We had the pleasure of recently presenting at the Blackboard User Group on the Exemplary Course Award that we run here at Aberystwyth University. Blackboard run their own Exemplary Course Programme which we use as the basis for our award.
The session title, Celebrating Excellence, Shaping Practice: Aberystwyth University’s Exemplary Course Award Programme, charted the history of the event here at AU.
We’ve been running the ECA since 2014. In that time, over 50 modules have submitted applications.
Since the start of the award, we’ve had applications from all sections of the University. Those that offer on campus teaching provision, Lifelong Learning Courses, Distance Learning Courses, Welsh language and English medium courses, large and small courses have all been recipients of the award.
In the presentation, we gave an overview of how we manage the process and discussed the impact of running the award over the last 12 years. The ethos of the process has always foregrounded reflection giving applicants the opportunity to enhance and refine their course before submitting.
We’ve looked at the ways in which we have marked success over the years, as well as the changes we have applied to streamline the process.
We also discussed how we might change this for the future. We are exploring ways in which the student voice can be brought into the nomination process. We’re also considering running smaller awards alongside the Exemplary Course Award – an award that focuses on each of the 4 criteria: Course Design, Assessment, Interaction and Collaboration, and Learner Support.
We were joined by previous award winners: Lauren Harvey (Law and Criminology) and Mari Dunning (Lifelong Learning).
Both Lauren and Mari spoke about their courses as well as their experience of engaging with the process.
In the February update, we want to draw your attention to the following Blackboard enhancements:
Use automations to remind students to check their feedback
Stack blocks vertically in Documents
Enhanced achievement usability
Use automations to remind students to check their feedback
Automations are a relatively new feature in Blackboard. The latest feature allows you to automatically send a reminder message to students who have unread feedback after an instructor-defined number of days. This feature saves time by automatically encouraging students to review their feedback, promoting student engagement.
Instructors
This release adds the Send feedback reminder option to the Automation gallery. Go to Automations:
Image 1: View automations under Course Assistants highlighted
Image 2: The Automation gallery now includes Send feedback reminder.
For the automation trigger, instructors select how many days feedback must remain unread before the message is sent.
Image 3: The Automation trigger includes a dropdown menu for the number of unread days.
A default reminder message is provided, and instructors can fully customise it at this stage. The message is sent to the student when the rule is triggered.
Stack blocks vertically in Documents
instructors can stack blocks in a single column in Documents to create cleaner layouts and reduce whitespace. A new toggle in the block toolbar allows switching between column-level and block-level editing. In column mode, actions apply to the entire column. In block mode, instructors can resize, move, or delete individual blocks.
Columns can also be dropped into another block’s area for more flexible layouts. These changes work with existing features such as undo/redo, printing, and AI layout generation. This enhancement also includes accessibility improvements for screen readers.
Image 1: Instructors can stack blocks in a single column, such as next to an image in a column.
Enhanced achievement usability
For students, the Achievements tab displays a count of unread badges. The New pill appears consistently in Earned and To Earn sections. The Delete Badge dialog uses clearer wording. Instructors and students can more easily distinguish between Course Badges and Open Badges with improved labels, icons, and descriptions.
Accessibility updates include improved aria-labels and alt-text. Styling for OpenBadge images has been updated to remove forced round shapes.
Image 1: In the student view, the Achievements tab displays a count of unread badges, and the new badges have a New pill.
If you have any enhancements to request from Blackboard, please get in touch with us via elearning@aber.ac.uk.
We are pleased to announce our next Mini Conference taking place on Tuesday 14 April 2026.
In collaboration with the Department of Psychology, Student Accessibility and Wellbeing, and the Digital Education Team (Student Journey), we are looking for 15-minute presentations on the following topics:
Navigating university life as a neurodivergent student
Inclusive teaching and learning practices
The role of support services in fostering neurodivergent success
Please indicate in the proposal if you are comfortable taking questions for 5 minutes at the end of your presentation. Please submit your proposal before Friday 6 March.
Happy New Year! In the January update, we want to draw your attention to the following Blackboard enhancements:
Minor Update to the Blackboard Interface
Improvements to Document’s layouts
More options for true and false questions
Changes to multiple choice and multiple answer workflows
Minor Update to the Blackboard Interface
There is no downtime associated with this update, and Blackboard will continue to function normally during this period.
These changes include:
Change in order of menu items on the main navigation menu:
A new home button in a course to take you back to the landing page:
A quick link to navigate to your recently accessed courses
In addition to this, to maximise screen space, Blackboard will remove the nested folder view.
Improvements to Document’s layouts
To improve usability and accessibility, we restructured the menu for document block layout. Previously, all options for changing the row, size, or position of a block were in a single dropdown list. Now, these options are organized by type of change (row, size, and position).
Selecting the edit icon for a block prompts a menu with three options: Change row, Change [block/column] size, and Change [block/column] position. Each of these options have a sub-menu, with the related actions.
Change row
Move to row above
Move to row below
New row above
Change [block/column] size
Expand to the left
Expand to the right
Shrink from the left
Shrink from the right
Change [block/column] position
Move to the left
Move to the right
Image 1: How document block styling options displayed before
Image 2: How document block styling options display now
More options for true and false questions
We expanded the display options for true/false questions to include:
True/False
Yes/No
Right/Wrong
Agree/Disagree
These additional answer options display when:
Instructors create or edit this question type when building a test or in a question bank
Students answer the question
Instructors grade the question
Students review their submission or graded question
Image 1: True/false questions now include additional options.
Changes to multiple choice and multiple answer workflows
ow students interact with questions. These changes support greater flexibility in assessment design and an improved experience for students.
Instructors
To reduce setup time when creating a multiple choice question, we changed the default number of answer options from three to four. Instructors can add or remove answer options.
Instructors can now define the number of answer selections that a student can make for each multiple choice question. When the student takes the assessment, the system enforces the instructor’s selection limit.
The default is:
4 answer options
partial/negative credit is off (no additional changes made to partial/negative credit for this release)
students can select up to 4 answers
if additional answers are added, selection limit remains at 4
if answers are removed, instructor must select the selection limit
Image 1: Instructors can define the number of answer selections for each multiple choice question.
Students
For questions where students can select only one answer, the selection mechanism is radio buttons. For questions where students can select more than one answer, the selection mechanism is checkboxes.
Image 2: The student’s selection mechanism of checkbox or radio button is determined by how many answers they can select.
If you have any enhancements to request from Blackboard, please get in touch with us via elearning@aber.ac.uk.
Now that semester 1 teaching has finished and we are moving towards the assessment period, we wanted to write a blogpost to highlight the analytical reports that are available in Blackboard.
These reports can be used to monitor Blackboard usage and engagement and help you to re-enforce messages to students.
Progress Summary
By default, the student progress summary is enabled on all content items in Blackboard courses.
This allows Blackboard to record when content has been opened, and students are able to mark tasks as complete.
To access the report, click on the … to the right of the content item and select Student Progress:
There you’ll see the progress report:
From this page, you can also filter students by those who have unopened the content, those who have started it, and those who have marked it as complete.
If you apply a filter, you can message the highlighted students using the message button.
Test question analysis
Using Blackboard tests? You can run a report to analyse the questions with:
Average score
Possible questions
Completed attempts
Average time spent on the course
In addition to this, it also allows you to re-examine questions with the Discrimination report. This indicates how well questions differentiate between students across all levels.
The difficulty report indicates which questions are easy, medium and hard.
To view the report (once the test has ended), navigate to the test and select Question Analysis:
The report will run and you will receive an email once it has completed:
Discussion analysis
Making use of Discussions in your Blackboard course? Then you can run a report for the overview which will give you the total number of active students, the average number of posts per students, as well as the average wordcount for blogposts.
You can click on Student Activity for the overview:
You can use the message feature to contact students who haven’t engaged, as well as see the top participants, and the responses with the most replies.
Course Analytics
The Course Analytics page allows you to flag alert settings for students based on the amount of time spent in the course and the dates since their last access.
Choose Analytics from the top menu:
You have two views:
Student hours in the course against their overall mark
Student list view showing overall mark against missed due dates, hours in course, and days since last access
Thank you very much to our presenters from the Departments of Computer Science, Geography and Earth Sciences, and the School of Literature and Languages.
And a special thank you to our external speakers: James Fern and Richard Mason from Bath University who gave us a brilliant overview of the two-lane approach to assessment design that Bath is currently working through.
We look forward to welcoming you to one of our upcoming events.
In November, we took part in Blackboard Ally Fix your Content Day, making the content of our Virtual Learning Environment even more accessible. We placed 3rd in the UK and 60th on the international leaderboard.
We’re planning our next Mini Conference in collaboration with colleagues in Student Journey for April 2026. Further information will be made available soon.
And our 14th Education and Student Experience Conference will take place between 8-10 September 2026. Keep an eye out for updates, call for proposals, and external speaker announcements.
In the December update, we want to draw your attention to the following Blackboard enhancements:
Specify participation requirements for Discussions
Support Inline and Display Formulas in MathJax
Learning Module Table of Contents
Set release conditions for open or started and for non-assessment content items
Improved handling of group membership changes for group assignments
Improved Automations experience
Specify participation requirements for Discussions
Instructors now have greater flexibility when managing student participation in graded Discussions.
With this update, instructors can specify required student responses for a Discussion topic.
Instructors
Instructors can now make clear participation requirements to students. The initial release adds participation requirements to the existing due date(s) for discussions. Instructors can set requirements on the number of required posts and/or replies for a student to fulfil the requirement.
The status of participation requirements is updated through to completion, giving a student a clear understanding of progress made. Participation requirements are linked to progress tracking, so that will be accurately displayed for the student to monitor.
This update does not affect grading workflows or Gradebook structure.
Image 1: Instructors being able to set participation requirements in discussion settings.
Students
The new participation requirements in Discussions give students a clearer understanding of instructor expectations in an assigned Discussions topic. Students can monitor their progress both in the assigned Discussions topic as well as in Progress Tracking.
Image 2: Showing the complete state when all the requirements have been met.
Support Inline and Display Formulas in MathJax
MathJax support in the Content Editor now includes additional LaTeX delimiters for rendering mathematical formulas. This update improves compatibility with standard STEM workflows and simplifies uploading exam content without changing source files.
Instructors and students can now use:
\(…\) for inline equations
\[…\] for display equations
These options are in addition to the existing $ delimiters. Expanded support improves the experience of working with mathematical notation in Ultra courses and enhances visual clarity for complex expressions such as integrals, sums, and products.
Learning Module Table of Contents
Instructors now have access to a collapsible Table of Contents panel in Learning Modules. This update mirrors the student experience and supports consistent navigation across roles.
The Table of Contents panel includes all items in a learning module. Select Contents to open or collapse the panel. Instructors can navigate the full module structure and align course design with the student experience.
Image 1: Instructor view of a Learning Module with the Table of Contents panel open.
For smaller screen sizes, when an instructor sets up an assignment within a learning module, the settings panel moves from the right-hand side into the header bar. This is signified by a settings cog.
The change has been made to allow more space on the screen with the left-handed table of contents available. Users accessing that board on smaller screens, you will notice that the settings cog has moved to the header bar for that particular piece of assessment.
Set release conditions for open or started and for non-assessment content items
We expanded release conditions to include activity on items including non-assessment content. This enhancement allows conditions to be based on whether a student has opened or started content items such as documents, media, or course links. Instructors can now control access based on whether a student has opened or started a prerequisite content item.
Key options for release conditions:
Unopened: The student has not accessed the item.
Opened or Started: The student has accessed the item.
For example, an instructor can require students to open a reading or watch a video before an assessment becomes available.
Improved handling of group membership changes for group assessments
We’ve enhanced Flexible Grading and the Submissions page for group assessments to better handle changes in group memberships. These improvements ensure grading accuracy and reduce confusion when groups are modified after submissions:
On the Submissions page, if all members are removed from a group:
The group avatar displays a ? icon.
A No members label appears.
The group name becomes non-selectable.
For active groups, the Flexible Grading interface always shows the current group members for each attempt.
Image 1: On the Submissions page, a No Members label appears in groups with no members.
Image 2: The Flexible Grading interface shows the current group members for each attempt.
Improved Automations experience
Back in October we launched automations – an automated messaging tool to contact students based on marks in the gradebook.
Several enhancements have been made to automations in this month’s updated:
Instructors
Better visibility of Automations actions
Users can now check the status of each automation directly from the list.
Each automation now displays who executed it, increasing transparency in multi-instructor courses.
Cleaner interface and more intuitive interactions, including:
Pagination on the automation list for smoother navigation.
Improved error messaging and validation when configuring numeric inputs.
Minor layout and usability improvements for the automation rules panel.
String and localisation improvements.
Image 1: There is an indicator of the status of each automation in the list (active or inactive). The last person to execute the action is stated under each automation, and an error message is displayed for an automation that is incorrectly configured.
If you have any enhancements to request from Blackboard, please get in touch with us via elearning@aber.ac.uk.
