To support students who are resitting in August we are asking all module coordinators to add the new Resit ready item into the Assessment and Feedback area in Blackboard courses.
Resit ready contains resources to support students who are resitting coursework or exams in the supplementary exam period. Once it has been added to courses, colleagues can add then any module or department specific information into the Assessment and Feedback area.
In the July update, we want to draw your attention to the following Blackboard enhancements:
Add supplemental content to Learning Object Repository folders and learning modules
Add descriptions to Discussions and Journals
Run a Rubric Evaluation Report for graded activities
Control AI Conversation duration with time limits
Find your favourite courses faster with Course Switcher
Add supplemental content to Learning Object Repository folders and learning modules
Instructors can now add their own content to folders and learning modules pulled from the LOR. Before, these were locked—you could view them but couldn’t add anything. Now, you can add in your own course-specific materials while the original LOR content stays locked and still updates across courses. Your additions work like normal course content, so you can edit, update, or remove them anytime without affecting other courses. LOR content will always stay at the top, and anything you add appears underneath—it can’t be moved around within the original LOR materials.
Image 1: The Course Content page will show a learning module added from the LOR, with an instructor document at the bottom. LOR-owned items have the label “This item is managed by your institution.”
Add descriptions to Discussions and Journals
Discussions and Journals now have a Description field, just like other course content, which makes everything on the Course Content page more consistent and easier to scan. Instructors can use this optional field to give quick context or set expectations before students start an activity, while keeping the actual prompt focused on the task or question. The prompt itself no longer shows on the main content page. For students, this means they’ll see a clear, simple overview of what each Discussion or Journal is about before opening it, making it easier to understand what’s coming next.
Image 2: Instructors can add a description in the Description field for a Discussion.
Run a Rubric Evaluation Report for graded activities
Instructors can now run a Rubric Evaluation Report straight from the gradebook for any graded activity that uses a rubric. It pulls together data from all student submissions, giving a quick, clear view of how students are doing against each criterion.
To use it, open the gradebook, find a column with a rubric, and launch the report from the menu in either Grid or Gradable Items view. You can download it as a PDF or CSV.
Marks need to already have been posted in order to view the report. If there aren’t enough posted grading data yet, you’ll see a message letting you know.
The report includes an overview of the assignment, overall average scores, a visual breakdown comparing possible vs achieved points, and a detailed table showing how students performed across criteria, including stats like average, median, and standard deviation.
Control AI Conversation duration with time limits
Instructors can now control how long AI Conversations last by adding time limits, making things a bit more structured and easier to manage. There are two different ways to do this, depending on what you want to time — the whole activity or just the conversation part.
An AI Conversation has two parts: the chat itself and a reflection question that follows. You can either set a time limit for the entire assessment (which includes both parts) or just for the conversation. The full assessment timer already existed — if time runs out, it either auto-submits or gives students extra time, depending on your settings. The new option is a conversation-only timer, which stops the chat after a set time but does not limit students’ time on the reflection question afterward.
You can’t use both timers at once — it’s one or the other. If you turn one on, the other is automatically disabled.
Within the conversation constraints, you’ll also now see two controls: a message limit (how many replies students can send) and the new time limit. You can use either, both, or neither. Just note: once a student starts, the time limit is locked in.
Image 3: You can now set a time limit for either a student’s AI conversation, or their written reflection after the chat.
For students, a visible countdown helps them keep track of time. Where it shows up depends on the timer you picked — either inside the chat or at the top of the whole assessment. If only the conversation is timed, they can still complete the reflection question without time pressure.
Image 4: Depending on the instructor’s settings, the timer is shown when students are completing their chat or during their reflection.
Overall, this makes expectations clearer, supports accessibility needs, and gives instructors more flexibility when designing AI-based activities.
Find your favourite courses faster with Course Switcher
Finding your favourite courses is now easier with the updated Course Switcher. You can now see all your favourited courses right there, so there’s no need to keep jumping back to the Courses page. This builds on recent updates like search and recent courses, making it quicker to move around.
There’s a new Favourites tab that automatically shows what courses you have chosen as your favourites on the main Courses page. It sits alongside Recent and Search, so everything’s in one place. Overall, it’s a simpler, faster way to jump between courses and stay focused without the extra clicks.
Image 5: The Course Switcher now has a Favourites tab, allowing you to add a personalized list of frequently used courses..
If you use Blackboard Assignment for your assessment, you may be interested in our latest update. Staff can now use the functionality of Blackboard Assignment whiles also getting a Similarity Report from Turnitin.
This is particularly useful for multi-part assignments and assignment files that are too big to use Turnitin. Like other elements of Blackboard, Assignment is available in Welsh for both staff and students. It also means that you get the benefits of Blackboard Assignment (such as an electronic receipt for students) as well as being able to use the same Similarity Report as other colleagues.
If you already make use of Blackboard Assignment, then we encourage you to try out the new Turnitin feature. Our Guide contains all the information to help you get started. Submission and marking stay the same, but you get the additional Similarity Report alongside your marking.
We’d also be interested in your feedback – during the year, we’ll contact you for feedback on using this new Turnitin integration.
Our keynote will be delivered by Dr Hardeep Kaur Basra who is Head of Educational Development at De Montfort University.
Dr Kaur Basra has led the Decolonising DMU project. This keynote and workshop will build on our own Race Equality Charter work. This session will be complemented by colleagues engaged in decolonising the curriculum at Aberystwyth.
We’re welcoming Professor Ruth Healey from Chester University who is an expert on students as co-creators.
UndebAber will be delivering a session on skills alongside WONKHE’s Jim Dickinson.
Colleagues from Blackboard will be joining us to highlight new accessibility initiatives with Blackboard Ally and roadmaps of new features. We’ll be presenting with the Department of Life Sciences on using achievements to record skills.
Recipients of the inaugural Education and Student Experience Awards will provide updates on their 4 projects and we’ll be launching the 2nd year of this initiative at the conference.
There are workshops and presentations across the 3 days – thank you to our colleagues and students who are contributing.
We hope to see you there and we’re looking forward to what promises to be an amazing event.
In the June update, we want to draw your attention to the following Blackboard enhancements:
Grading with rubric
Student engagement with announcements
Changes to grading with rubric
To improve rubric usability, instructors can now edit the rubric grade directly. Changes to the rubric component grades will also update the overall grade immediately.
Image 1: Improved rubric usability when adding or adjusting grades.
In the past, instructors would have been blocked from changing the overall grade via the rubric. Now, the locking mechanism that previously prevented instructors from using the rubric to override a grade has been removed. Otherwise, grades entered into the rubric grade components will update the overall grade immediately.
The update also includes some changes in wording, such as updating the rubric score box label from “Submission” to “Rubric Score”, in order to improve consistency with the Flexible Grading page.
Student engagement with announcements
Instructors can now check which announcements a student has read or not read on the new ‘Announcements’ tab of the Student Overview page.
To access this feature, instructors should go to the ‘Class register’ under the ‘Details & Actions’ items on the right-hand side of a course landing page. After selecting a student, a log of whether or not a student has accessed an announcement will be visible for instructors under the new ‘Announcements’ tab of the Student Overview page.
Image 2: The Announcements tab on the Student Overview page shows when an Announcement was posted and when it was read.
If you have any enhancements to request from Blackboard, please get in touch with us via elearning@aber.ac.uk.
All courses for 2026-27 have been created and are available to staff in Blackboard.
All AU Blackboard course sites use an agreed template with areas for core information along with agreed content for university-level policies.
The course template is agreed by the Quality and Standards Committee annually. Module Coordinators have responsibility for the organisation of materials in their courses. Staff should not delete template content.
Today (21st May) is Global Accessibility Awareness Day
Within Student Journey, we have a specialised Accessibility and Wellbeing Team who work with students throughout the year. The Team includes over 50 non-medical helper staff who provide 1:1 mentoring or study skills support for students with a disability or learning difference.
Last year they supported over 800 of our students – the number of students they support has increased by 34% in the last five years.
Here’s what our students have been saying about the team this year:
…incredibly invaluable, allowing me to… remain in university through the several challenges that have occurred during my course.
…really appreciate …[having]…continued support throughout our entire degree from the same people (as opposed to them changing each year). I am autistic and that makes a real difference for me.
[The support worker] has single handily been the most important person in my university experience… without the services I would have less routine and interest from others which have been the two most vital components in my success in university.
We think that this student sums up the service perfectly: “Amazing…Absolutely brilliant…Fantastic…Phenomenal…Invaluable…Top tier”
But it’s not only these staff who are making sure that what we do is as accessible as possible. Here are some of the things that our other teams do.
Blackboard Content
Blackboard Ally is available for all students and staff at the university. This year 59,541 documents have been downloaded in an alternative format by 3,894 users. The most common format is Tagged PDF.
Staff have made 3,417 fixes to content – that’s 3,417 changes that make teaching materials more accessible to use.
The average Ally course score for 2025-26 courses in Blackboard is 72%.
In November 2025, AU entered the Blackboard Fix Your Content Day and were placed 3rd in the UK for the number of fixes to Blackboard content made.
Pie chart style image showing Ally Overall Accessibility score as 72% – an increase of 2% from the previous year
Books and journal articles
All the book chapter and journal article scans that our digitisation service for reading lists are in an accessible format. They use OCR (Optical Character Recognition) scanning, which means that uploaded scans of book chapters and journal articles in reading lists are fully machine-readable, searchable, and accessible content. As well as complying with legislation, these scans are accessible for all learners. OCR scanned documents are compatible with assistive technologies such as screen readers, as well as having text navigation facilities.
As well as scanning items for reading lists, the team can also create accessible copies for books for students who have declared a disability to the university. We have a licence which allows us to make or find accessible copies of books if a suitable version is not available for us to purchase. If a text is not covered by the licence but we own an original copy, we may still produce an accessible copy for personal study or research.
This service is free of charge to eligible students and can be accessed by emailing digitisation@aber.ac.uk
Sensory items for wellbeing sessions
Staff in our Wellbeing Service introduced boxes of sensory items that can be offered to students in Wellbeing sessions to help them manage need for self-stimulation (stimming). Here’s an example of the items available:
Using AI
Our new AI prompt library which is available to everyone include information about using AI for users with accessibility requirements. You can see some examples of this in some samples from the prompt library
Plain Language Rewriting
“Rewrite the following text in plain, easy to understand language while keeping the original meaning. Break complex sentences into shorter steps and remove unnecessary jargon. Highlight any terms that may still require explanation.”
Neurodiversity Friendly Step by Step Guide
“Turn this task into a step-by-step guide suitable for neurodivergent learners. Include short, clear steps, optional visuals or metaphors, and a summary of key points. Avoid overwhelming detail. Do not add content unrelated to the task.”
Finding your way around
AccessAble is a brilliant resource that helps to make planning for and navigation of our Campus here at Aberystwyth that bit easier. It provides people with information about things like accessible parking space, ramp access, where hearing loops are and where they can find accessible toilets. This can be really reassuring for people as they plan to attend somewhere that is new and/or unfamiliar.
We are delighted to announce our keynote for our forthcoming Education and Student Experience Conference (8-10 September).
Dr Hardeep Kaur Basra will be joining us in person for a keynote presentation and a workshop.
We will get so much valuable input from Dr Basra that will really help us to enhance our education and student experience offering as well as build on the incredible work of the Race Equality Charter.
See below for Dr Basra’s biography.
Dr Hardeep Kaur Basra (PFHEA, NTF, CATE) is an Associate Professor of Teaching and Learning and Inclusive Education Lead at De Montfort University. With over two decades of experience in higher education, she is a nationally recognised leader in inclusive, anti-racist and decolonising pedagogies. Her work spans institutional strategy, curriculum transformation and academic development, with a sustained focus on improving student outcomes, belonging and equity.
Hardeep has led major institution-wide initiatives, including advancing inclusive curricula, addressing awarding gaps and shaping Access and Participation strategies. She has played a key role in sector-leading work such as Decolonising DMU, contributing to Race Equality Charter success, and designs impactful staff development programmes including the PG Cert in Empowering Education.
As a Principal Fellow of Advance HE, National Teaching Fellow and CATE award holder, she contributes to national conversations on equity, excellence and transformational change in higher education.
