​These are the highlights of this month’s new and improved features in Blackboard Ultra that will be live Thursday, November 6th and the changes that were made that went live Thursday, October 2nd. The most relevant updates are related to a few key areas:

• Communication & Collaboration
• Tests & Assignments
• Gradebook

 

Communication & Collaboration

Improved Course Messages User Interface – Available in October (Now)

Anthology has redesigned the Course Messages interface in Blackboard to deliver a cleaner, more modern messaging experience. Messages now appear in chat-style bubbles, with the sender’s messages left-justified and the recipient’s messages right-justified, similar to popular messaging apps like iMessage or Teams. The sender’s avatar is displayed next to their messages, making it easier to visually identify participants in the conversation. Your own avatar does not appear in your view but will be visible to others when you send messages.

This update improves clarity and usability, helping users quickly distinguish between sent and received messages. Time stamps are clearly displayed, and group conversations are visually separated for better organization.

 

Tests & Assignments

Consistent Save and Cancel options in Settings page – Available in October (Now)

This enhancement includes the following updates:

• Timer settings: Removed the X icon and added Save and Cancel buttons.
• Access code settings: Replaced Close and Continue with Cancel and Save.
• Learning Outcome Measurements: Removed the X icon and added Save and Cancel buttons.
• Turnitin Originality Report settings: Removed the X icon and added Save and Cancel buttons. SafeAssign settings remain unchanged.

 

Tag questions with metadata in tests and question banks – Available in October (Now)

When creating or editing a question, instructors can turn on Question metadata, then create or apply a tag to the question. Created tags become available in the Enter question tags search results, allowing instructors to apply that tag to other questions without needing to create them again.

Metadata is visible during question creation or editing and can be used to filter questions when reusing or adding to pools.

Created tags are facets in the Categories filter set available on the question banks and Reuse question pages.

 

Require questions before making forms visible to students – Available in October (Now)

Anthology has improved the visibility controls for forms to align with those of tests. Previously, instructors could make a form visible to students, even if it contained no questions. This enhancement ensures that students only access complete and purposeful assessments. Instructors must first add at least one question to a form before they can make it visible to students. Release conditions cannot be set until the form includes questions.

 

Bulk change question points in tests – Available in November

Instructors can now efficiently update point values for multiple questions in tests using new bulk editing options. This enhancement supports:

• Selecting all questions at once, with the option to deselect specific questions if desired.
• Selecting specific questions (e.g., question 1, 4, 9, 15, 16, 27, and 32) for targeted point value adjustments.
• Selecting questions by type (e.g., all True/False questions) to apply consistent point value changes across that question type.
• Selecting questions by type AND specific questions.

However, after students open the assessment, instructors can’t make these changes:

• Add new questions and answers
• Delete a question
• Delete answers in Matching and Multiple Choice questions
• Change the number of blanks in a Fill in the Blanks question
• Move the content, such as switch the order of questions, answers, or additional content
• Add or remove questions from a question pool or delete a pool from an assessment

From the ellipsis (…) icon, you will now be able to access the ‘bulk edit’ menu.

 

Gradebook

Improved navigation from Gradebook column headers – Available in November

Anthology has enhanced the gradebook grid view to streamline access to submission pages from column headers on the Grades page. These updates improve clarity and consistency across item types.

• For Assignments, Tests, Forms, Discussions, Journals:
  • Replaced the Edit option with a View Submissions option using the eye icon.
  • Renamed the grade cell menu option from View to View Submission.
• For Manual Items, Calculations, Total Calculations:
  • Added a View option to the column header that routes to the submission page.
• For SCORM Items:
  • Added a View Submissions option with the eye icon.
  • Renamed the grade cell menu option to View Submission.
  • Removed Edit and Preview SCORM options from the column header menu.
• For Attendance:
  • Replaced the Edit option with a View option using the eye icon.
  • Navigation behavior remains unchanged, with users being routed to the attendance page.

When the Gradebook column header is clicked on, this is the menu that will now appear:

 

Choose whether to include hidden items in Gradebook downloads – Available in November

Instructors now have more flexibility when downloading the gradebook for offline use. Previously, downloads included only the columns visible to instructors. With this update, instructors can choose whether to include hidden items in the download file. This enhancement builds on prior improvements to the Item Management view, which introduced bulk show/hide controls.

The screenshot that follows shows that in the ‘Download Grades’ menu, instructors can access a new ‘Include Hidden Items’ toggle.

 

For more information, please read more at Anthology’s Blackboard website.

 

Contact the Innovative Learning Support Centre if you need support. We are here to help!