Improved Features in Blackboard Ultra - April 2025

These are the highlights of this month’s new and improved features in Blackboard Ultra that will be live Thursday, April 3rd. The most relevant updates are related to a few key key areas:

  • Instructional design
  • Communication & Collaboration
  • and Gradebook

Learn more about the full update at Anthology's Blackboard website.

Instructional Design

Content Designer: Print Document

Instructors and students can now print Documents or save them to PDF, providing more ways to engage with content. This new option allows users to:

  • Review content offline
  • Share content with students or peers
  • Physically archive content

To print a Document, select Print. Use the browser to print options to select the following:

  • A printer or the PDF option
  • The page range
  • The layout

A Document with the Print button highlighted in the upper right corner

Communication & Collaboration

Pop-out rubric when evaluating an attempt

Anthology has improved sending messages from the Course Activity report.

  • Instructors can now select all students for courses with over 3000 students. Previously, the option to select all students was only for courses with 3000 students or fewer.
  • To be more user-friendly, the Recipients field now includes the following group labels:
    • All students
    • Selected students
    • Selected students with alerts
    • Selected students without alerts

These enhancements make it easier to communicate with students in large classes, including students with or without alerts.

The recipients field of a message from the Course Activity report, with pills for Selected students with alerts and All students

Activity indicator color changed to purple

The color of the activity indicator for discussions, journals, and conversations is changed from blue to purple to better unify the color scheme of Blackboard. Users now have a more consistent and cohesive experience.

Two course content items, a Document and a journal, have a purple activity indicator beside the title

Gradebook

Indicator if student has or has not reviewed feedback

In the Gradebook, instructors now have enhanced ability to monitor student engagement with assessment feedback. An indicator on the student Overview page now displays whether a student has reviewed the feedback for a given assessment.

When a grade is posted, the indicator includes a label of Not reviewed with the existing Completed label in the Status column. When the student reviews the feedback, the status updates to Reviewed with a review timestamp.

If the new grade indicator is reset for the assessment, such as when a grade is updated or if the assessment has multiple attempts, the timestamp updates when the student reviews the feedback again. If all attempts are deleted, the Not reviewed or Reviewed label is removed.

Instructor Gradebook view with Reviewed and Not reviewed labels in the Status column

Replace Feedback column with actionable Results column in student Gradebook

To encourage student to review their submitted assessments in the Gradebook:

  • A new Results column replaces the Feedback column
  • A View button in the new Results column replaces the Feedback column's purple feedback icon

When a grade is posted and the new grade indicator (purple circle) is turned on, the View button displays for the assessment. By proving a clear call-to-action, students are more likely to review their submission and feedback.

New view of student Gradebook with Review column

Enhanced grading experience for group submissions

Anthology has migrated group grading to Flexible Grading. Instructors now have a more streamlined experience when grading group assignment and test submissions in Flexible Grading. This update allows instructors to benefit from the more efficient grading interface and workflow of Flexible Grading when evaluating group submissions.

Some capabilities for individual submissions, such as per question feedback on group test submissions and pop-out rubric on group assignment submissions, will be added to group submissions after this initial release.

Need support? Contact the Innovative Learning Support Centre. We are here to help!