Blackboard What Is New?
Highlights of Enhancements on Blackboard 9.1Service Pack 8
New User Interface
The new interface changes which are more in-line with today’s Web 2.0 experience. Most apparent, will be the missing editing icons that allow users to drag-and-drop, access, make changes and add content to their course. These functionalities, of course, will remain but will be replaced by rollover editing, meaning that editing icons are visible only when your mouse cursor hovers over certain areas. The result will be a cleaner, less cluttered, and contemporary interface.
Course-to-Course Navigation
When in a course, you will no longer need to navigate to Blackboard's main landing page to access your other courses. You will now be able to move from course to course from within a course by clicking the drop-down menu in the upper left corner of the page. Additionally, you will be able to specify where you would like to go in the other course. For example, if you are in one course’s Grade Center, you can jump to the next course’s Grade Center easily to complete your grading tasks.
Click HERE to view the video tutorial
Automated Regrading
This new capability provides instructors with an intuitive means of setting time limits on assessments and configuring the system to auto-submit the assessment at time expiration. Instructors may now choose to make the timed assessment auto-submit, or to allow the assessment to continue beyond the allotted time as in previous releases of the Blackboard Learn platform. Students are provided with visual cues to track their progress when taking and submitting timed assessments set to auto-submit. Attempt information for timed assessments includes details on how much time the student spent on the attempt versus how much time was allotted.
Click HERE to view the video tutorial
Old Archives
Highlights of Enhancements on Blackboard 9.1Service Pack 6
(Date Posted: 7/28/2011)
Interactive Rubrics
Interactive Rubrics are now included as an option in assessments. The rubrics allow instructors to provide students with assessment expectations and evaluation criteria. Scores entered into a rubric that is associated with an assignment or gradable forum, wiki, blog, or journal are reflected in the Grade Center. The same rubric can be used for multiple assessments and can be exported and imported from course to course.
How to use Interactive Rubrics? Check out the Following Video Tutorials:
How to create a Grading Rubric
How to Associate a Rubric with Gradable Item
How to Grade with Rubrics
Need Grading Tool Enhancement
Needs Grading has been significantly enhanced to allow instructors easier access to items that need grading. Gradable discussion boards can now be set to appear in the Needs Grading module after a specific number of posts by a student.
Timed Assessments Enhancement:
This new capability provides instructors with an intuitive means of setting time limits on assessments and configuring the system to auto-submit the assessment at time expiration. Instructors may now choose to make the timed assessment auto-submit, or to allow the assessment to continue beyond the allotted time as in previous releases of the Blackboard Learn platform. Students are provided with visual cues to track their progress when taking and submitting timed assessments set to auto-submit. Attempt information for timed assessments includes details on how much time the student spent on the attempt versus how much time was allotted.
Video Tutorial:
How to Set Test Options (including setting auto-submit for a test):
Highlights of Enhancements on Blackboard 9.1 Service Pack 5 (Date Posted: 5/18/2011)
Announcements
New Announcements now appear directly below a repositionable bar. Priority Announcements can be moved above the bar so they always appear first in the list. Students do not see the bar.
Assessments
Instructors now have the ability to view question numbers while building and editing assessments. Questions can be referenced by number throughout the assessment and can be used to sequence questions in an assessment.
Needs Grading Page
Instructors can access assignment and test attempts that need grading from a new Needs Grading page accessed in the Grade Center section of the Control Panel. On the Needs Grading page, instructors can view how many attempts are ready for grading and sort and filter the items. Attempts are placed in a queue for easy navigation among items when grading or reviewing. Once an attempt is graded, it no longer appears on the Needs Grading page.
Column Delete Alert
When groups with graded Blogs, Journals, Wikis, or Discussion Boards are deleted, an alert appears prompting the instructor to save or delete the corresponding Grade Center columns. Managing columns for groups becomes part of the same process as deleting groups.
Feedback and Comments
To augment the existing ability to download columns from the Grade Center and grade offline, Instructors can now include comments in the download. Comments can be added or edited offline, and are associated with the grade when the column information is uploaded to the Grade Center.
The full features of the Text Editor are now available for Feedback to Users and Grading Notes from the Grade Details page and within the Grade Center grid. The Text Editor can also be used for feedback on Tests, Assignments, Group Assignments, Blogs, Wikis, Journals, and posts to the Discussion Board. Incorporating all the features of the Text Editor allows Instructors to leverage the full range of functions for formatting text and adding external links, attachments, images, Mashups, and multimedia to Feedback and Grading Notes.
Students are able to view the Feedback added using the Text Editor on their My Grades page.
Blackboard 9.1 (General Version) Feature Highlights:
Screenshots
Click on each link below for a large picture view.
- Grade Center Enhancements - Additional time-saving options for assessments and assignments reduce the number of clicks it takes to grade a student’s attempt. New options for grading by questions or attempts are made available when grading assessments.
- Mashups - Pull data easily from the following third-party applications into your course content: YouTube videos, SlideShare presentations, and Flickr photos.
- Wikis - Allows faculty to create Wikis for courses and groups to host collaborative content and group projects.
- Course Files - New capabilities for uploading, managing and using content in a course are available when using the Course Files feature.
- Tests, Survey and Pools Increased Manageability - expanded question management capabilities when creating/managing your assessments increases productivity and allows faculty to edit tests in less time.