{"id":10069,"date":"2026-02-06T09:13:03","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T09:13:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/e-learning\/?p=10069"},"modified":"2026-02-06T09:13:04","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T09:13:04","slug":"whats-new-in-blackboard-february-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/e-learning\/2026\/02\/06\/whats-new-in-blackboard-february-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s new in Blackboard February 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>In the February update, we want to draw your attention to the following Blackboard enhancements:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Use automations to remind students to check their feedback<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Stack blocks vertically in Documents<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Enhanced achievement usability<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Use automations to remind students to check their feedback<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p>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&nbsp;feedback,&nbsp;promoting student engagement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Instructors<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This release adds the&nbsp;Send feedback reminder&nbsp;option&nbsp;to the Automation gallery. Go to Automations:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Image 1: View automations under Course Assistants highlighted<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"203\" height=\"218\" src=\"http:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/e-learning\/files\/2026\/02\/BB-Update-4000.8-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-10073\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Image 2: The Automation gallery now includes&nbsp;Send&nbsp;feedback reminder.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"624\" height=\"143\" src=\"http:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/e-learning\/files\/2026\/02\/BB-Update-4000.8-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-10074\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>For the automation trigger, instructors select how&nbsp;many&nbsp;days&nbsp;feedback must remain unread before the message is sent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Image 3: The Automation trigger includes a dropdown menu for the number of unread days.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"306\" height=\"236\" src=\"http:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/e-learning\/files\/2026\/02\/BB-Update-4000.8-3.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-10075\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Stack blocks vertically in Documents<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p>instructors can&nbsp;stack&nbsp;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&nbsp;delete&nbsp;individual blocks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Columns can also be dropped into another&nbsp;block\u2019s&nbsp;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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Image 1: Instructors can&nbsp;stack&nbsp;blocks in a single column, such as next to an image in a column.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"395\" height=\"252\" src=\"http:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/e-learning\/files\/2026\/02\/BB-Update-4000.8-4.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-10076\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Enhanced achievement usability<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p>For students, the Achievements tab displays a count of unread badges. The&nbsp;New&nbsp;pill appears consistently in Earned and&nbsp;To Earn&nbsp;sections.&nbsp;The&nbsp;Delete Badge&nbsp;dialog uses clearer wording. Instructors and students can more easily distinguish between Course Badges and Open Badges with improved labels, icons, and descriptions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Accessibility updates include improved aria-labels and alt-text. Styling for&nbsp;OpenBadge&nbsp;images has been updated to remove forced round shapes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Image 1: In the student view, the Achievements tab displays a count of unread badges, and the new badges have a New pill.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"624\" height=\"407\" src=\"http:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/e-learning\/files\/2026\/02\/BB-Update-4000.8-5.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-10077\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>If you have any enhancements to request from Blackboard, please get in touch with us via <a href=\"mailto:elearning@aber.ac.uk\">elearning@aber.ac.uk<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the February update, we want to draw your attention to the following Blackboard enhancements: 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. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55903,"featured_media":9451,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[94,1198,924],"tags":[1316,1524,59,1245,142,1556,1240,1267],"class_list":["post-10069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blackboard","category-montly-update","category-ultra-blackboard","tag-achievements","tag-automations","tag-blackboard","tag-documents","tag-feedback","tag-layout","tag-monthly-updates","tag-ultra-en"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/e-learning\/files\/2025\/06\/BB-update-Banner.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9XLJV-2Cp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/e-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/e-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/e-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/e-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55903"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/e-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10069"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/e-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10069\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10078,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/e-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10069\/revisions\/10078"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/e-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/e-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/e-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/e-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}