Blackboard Ultra Updates – August 2026

Contents

Staff news: This article will contain a summary of useful updates you may see in your Blackboard Ultra courses from Friday 7th August 2026.

Gradebook grid view

The Gradebook Grid View has been restructured, giving staff an new layout and a new way to manage marking tasks.

Blackboard have provided videos to get you started:

The following are changing in the Grid View:

Layout and navigation, including a new Grade Details panel that brings grading information and actions into one place
Grade entry workflow
How grades are posted
How exceptions and exemptions are managed, now grouped under Accommodations

The following are not changing:

Grades, calculations, and overall grade configuration
Grade schemas and grading settings
Course-level accommodations
The List View
All existing grades and submission history

Duplicate content on the Course Content page

A new Duplicate option appears in the More options (…) menu for every item. Selecting Duplicate creates a copy of the item with “Copy” appended to the name. The copy is hidden from students by default. Instructors can rename and edit the copy before making it visible to students.

The More options (...) menu for the learning module Unit One expanded, showing Edit, Student Progress, Change to Folder, Duplicate, and Delete. — *Select the Duplicate option from the More options (…) menu.*

Discussions: Sort by newest or oldest first

Instructors and students can now sort discussion posts by newest first or oldest first, making it easier to navigate long discussions.

Set release conditions based on journal submissions

When setting release conditions for course content, you can now choose journal engagement as a condition. Content releases automatically once a student submits to the journal, without requiring the instructor to review or mark the submission first.

Rule 1 for a release condition. In Select members, the instructor has All members selected (instead of specific members or groups). The instructor select Activity as the trigger with the item being a journal and the requirement being engagement. — You can now *select Engagement as the activity requirement for a journal.*

New updates make navigation in Blackboard clearer, more stable, and easier to follow.

Content now opens as a full page with consistent headers and navigation, rather than as stacked overlay panels.
The exit option now sits within the navigation banner, reducing accidental exits.
Breadcrumbs on a content page show the user’s location and allow quick movement back through modules and folders.
Selecting the Home button while in a course now returns you to the Courses page.

A content item displayed on its own full page with a consistent header and a clear path back to the learning module.

Export question banks

From the question bank management page, you can select an export option to download the question bank to your local file system. The exported file can be backed up, shared with other instructors, or reused in other courses.

The question banks page with two question banks. The user selected the ellipsis next to one of the question banks, which opened a small menu with additional options: Delete, Export, and Export QTI 2.0 Package.

Display answer-level feedback for selected options only

Students now receive answer-level feedback only for the options they chose in multiple choice questions. This gives students more targeted insight into their responses without revealing feedback for options they did not select.

Cloud documents now have a slightly different name

Embedded Cloud Document is now Microsoft Embedded Cloud Document.

Retirement warning in Blackboard Original courses

Blackboard LMS now displays a warning banner in Original courses for all non-student roles. The banner notifies instructors, administrators, and other staff that support for Original Course View ends after December 31, 2026. It will not be available for teaching and learning as of January 1, 2027.

The banner that appears across the top of all Original courses. It states "This course is using the Original Course View, which will no longer be supported after December 31, 2026. On January 1, 2027, Original Course View courses will automatically be marked Complete and become read-only. Learn more." — *A warning banner appears in all Original courses for all non-student roles.*

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