and it works better on both hand-held devices and larger screens. There are new tool icons and some changes to tool behavior. Expanded libraries of special characters and emoticons are searchable and organized by category. The spellchecker is smarter and editing HTML is faster with line numbering and tag colors. Learn more. | No | Yes | How does the new content editor compare to the previous content editor in an Original Bb course? |
Gradebook improvements | This release introduces several improvements and new functionality for student list view in the Ultra gradebook.
| Yes | No | TBD |
Larger icons | In this release, you’ll see new large icons in the Ultra experience. We made these changes to our icons to improve accessibility and differentiation for all users. | Yes | No | N/A |
Quiz Timer Update | Students will know how much time they have left down to the last second when they take a quiz in the Ultra Course View. The quiz timer will change from minutes to seconds when less than 1 minute remains. | Yes | Yes | N/A |
Additional Improvements & Bug Fixes
- To improve performance for very large classes, Blackboard removed the option to filter the blog participant list to display only non-participants in Original Course View.
- Items in the Details & Actions section of the Ultra Course View will now load in a single wave. This change will prevent students and instructors from selecting the wrong item as the page loads.
Bug Fixes:
Emailed course announcements in both the Original and Ultra Course Views now include both the course name and the title of the announcement in the email subject.
In the Ultra Course View, students couldn’t navigate to the next course content item from a discussion board post if conditional availability was set.
In the Ultra Course View, users who had system permission to create materials but were not enrolled in a course couldn’t add permanent files to a course.
- In the Ultra Course View, some users couldn't join Collaborate sessions with their course links.
- In the Ultra Course View, some replies weren’t visible in discussions. Also, some users’ discussion response and reply counts didn’t appear correctly.
- In the Ultra Course View, some users’ profiles and activity in discussions appeared as though the users were unavailable.
- In the Original Course View, discussion forum links that were broken during a course copy couldn’t be removed from the new course.
October 1, 2020 (v3800.19)
Feature | About | Ultra Course | Original Course | To Learn More |
---|---|---|---|---|
Alternative formats for Ultra docs | With this release, instructors and students can download Ally alternative formats for course documents in the expanded view. With Ally enabled at their institutions, instructors and students see the Ally icon in the top menu, next to the conversations icon. They can choose the alternative format that best suits their needs. | Yes | No | TBD |
September 3, 2020 (v3800.17)
Feature | About | Ultra Course | Original Course | To Learn More |
---|---|---|---|---|
Automated test feedback | With this release, Instructors can enter feedback for correct and incorrect answers on auto-graded question types (such as True/False). Students will automatically receive the feedback when they submit the assessment. For this initial release, feedback will be available at the question level only. While conversion of automated feedback from Original courses is supported, any images, files, or weblinks in the Original course’s feedback will not convert. Future work will add feedback for individual answer choices and manual feedback for test questions. | Yes | Yes | How do I create an Ultra test? |
Password-protected assessments | Instructors can now add a system-generated password to their assessments in the Ultra Course View. For the initial release, passwords can only be generated randomly (passwords can't be customized) and instructors must provide the password to students. Instructors can also regenerate the password when needed. Test facilitators will be able to see the password, but won't be able to change it. Students must enter the password each time they start or continue an assessment. They will need to get the password from their instructor or test facilitator, and will not have a way to discover the password on their own. Students will not need the password to access their grades and feedback. | Yes | Yes | How do I create an Ultra test? |
Send announcement via email | To ensure Ultra course announcements reach as many students as possible, Blackboard added the ability to send course announcements by email. Instructors can also send a copy to their own email. Announcements that are scheduled will not have the option to send in email. | Yes | Yes | TBD |
Student list view in gradebook | Blackboard added a new view option to improve gradebook performance in courses with very large enrollment numbers. With the student list view option, instructors can see a row for each student instead of a row for each gradebook item. Additional information is incorporated into this view: Last access date, student, and user ID. The initial release will allow instructors to view all the gradebook items for a student by selecting their name. From there, instructors can grade and give feedback on submissions for that single student. The next improvement for this feature will include additional filtering and sorting options, messaging, and accommodation options within the student list view. This view will not affect any current workflows that instructors use today. | Yes | Yes | TBD |
Secure recording links in Collaborate | As part of Blackboard's commitment to security and privacy, public access to recordings is now off by default for new sessions. Only session owners and students enrolled in the course can see the recording. Any links shared to the recording will no longer work when the recording is secure. When public access is off, the recording is secure. Instructors can choose to allow public access in the Recording Settings. When the Public access check box is selected, a shareable link to the recording is available. Anybody with the link can view the recording while public access is allowed. If the instructor clears the Public access check box later, the shareable link will stop working. NOTE: Only recordings made after the September release have public access turned off by default. All previous recordings have public access on by default. You can change the access for earlier recordings in the recording settings. | Yes | Yes | How do I make a Blackboard Collaborate recording available to my class? |
Recording reminder in Collaborate | Collaborate will remind moderators to start recording the session before they begin. As soon as moderators join the session, Collaborate presents a recording reminder. The reminder is visible until the moderator starts the recording or closes the reminder. | Yes | Yes | TBD |
August 6, 2020 (v3800.15)
Feature | About | Ultra Course | Original Course | To Learn More |
---|---|---|---|---|
Embed media from external sources | The Insert Video from Web option is now called Insert Media from Web. Users can add media from these sites: Panopto, VoiceThread, YouTube, Vimeo, FlipGrid, SlideShare, Quizlet, VidGrid, Prezi, KhanAcademy, Soundcloud, Spotify, Genial.ly, NearPod | Yes | Yes | How do I embed media from external websites in my Ultra course? |
Course announcements enhancement | Instructors can use an enhanced text editor to add and display more types of content, links, embedded media, and file attachments in announcements in Ultra courses. NOTE: In a future release, instructors will be able to send an email copy of a course announcement to recipients with an email address on record. | Yes | Yes | TBD |
Journal enhancement | Blackboard added support for Ultra journals in course copy and conversion. Now, journals and their prompts can be copied from one course to another, regardless of the course view. Users can use Copy Content to copy journals between courses. Journals can also be converted from an Original course to an Ultra course as part of the Ultra Course Preview and will be included in the course's export/archive ZIP file. These capabilities apply to journals prompt and entries only and don’t include comments. | Yes | Yes | TBD |
Profanity filter in Collab sessions | If someone uses inappropriate words in a Collaborate session chat, those words are filtered out and are replaced with a series of stars. The chat profanity filter is off by default. Moderators can turn it on in Session Settings. | Yes | Yes | How do I enable the profanity filter in a Collaborate session? |
July 2, 2020 (v3800.13)
Feature | About | Ultra Course | Original Course | To Learn More |
---|---|---|---|---|
Discussion enhancements | Instructors can decide if they want students to generate their own discussions or not. By default, students won't be able to create discussions. When students are allowed to create discussions, a label appears under discussion titles to show they were student-created.
| Yes | Yes | Review Blackboard's documentation |
Share external camera in Collab session | Share your video and share another camera connected to your computer. Students can see you and anything else you want to show. You're only limited by the number of cameras and USB ports in your computer. | Yes | Yes | How do I share an external camera in Collaborate? |
June 4, 2020 (v3800.11)
Feature | About | Ultra Course | Original Course | To Learn More |
---|---|---|---|---|
Journals | Journals will be available in the Ultra Course View. Instructors can create a journal assignment on the Course Content page, add them to learning modules, and use conditional release if they want. Journal assignments appear in the Activity Stream, and students and instructors can discuss the entry in comments. Instructors can make a journal assignment count for a grade and add a rubric so students know what they'll be graded on. NOTE: The initial release includes a basic grading workflow, where instructors enter grades manually in the gradebook. Full grading functionality and support for course copy and conversion are expected later this year. Continued enhancements are also coming for the Participants panel. At this time, the Ultra journals grading view supports up to 50 students. Future improvements will expand this number. | Yes | Yes | Review Blackboard's Documentation |
Score per question | In the Original Course View, instructors use Score per Question feedback settings to control if students see the score they earned for each assessment question. With this release, in the Ultra Course View, instructors can deactivate the default and choose not to show Score per Question feedback in assessments. | Yes | Yes | Review Blackboard's documentation |
Include discussions in course copy | With this release, Copy Content now supports discussions. Instructors can create a discussion in one Ultra Course View course and copy it to other Ultra courses they teach. | Yes | Yes | TBD |
Students can embed media from LTI | In the Ultra Course View, students can add links and embed media from integrated tools using the Learning Tool Interoperability (LTI) standard. When using the content editor in tools such as Discussion Boards and Assignments, students will now also be able to access a list of integrated LTI Tools, choose resources, and include them in their authored content. This will allow students to add media and resources from tools such as Kaltura, among many others. NOTE: Bb admins will configure which tool placements are appropriate for student use and access. | Yes | No | See this example → How do I embed a Panopto video in an Ultra document or discussion? |
Enable webinar mode in a Collab session | By default, sessions support up to 250 attendees. You can set up your session to support up to 500 attendees. From the session's settings, select Allow 250+ attendees to join before the session begins. If you don't see the large session option, check the session length. The session needs an end time and can't be more than 24 hours in length. | Yes | Yes | Review Blackboard's documentation |
May 7, 2020 (v3800.9)
This month's updates focus on bug fixes and behind the scenes updates. The major update the new inline grading tools scheduled for release to Blackboard courses on May 25-26, 2020. Read the myUMBC announcement about Bb Annotate or view the Getting Started with Bb Annotate webinar recording (5.15.2020) from Blackboard
- Improved the load times when students and instructors expand folders on the course outline. Also improved load for Calendar.
- Corrected copying of unnecessary gradebook categories between Ultra courses
- Corrected error received by instructors when attempting to end or grade an "In "Progress" test
- Corrected issue where when the rubric "Save/Cancel" button can get stuck in a bad position and blocks text and other options
- Corrected issue when Multiple Answer checkboxes are not aligned with the questions
- Corrected issue where Conditional Availability can be set to hide a Test before its due date in Ultra, which causes an error when viewing the Test's settings.
April 2, 2020 (v3800.6)
Feature | About | Ultra Course | Original Course | To Learn More |
---|---|---|---|---|
Course-level group enrollment | Previously, self-enrollment groups were limited to assignments and discussions in Ultra courses. With this release, instructors can create self-enrollment course groups that can apply to any graded content within a course. When they create a new course group set, instructors will see Self-enrollment in the Group students menu. Instructors can add a description for the group set, specify the start and end times of an enrollment period, and set the maximum members per group. After the group set is created, a course announcement is automatically created to inform students of the enrollment period. When the enrollment period ends, students who haven't joined a group will be assigned to one automatically. | Yes | Yes | TBD |
Rich text editor improvements | Blackboard made some improvements to the rich text editor in the Ultra Course View:
| Yes | No | N/A |
Adjust first day of the week in the calendar | Different global regions have different calendar conventions, including which day displays as the first day of the week. With this release, Blackboard calendars will display the most common convention for the first day of the week based on a user's selected language. Users will be able to see the change in the month and day views of both their overall and individual course calendars. The date picker display will also change in the Ultra Course View and for administrator notifications in the Ultra Experience. Users can change their language in the user profile. Administrators can customize the first day of the week for their language pack if they choose. | Yes | No | N/A |
March 5, 2020 (v3800.4)
Feature | About | Ultra Course | Original Course | To Learn More |
---|---|---|---|---|
Calculated formula question type | Calculated Formula questions require students to make a calculation and respond with a numeric answer. In Ultra Course View only, instructors can choose whether to display the formula to students with the text. Instructors can then adjust the answer settings and verify the question. Instructors can convert Calculated Formula questions from their Original courses or add new ones within the Ultra Course View. | Yes | Yes | |
Discussion improvements when converting Original to Ultra | With this release, a graded discussion in an Original course that allows members to create threads will convert to a Graded Ultra discussion and all of its seed child threads and replies will be removed.A graded discussion in an Original course that doesn't allow members to create threads will keep the current behavior. Group boards, forums, and threads won't be converted. | Yes | Yes | Review Blackboard's documentation |
Word count | Blackboard added a word count to the text editor when instructors create Documents and students respond to Assessment essay questions in the Ultra Course View. This feature will help students meet minimum word count requirements their instructors may have communicated. Future enhancements will add the word count feature in other areas of Learn Ultra, including instructor grading workflows. | Yes | Yes | N/A |
Read-only messages for students | Course Messages can be set to read-only in both Original and Ultra courses. As this is a system admin setting, DoIT will solicit feedback from Ultra Faculty Ambassadors and the campus community before adjusting the configuration. | Yes | Yes | N/A |
Miscellaneous Updates & Fixes:
- The menu option for adding YouTube content to an Ultra course is clarified. Previously, the menu said Insert Web Content, but now it will say Insert youTube Video.
Blackboard added text to the Matching question creation workflow to direct instructors to delete the default additional answer field before saving if it's not needed. They also removed the student-facing text that suggested answers may be used more than once.
- The CourseID will now appear with the Course Name on the Courses page, in the Calendar, and when copying content. This will help faculty more easily identify the course shells they access.
- When creating content in Ultra courses, all options will be open by default. Prior to this release, only the content items would be visible, which meant you would need to expand assessment or engagement to create those items. Now you will be able to see all options at one time.
- Changing the tile image on the Courses page is now part of the overflow menu with making courses available or hiding courses.
- Blackboard changed the way students are sorted in Ultra gradebook views for calculated columns and overall grade. Students now sort by last name throughout the gradebook.
- Blackboard increased the length of the course name in tile view on the Courses page. Unless the course name is exceptionally long, users should see the full course name.
- Original Course View received right-to-left language support. Future enhancements will bring right-to-left language support to Ultra.
- In this release, students won't see overdue notifications for Ultra Assessments that use the Collect Submissions Offline setting.
February 6, 2020 (v3800.2)
Feature | About | Ultra Course | Original Course | To Learn More |
---|---|---|---|---|
Groups Enhancement | Blackboard enhanced self-enrollment for student groups, allowing students change self-enrollment groups themselves within the instructor-specified enrollment period. Blackboard also replaced the Number of groups drop-down menu with a counter for instructors to streamline the workflow and reduce confusion. | Yes | Yes | |
Ally Enhancement | Students and instructors can access Ally’s alternative formats for content directly in the Ultra course outline. Instructors can view Ally’s accessibility meters on the course outline and in Ultra Assessments for content embedded in the rich text editor. | Yes | Yes | About Ally & Accessibility |
Miscellaneous Updates & Fixes:
- Discussion board spacing is fixed to improve the readability of posts.
- Links to Blackboard’s Privacy statement and Terms of Use now appear at the bottom of the global navigation bar in the Ultra Experience.
- Disabled students are removed from the Participants list in discussions
- With this release, Blackboard will remember instructors’ preferences for the Show attempts that don't contribute to user's grade filter on the Needs Grading page in the Original Course View. By default, the checkbox is unselected and student attempts that don’t affect grades won’t show on the Needs Grading list.
In the Ultra Course View, students could change their self-enrollment group after they had been assigned a grade for a Discussion. Blackboard fixed the issue.
- Student Group feedback will not display for individual students in Offline Submissions.
- Assessments requiring conditional availability based on the grade of another assessment will now display properly.
- Blackboard fixed an issue where some users couldn't view inline or download files attached to essay questions in Ultra courses if the file names had certain special characters.
- Users should also be able to view and download files with New Box View in Ultra courses.
- Finally, Ultra assignments submitted through SafeAssign should no longer get stuck in the In Progress status.