June 2024 – 3900.93 Release

• Printing for assessments
• Streamlined point value editing for questions
• Return a true/false question to an unanswered state
• Post immediately when creating announcements
• Prevent auto-assigning members within self-enrollment groups
• Group members list available in the selected group
• Grader Notes on student grades
• Improved visibility of new grades and feedback in the student gradebook
• Weighted calculation usability improvements
• Base Navigation – Course and Organization filters and personalization
• Landing page enhancements for Blackboard Learn Mobile app

Printing for Assessments

Instructors can now print assessments. Printing provides a convenient solution for a variety of use cases:

• Accommodating students with specific needs or limited technology access
• Providing a printed assessment for testing in designated centers
• Backup and record keeping
• Conducting offline assessment
• Documentation and compliance
• Maintaining security and integrity

The print option is available in Forms, Tests, and Assignments with questions. Printing also provides the option to save as PDF.

To print an assessment, from Content and Settings, select Print.

Note: Anthology have said that they plan to support printing answer keys and question pools and printing from the mobile app in upcoming releases.

As a benefit of this change printing documents is now much easier. previously there was an issue that could cause the Print function to only the first page or to overlay other text ontop of the document. This should now be resolved.

Image 1. Print option from a test

Image 2. Select desired print options

Return a true/false question to an unanswered state

Students can now return a true/false question to an unanswered state after choosing an answer. Students clear their choice by selecting the same option again. Students may need to clear their answer selection for a test question. For questions that use negative scoring, if a student is uncertain about their answer, their score may be better if they leave it unanswered. In this case, clearing a response makes it easy for them to come back later using the unanswered question filter. This helps students better manage their time during a test.

In the past, a student could only change their answer to a true/false question to a different value.

Image 1. A true/false question with true selected as the answer

Image 2. The true/false question answer has been cleared

Post immediately when creating announcements

Instructors can now post announcements as part of the drafting and editing processes. This makes the process of creating and posting announcements simpler.

Instructors can still post from the announcements page.

Image 1. When creating or editing an announcement, there is now an option to post

Prevent auto-assigning members in self-enrollment groups

Instructors use self-enrollment groups to provide agency to students on group activities. Currently, at the end of the enrollment period, unassigned students are always distributed into groups. To improve the use of self-enrollment groups for optional activities, instructors can now opt-out of this behavior. Instructors can deselect the option, which does not enroll students who do not self-enroll by the end of the enrollment to any group. This option gives instructors more flexibility when managing self-enrollment groups.

Image 1. The auto-enroll check box sets the behavior at the end of the self-enrollment period

Group members list available within the selected group

Groups and group work form an important part of the learning experience. To improve and centralize member information, we have relocated the members list to the selected group page. This will now display as a member’s tab rather than a separate panel. Here, users can search for members and sort them alphabetically. This change enhances the visibility of the selected groups page and provides the groundwork for adding more features in future releases.

Image 1. Show Members option from the group sets page

Image 2. Once a group is selected, the members now appear on the groups page within the Members tab

Grader Notes on student grades

Instructors can now add private grading notes to student grades. After a score is assigned, the new Feedback & Notes menu option is available. Grader notes form an important part of the academic record. These notes may serve as documentation for a grading decision or grade adjustment.  Grader notes are private to graders and not visible to students.

Those with grading privileges can access Feedback & Notes from two places:

• The Grades tab in the Gradebook by selecting a specific score.
• The Submissions list page for an assessment, select the More menu for a student

Image 1. Instructor view of the Feedback & Notes menu option accessible from the Gradebook grid view and Submissions page for assessments

Image 2. Instructor view of the new grader notes option

Image 3. Instructor view of grader notes accessed from a student’s contextual menu on the assessment’s Submissions page

Improved visibility of new grades and feedback in the student gradebook

To ensure that students are aware of any new grades in the course we have added an indicator to the Gradebook tab. When there are new grades, the number of new grades appears on the tab.

After selecting the tab, items with new or updated grades appear at the top of the student gradebook and display a purple indicator. The purple indicator disappears and the count on the tab reduces when the student selects the item or reviews their submission.

We also reviewed the use of color in the gradebook based on student feedback. Now, we mark late assessments with a “(Late)” label to reduce stress sometimes associated with the use of the color red. In the past, late submissions appeared with a red assessment icon and label.

Image 1. Student view of an Ultra course with the new grade indicator on the Gradebook tab

Image 2. Student view of the gradebook displaying the grade indicator on the Gradebook tab and corresponding purple indicators for the 3 relevant items; the new “(Late)” label is also visible

Weighted calculation usability improvements

Responding to client feedback, we have made two improvements for gradebook weighting:

• The label “0% per item” appeared for categories excluded from weighting. This caused confusion so we removed it.
• We updated the calculation rules panel to make it easier to understand the selected settings.

Image 1. Instructor view of the previous interface for weighted calculations

Image 2. Instructor view of the new weighted calculation interface where the ‘0% per item’ information is removed for excluded categories

Image 3. Instructor view of the updated text on the Calculation rule panel

Base Navigation – Course and Organization filters and personalization

The courses tab is undergoing a slight change to make it easier to find courses. Previously a carousel selector was used to switch between different terms which made it easier to get lost when looking for specific courses. Now the carousel has been removed and replaced with a number of selectors, these selectors can help you narrow down where a course is and find it more easily, these selection are also remembered across sessions and devices to allow you to customise your view.

You can set filters, make term choices, and add text searches. All of these are clearly displayed below the search box. Remove these search settings or filters to see more courses or organizations. Remove them by selecting the close icon “x” on each.

The terms selector has specific logical behaviors to help users:

• “All Terms” is the default term selection, this will allow you to see everything regardless of term.
• You can now choose to view “All Courses” or those narrow your search for course where you teach, course you are taking as well as other options such a the state of the course.
• You can also select from previous Terms or Semesters to narrow your course search or search for a particular instance of a course.

Image 1. Course page with search for “medical” and current courses

Landing Page Enhancements for Blackboard Learn Mobile App

To enhance usability and streamline user interaction in the mobile app, we added filters to the following landing pages:

• Courses
• Grades

Users now can use filters at the top of each landing page, allowing them to refine their search results.

When a user applies a filter, its tag appears at the top of the landing page. Users can remove filters by unselecting the respective tag.

Image 1: Courses landing page with filtering option