What’s New in Blackboard Learn Ultra – March 2024

21st March 202421st March 2024 Robert Francis [rsf09] Blackboard, Ultra Leave a comment

This month Blackboard brings us the ability to see Gradebook item statistics, being able to set assessments with no due date and some tweaks to message notifications.

Gradebook item statistics

Item statistics give insight to course members’ overall performance on a graded content. Now, instructors can select a column in the gradebook to access summary statistics for any graded item. The statistics page displays key metrics such as:

Minimum and maximum value
Range
Average
Median
Standard deviation
Variance

The number of submissions requiring grading and the distribution of grades also displays.

Image below: Access to item statistics from the Grid view.

Image below: Access to item statistics from the Gradeable Items view.

Access to item statistics from the Gradable Items view

Image below: Item Statistics page.

No Due Date assessment option

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.

Image below: Test Settings panel showing the new “No due date” option.

We also updated the default due date and time to tomorrow’s date at 11:59 pm.

Image below: Test Settings panel displaying the new default due date and time.

There may be cases when the “No due date” selection conflicts with the Assessment Results settings. When this occurs, the instructor is prompted to review the settings.

Image below: A warning banner appears when the “No due date” selection conflicts with Assessment Results settings.

Instructors can navigate to the Assessment Results section in the Settings via the link in the banner.

Image below: Assessment results timing options when there is no due date.

Please note that for summative and high stakes assessment, we still advise having a due date and time. To discuss your requirements for test settings, please contact the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit (elearning@aber.ac.uk).

Announcement indicators and mark announcements as read/unread

Announcements are an important communications channel within a course. It is important to help create awareness of new announcements and read/unread controls.

Now, there is a number indicator next to the announcement tab in the course. The indicator signals the number of unread announcements available.

Additionally, students can now mark announcements as read or unread. On the New Course Announcement pop-up, users have the option to mark the read state. Students can also mark announcements as read or unread from the Announcement page.

Image below: Number of unread Announcements next to the Announcement tab

Image below: Announcements pop-up with the option to mark as read/unread

Image below: Announcements page with the option to mark as read/unread.

Image below: Matching announcement and messages indicators for consistency

Reminder: Access the Course Activity Report and message students from within it.

The Course Activity report helps you understand how well your students are performing and how much they are interacting with your course. The Course Activity Report enables Instructors to:

Message students who are falling behind and encourage them to increase their course activity
Identify struggling students based on their overall grade, missed due dates, the number of hours they spend in your course, and the number of days since their last access
Congratulate students performing well in your course and ask them to be mentors
Customize your course alerts to identify struggling students when their overall grade drops below a specific value, they’ve missed due dates, or they haven’t accessed the course for a certain number of days
Download the table view to a CSV (comma-separated values) file to analyse the data with other tools
Download the scatter plot as a PDF or image to share information with other instructors or mentors of the course

To access the Course Activity Report select Course Activity in your course’s Analytics tab.

Image below: Accessing the Course Activity Report from the Analytics tab

The table view of the Course Activity report on the Analytics tab, with a blue box around Analytics and Course Activity.

Sending Messages

Instructors can select students and send them messages from Course Activity by selecting the Send message button. When you send a message to multiple students, each student will receive an individual message and will not know which other students were included.

Image below: A student selected to be contacted and the Send message button highlighted

The table view of the Course Activity report on the Analytics tab, with a blue box around a student selection and Send message.

For more information on the Course Activity Report see the Blackboard Help Page on the Course Activity Report.

Reminder: Grading Tests with Flexible Grading

It is possible to grade tests either by student or by question —making it easy to compare answers across the course and ensure fairness and consistency in grading. Marking by student is currently limited to non-anonymous submissions. Marking anonymous submissions will be included in a future update

For more information on Flexible Grading see the Blackboard Help Page on Flexible Grading.

What’s New in Blackboard Learn Ultra – February 2024

16th February 202416th February 2024 Robert Francis [rsf09] Blackboard, Ultra, Virtual Learning Environment(VLE) Leave a comment

The Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit is excited to share with you details of the new Forms and the new Linkert question type which were introduced in the February update.

Forms

Instructors frequently need to survey their class to gauge student interests or opinions on a range of topics from field excursions to course feedback. Now, instructors can create a Form for these use cases.

The following items are supported in a Form:

Essay question
Likert question
Multiple choice question
True/false question
Text
Local file
File from cloud storage
Page break

By default, a Form is not graded. Questions in a form don’t have correct or incorrect answers. Forms are currently not anonymous, this functionality will be included in a future update.

Image below: An example ungraded Form used for a clinical teaching placement

Example of ungraded Form used for clinical teaching placement

Some instructors may choose to grade a Form to encourage participation. When this is the case, instructors must manually enter a grade for each submission.

Instructors may view Form submissions by student or by question in the new grading view.

Image below: Ungraded Form submissions by question

Image below: Graded Form submission by student

Instructors may download the Form results from the Gradebook and Submissions page as an Excel spreadsheet or CSV file.

Image below: Download Form results from Gradable Items view

Image below: Download Form results for Submissions page

In the Gradebook grid view, student submissions for an ungraded Form appear as “Submitted.” Graded Forms display the manually entered grade or appropriate grading status.

Likert question type

Likert questions help provide a quantitative measure of opinions and attitudes. The responses often range from strongly disagree to strongly agree. This question type is now available in the Form assessment type.

Image below: Set up a Likert question

The scale range defaults to three options, with suggested labelling for options one and three as strongly disagree and strongly agree. Instructors may select a range of three, five, or seven options and label the poles as desired. Instructors may also choose to include a “not applicable” option.

Image below. Example Likert question in an end of unit survey

Note: A Likert question in a survey created in the Learn Original course view converts/copies to a Form in the Learn Ultra course view. The scale range default is three.

January 2024 Blackboard Learn Ultra Update

26th January 202426th January 2024 Robert Francis [rsf09] Blackboard Leave a comment

Please find below some of the latest enhancements from the January update of Blackboard Learn Ultra that the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit would like to highlight to Instructors.

Batch Edit: Change to specific date and/or time.

Instructors often want to change the date and time for several selected items in their course at the same time. The problem with making that change is that it would be very tedious if you had to do one item at a time.

Using Batch Edit, instructors can now override the existing date and/or time for selected items. The same feature also works on show on and hide after dates and times.

Note: Batch edit of dates/time only works with items that have pre-existing date and time values. Items without a date or time value will not have one applied.

Image below: Accessing Batch Edit from Course Content.

Image below: Change to a specific date and/or time option for Batch Edit.

Total and Weighted Column Calculations

Instructors need a gradebook that supports diverse grading scenarios. The gradebook supports the creation of calculated columns and an overall course grade. We are expanding gradebook functionality to also support total and weighted calculated columns. These types of calculations are helpful for specific events or periods, such as midterms or finals.

Total calculated columns can be point-based or weighted calculations. Like setting up the Overall Grade, instructors may link/unlink items in a category in the calculation. They may also choose to exclude categories from the calculation. For an included category, instructors may edit the calculation rule. The calculation rule allows instructors to drop scores or to include only the lowest or highest score in the category.

Instructors may wish to define a total calculated column for their own use. In this case, they can choose to hide from students. If desired, instructors can include a total calculated column in the overall grade calculation.

Image below: Add a Total Calculation column from the Grid view.

Image below. Add a Total Calculation column from Gradable Items view.

Image below: Editing a Weighted Total Calculation Column.

Image below: Define rules for the Weighted Total Calculation column.

Attempt logs for enhanced assessment integrity for Blackboard Tests and Assignments.

The Attempt Logs prove to be an indispensable tool for validating issues students may encounter during an assessment. The logs also help instructors identify signs of academic dishonesty.

Note: Attempt logs can be used with Blackboard Tests and Assignments, not with Turnitin.

For Tests, the logs provide the following:

Detailed information, including the date and time of the start and answers to each question.
Question-specific details, such as question number, a preview of the question, and estimated time spent on each question.
Submission receipt number, final grade, and attempt grade.
Easy toggling between all in-progress and submitted attempts for comprehensive assessment tracking.

Image below: Test attempt log with multiple attempts made by the student.

For Assignments, the logs offer:

Start and submission date and time.
Submission receipt number.
Seamless toggling between different attempts for a holistic view.

Image below: Assignment attempt log.

Instructors can access the Attempt Logs from two primary areas:

Context Menu on Submission Page – exclusive to individual assessments.
Grades Tab under Student Overview Page – available for both group and individual assessments.

Image below: Access from the Submission tab.

Image below: Access from the Grades tab from the student overview.

For anonymous assessments, the report becomes active after grades are posted, and the anonymity is lifted. This ensures that the Attempt Logs report is a robust tool even in scenarios where student identities are initially concealed.

Grade visible to students in Gradebook when item is hidden by release conditions.

Release conditions provide options for custom learning paths through course content. When instructors set release conditions, content is unavailable until students meet those conditions. An option to ‘Hide’ selected content from students is available. This setting also hides the grade from the student view of the gradebook.

Now, instructors can set release conditions without concern of hiding grades. Regardless of the setting in “When will content appear?”, students can see the grade. All other functionality of release conditions is unchanged.

Image below: Release conditions settings with date/time release condition set in combination with Hide state in “When will content appear?”

Image below: Student Gradebook view with display of student’s grade regardless of the release condition setting in the image above.

Note: It is still possible for Instructors to hide grades and Gradebook columns should this be necessary for exam boards or moderation purposes. Once the associated Test or Assessment is complete; Click on the column in the Gradebook, select Edit, then adjust the Release Conditions to Hidden from Students.

Image below: Changing Release Conditions to Hidden from Students.

Unused files management tool.

To help instructors understand the usage of files in their course and reduce their digital footprint Blackboard have created the Unused Files tool. This tool helps instructors find and delete course files that are not in use. Instructors can locate the Unused Files tool in the three-dot menu on the Course Content page. 

Image below: Unused Files tool.

There are two views available; unused files (default view0 or all files. The file name, upload date, and file size display along with an option to download a copy of the local file. Instructors can easily delete unused files. 

Image below: List of unused files.

Image below: List of All files.

December 2023 Blackboard Learn Ultra Update

13th December 202313th December 2023 Robert Francis [rsf09] Blackboard, Interactive Tools, Ultra, Uncategorised Leave a comment

This month there are three improvements in Blackboard Learn Ultra that the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit would like to highlight for Instructors.

Additional image insertion options

Images enhance comprehension of and engagement with course content. Instructors and students want to use high-quality images in content and submissions. To help with this, a new image button has been added in the content editor in the following places:

Announcements
Assessment Questions
Student answers on questions (local file upload only)
Submission feedback (standard view)
Journal entries and comments

Image below: Instructor view – image button on content editor for Announcements.

Flexible grading – sorting control on students tab

Grading large numbers of submissions without a way to organize them can be tedious. Now, instructors can apply various sorting options in flexible grading:

Submission date (oldest – newest) of latest attempt
Submission date (newest – oldest) of latest attempt
Last Name (A – Z)
Last Name (Z – A)
First Name (A – Z)
First Name (Z-A)
Student ID (ascending)
Student ID (descending)

The grading interface stores the most recently used sorting option. If an instructor stops grading an assessment and resumes grading later, the last sorting option is applied.

Also, if sorting the submissions by last name or grading status, the chosen sorting option carries over into the grading interface.

Image below: Sorting options as shown from Students tab in flexible grading.

Group assessment due date exceptions

Instructors may want to set different due dates for each group working on a group assessment.

In the past, there was no way to assign varying due dates for each group working on a group assessment. Now, instructors can assign a unique due date to each group using the exceptions workflow.

On the group assessment Submissions page, the instructor may add or edit exceptions for a group.

Image below: Instructor view – add or edit exceptions option on the group assessment Submissions page.

The Exceptions panel displays relevant information such as the assignment name and selected group name. This helps ensure the accuracy of an exception. Instructors can select a due date for the group using the date and time picker.

Image below: Instructor view – exceptions panel.

Image below: Instructor view – group assessment Submissions page displays the exceptions indicator for Project Group 1.

November 2023 Blackboard Learn Ultra Update

27th November 202327th November 2023 Robert Francis [rsf09] Blackboard, Interactive Tools, Tests, Ultra Leave a comment

The Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit would like to highlight five enhancements for Instructors from the November Blackboard Learn Ultra Update. These enhancements are in three areas:

Making your content more visual using Images.
Updates to Tests.
Managing your Gradebook.

Making your content more visual using images:

1. Image insertion option for Ultra Documents, Journals, Discussions, Assessment attempts, and Courses

Images play an important role in a student’s education experience. Images help to enhance comprehension of and engagement with course content. To help instructors more easily identify high-quality images, Blackboard have added a new image button in the content editor in the following places:

Ultra Documents
Journal prompts
Discussions
Course Messages

Image below: Instructor view – New image button on content editor for Ultra Documents.

When selected, the instructor has the following options:

Upload an image through selection or drag and drop.
Select a royalty-free, high-quality image from Unsplash.

Image below: Instructor view – Image source options.

Students can also access the new image button on the content editor in the following areas:

Discussion responses.
Assessments and test question inputs.
Course Messages.

Image below: Student view – New image button on content editor for discussion response.

Image below: Student view – Drag and drop or upload an image file.

After selecting the image, instructors and students can reposition the focus and zoom of the image. There’s also an option to alter the aspect ratio of the image.

Image below: Modify the zoom and focus of the image; set the aspect ratio.

Users can rename the image. It is important always to consider the accessibility of course content. The user should mark the image as decorative or provide suitable alternative text.

Instructors can also set the view and download file options for the image. After the image is inserted, the instructor can resize the image.

Updates to Tests:

2. Edit/Regrade in Questions

Instructors may spot a mistake in a test question when grading a test submission. For example, instructors may have found a typo, chosen a wrong answer, or wanted to adjust points.

In the past, the “Edit/Regrade Questions” option was only available when grading submissions by “Student.”  Now, instructors can also access the Edit/Regrade workflow when grading by question.

Image below: Instructor view – Edit/Regrade option when grading a test by question.

Image below: Instructor view – editing a question using the Edit/Regrade option.

3. Matching question updates: partial credit auto-distribution and other updates

Matching questions are useful for testing a student’s skill in making accurate connections between related concepts. This question type also checks students’ understanding in a structured format.

To reward students who show partial understanding, some instructors wish to award partial and/or negative credit for matching questions.

In the past, instructors selected a scoring option:

allow partial credit.
all or nothing.
subtract points for incorrect matches, but question score can’t be negative.
or allow negative question scores.

These options were exclusive and, at times, created confusion for instructors.

Now, partial and negative credit is turned on by default. Blackboard auto-distributes partial credit as a percentage across the matching pairs. The auto-distribution of credit saves instructors time. Instructors can edit the partial credit values if needed to grant some pairs more or less credit. Values for partial credit must sum to 100%.

If desired, instructors may also specify a negative credit percentage to any pair. Negative credit is only assessed when applied and when a student mismatches a pair. If desired, instructors may choose to allow an overall negative score for the question.

We also made a few other improvements to this question:

Blackboard re-worded the question construction guidance and moved it to an info bubble.
In the past, the “reuse an answer” and “delete pair” options were behind the three-dot menu. Now, these options appear on the right side of the answer for each pair.
Before reused answers appeared as “Reused answer from pair #” in the answer field. Now, the answer itself is displayed in the answer field. “Reused answer” appears beneath the answer for the pair.
“Additional answers” renamed to “Distractors.”

Image below: New Matching question layout.

Managing your Gradebook:

4. Gradebook grid view performance improvements

Some instructors prefer to work in the gradebook grid view. To improve the user experience, we made several improvements to this view. These improvements address overall performance and reduce the load time.

Performance tested scenarios:

25K student enrolments and 400 gradable items:
Load time reduced from 108 s (about 2 minutes) to 14s (87% performance improvement)
2000 student enrolments and 400 gradable items:
Load time reduced from 19s to 8s (57% performance improvement)
40 students and 400 gradable items:
Load time reduced from 8s to 6.8s (14.75% performance improvement)

5. Sorting controls for Student Name, Overall Grade, Assessments, and Manual Columns in grid view.

To use the grid view click the toggle grid and list view button:

Sorting options in the gradebook provide a more efficient grading experience.

Now instructors can sort the following gradebook grid view columns:

Student Name
Overall Grade
Tests and Assignments
Manual columns

Instructors can sort records in ascending or descending and remove any applied sorting. A purple highlight in the column header helps instructors identify where sorting is applied.

Any sorting applied yields a temporary change to the sort order of all columns in the gradebook grid view.

Image below: Sorting an assessment in the grid view with filters applied.

Blackboard Learn Ultra: October Update 2023

18th October 202318th October 2023 Robert Francis [rsf09] Blackboard, Marking, Ultra 1 Comment

The Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit would like to highlight four enhancements to Instructors from the October Blackboard Learn Ultra.

1. Partial credit auto-distribution for correct answers for Multiple Choice questions

Multiple-choice questions with more than one correct answer are valuable assessment tools. Also known as multiple-answer or multiple-select questions, these questions assess comprehensive understanding. They also promote deeper learning and higher-order thinking skills.

Some instructors wish to award partial credit for these question types. This practice awards students who have a partial understanding. It also fosters a positive learning experience.

In the past, instructors had to enter a value for partial credit percentage for each option. Now, Blackboard will auto-distribute partial credit across correct answer choices. This distribution provides efficiency and saves instructors’ time. If desired, instructors can edit the values if some correct answer options warrant more or less credit. Values for correct answers must sum to 100%.

Image below: Question credit auto-distributes across correct answer options; values can be edited.

A screenshot of creating a multiple choice question. Allow partial and negative credit highlighted. Percentages highlighted.

2. Send reminder from gradebook list and grid views

Instructors may want to send a reminder to students or groups who haven’t yet made a submission for an assessment. To make this easy, Blackboard have added a “Send Reminder” option to items in the Gradebook.

There are two views of the Gradebook that can be toggled between using the button. List view and grid view.

Image below: Use the list view and grid view button to toggle between views.

From the Gradebook list view, the option to send a reminder is in the overflow menu (three dots).

Image below: Send Reminder option from list view

A screenshot of the Gradebook in list view. Send reminder is highlighted.

Instructors may access the “Send Reminder” option in the grid view by selecting the gradebook column header.

Image below: Send Reminder option from grid view

A screenshot of the Gradebook in grid view. Send reminder is highlighted.

3. Delegated grading distribution by group membership

Instructors sometimes distribute the grading workload for an assessment to multiple graders. This is a popular practice in larger classes. Instructors can assign graders to groups of students with the new delegated grading option. Each grader will only see the submissions made by students in the group(s) assigned to them.

Delegated Grading can be used with all available group types. This first release of Delegated Grading supports assignment submissions from individual students. Tests, group assessments, and anonymous submissions are not supported at this time. These will be released at a later date.

After selecting the Delegated Grading option, select the appropriate Group Set. Instructors can assign one or more graders to each group in the group set. If multiple graders are assigned to the same group, they will share the grading responsibility for the group members.

Graders assigned to a group of students will only see submissions for those students on the assignment’s submission page. They can only post grades for their assigned group members. Any unassigned instructors enrolled in the course will see all student submissions on the assignment’s submission page. They also post grades for all students.

Note: At least one Group Set complete with Groups must be present in the course before using the Delegated Grading option.

Image below: Instructor view of the assessment Settings panel with the Delegated Grading option enabled.

A screenshot of the assignment settings. Delegrated Grading is highlighted.

4. Sorting for manually added gradable items.

Sorting controls help instructors organize and find information in the gradebook. Instructors can now use sorting controls on the grades page for manually created items. The sorting controls enable sorting in both ascending and descending order. Instructors can sort the following information:

Student name
Grade
Feedback
Post status

The applied sorting order is temporary and resets when you leave the page.

Note: Sorting controls can be applied to one column at a time. When you sort another column, items will order according to the selected column.

Image below: Instructor view of sorting controls on the grades page for a manually added gradable item

A screenshot of the the Gradebook for a manually created item. The sorting controls at the head of columns are highlighted.

September 2023 Blackboard Learn Ultra Update

3rd October 20233rd October 2023 Robert Francis [rsf09] Blackboard, Ultra Leave a comment

This month saw the release of several further enhancements in Blackboard Learn Ultra.

Batch Editor enhancements

Batch editing streamlines making changes to multiple items at once in Blackboard whether that is editing visibility, release conditions or deleting. Blackboard have updated batch edit so that actions now apply to all items inside of Folders and Learning Modules.

All items are now visible on a single page. Blackboard have added the ability to expand and collapse Folders and Learning Modules.

For more information on using the Batch Editor, see the Blackboard Batch Editor help page.

Unsplash Image Library

As we covered in a previous blogpost, Instructors can now search the extensive Unsplash stock image library for high-quality, royalty-free stock images to use within Blackboard.

See our previous blogpost here.

Blackboard Ally

This month also saw us enable the Blackboard Ally accessibility tool that allows students to download alternative formats of content as well as accessibility checker for Instructors.

See our previous blogpost here.

If you have any questions regarding Blackboard Learn Ultra please contact elearning@aber.ac.uk

The Ultra Essentials Playlist

21st September 202321st September 2023 Branwen Rhys [brr26] Blackboard, Ultra, Uncategorised Leave a comment

If you’re a busy bee preparing your courses before the students arrive and don’t have any time to attend training sessions, how about visiting our new bite sized training video clips on how to work in Blackboard Ultra.

We’ve created The Ultra Essentials Playlist to help staff to familiarise themselves with the exciting new features in Ultra. The playlist is comprised of 15 short videos (2-8 minutes) with a longer first introductory video Introduction to Blackboard Learn Ultra.

If you’re unsure about how to do something specific in Ultra or just need a quick refresher then take a look at our bilingual training videos. Here’s a breakdown of the individual video clips:

We are still providing online training sessions in English and Welsh and you can book and view other sessions on the booking page.

If you have any questions about Blackboard Learn Ultra then email: elearning@aber.ac.uk

Workaround for Blackboard 404 error when accessing files using the Microsoft Edge browser.

6th December 20216th December 2021 Robert Francis [rsf09] Blackboard, Technical Updates 1 Comment

The Microsoft Edge browser attempts to open Microsoft Office files directly in the browser. When accessing files in Blackboard this is causing an error with the message; “404 – File or directory not found.”

A suggested workaround for this is to use either the Google Chrome or Firefox browsers.

Alternatively you can change the following setting in Microsoft Edge:

Open the Edge menu by clicking the three dots and click Settings

An image of the Edge menu with settings highlighted

Click Downloads

Turn off the setting Open Office files in the browser

An image of the settings under downloads

If you require further assistance please contact elearning@aber.ac.uk

2021-2022 Modules now available to Staff

5th August 20215th August 2021 Robert Francis [rsf09] Uncategorised Leave a comment

Modules for the academic year 2021/2022 are now available for staff teaching on modules. This is in order to assist staff in preparing for the new academic year. You may have noticed that a new tab has appeared on the top menu of your Blackboard screen:

If you’re enrolled as a staff member on the module in Astra then you should be able to view your modules for next academic year. If you’re not able to see a module that you are enrolled on then contact your Departmental Administrator. Students won’t be enrolled on the module until registration is complete.

You’ll notice that the codes for modules have changed slightly owing to the new MAF form. AB1 denotes modules running in semester 1, AB2 denotes modules running in semester 2, and AB3 denotes modules running in Semester 3 and Semester S.

We’ve got the following support available to help with Course Copy:

Read our FAQ

If you have any queries regarding Course Copy, or need further assistance, please email elearning@aber.ac.uk.