Details November
November 2022 – 3900.52 Release
Items marked with an asterisk * apply to both Ultra and Original Courses
Instructors:
- Course Activity Report under the Analytics tab
- Grade History Improvements
- Gradebook view saved
- Enhanced Student Grades Overview
- Gradebook Icon tooltips
- Content Collection in Ultra Documents
- Grading navigation improvements in Journals
- Preserve Course Image setting
Instructors and students:
- Hotspot Question
- Page Breaks in Tests and Assignments
- Richer Student feedback options for manually added columns
Students:
Assessment & Grading
Hotspot Question – 3900.52.0
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.
Common examples across diverse disciplines include:
- identifying as specific state or province on a map,
- pinpointing a particular bone on a skeleton, and
- locating a discrete part of a cell.
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.
Image 1. Instructor view – Add Hotspot question type for assignments and tests
Image 2. Instructor view – Add one or more hotspots to an image
Image 3. Student view – students may add a pin to the image to mark their selection
In the Original course view instructors can only create hotspot questions using a mouse. Now, in the Ultra course experience, instructors can create the hotspot question using a keyboard. Similarly, students may answer hotspot questions via the keyboard. Hotspot questions do not provide full support for assistive technologies. Hotspot questions are not an acceptable question type for instructors and students who use screen readers. In the future, Blackboard plan to support the presentation of an alternate question for students using screen readers. An alternate question allows assessment of the same information using a question type that is assessable with a screen reader.
Page Breaks in Tests and Assignments – 3900.52
Page breaks allow for easy creation of sections within an assessment. Page breaks also make it easy to group related questions.
Students can easily navigate from page to page. If the instructor activates ‘Display one question at a time’ or ‘Question randomization’ all pages will be merged.
Image 1. Page breaks are inserted through the same drop-down as any other assessment component
Image 2. Page breaks are shown to instructors as a black line in the test; select the individual break to remove it
Image 3. Instructors receive a warning message if a configuration they want to use turns page breaks off (e.g. activating randomization)
Auto save enhancements for lost connections – 3900.52
Blackboard are further improving how to inform students about connectivity issues. They have designed assessments in Ultra to detect if a connection is lost. If this happens students are warned
Image 1. Connection lost warning
After 20 seconds, the warning disappears. If the connection is not restored, another warning informs the student that their most recent progress is not saved.
Image 2. Connection lost and progress not saved warning
When the connection is restored, the system alerts the student and confirms that progress is saved.
Image 3. Connection restored and progress saved alert
Grade History Improvements – 3900.52
Grading records are important for instructors and academic leaders. The records are useful for addressing academic disputes or addressing students’ questions. In an earlier release, Blackboard added Grade History to the Ultra Course View. In this release, they are including a new user interface where users will be able to:
- Select which gradebook items to include in the download,
- Include deleted items, and
- Select timeframes to optimize the amount of information downloaded.
The download file report will include additional information:
- Student username
- Mark category
- Submission receipt: The submission receipt number
- Submission attempt: The number of the submitted attempt
These changes make it easier to access and search the log of changes to student grades.
Image 1. New options for Grade History
Gradebook view saved – 3900.52
The Gradebook will now save the last selected view from the instructor, saving time and a click.
Image 1. Course Gradebook on Gradable Items list view as preferred view
Image 2. Course Gradebook on Grid view as preferred view
Image 3. Organization Gradebook on Gradable Items list view as preferred view
Image 4. Organization Gradebook on Grid view as preferred view
Enhanced Student Grades Overview – 3900.52
Instructors often want to view the assessments and performance of an individual student. This is a common task, so it should be easy and accessible from the gradebook. In a previous release, Blackboard added this option to the grid view to provide consistency with the Gradable Items list view.
Now we have enhanced the Student Grades Overview by:
- Surfacing the last access, username, and accommodations
- Adding the Student Activity report
Image 1. Student Grades Overview with student information on the header
Richer Student feedback options for manually added columns – 3900.52
To better support instructors Blackboard have expanded the content editor options for manually added columns. Now instructors can give robust feedback that includes formatted text, lists, links, attachments, and media.
Image 1. Content editor options for a manually created column
Gradebook Icon tooltips – 3900.52
In the Gradebook Blackboard have added tool tips for the following icons:
- Search by submission receipt number,
- Upload gradebook,
- Download gradebook, and
- Settings.
To improve keyboard navigation, they also modified the focus order for these icons.
Image 1. Tool tip for Submission Receipt number
Image 2. Tool tip for Upload Gradebook
Image 3. Tool tip for Download Gradebook
Image 4. Tool tip for Settings
Richer Course and Content Design:
Content Collection in Ultra Documents – 3900.52
In the past, instructors could only add content from the Content Collection on the Course Content page. Now instructors may include content from the Content Collection in Ultra Documents.
Image 1. “Browse Content Collection” option in Ultra documents
Image 2. “Browse Content Collection” option in content editor for Ultra Documents
Grading navigation improvements in Journals – 3900.52
When an instructor applies the “needs grading” filter on the Grades & Participation page for a Journal, student to student navigation may not work as expected. The navigation has now been corrected. Now an instructor can navigate student journals student by student as expected.
Data & Analytics
Course Activity Report under the Analytics tab – 3900.52
Instructors now have easier access to the course activity page. The page is now located under the analytics tab in courses.
The course activity page allows instructors to:
- Identify struggling students based on their grade and hours spent in the course. This data is a snapshot taken weekly that allows instructors to compare.
- Act by messaging students who have a low grade and/or have not logged in recently.
- Focus on a student to see how their engagement and performance has changed each week.
- Receive alerts when a student has not accessed their course in a while or if their grade has dropped.
- Notify students when their course activity or grade in the course is below average.
Image 1. Course activity report under the analytics tab – chart view
Image 2. Course activity report under the analytics tab – table view
Image 3. Course activity report access via Grades Base Navigation
Integration, Extension, and Management:
Preserve Course Image setting– 3900.52
In the past, when upgrading a course, the course image was retained but turned off in the Ultra course. Instructors did not realize that the course image was turned off. With this update, course images are now visible by default.
Image 1. Course image in Ultra Course View
Image 2. Course Image setting is on
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