What’s New in Blackboard Learn – January 2024
Our team here at Anthology is excited to share with you some of the new features and updates you’ll find this month in Blackboard® Learn Ultra. Read on to discover highlights from the latest Learn release!
1. Forms
Some instructors need to collect information to place students in clinical experiences. Others need to survey their class to gauge student interests or opinions. 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.
Image 1. An example ungraded Form used for a 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 2. Ungraded Form submissions by question
Image 3. 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 4. Download Form results from Gradable Items view
Image 5. 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.
2. 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 1. Set up a Likert question
The scale range defaults to three options, with suggested labeling 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 2. 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.
3. Import Moodle packages
Switching from Moodle to Blackboard Learn is now easier than ever. Instructors can now import Moodle packages into Learn Ultra and Learn Original course views themselves. This change removes instructor reliance on an administrators.
Image 1. Import Course Content
Learn more on importing courses from Moodle for more directions. We also have a guide to help you understand the differences in terminology.
4. Audio and video recording in feedback: usability improvements
Audio and video feedback is a more personalized and engaging means for providing feedback. It is beneficial for addressing complex concepts and sharing detailed explanations. To ensure easy and clear access to this tool, we have exposed the Audio/Video option on the feedback toolbar. When in use, the recording window appears on the right side of the screen so that the instructor can view the student submission. The instructor can scroll through a student's response while recording their feedback. The instructor can maximize the recording window for better visibility.
Image 1. Audio and video recording on the main tool bar
Image 2. Audio and video recording window in default state
Image 3. Audio and video recording window in maximized state
For administrators: This feature is available for all Learn Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed.
5. Missed due dates included in the Course Activity Report
Punctuality and time management are key for student success. Instructors need an easy method for identifying students who may be at risk. Now, instructors can view the number of missed due dates for students in the Course Activity Report.
Instructors can customize the missed due date alert in the Alert Settings.
Image 1. Customize missed due date alert
Students who trigger the missed due dates alert appear in the Course Activity report table and chart, as well as in the downloaded report.
Image 2. Missed due dates in the Course Activity report view
Image 3. Students with missed due date alerts appear in the Course Activity chart view as a purple dot
Students will not receive notifications based on the course missed due date alert setting. If a student opts in to missed due date alerts, alerts are sent for each content item.
As before, activity stream notifications for instructors include a summary of students with alerts per course. Now, the summary includes missed due dates alerts. These alerts are triggered every day in case there are new students with alerts in a course. New courses need at least two weeks of activity to start triggering these notifications.
Image 4. Missed due date alerts appear in the instructor's activity stream
The missed due date alert applies when a student doesn’t submit before the due date in the following:
- Assessments, including group and formative
- Assessments with the “Collect submissions offline” option selected - when an instructor creates an attempt and enters the submission date/time after the due date
- Assessments with the “Hide student names” option selected - alerts only after all student submissions are graded and student names are exposed
- Discussions and journals marked for a grade
- SCORM packages when the “Grade individual SCOs” option is selected in SCORM settings
- Other third party activities, such as LTI and Respondus
Special considerations:
- Students with a due date accommodation never have their work marked late. A student with a due date accommodation won't have any missed due date alerts.
- Students with a due date exception will have a missed due date alert if the excepted due date passes and there is no submission.
- Students with an exemption never have their work marked late. A student with an exemption won't have any missed due date alerts.
- Hidden content with a due date or content with date/time and performance release conditions are included in missed due date alerts.
- Content with a due date and release conditions for individual course members or groups will alert only those students/groups included in the condition who miss the due date.
- New items added to the gradebook with a due date are not included in the missed due date alerts.
Image 5. Admin view of missed due date metric and alert setting
Explore these enhancements and updates in even greater detail in the full release notes.