Turnitin will be unavailable between 16:00 and 22:00 on Saturday 9 August 2025 for scheduled maintenance.
During this time, you will be unable to submit or grade any assessments.
We apologise for any inconvenience caused.
We are delighted to announce our training series for the forthcoming semester.
All training can be booked online using your Aberystwyth username and password. Our training booking system is now automated, so you will receive your calendar invitation within an hour into your calendar. Please join these sessions from your Outlook calendar.
If you have any questions, please contact us: elearning@aber.ac.uk.
As usual, our training sessions are grouped into 3 series:
In addition to the usual offerings, we also wanted to highlight the new sessions that we have introduced for 2025-26:
This session will introduce colleagues to Generative AI and offer the opportunity to think about ways in which you can incorporate Generative AI into your learning and teaching practice.
You can book your place on all the other sessions in this E-learning Essentials series via this link.
A reminder that all Essentials sessions are strongly recommended for any new members of staff in your department.
Blackboard Documents have had a complete overhaul in Ultra. This 30-minute pro session gives an overview of the new features and allows you to give it a go in your course.
We’ve combined our Discussions and Journals session into one. We’ll go through activity design for our interactive tools to help maximise student engagement.
We will look at the analytical tools available in your Blackboard course to help monitor student engagement. We’ll use this to tailor messaging as well as creating other activities such as knowledge checks and learning module progression to help keep your students engaged with their learning.
One of the features of Turnitin is PeerMark which allows you to create peer assessment opportunities for your students. This is great to allow students to provide formative feedback on each other’s work.
Want to spruce up your recordings? This session will showcase different ways in which you can use Panopto: from inserting quizzes mid recording, to give students the opportunity to get creative and use Panopto themselves. This session is great for those adopting a flipped classroom approach or who want to make use of Panopto beyond Lecture Capture.
Other sessions include the Blackboard AI Design Assistant and Advanced Vevox polling software design.
You can book your place on all the other sessions in this E-learning Enhanced series via this link.
We’ve designed 4 new workshops for colleagues based on the 4 areas of the Exemplary Course Award. Looking at each aspect, colleagues will reflect on how their own courses can be developed.
The 4 sessions are:
You can book your place on all the other sessions in this E-learning Excellence series via this link. Other sessions include Submitting an Exemplary Course Award.
If there are any other training topics that you’d like us to consider for Semester 2, please contact us.
Library and Learning Services, Academic Registry, and UndebAber are collaborating on Generative AI guidance and advice.
Following approval at the recent Education and Student Experience Committee, we are pleased to share these resources with you ready for next academic year.
This statement outlines the principles and approach that AU intends to use for Generative AI across all its operations.
This document provides guidance and advice to students on how they might want to use Generative AI as a study tool. This document uses a traffic light system approach to alert students to the amount of caution they might want to apply in its use.
A statement has been added to the Blackboard course template for 2025-26 Courses providing advice and guidance for students on acceptable use of Generative AI and where to get support and help.
You can copy Generative AI assessment statements into your Blackboard course to communicate to students the acceptable use of Generative AI on the assessment. See our blogpost for further information on how to do this.
Designed by the Department of Law and Criminology, and already being used by some departments, this amended Tool Use statement allows students to outline how they have used Generative AI in their assessments. Students fill out the form and insert the tool use statement into their word document before submission.
The tool use statement can be downloaded from our webpage and uploaded to Blackboard.
There is a dedicated webpage for Generative AI advice and guidance where we place our support materials and advice.
We have consulted widely with colleagues and students on this matter, and we’d like to thank those who have helped shape this guidance.
Please direct staff enquiries to elearning@aber.ac.uk or contact your subject librarian.
We revisit and revise all the policies relating to e-learning tools annually. All the changes are approved by the Quality and Standards Committee. The new policies are now available, and here are the details of the main changes. If you have any questions about the new policies, please get in touch with us using elearning@aber.ac.uk
The RMP outlines to staff and students the minimum standards for a Blackboard Course.
Two of the changes in the RMP are designed to improve the accessibility of course materials:
To help staff managing courses:
The E-submission Policy outlines that all text-based word-processed work is submitted, marked, and has feedback released electronically.
To improve student access to marks and feedback:
To improve the consistency of e-submission across the university:
For staff who want to use SafeAssign as part of their Blackboard Assignments:
The Lecture Capture Policy outlines that all transmission style presentations are recorded electronically for students to access.
The most significant change in the Lecture Capture policy is designed to improve the accessibility of recordings:
To help staff managing courses:
All departments make use of their Organisations to provide access to key administrative information. To make sure that materials are accessible and up to date, we have developed an Organisation RMP, based on the Blackboard RMP. This does not apply to staff Practice Courses.
All other Organisations should include:
For the first time, our Blackboard Required Minimum Presence includes an Ally score. This recognises and builds on the work that staff have already done to make sure that teaching materials are as accessible as possible.
The RMP sets an Ally score of 70% – the good news for both staff and students is that 87% of all 2024-25 courses have a score of 70%. And overall, the Ally score for 2024-25 is 72.5% which is 3% higher than last year.
Making Blackboard content as accessible as possible benefits all our students. Having materials in a format that students can use easily means that they can focus on their learning rather than struggling with inaccessible formats. The choices that staff make to design accessible materials, as well as the Ally Alternative Formative tools, help us to make sure that all students can engage with their studies.
It’s particularly important here at AU, as the latest HERA data show that over 28% of our students have a declared disability (compared to 16.7% nationally).
To check your course Ally score, have a look at the guidance on the Blackboard help pages. And you can find out more about designing accessible materials with our online training materials.
Ally will give you help and guidance to address common issues. One of the most common issues at AU is handwritten documents that have been scanned. We’ve written some guidance to help staff who do use this type of material. And if you wanted to use scanned articles in your course, contact the Digitisation Service.
Giving access to teaching materials in advance of a session makes them more accessible for students. It gives students a chance to prepare before attending so that they can concentrate on the content of the lecture when they attend. For sessions that include discussion or group work it can allow students to consider how they may engage with these activities. A research paper from Oxford Brookes provides information about the value of making materials available in advance,
Feedback from students over the last few years has asked for this change, and the issue was discussed at Academic Board in summer 2024. And it’s standard in a number of other universities, for example at Edinburgh University and Oxford Brookes.
AU has decided that teaching materials should be released at least one working day before the event takes place:
You can use the Blackboard release conditions to make sure that materials are available at the right time. If you already make all your materials available at the start of term, you are welcome to continue with this.
In the May update, we are particularly excited about auto-generate AI Conversations with the AI Design Assistant, Qualitative Rubrics, and Enhancements to Gradebook and Tests.
Back in November we launched AI Conversations.
The AI Design Assistant can now auto-generate AI Conversations. AI Conversations are conversations between students and an AI persona.
Creating personas and topics for an AI Conversation can take a lot of time. To streamline this process, the AI Design Assistant can generate three suggestions at once. You can select what the AI Design Assistant generates. You can choose to generate:
These suggestions provide inspiration for an AI Conversation. Instructors can refine the AI Design Assistant’s suggestions in several ways:
Image 1. The auto-generate feature is now available in AI Conversations.
Image 2. There are several ways to customise AI Conversations.
We recommend that you look closely at the AI persona to check for any biases that might be there and edit these.
We would love to hear about your use cases of AI Conversations – do let us know via elearning@aber.ac.uk.
Lecturers can now create and use no-points rubrics for Blackboard Assignments. This rubric type allows instructors to assess student work based on criteria and feedback, rather than numerical values.
Instructors can select No Points as a rubric type when creating or generating a rubric. This option is available alongside existing percentage and points-based rubrics. Instructors can also edit rubrics to switch between different rubric types, including percentage, points range, and no points.
Image 1: No Points option is available in the Rubric Type dropdown.
This feature was requested in our recent Blackboard Assignment (Safe Assign) pilot.
The Markable Items tab in the Gradebook now features a redesigned interface to improve accessibility and navigation for keyboard-only and screen reader users. This enhancement supports an accessible experience for instructors grading student work, reducing the time and effort required to manage student grades.
With this update, the Gradable Items tab uses a table-based layout to enhance usability:
Image 1: Gradebook with Markable items tab highlighted
Instructors can now create custom text-based columns in the Gradebook, giving them the ability to record information for an assessment, such as performance code, group membership, and tutoring information.
These columns allow instructors to record up to 32 characters. The column is not restricted to text input.
Colleague might want to use this to record dissertation supervision teams or markers.
Instructors can:
Text-based columns exclude the following:
Content in text-based columns auto-posts and supports sorting functionality within the Gradebook grid view. Instructors can also download and upload text-based columns using the Gradebook’s upload/download function.
Image 1: Instructors can select Add Text Item to create a text-based column.
Image 2: Instructors can enter column name, set visibility for students, and enter a description for the text-based column.
Students can access text-based columns and associated information in their Gradebook when the column is set to Visible to students.
There is a new test result setting option, View submission one time.
When a student completes the test, they can review their answers and detailed feedback, such as which questions were answered correctly.
Image 1: Allow students to view their submission one time highlighted:
Instructors
To access this setting option, select Available after submission in the Assessment results section of the Assessment Settings, then select View submission one time from the Customise when the submission content is visible to students dropdown. This dropdown is available only if Allow students to view their submission is selected.
Note that this setting does not alter the recommended settings for online exams.
This section aims to keep you updated on progress of enhancements requested on the Blackboard Ideas Exchange.
We are pleased to see the Qualitative Rubric included in this month’s release as this is a feature that was requested as part of the SafeAssign pilot.
If you have any enhancements to request from Blackboard, please get in touch with us via elearning@aber.ac.uk.
Turnitin will be unavailable between 15:00 and 15:30 on Saturday 29 March 2025 for scheduled maintenance.
During this time, you will be unable to submit or grade any assessments.
We apologise for any inconvenience caused.
What’s new in Blackboard March 2025
In the March update, Blackboard has changed how release conditions work with due dates and included the ability to copy banners from one course to another. Other updates include enhancements to Tests, Assignments, & Gradebook, and Discussions.
When instructors customise release conditions for a content item, the due date for the item is now included with the date and time fields.
Image 1: The due date of a content item now displays after the date and time fields
.
This means that due dates must be between the release conditions of Date/Time that have been applied.
Instructors now have the option to copy banners between courses. Banners can be copied from Ultra or Original courses.
Image 1: The Copy Items page now has the option to select the course banner under Settings
Follow the instructions on copying content for further information.
The following enhancements are grouped under tests, assignment, and gradebook activities.
A new and enhanced student-facing submission review page for tests has been developed.
The new layout means that all feedback is clearly laid out and easy for students to identify.
Image 1: The student view of the graded test submission includes a submission timestamp, submission receipt, and feedback for individual questions.
If the test is visible and feedback has been posted, students can access the review page from:
If a student submits multiple attempts, they can review each attempt on the submission review page. The instructor defines which attempt to grade in the test’s final grade calculation setting.
Please note that this does not affect online exams as we advise that the test is hidden from students to prevent them seeing their results.
Instructors can now configure visibility for calculated columns from Items Management in the Gradebook by click on the associated calculation:
Grading rubrics on Blackboard Assignments can pop out into a separate window as part of the assignment workflow.
Image 1: Instructors can pop out the rubric by selecting the expand icon in the rubric panel.
When the pop-out rubric is open, the ability to add Overall Feedback and grade with the rubric in the main grading interface is inactive. This prevents an instructor from editing the same information in two separate places simultaneously.
We recommend using two screens with this enhancement.
Several improvements have been made to Discussions:
Image 1. A long discussion post displayed in its entirety with a grey background.
We made several changes to enhance the accessibility of key features on the discussion home page.
Image 2. The changes made to the discussion home page included the addition of an Edit button and a count of posts and replies.
The Discussions page will only be available to students if any of the below conditions are met:
System administrators can now reveal the identity of the author of an anonymous discussion post or reply. If you are running an anonymous Discussion and need to de-anonymise a comment, contact elearning@aber.ac.uk outlining the course, discussion, and post, as well as the rationale for requesting it be de-anonymised.
If you have any enhancements to request from Blackboard, please get in touch with us via elearning@aber.ac.uk.
Since September 2024, Information Services (IS) have been running a pilot of Blackboard Assignment and SafeAssign to evaluate the use of SafeAssign. This is part of our commitment to making sure that we are using the best tools available. The purpose of this blogpost is to summarise the outcomes of our pilot.
18 staff volunteered to use Blackboard Assignment for submission and marking, and SafeAssign for text-matching. These staff were based in seven different departments and taught a range of UG and PG modules. All staff were offered training and provided with written guidance on using both Blackboard Assignment and SafeAssign. The training sessions provided an opportunity for staff to discuss different assessment scenarios with E-learning staff and to ascertain the suitability for Blackboard Assignment and SafeAssign. We also sent out surveys to staff on their use of e-marking and feedback tools.
A big thanks to all the staff and students involved in the pilot and all those who completed the surveys.
AU will continue to use our current suite of e-assessment tools:
The pilot allowed us to reflect on the requirements for an e-assessment solution. It was clear from this that we need a combination of different solutions for different assessment requirements.
We would recommend Blackboard Assignment be used for:
One of the main purposes of the pilot was to investigate the efficacy of SafeAssign and its functionality as a text matching solution. Over the next few months, with input from stakeholders, we will decide whether we leave SafeAssign switched on and we’ll communicate this decision after Easter.
As well as taking part in training, staff in the pilot were asked to complete a survey before and after using Blackboard Assignment and SafeAssign. The first survey was about their use of Turnitin, and the second one was about their experiences of using Assignment and SafeAssign.
We also sent out the first survey to all staff asking for their feedback on Turnitin, and use of Turnitin tools that have no equivalent in SafeAssign. This survey was designed to help us understand whether any of the features in Turnitin are essential to the AU marking and feedback process. Overall, 71 staff took part in these first surveys.
Some of the most frequently used and important features in Turnitin are not currently available in Blackboard and SafeAssign. Two of these were ranked as regularly used:
Three features ranked as essential from an e-assessment solution:
The key finding from the survey was that timed release of marks is considered both important and used frequently by staff, making it an essential requirement for any AU marking and feedback system.
The second survey was sent to just the pilot group and asked them about their use of the tools in Blackboard Assignment and SafeAssign, as well as their recommendations for changing submission and marking tools. 6 staff responded to this survey. They generally found it easy to use Blackboard and SafeAssign and didn’t report many problems for either them or their students. However, they highlighted limitations in functionality, which meant that some of the pilot group didn’t end up using Blackboard and SafeAssign at all:
Anthology Ideas Exchange allows all Blackboard institutions to request and vote on functionality enhancements to the product. As a result of training sessions and staff feedback, we made 21 suggestions via the Anthology Ideas Exchange. These were a mix of Turnitin functionality that doesn’t have an equivalent in SafeAssign, as well as changes to existing SafeAssign functionality. Some examples include:
| Enhancement Request | Ideas Exchange | Status |
| Schedule grade posting | 3052 | Future consideration |
| See if students have viewed feedback | 1612 | Planning to implement in the next 6+ months |
| Anonymous marking switched off before grades released | 1685 | Follow up |
| Annotate comment library export / import | 1751 | Future consideration |
| Submit on behalf of students | 164 | Planning to implement but this will initially only be to submit in draft attempts made by students. |
| Scheduled Grade Posting | 3052 | Future consideration |
| Increase file size limit for SafeAssign | 5711 136 | Future consideration |
If you have suggestions or changes for any part of Blackboard on that you would like us to add to the Ideas Exchange, please email elearning@aber.ac.uk. You may also be interested in the new section in our monthly update blog which highlights any Ideas Exchange ideas that we have added or voted for which have been added to Blackboard.
Blackboard has some options that you can use make sure students get any individual assessment arrangements they may need.
Accommodations are applied to a student on a course level and will apply to any Blackboard Assignment or Test in the course. However, it does not apply to Turnitin assignments. Accommodations are good for students who have an ongoing arrangement that does not vary between assignments on the same course.
Students can have a Due Date accommodation or Time Limit Accommodation.
With a Dute Date Accommodation, work will never be marked as late in gradebook, although you are able to see when it was submitted. A Time Limit Accommodation gives the student extra time on any assessment with a timer.
Students with accommodations have a flag which is visible only to staff in the Grade Book, Roster, and on the Assessment. If a student with an accommodation is part of a group assignment, all students in the group will have the accommodation applied for that assignment.
Exceptions are made for students at a course level for individual assignments. Again, they do not apply to Turnitin assignments. Exceptions are good for students who may have a deadline extension for an individual piece of work. Exceptions can be used for additional attempts, rescheduled due dates, or extended access. Exceptions can only be applied to non-anonymous submissions – this means that they are useful for multiple choice tests that don’t require manual marking. They are visible only to staff through the Gradebook or Test Submission page.
All the information about Accommodations and Exceptions is available on the Blackboard Support site.
Turnitin will be unavailable between 16:00 and 20:00 on Saturday 18 January 2025 for scheduled maintenance.
During this time, you will be unable to submit or grade any assessments. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.