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Previous updates
- 12 Dec 2024
- 7 Minutes to read
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Previous updates
- Updated on 12 Dec 2024
- 7 Minutes to read
- Contributors
- Print
- DarkLight
- PDF
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October 2024
This release includes the following:
- Ability to Generate question banks,
- Enhancements to student submission review page (Student Preview), and
- Ability to Customise email notifications for followed discussions.
Generate question banks
The ability to autogenerate reusable groups of questions is available in the Question Banks.
For detailed steps, refer to this page.
Email notifications for "followed" discussions
If you select to follow a discussion, you can now also receive email notifications if new posts were made to the discussion. Emails are sent if you opt for Email me right away notifications.
On your Profile page, there are now new user Notification Settings to manage the emails for discussions you follow:
- Activity on my responses
- Activity on responses I have replied to
- Responses from instructors
- Responses for followed discussions
- Replies for followed discussions
Read more on how to edit your notification settings
Read more on how to follow a discussion
Enhancements to student submission review page
The student submission review page makes it easier for students to access instructor feedback on their submissions.
- Instructor can now access the Student Submission review page from the Student Preview.
- Students can now access offline submissions from this page.
- Students now have a Read more option for overall and attempt feedback.
## September 2024
This release includes the following:
Details & Actions move to right
Grades Overview
A summary of the Needs grading and Needs posting items are displayed on the Overview tab.
Student activity log
Instructors often need to review student activity. Student activity helps inform decisions in academic disputes and aids in troubleshooting. You can also analyze the course participation of students at risk.
Instructors can use student participation to support financial aid decisions. For example, requests for tuition fee reimbursements if a student hasn't participated in a course. Course participation records can also help with awarding scholarships.
Follow these steps:
- Click on Gradebook.
- Click on Student View.
- Click on a Student Name.
- Click on Activity Log.
Content Designer
The automatic quiz generator was removed in this version. Watch this space.
August 2024
This release includes the following:
Ultra Document Re-design
You can now organise the Ultra Document page to display text and images next to each other. Please watch the animated gif below (no sound) to see this in action:
Assessment change
Please note that Assignments and Tests no longer look the same:
| Assignments | Tests |
|---|---|
| Students can submit multiple files. | Add questions to the test. |
| Add Turnitin similarity report. | Students can still add a file with evidence to the test (if the instructor allows). |
Release Conditions: Multiple rules
You can now add multiple release condition rules. Read more ...
Gradebook
Download to Excel removes the status information in Excel:
Grading Assignments
For flexible grading of assignments next and previous student navigation has been added:
Other updates
Image Generation Improvements
This update allows instructors to generate higher quality, higher resolution images in the following workflows:
- Learning Module images
- Document images
- Announcement images
- Assessment question images
- Journal prompts images.
For example:
Allow anonymous submissions for Forms
Under the Settings option you can decide if the form should accept anonymous submissions or not. The default option is NOT anonymous.
July 2024
This release includes the following:
Assessments and grading
Gradebook
- Grading multiple attempts
- Add audio/video feedback, when grading by student or question:
- Announcements
- If you want to release an announcement on a specifice date, or show it only for a specific time period, set the dates and times.
- If you select the send email tick box, the announcement will also be sent via email to the students on this specific date.
May 2024
This release includes the following:
Assessments and grading
Gradebook
- New layout - please download the updated cheat sheet.
- Weighted calculations improved.
Content
Set more than one performance criteria per content item.
You will get warned when you want to copy content from an Original course to an Ultra course.
Take note when copying content to your Ultra course that all Folders in Original will be copied as Learning Modules in Ultra.
April 2024
This release includes the following:
Assessments and grading
- Duplicate questions in tests, assignments, forms and question banks
- Question default point value changed from 10 to 1 - this means any newly created questions will have a default point value of 1. This change helps reduce the need for manual adjustments.
- Flexible grading improvements:
- Multiple attempts is available at the top of the page.
- Override grade displays the original grade as well as the overwritten grade.
- The submission receipt for the selected attempt displays beneath the attempt selector.
Gradebook
- Current Grade included in Gradebook Download
- Current Grade included in Gradebook Download
Content
- Persistent navigation for Learning Modules - this means even when you have a long scrolling page, the forward and backward navigtion persists at the top of the page.
- Engagement
- Anonymous Discussions
- Self-Enrollment Group Improvement: Self-enrollment groups provide an important part of student autonomy throughout the learning experience. When creating self-enrollment groups, the maximum members per group is reduced from 2 to 1.
March 2024
This release includes the following:
Announcements
Mark announcements as read or unread.
Assessments
No due date setting.
Due dates are an important aspect of the teaching and learning process. In some scenarios, such as self-paced learning, an instructor may not want to apply a due date. To make the option for not having a due date more evident, we've added a "No due date" option for Tests and Assignments.
Flexible Grading
Last used view state of flexible grading side panels preserved.
Instructors want to configure the grading interface according to their preferences. In flexible grading, instructors can collapse or expand the left panel (student cards) and right panel (feedback and rubrics). To provide a better user experience, the last used state is preserved in the browser.
Navigating between student attempts and across sessions provides a more efficient experience.
Gradebook item statistics
When the Head of Department asks for statistics of your latest assessment, you can access the statistics on the Grid view in the Gradebook.
Student Activity on Tests
Send messages to students from the Student Activity report for assessments on small and medium devices and the mobile app:
Access the Blackboard Learn app.
Open the course.
Go to test on the Course Conent page.
Click on the elipses (three dots).
Click on Student Activity.
Click on the elipses (three dots) of the student you want to message.
Click on Send a Message to....
Turnitin
You will now also be able to copy previously created Turnitin assignments. Read more ....
February 2024
This release includes the following:
Missed due dates are available in Analytics on the Course Activity Report.
Grading with Rubrics will now remember your selection to show or hide the level descriptors.
Send Reminders - if there are release conditions on the assessment, you will not be able to send reminders.
Forms - this is a first phase implementation of a tool with which to get information from students (almost like a survey). There is a likert type question available for forms. Watch this space!
January 2024
This release includes the following:
Assessments and grading
- Attempt Logs
- Flexible Grading - Multiple Attempt Aggregation
Gradebook
Content
December 2023
This release includes the following:
Assessments and grading
Gradebook
- Gradebook Grid view sorting - on all columns
November 2023:
This release includes the following:
- Assessments and grading
- Flexible Grading: Anonymous Grading
- Flexible Grading: Grading optimisation for file-based Assignment submissions
- Flexible Grading: Edit/Regrade in Questions view
- Gradebook
- Gradebook Grid view sorting
- Gradebook Grid view performance improvements
- Course & Content Design
- Image insertion for Ultra Documents, Journals prompts and responses, Discussions prompts andresponses, Course Messages, Assessment attempt question editor inputs for students
- Reposition focus and change aspect ratio of inserted images
October 2023
This release includes the following:
- Assessments and grading
- Gradebook
- Analytics
- Content
September 2023
During September a lot of AI tools were made available. The following were switched on for UP:
- Learning Module image integration options
- Rubric generation
- Test question generation
- Question Bank generation from Learn Ultra Documents
- Course banner images from Unsplash
- Flexible Grading on tablets
- Auto-captioning for video and audio feedback
August 2023
- Display Changes:
- Groups in the top navigation bar and Group Spaces
- Unread Message indicator
- Course Banner image improvements
- Learning Module image
- Assessment and Grading:
- List View: Increased visibility of Gradebook ‘Move Item’ icon
- Grid View: New default cell status in grid view
- Grid View: Bulk download of anonymous submissions
- Flexible Grading
- Assessment Submission Receipt improvements
- Data and analytics
- Students with alert flags in the Course Activity report
- Groups
- Moved to the top
- Group Messaging improvements
- Communications & social engagement
- Course status indicators
Previous updates
Access this link to view earlier updates. Click on the month to view the updates for that month.
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