Blackboard release monthly features updates. This article will contain a summary of things that are on the horizon.
AI tools and image generation
Course instructors can currently use Unsplash to add stock images to their course content and Learning Modules. From August you will see an additional option called Generate images, which will allow you to generate images from a prompt using Blackboard AI tools.
What’s next for AI in Blackboard?
Blackboard offer a variety of AI tools called the AI Design Assistant. These tools are currently being tested and evaluated for use at the University of Southampton. They will be enabled only if it is appropriate for these tools to be used.
Achievements (Badges)
This feature is not yet available at the University of Southampton. Please raise a ServiceLine ticket for the Blackboard team if this is something you might want to use in the future.
Achievements is a new capability for Ultra courses to help keep students motivated and congratulate them for their participation in a course. With Achievements:
- Instructors can create course badges and set criteria for students to earn the badges.
- Instructors can view which students earned a course badge.
- Students can review the requirements to earn a course badge.
- Students can view both earned and unearned course badges.
Considerations:
- When overall grade or a calculated column is a performance criterion, that calculation itself is not enough to earn the achievement. Students must have scores for all markable items used for the calculation. This requirement prevents a running total issuing a badge before a student completes all tasks.
- When a markable item has multiple attempts, it is calculated using one of the following: last attempt, first attempt, highest score, lowest score, or average of all attempts. If you need to change this setting, we recommend doing so before marking submissions. If you change it after marking, calculation updates may not award new achievements to students. If you encounter this issue, you can update student marks again for the item.
- An earned achievement isn’t revoked if an instructor changes a student’s marks.
- Custom badge images aren’t currently supported.
- Student preview isn’t currently supported.
- Once an achievement is published, it can’t be changed. If there is a configuration error, delete the achievement and create it again.
- Achievements from Original course view do not convert when copying or importing a course.
- Achievements can’t be copied from one Ultra course to another. We plan to support this in a future release.
Goals and Mastery Learning
This feature is not yet available at the University of Southampton. Please raise a ServiceLine ticket for the Blackboard team if this is something you might want to use in the future.
The Mastery tab in the Gradebook allows instructors and students to see how their activities align with institutional goals. Based on the goal performance scale set by your institution, the tab displays the mastery of each alignment.
The Mastery tab enables instructors to:
- View the level of mastery per alignment for each student.
- View how each student is performing against those alignments.
Considerations:
- Goals cannot be created by a course Instructor. These must be set up by an administrator.
- The Goal Performance Scale must also be created by an administrator, and is the scale used for all goals.
- Gradebook columns cannot be expanded so it is difficult to view the full name and description of a goal.