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Release Notes for Learn SaaS
This page contains features and updates currently on Learn SaaS Test/Stage and Production environments. Visit Archived SaaS Release Notes to see features and updates in older versions. Visit In-Product Updates to learn more about in-product updates.
Filter the list of features to learn more.
More on Learn with the SaaS Deployment | Export the list of Known Issues | Access the latest API and database documentation | Blackboard Learn SaaS release notes archive | Learn Releases White Paper
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View the SaaS release schedule
Learn SaaS release 3900.62.0
Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.62.0
Release to Test/Stage: Tuesday, 7 March 2023 | Release to Production: Thursday, 6 April 2023
Original Experience, Ultra Experience
Original Course View, Ultra Course View
For full feature details please review the corresponding notes for the Learn 3900.62.0 version included below on this page. Details can also be found on Behind the Blackboard.
Latest release: 3900.62.0-rel.16+82edc15 to Test/Stage servers to take place on 21 March 2023.
For more information on updates and bug fixes, please visit Behind the Blackboard.
Learn SaaS release 3900.60.0
Blackboard Learn SaaS Continuous Delivery v3900.60.0
Release to Test/Stage: Tuesday, 7 February 2023 | Release to Production: Thursday, 2 March 2023
Original Experience, Ultra Experience
Original Course View, Ultra Course View
For full feature details please review the corresponding notes for the Learn 3900.60.0 version included below on this page. Details can also be found on Behind the Blackboard.
Latest release: 3900.60.0-rel.41+9d324a9 to Production servers to take place on 23 March 2023.
For more information on updates and bug fixes, please visit Behind the Blackboard.
April 2023 – 3900.62 Release
The April 2023 - 3900.62 release is robust with features in five areas:
- Assessment and grading;
- Richer course and content;
- Data and analytics;
- Integration, extension, and management; and
- Course upgrading
These improvements impact instructors, students, and administrators. Some features do require administrative action.
Instructors:
- Multiple Grading Schemas: Add, Edit, Copy
- Submission page sorting controls
- Gradable Items View usability improvements
- Discussion navigation improvements
- Deactivated students no longer show in student progress reports
- New access points to Student Overview
- Course Activity Report accessibility improvements
Instructors and students:
- Hotspot question: Circle Shape and Usability Improvements
- Bb Annotate: Enhanced comments
- Cloud document “Refresh” button improvement
All users:
- Course Content Title Search
- Primary Instructor improvements
- Course Upgrading: Remove HTML for plain text fields
- Updated Text for Copies and Imports
Administrators:
Assessment and Grading
Hotspot question: Circle Shape and Usability Improvements – 3900.62
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors, Students
Instructors may want to assess a student’s knowledge of visual content. The hotspot question type is popular for this type of assessment. This question type is also good for reducing the potential of cueing or guessing.
Hotspot questions present an image without any answer options for students to choose. Students must mark a certain area of the image that is within the area the instructor defined as correct.
We continue to improve this question type:
- Instructors may now use a circle-shape selector to draw a circle to mark the hotspot.
- Now when students select the image, a pin is automatically placed on the selection.
- The polygon shape selector and selected pins have improved color contrast.
Image 1. Instructor view - Add circle hotspots to an image
Image 2. Instructor view – Color change for first point in polygon shape
Image 3. Student view – Color change when student selects a pin
For administrators:The feature flag for this feature has been removed. Hotspot questions are now always available.
Multiple Grading Schemas: Add, Edit, Copy – 3900.62
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors
In the past, Ultra courses allowed only one grading schema per course. Now instructors can add, copy, and edit up to 100 grading schemas per course. Items copied from other courses will keep their grading schemas. When copying, any configured schemas copy even if not aligned to gradable items.
Instructors can now choose the best grading schema for each assessment in a course.
Image 1. Grading schema creation
Image 2. Instructor view - Grading schema gradebook grid view
Image 3. Student View - grading schema
For administrators:This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed at the administrator level.
Submission page sorting controls – 3900.62
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors
Record sorting provides a more efficient grade review experience. Instructors may wish to sort students by grade to identify submissions at a grade boundary. This helps instructors make any changes necessary before posting grades.
Any sorting applied yields a temporary change to the sort order of all columns on the Submissions page.
Instructor view – sorting students by name
For administrators:This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed at the administrator level.
Gradable Items View usability improvements – 3900.62
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors
It is important for the gradebook to support efficient workflows. We have made several improvements to improve the Gradable Items View:
- Instructors can now sort the records of any column on this page. Sorting helps instructors more easily find the desired information. For example, instructors may sort on Grading Status to locate assessments that need grading.
- Selecting the assessment name now navigates the instructor to the selected assessment.
- Selecting '# to grade’ now navigates to a Needs Grading filtered Submissions page. This provides instructors with quick entry into the grading process.
- The new Post column provides instructors with status information for an assessment. This also simplifies the action to post all grades for the assessment.
Image 1. Instructor view – Sorting by Grading Status
For administrators:This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed at the administrator level.
Bb Annotate: Enhanced comments – 3900.62
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience, Original Experience
Ultra Course View, Original Course View
Impact: Instructors, Students
It is important for instructors to provide rich and meaningful feedback for students. We have improved formatting and editing options for instructors.
- Instructors can now include richer formatting in comments. This includes font colors, bold, underline, and hyperlinks.
- Instructors can now edit already placed comments.
For administrators:This feature might not be available at the same time the release takes place. The deployment information will be updated on status.blackboard.com.
Course Content Title Search – 3900.62
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: All users
It is sometimes difficult to remember the location of a course item. In the past, locating an item was a time-intensive task and unintuitive. Searching for the item would involve opening every folder or learning module to find the item.
You can now search course content titles to find these items on the course content page. The course search icon, a magnifying glass, is easy to find at the top of the course content page. When a user types a few letters, the course search function displays a list of matching items by title. A user may expand the search results to view more information related to the course item(s).
Image 1. Course content with course search icon in top right
Image 2. Course Search Text Box
Image 3. Course Search findings
Image 4. “Show all item results” window
Image 5. “Clear search” option
For administrators:This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
Discussion navigation improvements – 3900.62
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors
Instructors often review various aspects of course discussions to assess and engage students. To improve navigation and increase visibility, we have introduced a new tab navigation:
- Discussion
- Student Activity
- Grading & Participation
The Grading & Participation appears only when the discussion is marked for grading.
Image 1. Discussion tab
Image 2. Student Activity tab
Image 3. Grades & Participation tab
Image 4. Tab options when a discussion is not marked for grading
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed at the administrator level.
Data & Analytics
Deactivated students no longer show in the student progress reports – 3900.62
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors
Instructors want to know their students’ engagement with course material. The per item progress report offers the information needed, such as if a student has started or if an item is unopened. Now this report excludes deactivated students. This may happen when a student drops the course. The numbers in the report are aligned with the actual number of active students in the course. Students who cannot access the course but are not deactivated will continue to display. These students who cannot access are identified in the report.
Image 1. Progress report before and after students have been deactivated.
Before:
After:
For administrators: You must enable progress tracking to see this report. A deactivated student is one where the Student Information System sets the row status of either the user or enrollment record to the disabled state.
New access points to Student Overview – 3900.62
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors
Quick access to student information is helpful during the grading and feedback process. The Student Overview page provides the most important information for each student.
Image 1. Student Overview
Now instructors can access the Student Overview page in 3 locations:
- Roster
- Messages
- Discussions
These additional access points provide instructors with convenient access to this student information. As before, instructors can continue to reach this page by selecting a student in the Gradebook.
Image 2. An instructor may access the Student Overview by selecting a student from the Roster
Image 3. An instructor may access the Student Overview by selecting a student in the conversation participants section of a Message or in a Message thread
Image 4. An instructor may access the Student Overview by selecting a student in a discussion response or reply
Most of the time when closing the Student Overview, the instructor will return to the point of access. However, if navigating deeply and opening many panels, there may be times when navigation varies. An instructor may return to the student list in the Gradebook when closing the Student Overview. This navigation is designed to avoid circular referencing.
For administrators: This feature is available for all courses and organizations. There are no configurations needed to allow instructors to use these access points to the Student Overview. To view the Progress tracking tab in the Student Overview progress tracking should be enabled.
Course Activity Report accessibility improvements – 3900.62
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View, Original Course View
Impact: Instructors
We commit to providing accessible and inclusive solutions for all users. Many users navigate Ultra using assistive technologies. To better support instructors using assistive technology, we have made several accessibility improvements to the Course Activity Report:
- The description of the Course Activity Report includes a “Learn more” link. Now the screen reader states this link, directing the instructor to the related Help documentation.
- Instructors can sort data on any column. Now screen readers indicate if column sorting is in ascending or descending order.
- Instructors can select many students to send messages. Now screen readers state the number of students selected.
- Screen readers now state when an instructor selects or deselects all students.
- In medium and small screens some options of the Course Activity Report combine in a single drop-down menu. Now screen readers state that the 3-dot menu contains more options.
Image 1. The screen reader indicates the “Learn more” link directs the user to the related help page
Image 2. The screen reader indicates that sorting is applied to the Overall Grade in descending order
Image 3. The screen reader indicates that 2 students are selected
Image 4. The screen reader indicates that the 3-dots button displayed in medium and small screens contains more options
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed. To experience these improvements, users need to turn on a screen reader tool using the assistive technology installed on their personal devices.
Integration, Extension, and Management
Cloud document “Refresh” button improvement – 3900.62
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors, Students
User experience in Ultra is of utmost importance to us. To help users better focus on interacting with Microsoft OneDrive Cloud Documents, we removed a banner.
Image 1. Before - Informative banner for the Microsoft OneDrive Cloud Document
We retained the "Refresh" button for student and instructor users.
We made this change to both embedded cloud documents and cloud collaborations.
Image 2. After – Refresh button for a Microsoft OneDrive Cloud Document
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
Sort Courses and Organizations by Course View – 3900.62
Blackboard Learn SaaS, Learn 9.1
Ultra Experience, Original Experience
Impact: Administrators
Administrators often search for courses and organizations in the administrator panel. The search results show the course or organization view as Ultra, Original, Undecided, or Preview. Now administrators can sort search results on this column. Sorting helps administrators better find the desired courses or organizations. Sorting may also help administrators better understand adoption of the Ultra Course View.
A course designated as Undecided is in the Original Course View, but an instructor may change it to Ultra Course View. A course designated as Preview uses the Ultra Course View, but an instructor can revert to Original Course View.
Image 1. Course search results sorted by Course View
For administrators: This feature is available for all courses and organizations. There are no configurations needed.
View Enrollment Data Source Keys – 3900.62
Blackboard Learn SaaS, Learn 9.1
Ultra Experience, Original Experience
Impact: Administrators
Data source keys allow administrators to segment data sets. They help to limit changes to records except by an appropriate data authority. To change some aspects of a record, you must know the data source key. In the past, administrators could view the data source key for user, course, organization, and term records. Data source keys for course and organizations enrollments were not displayed in the administrator panel.
If an administrator needed to update aspects of an enrollment record, they had to know the data source key because it was not displayed. Now the courses and organizations enrollments list pages, display the data source key for each enrollment. Administrators can also sort by the Data Source Key column.
Image 1. Listed enrollments for a course, displaying the data source key
For administrators: This feature is available for all courses and organizations. There are no configurations needed.
LTI Tool Content: Standardize default icons – 3900.62
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Administrators
Content icons are an important aspect of identifying content types in the course. In the past, when LTI tool icons were not defined the iconography was inconsistent. Now, all LTI tool icons that are not defined will display the default rocket icon.
These icons appear in these locations in the base navigation and Ultra course:
- Content Outline
- Gradebook grid view
- Gradebook list view
- Gradable Items tab
- Students Grades Overview
- Grades tab on Base Navigation
- Course Calendar Day Schedule
- Course Calendar Day Due Dates
- Base Nav Calendar Day Schedule
- Base Nav Calendar Day Due Dates
- Books & Tools
- Base Nav Calendar
- Overall Calculations
Image 1. LTI Tools default icon as shown on the Course Content page
For administrators: We recommend administrators review LTI placement configurations. When the tool provider manages their icons, those are always used and cannot be changed. When the tool provider does not supply an icon, the administrator can add one. When no icon is defined, a default icon is used.
Configure decimal and number separators in locale– 3900.62
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Administrators
People use different number formatting around the world. Larger numbers are grouped in different ways, and different punctuations are used for decimals. In Learn, these behaviors are included in the locale settings, so this is done automatically. A number would appear as 1,095.5 in the United States and 1.095,5 in Germany.
For some language selections, however, there can be variance from one country to another. In Spanish-speaking countries, for example, the decimal point is used in Mexico, but the decimal comma is used in Colombia.
Previously, custom configurations could be applied for Original courses. Now, these same custom settings will also apply to Ultra courses.
In Ultra courses, there are two places that will still display decimal point when the locale uses decimal commas:
- Numeric questions
- The Overall Grade configuration. Final calculations are not affected.
We plan to fix these in an upcoming release.
The Attendance tool always uses decimal points regardless of locale.
Image 1. The Spanish locale has been edited to use decimal points instead of decimal commas
For administrators: The improvement in this release is limited to left-to-right languages. Action is only necessary if your local number handling doesn’t match what is coded into your selected locale. To change the number handling:
- Export the appropriate language pack
- Manually edit the locale settings
- Upload the language pack and make it available
Primary Instructor improvements – 3900.62
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View, Original Course View
Impact: All users
The Ultra Course View supports the designation of a primary instructor. In the past, when a course contained more than one instructor any instructor could change the primary instructor setting. To support diverse needs regarding changes to this designation, now administrators may grant this as a privilege for system and course roles:
"Course/Organization Control Panel (Users and Groups) > Users > Set instructor as primary in Ultra Course View"
Administrators can now manage primary instructor designations SIS integration and REST API integration frameworks. The SIS integration framework supports the primary instructor indicator on course memberships through the flat file and XML formats.
The primary instructor designation impacts how course instructors display for a course.
- When no instructor is selected as primary, the first two instructors display based on alphabetical order in Ultra courses.
- When there is more than one instructor and only one is designated as primary, only one instructor displays in Ultra courses. The other instructors display when users select "Show more."
- When there is more than one instructor and two or more are designated as primary, at most two instructors display in Ultra courses.
- Course cards in the Base Navigation course timeline display primary instructors first for both Ultra and Original courses. Original courses do not have a user interface to set primary instructor so these must be set through integration.
To better support enrollment state management for archive/restore and course copy, we made a change. Now, when membership records are stored/retrieved, the primary instructor indicator is also stored/retrieved. Primary instructor designations are reflected as expected.
Image 1. In the course faculty only one instructor of many displays if only one is indicated as primary
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses and organizations. A user that needs to modify the Primary instructor flag will need this new Privilege: “Course/Organization Control Panel (Users and Groups) > Users > Set instructor as primary in Ultra Course View.” The primary instructor flag can be set for Original courses using data integration only. This will impact name order in Base Navigation.
Course Upgrading
Remove HTML for plain text fields – 3900.62
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: All users
Sometimes users may add HTML to fields in the Original Course View to change styling. For example, users cannot change the color of web link objects like they can for other items. Users worked-around this by adding HTML into the text field to change the color of the web link.
Image 1. HTML in a Web Link Name Field to change its color to red
When converted to the Ultra course view, the same fields no longer support HTML, and the HTML becomes exposed. Users then must rename the objects and remove the exposed HTML.
Image 2. HTML code is now exposed
Now we remove any HTML that is no longer supported during conversion. Conversion preserves the text-based content within the HTML tags.
For administrators: There are no administrative configurations required.
Updated Text for Copies and Imports – 3900.62
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: All users
When copying entire courses or individual items from courses, instructors may have seen the following message: "Oops! An error occurred copying your content". The message has created concerns when copying materials from Original courses. The text gives the impression that there are a lot of errors with copy and conversion. Yet, most exceptions are notifying instructors of changes during conversion.
Image 1. Misleading Error Message
We have updated the message to reduce the association of exceptions with errors. Exceptions are for the most part changes to content during conversion. Our hope is that this change will reduce fear when copying from Original courses.
Image 2. Updated Error Message
Another example of where we have made a change is with the results from a copy, import, or conversion. Before, instructors would see this message under each category: "# items were not copied". The message gave the impression that each exception message was a failure to copy, which is not true.
Image 3. Misleading Text on Copy Results
We have updated the message to inform users that they have exceptions to review.
Image 4. Updated Text on Copy Results
For administrators: There are no administrative configurations required.
March 2023 – 3900.60 Release
The March 2023 - 3900.60 release is robust with features in six areas:
- Assessment and grading;
- Data and analytics;
- Mobile app;
- Integration, extension, and management;
- Communication and social engagement; and
- Course upgrading.
These improvements impact instructors, students, and administrators. Some features do require administrative action.
Instructors:
- Improved attempt switching when grading student submissions with multiple attempts
- Sorting Controls on the Anonymous Submissions Page
- Sorting on Overall Grade in the Gradebook Student List View
- Course Activity Report Table Enhancements
- Unsupported Course Cartridge and ePack Features Removed
- Support for concurrent course copies
- Preserve empty content areas
- Preserve font families
- Reschedule announcements
Instructors and students:
All users:
- PDF version of the SafeAssign Originality Report
- Improvements to the user profile
- Password age, re-use, and expiration policies
- Blackboard Assist (K12 availability)
Administrators:
Assessment and Grading
Improved attempt switching when grading student submissions with multiple attempts – 3900.60
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors
Multiple-attempt assessments can be more complicated for instructors because there are more submissions. To switch between attempts for a student in the past, an instructor would have to close an attempt then select a different attempt. This wasn’t intuitive and required extra clicks. Now instructors can navigate directly between a student’s attempts. If a student has multiple attempts for an assessment, an instructor will see an option to switch attempts. This is more efficient.
Image 1. Instructor view of the attempt drop-down menu on the grading page
When the instructor clicks a student name in the Submissions list, the most recent submitted attempt will be loaded.
The attempt selector displays information to help instructors select the desired attempt:
- Attempt number
- Submission time stamp
- File size
- Grade (if graded)
- Late indicator (if applicable)
Image 2. Navigating between student attempts using the attempt drop-down menu
For administrators:As part of the March release, this feature will be available by default. It will be possible to opt out of using this feature. At that time, you can set the feature to unavailable on the Ultra Experience Management page in the administrator panel. The feature flag will be removed in the May release and this feature will become permanent.
Sorting Controls on the Anonymous Submissions Page – 3900.60
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors
Record sorting provides a more efficient grade review experience. Instructors need to sort students by grade to identify submissions at a grade boundary. This helps instructors make any changes necessary before posting grades.
Any sorting applied yields a temporary change to the sort order of all columns on the Anonymous Submissions page.
Image 1. Instructor view - students sorted by highest to lowest grade
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
Sorting on Overall Grade column in the Gradebook Student List View – 3900.60
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors
Instructors need sorting controls in the Gradebook. These sorting options are helpful for organizing the Gradebook data for various contexts:
- identifying students with grades at a grade boundary
- ordering students from highest to lowest grade, or vice versa
Now instructors can sort the Gradebook Students list view on the Overall Grade column. Any sorting applied yields a temporary change to the sort order of all columns.
Image 1. Instructor view - students sorted by highest to lowest Overall Grade
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
PDF version of the SafeAssign Originality Report – 3900.60
Blackboard Learn SaaS, Managed and Self-Hosting
Ultra Experience, Original Experience
Ultra Course View, Original Course View
Impact: All users
The SafeAssign Originality Report is a valuable teaching and learning tool. Instructors use the report to ensure students express original thoughts and cite sources. Some instructors allow students to view the report. This is helpful for teaching students how to cite their work.
In the past, users could download the report as PDF. However, users could not open the sources from the PDF.
Now, users can open matched sources from the PDF. We also made some usability improvements to the PDF, such as text alignment and font adjustments. To better support peak usage, we made infrastructure improvements.
Image 1. Improved PDF version of the SafeAssign Originality Report
For administrators: Managed and Self-Hosting clients must upgrade to the newest version of the SafeAssign Building Block for these improvements.
Data & Analytics
Course Activity Report Table Enhancements – 3900.60
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View, Original Course View
Impact: Instructors
The course activity page helps instructors understand students' performance. With this information, instructors can:
- Identify struggling or high performing students based on their grade, hours in course, or days of inactivity.
- Message students who have a low grade and/or have not accessed the course recently.
- Receive alerts when a student has not accessed their course in a while or if a student's grade has dropped.
With this update, we have made the following improvements:
- New Table - Updated to be more consistent with other features. Those who use progress tracking will find the feel of the new table should be familiar. The new table makes it easier to select and message students.
- New Days of Inactivity Column - the number of days since a student last accessed your course. Instructors can use this information to identify students that might be falling behind.
- Access Student Overview - click or tap a student's name to see their grades, progress, and activity over the weeks. Instructors can use the Student Overview to get a full picture of a student's performance and engagement in a course.
- More Student Information. Accommodations, name pronunciation, and pronouns are now visible. Instructors can use this information when drafting messages to students.
Image 1. Course Activity Report - new table capabilities and metrics
For administrators: This feature is available for all courses. There are no configurations needed.
Mobile App
Improvements to the user profile – 3900.60
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Impact: All users
Users expect to have a congruent experience on the mobile app and desktop experience. In the January 2023 - 5900.56 release, we updated the mobile app design for the user profile page. Now the profile page experience on the mobile app corresponds with the desktop experience.
From the app, users can:
- enter/edit address information
- enter/edit phone and fax numbers
- edit prefix and name details
- record, edit, and/or delete their name pronunciation
- select preferred pronouns or create their own
- change their profile picture
- view profile card
Image 1. Users may update profile information from the mobile app
Image 2. Users may record the pronunciation of their name
For administrators: This feature is available for all users of the Mobile App. No action is needed from users who have enabled automatic updates on their devices. Users who have disabled automatic updates on their devices must download the update.
Integration, Extension, and Management
Administrator Login As Tool: Permissions Extended – 3900.60
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience, Original Experience
Impact: Administrators and users with permissions
End user support is critical for system administrators and other support staff in varying roles. Administrators can now enable the Login As feature for roles other than the full administrator role. This ensures that institutions can enable additional support personnel without giving them full administrative privileges.
When using Login As, your activity will be logged against the impersonated user, and may result in false positives for activity that could impact institutional or external reporting.
Image 1. Manage Login As privileges in the Administrator Panel
For administrators: To enable the Login As entitlement, access System Roles > Privileges. Mark the two privileges for Login As. Select Permit Privileges in the Privileges dropdown.
REST APIs to read Rubrics associations – 3900.60
Blackboard Learn SaaS, Blackboard Learn 9.1
Ultra Experience, Original Experience
Ultra Course View, Original Course View
Impact: Administrators
Providing access to Rubric associations within our REST API framework offers many benefits:
- additional administrative control for assessments
- flexibility for external third-party integrations
- supports instructor-student communication about performance expectations
In this release we are glad to make available a new Rubrics Associations API. This public API includes a set of GET endpoints. This helps to inform users about existing rubric associations in a course:
- Rubrics associations
- Rubrics associations by rubrics ID
- Rubrics associations by associations ID
For administrators: The REST integration user must have the entitlement “course.rubrics.VIEW” to make use of the new endpoints.
LTI Tool Content Icons on Calendar – 3900.60
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Base Navigation, Calendar View
Ultra Course Calendar
Impact: Instructors, Students
In the past, LTI content icons did not appear in the calendar on the base navigation or in the course. The icons help users identify and distinguish between content types. Now, the LTI content icons used in the course will display as follows:
- Course Calendar: Schedule Day
- Course Calendar: Due Dates Day
- Base Navigation Calendar: Schedule Day
- Base Navigation Calendar: Due Date Day
This improvement applies to icons for LTI tools.
Image 1. Instructor view - LTI Tool with default icon in the Calendar
Image 2. Student view - LTI Tool with default icon in the Calendar
For administrators: We recommend administrators review LTI placement configurations since icons can help users differentiate content. Icons for LTI Tools are displayed in the places mentioned above, as well as in other areas. Only LTI content icons in the Calendar are affected in this release. When the tool provider manages their icons, those are always used can cannot be changed. When the tool provider does not supply an icon, the administrator can add one. When no icon is defined, a default icon is used.
Manage Roster - 3900.60
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View, Original Course View
Impact: Instructors, Students
Institutions often have policies about hiding students' personal information. Institutions can now manage Roster visibility. This level of control is for both Ultra and Original Course Views when Base Navigation is enabled.
Administrators can define the Roster visibility at the institution and node levels for both courses and organizations. When permitted, instructors can define the Roster visibility setting at course/organization level.
The Details & Actions menu in Ultra Course View will not display the Roster to students when it is hidden. Instructors can manage the Student Roster visibility in Original Courses when allowed by the administrator.
For instructors: your institution may enforce a policy and not allow you to change this setting.
Image 1. Instructor view - Roster visibility control
Image 2. Student view - Roster does not appear in the Details & Actions menu when the Roster is hidden
Image 3. Roster visibility controls from the Administrator Tools Panel
Instructors, Teaching Assistants, and Course Builders roles have the privilege to view and edit the Roster by default. For other roles, the following privileges must be configured:
- View Roster: Administrator Panel (Courses) > Courses > Edit > Enrollments or Course/Organization Control Panel (Users and Groups) > Users
- Edit Roster visibility: Course/Organization Control Panel (Customization) > Tool Availability
For administrators: Administrators can configure the Roster visibility from the Administrator Panel > Tools and Utilities > Tools.
Open the padlock to allow individual instructors to edit their Roster tool availability. Lock the padlock to enforce the institutional policy for Roster availability.
Password age, re-use, and expiration policies – 3900.60
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience, Original Experience
Impact: All users who are allowed to reset their passwords in Learn
Most institutions use an identity provider (e.g. Azure Active Directory) to manage and authenticate users. There are cases when administrators create users in Learn. These users may set their own passwords in Learn. In support of security requirements for passwords, users may be prompted to:
- Change their passwords after a certain number of days have elapsed since their last password change. After expiry, users can log in with their old password, but are prompted to change it immediately before continuing.
- Wait a span of time between password changes. When a user tries to change a password before a certain span of time, they are informed that they cannot change the password. We recommend contacting the helpdesk in this case.
- Avoid re-using previous passwords.
Image 1. A user is prompted create a new password after password expiration
Image 2. A user is informed when a password cannot be changed because of the password Minimum Age Policy Violation
Image 3. A user is informed that previous passwords may not be reused
Image 4. An administrator configures the Password Age and History policies
If necessary, an administrator can require users to change their passwords to meet password policies updates instead of waiting for an automatic expiry. The “Expire Password” option appears in the Administrator Panel on Users page. Select one or multiple users at a time. Full System Administrators can use this new feature by default. Administrators may grant this privilege to other roles if desired: “Administrator Panel (Users) > Users > Edit > Expire Password”. If an administrator chooses to expire a user’s password and the Minimum Password Age Policy is turned on, users will not have to wait to change their password.
Image 5. An administrator expires users’ passwords
Finally, for security measures, passwords are no longer stored in archive packages.
Image 6. An administrator downloads archive package
For administrators: For administrators: When changing passwords for another users, ensure you meet password length and complexity rules.
Administrators can determine the age and reuse policies. These new settings appear in the Administrator Panel on the Password Settings page. Only a full System Administrator can access the configuration page. The default settings enforce the following policies:
- Password Age Policy: This option is off by default. The following rules may be turned on independently:
- The minimum age default value is 24 hours. Define a value between 1 and 720 hours. New users will not have to wait for this period to change their passwords the first time.
- The maximum age default value is 90 days. Define a value between 29 and 360 days.
- Password History Policy: This option is off by default. If turned on, administrators can specify the number of recently used passwords for the system to check. The default value is 10. Define a value between 1 and 24.
Unsupported Course Cartridge and ePack Features Removed – 3900.60
Blackboard Learn SaaS, Blackboard Learn 9.1
Original Experience
Original Course View
Impact: Instructors
In the past for Original Course View, there were two older methods for adding licensed publisher content. These are no longer supported:
- Course Cartridges, a server-based method to download licensed publisher content using one-time keys
- ePack licensed content importing when converting WebCT courses
While we have not supported these for years, users still see options to add Course Cartridges download keys. APIs for ePack conversion are still part of the course import process. In this release, we have removed these. Instructors and admins will no longer see options to enter a Course Cartridge download key.
Image 1. An instructor viewing the “Import Course Cartridge” page in the Original Course View Control Panel—this option will be removed in 3900.60
There are no changes for existing content. Course Cartridge materials that required ongoing license validation have not worked for years. Course Cartridge materials that became standard Learn items—students do not have to enter license keys to access them the first time—will continue to work.
This change is unrelated to other methods to import content or access licensed publisher materials. These other methods are not impacted by this change:
- Partner Cloud
- Importing or exporting a Learn course package
- Importing or exporting a Common Cartridge (an exchange format standard from 1EdTech, formerly IMS Global)
- Course auto-archive
For administrators: This change is for all Original courses. There are no configurations needed.
Security: Registration of all domains required– 3900.60
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience, Original Experience
Ultra Course View, Original Course View
Impact: Administrators
Various methods of verifying users help to make the Blackboard Learn application more secure. One method is to confirm all requests come from authorized domains. Administrators manage this in the Administrator Panel > Hostname Configuration.
In the past, requests from some parts of the application would work even if the requester domain was not registered. In this release, this will no longer be allowed. This improves the security of Blackboard Learn.
Image 1. The hostname configuration page allows administrators to register all domains used to access the Learn application
For administrators: If your institution created additional domains for your Learn environment, you must register them all. This applies to both primary application domains and alternate domains for serving content. For example, an administrator at Monument University created the domains learn.monumentuni.edu for users to access and learn-content.monumentuni.edu to securely serve content. Both must be registered.
Blackboard Assist (K12 availability) – 3900.60
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience, Original Experience
Blackboard App
Impact: All users
Assist offers learners one central hub within Blackboard Learn to find and access the services they need to flourish. In the past, Blackboard Assist was not available to clients with K12 licenses. From March 2, 2023, K12 clients will also have the chance to enable Assist.
Enable Blackboard Assist within Blackboard Learn to:
- Give learners one place to find vital support services. The prominent placement of Blackboard Assist in Blackboard Learn helps make learners increasingly aware of all connected support resources.
- Get learners to take advantage of available services. Blackboard Assist is available around-the-clock from the desktop and Blackboard mobile app. This means that learners can access these support resources whenever and wherever they need them. Featuring services this way provides an additional means to capture your learners’ attention.
- Gain access to Ally File Transformer: The Blackboard Ally File Transformer helps learners to personalize their learning experience. It can convert files into alternative formats that better fit their needs, devices, and learning preferences.
For administrators: Assist must be enabled for use. Learn more: https://help.blackboard.com/Learn/Administrator/SaaS/Tools_Management/Blackboard_Assist
Communication & Social Engagement
Discussions - Deactivate post activity – 3900.60
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience, Original Experience
Blackboard App
Impact: All users
Before this release, the only way to prevent posts in a discussion was by defining a due date. Instructors now have a checkbox option in the Discussion Settings panel. When checked, participants cannot edit or delete posts in a discussion.
Image 1. Instructor view - Deactivate Post Activity in the Discussion Settings panel
Image 2. Student view – Discussion view after the instructor has elected to prevent editing
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed at the administrator level.
Course Upgrading
Support for concurrent course copies - 3900.60
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors, Administrators
Copies are a queued task in Blackboard Learn. In the past, when copies were initiated by an SIS, Learn could process two copies in parallel at any given time. The same was not true for copies initiated by end users. Copies initiated by end users process one at a time.
With this update, we have increased the limit to four for both SIS and end user-initiated copies. The limit will now allow a total of 8 copies to process at any given time: 4 copies from the SIS and 4 copies from end users. Increasing the limit reduces the wait time associated with copies.
For administrators: There are no administrative configurations required.
Preserve empty content areas - 3900.60
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors, Administrators
Institutions use empty content areas to create the initial structure in a course. They are often used for templates to help instructors know where to place items. In the past, empty content areas were not brought over during copy, import, and conversion processes.
We now preserve empty content areas during the copy, import, and conversion process.
For administrators: There are no administrative configurations required.
Default Menu settings no longer apply to new courses and organizations using the Ultra view - 3900.60
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Administrators
Blackboard administrators can configure a default menu for new courses and organizations. The default menu is a great way to create the initial structure of a course. Having a default structure can help instructors know where they should put items.
Unfortunately, the default menu settings were being applied to new Ultra courses. They should have only applied to courses using the original course view. The way Original and Ultra courses display and structure content is different. Because of this, the default menu settings created an undesired structure for new Ultra courses.
Institutions also use different structures for Original and Ultra courses and organizations. Having the default menu applied to new Ultra courses and organizations created work. The Ultra courses needed to have the default menu removed before faculty could use them.
Now new Ultra courses and organizations will not inherit the default menu settings. New Ultra courses and organizations can still leverage templates by copying a template from another course.
For administrators: To review the existing default menu settings navigate to Admin > Course/Organization Settings > Default Course/Organization Menu.
Preserve Font Families - 3900.60
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors
In the past, we would set all fonts to Arial during the conversion process. The Ultra course view did not always support different font families.
We now preserve font families during the conversion process using the following logic:
- If font family is Arial in Original Course View, set to Arial in the Ultra Course View.
- If font family is Comic Sans MS in Original Course View, set to Comic Sans MS in the Ultra Course View.
- If font family is Courier New in Original Course View, set to Courier New in the Ultra Course View.
- If font family is Times New Roman in Original Course View, set to Times New Roman in the Ultra Course View.
- If font family is Verdana in Original Course View, set to Verdana in the Ultra Course View.
- If font family is anything else or not defined in the Original Course View, set to Open Sans in the Ultra Course View.
The font families in the Original course view are different from those in the Ultra course view. The above logic tries to preserve font families as best as possible to reduce cleanup.
Font families are preserved when converting text associated with the following items:
- Announcements
- Discussions
- Assignments
- Documents
- Journals
- Groups and Group Sets
- Tests and Question Types
For administrators: There are no administrative configurations required.
Reschedule Announcements - 3900.60
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors
Instructors have not had the ability to reschedule announcements. If the show on and hide after date fields were set for the future, a pop-up window would not generate. Instructors prefer a pop-up window because it helps students see the announcement. If there is no pop-up, a student may not know there is an announcement for them to view.
Some instructors were recreating announcements from scratch to generate these pop-ups. With this update, instructors can now reschedule announcements without having to recreate them. They can do this by changing the show on and hide after fields to a future date.
When users first enter a course, the rescheduled announcement will trigger a pop-up.
For administrators: There are no administrative configurations required.
Looking for older release notes?
Check out the Blackboard Learn Release Notes Archive for more information on past releases.
