Blackboard Ultra Updates- September 2024

Contents

You will see these changes in Blackboard Ultra from Friday 6th September 2024. Read the full details on the Blackboard release notes webpages.

Course Content Page Enhancements

The course content page of all Ultra courses will change. This is a visual change only. The order and content of your courses will not change.

What is changing?

The Course Staff list and the Details & Actions menu will move from the left-hand side to the right-hand side of the page.
The “purple bar and plus button” to add content is replaced by a grey bar and plus icon. You do not need to hover your cursor on the page for the bar to appear as it is present on the page wherever you can add content.
Images are rounded, colours are slightly warmer.

Why is it changing?

Readers tend to look at a screen in an F-pattern, so moving the menu to the right ensures that the course content is the first thing students will look at.
Greater visual distinction between learning modules and folders.
Intuitive navigation reduces cognitive load and increases focus on the content.

What will it look like?

Screenshot of a Blackboard Ultra course called General Horticulture. The first content item is a folder titled "Start here". Below it there are three learning modules which have titles and images on the subject of bees. — Instructor view of a course content.

The same screenshot of a Blackboard Ultra course for General Horticulture in student preview. The add content buttons no longer appear between the content items, and the Details & Actions menu is shorter. — Student view of course content.

Screenshot of an expanded learning module called "Module 1: BuzzWorthy 101 - Introduction to Apiology". There are several different documents, discussions, and tests in the module. The student's progress tracking is indicated by green ticks and a green line on the left-hand side of each item. — Visual changes between learning modules and folders: student view of a learning module with content and progress tracking enabled.

Screenshot of an expanded folder called "Start Here". There are several types of content in the folder and they have green ticks next to them but there is no green line to indicate that these should be completed in a linear way. — Visual changes between learning modules and folders: student view of a folder with content and progress tracking enabled.

View items that “Need marking” and “Needs posting” in the new Overview tab

There will be a new Overview tab in the Gradebook which will show items that have not yet been marked or posted to students (released to students). These are called the Needs marking and Needs Posting sections.

Needs Marking

Will show all items ready to be marked.
A total indicator is shown in the purple circle.
Displays up to five items at a time, ordered by the oldest submission. Use the buttons to page forwards and backwards to view more items.
Select Mark now to quickly access the submission.

Needs Posting

Will show all items ready to be posted (released to students).
A total indicator is shown in the purple circle.
Displays up to five items at a time, ordered by the oldest submission. Use the buttons to page forwards and backwards to view more items.
Select Post now to quickly release marks to students.

Screenshot of the new Gradebook/Overview page showing the needs marking section. — Instructor view of the new Needs Grading count on the Gradebook tab and the Needs Grading section on the new Overview page .

Examples of needs marking and needs posting. — Instructor view of the new gradebook Overview page where the Needs Grading and Needs Posting sections appear.

View late submissions that need marking

Late submissions will be included in the Needs Marking section of the new Gradebook.

Exclude attempt when marking

You can allow students additional attempts using exemptions and exceptions. Maybe the student submitted the wrong file, or was incomplete, so you allowed them to submit again.

To prevent the need to mark multiple submissions, you can now exclude an attempt from grading without the need to delete it.

Mark calculations ignore excluded attempts. Students aren’t automatically granted an additional attempt if an attempt is excluded.
You can exclude any submitted attempt by a student. If you exclude an attempt when the student has no remaining attempts, you receive a warning that their final mark can’t be calculated.
When students review their submissions, a banner notification appears on excluded attempts.

Screenshot of an instructor in flexible marking view. they have selected the options menu towards the top left, and they can see a drop down menu that includes the option for "Exclude Attempt". — Instructor view of the Exclude attempt menu option

View a Student Activity Log

The Student Overview page now has a student activity log. Instructors and other higher roles (like School Office Administrators) can use the report to check what a particular student did in a course.

The Activity log can be filtered by event type and can look to the past 140 days. Any information older than that won’t be stored in this report. The log can take up to 20 minutes to update from the last time a student performs an action.

Example student activity log. — Student activity log report located in the student overview page.

Better Maths notation: Wiris Upgrade

Blackboard have improved the rendering of subscript and superscript formulas. This upgrade provides a better experience for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics courses.

Example text editor containing a formula. — Example of improved rendering for maths notation in Blackboard.

Students can review instructor feedback with their submission

The way that students can review their feedback is changing. When a student opens their submission attempt, they can view the inline feedback, attempt feedback and rubric all at the same time. This makes it easier to find feedback regardless of how it has been added by the marker.