We’re pleased to announce the dates for Aberystwyth University’s 14th annual Education and Student Experience Conference.
We will be hosting the conference between Tuesday 8 – Thursday 10 September 2026.
We will start work on planning and establishing themes and guest speakers for the conference.
Conference themes, calls for proposals, and external speakers will be announced in the new year. Keep an eye on our webpages and our blog for further information.
If there is a particular topic that you would like the conference to address, do get in touch via elearning@aber.ac.uk.
In the November update, we want to draw your attention to a new feature: generate and upload custom Achievements badge.
In addition to this, we have also got an automated option to generate messages to students based on their assignment scores. There is an update to tests with the functionality to bulk amend test question scores, as well as some improved navigation to Gradebook column headers.
New! Generate or upload custom Achievement Badges
Blackboard previously announced achievements – instructors having the option to award badges to students based on scores received in Gradebook columns. This was a great way to incentivise student engagement, and we are seeing more colleagues use this: DLS are piloting badges as part of their Skills Passport, and Library and Learning Services are making use of Achievements for the AI Literacy Course. Colleagues have requested this enhancement, so we are pleased to see this available on Blackboard.
Instructors now have three new options for customising Achievement badge: AI-generated images, choose from a selection of stock images from Unsplash, and manual image uploads.
AI Badge Image Creator: Instructors can enter keywords to generate badge images using the AI Design Assistant. The system auto-generates an image based on the badge’s name and description to help guide image creation. Additionally, instructors can provide their own prompt to be used for image generation. Images are optimized for circular cropping to match the standard badge shape.
Unsplash: Instructors can search from a section of stock images from Unsplash
Badge Image Upload: Instructors can also upload custom-designed badge images for use in Achievements.
Image 1: Instructors can select or generate an image for the custom achievement.
Automatically send messages to students based on course-level rules
Lecturers can now create automations that send congratulatory or supportive messages to students based on custom rules set at the course level. Instructors define the score thresholds and write the messages.
On the Course Content page, instructors select View Automations under Automations to manage their automations.
In this initial release, two automations are available. Instructors choose to either Send congratulatory message or Send supportive message. Congratulatory messages are sent when a student earns a high score; supportive messages are sent when a student does not achieve a specified score. Instructors select the grade item, set the score threshold as a percentage, and enter the message text.
Image 2: In the Action to be taken section, the instructor writes the message that will be sent to students when the rule is triggered.
Please note that the automation needs to be created before marks are posted. This means that the messaging won’t work on any retrospective grades.
Bulk change question points in tests
Lecturers can now update point values for multiple questions in tests using new bulk editing options. This enhancement supports:
Selecting all questions at once, with the option to deselect specific questions if desired.
Selecting specific questions (e.g., question 1, 4, 9, 15, 16, 27, and 32) for targeted point value adjustments.
Selecting questions by type (e.g., all True/False questions) to apply consistent point value changes across that question type.
Selecting questions by type AND specific questions.
Instructors
After students open the assessment or make submissions, instructors can make these changes:
Edit the text of questions and answers
Edit the point value
New grades are recalculated for all previously submitted assessments
Give everyone full credit for a question
Change which answers are correct
Change the scoring options for Multiple Choice and Matching questions
Align questions with goals, from the assessment only
After students open the assessment, instructors can’t make these changes:
Add new questions and answers
Delete a question
Delete answers in Matching and Multiple Choice questions
Change the number of blanks in a Fill in the Blanks question
Move the content, such as switch the order of questions, answers, or additional content
Add or remove questions from a question pool or delete a pool from an assessment
Image 1: Instructors select Bulk edit points.
Image 2: Instructors can select the questions that they want included in the bulk edit.
Improved navigation from Gradebook column headers
We enhanced the gradebook grid view to streamline access to submission pages from column headers on the Grades page. These updates improve clarity and consistency across item types.
Changes include:
Assignments, Tests, Forms, Discussions, Journals:
Replaced the Edit option with a View Submissions option using the eye icon.
Renamed the grade cell menu option from View to View Submission.
Manual Items, Calculations, Total Calculations:
Added a View option to the column header that routes to the submission page.
SCORM Items:
Added a View Submissions option with the eye icon.
Renamed the grade cell menu option to View Submission.
Removed Edit and Preview SCORM options from the column header menu.
Attendance:
Replaced the Edit option with a View option using the eye icon.
Navigation behavior remains unchanged, with users being routed to the attendance page.
Image 1: Improved navigation in the Gradebook column headers.
If you have any enhancements to request from Blackboard, please get in touch with us via elearning@aber.ac.uk.
Earlier this year, Professor Anwen Jones announced the Education and Student Experience Award Fund at the 13th Annual Education and Student Experience Conference.
We are delighted to confirm this year’s winners and the 4 enhancement projects that they will be leading over the coming year:
Dr Elizabeth New, History and Welsh History: The Aber Medieval Physic Garden
Dr Emma Sheppard, Geography and Earth Sciences: Developing a Sustainable Student Gear Hub
Dr Kate Woodward, Theatre, Film and Television Studies: Inclusivity and Accessibility in Assessment Design and Feedback Practices
Dr Scott Tompsett, Department of Life Sciences: Pulling together – supporting teamwork assessment more effectively
Thank you to all applicants for submitting a proposal and to the awards panel.
There will be opportunities to hear more about these projects at next year’s annual Education and Student Experience Conference.
To assist colleagues, we have a training session available on Wednesday 10 December at 10:10. Places can be booked online.
In addition to this, we are running 4 E-learning Excellence training sessions (based on the 4 assessment criteria). These sessions are available to all colleagues, whether they are considering submitting an application or not. Places can be booked online.
If you have any questions, please contact the Digital Education Group (elearning@aber.ac.uk).
Webinar series European Network for Academic Integrity, ENAI monthly webinarsfree open webinars on various topics related to academic integrity.
Please see the Staff Training booking page for training offered by the LTEU and other Aberystwyth University staff. I hope you find this weekly resource roundup useful. If you have questions or suggestions, please contact our team at lteu@aber.ac.uk. Social Media: B
There are some new features available in the latest Vevox (Polling Tool) update that we wanted to draw your attention to.
For those unfamiliar with Vevox, the polling software can be used to ask students questions and for them to respond live using their mobile devices. For information on how to use Vevox, see our webpage.
The update includes:
Scheduled Surveys and Quizzes. You can make surveys and quizzes available outside of lecture rooms with automatic start and end times (note that the session needs to be started in Vevox for this to work). Â
AI Question Helper. The AI tools will now suggest answer options based on your questions as well as creating a wider range of questions. Â
Spin the wheel. A fun way of selecting a random option from a list, for example a list of revision topics, or group names for delivering presentations. Note that the person running the poll controls the wheel (not participants). Â
Webinar series European Network for Academic Integrity, ENAI monthly webinarsfree open webinars on various topics related to academic integrity.
Please see the Staff Training booking page for training offered by the LTEU and other Aberystwyth University staff. I hope you find this weekly resource roundup useful. If you have questions or suggestions, please contact our team at lteu@aber.ac.uk. Social Media: BSky, X.com.
Turnitin has announced the retirement of their Turnitin app at the end of the year, December 2025.
The Feedback Studio iPad app will be retired and no longer available. Instructors can continue to access Feedback Studio as usual through Blackboard. This includes mobile devices and tablets.
Turnitin are working on developing a New Standard Assignment, so instructors can review and provide feedback on student work from tablets without needing a separate app. We will release comms regarding this new service in due course.
If you have any questions or concerns about this, please don’t hesitate to contact us (elearning@aber.ac.uk).
We’ve had a look at all the queries that came into the elearning@aber.ac.uk inbox over September to see what the most common query was. And the answer is … Merged Courses.
So, here’s some useful information about merging courses which can help to answer some of your queries:
A merge links two or more courses together in Blackboard. It is an effective way of dealing with separate courses that have the same content, so you don’t have to upload materials to more than one course. More information is available on the blog. Some cases where this might be useful are
Modules are taught the same content but there’s a module available for 2nd and 3rd years.
Modules that bring together different degree schemes and have different module IDs, e.g. dissertation modules.
Courses aren’t merged automatically so you will either need to merge them via our new Module Partners tool or by emailing elearning@aber.ac.uk . If your courses were merged last year, you need to merge them again for 2025-26. If you want to check whether your courses have already been merged, you can use Module Partners (or email elearning@aber.ac.uk) Â
Students will see the module code and title of whichever course they are registered on. If you find that students can’t see content in courses that you think are merged, please check in Module Partners or email elearning@aber.ac.uk to check.
We’ve also had questions about enrolments – information about how enrolments work is available in our Access to Blackboard Courses FAQ.
Note: we produced the summary of our most common support queries using Microsoft Copilot.
Some staff will have made offline Panopto recordings because of the impact of an Amazon Web Services service disruption on Panopto on Monday 20th October.
All offline recordings will need to be uploaded to the Panopto servers before they can be made available to students. Instructions are available in our FAQ How do I manually upload Panopto recordings via the Panopto Recorder program? You can check teaching room availability from myadmin.aber.ac.uk > AAA/ATO (Aberystwyth Timetable Online)
We recommend that you upload any offline recordings with the next 7 days. If you have any questions, please contact elearning@aber.ac.uk
On November 18, Aberystwyth University will join institutions worldwide for Fix Your Content Day 2025, hosted by Anthology. This 24-hour competition is part of our ongoing commitment to inclusive education.
We’ll be hosting a drop-in on 18th November between 2pm and 4pm in B23 Llandinam. E-learning Staff will be available to answer questions and help you use Ally (tea and biscuits also provided).
Together, we’ll aim to fix as many accessibility issues and course files as possible using Anthology® Ally. Every fix—big or small—contributes to a more inclusive learning environment for all students.
How you can help:
Review your courses for red and orange indicators
Focus on quick wins like adding image descriptions or improving Microsoft Word documents
Start fixing on November 18 and keep things going throughout the day
Aim for 100%, but improvement is what counts!
For more information on how to fix files using Anthology Ally, have a look at our FAQ on Ally.
