Improved Features in Blackboard Ultra - May 2025

These are the highlights of this month’s new and improved features in Blackboard Ultra that have been live since Thursday, May 1. The most relevant updates are related to a few key key areas:

  • Instructional design
  • Tests & Assignments
  • Communication & Collaboration
  • Gradebook

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

Instructional Design

AI Design Assistant: Auto-generate AI Conversations

Creating personas and topics for an AI Conversation can take a lot of time. To streamline this process, the AI Design Assistant can generate three suggestions at once. You can select what the AI Design Assistant generates. You can choose to generate: 

  • AI Conversation title
  • AI persona
  • Reflection question 

These suggestions provide inspiration for an AI Conversation. Instructors can refine the AI Design Assistant’s suggestions in several ways:

  • Provide additional context
  • Adjust the complexity of the question
  • Select context from the course
  • Manually revise the question 

The time saved by auto-generating AI Conversations allows instructors to focus more on embedding AI Conversations into their courses. 

The Auto-Generate Conversation page, with customization options on the left and generated AI Conversations on the right

Tests & Assignments

"View submission one time" test results setting

We added a new test result setting option, View submission one time. When a student completes the test, they can review their answers and detailed feedback, such as which questions were answered correctly. The View submission one time option lets instructors provide students with immediate feedback, while maintaining test security.

One Time option in the submission options dropdown in assessment settings

Qualitative rubrics with no-points options

Instructors can now create and use no-points rubrics for qualitative evaluation. This rubric type allows instructors to assess student work based on criteria and feedback, rather than numerical values. In addition, the AI generation option now supports no-points rubrics, providing a streamlined method to create detailed evaluation criteria.

Instructors can select No Points as a rubric type when creating or generating a rubric. This option is available alongside existing percentage and points-based rubrics. Instructors can also edit rubrics to switch between different rubric types, including percentage, points range, and no points.

No Points option in the Rubric Type dropdown when creating a rubric

Communication & Collaboration

Enhancements to discussions

Anthology has made several enhancements to discussions to improve the user experience and make discussions more engaging and efficient. 

  • Updated wording: We used to call discussion contributions "responses" and "replies." We changed this to "posts" and "replies."
  • Improved input field text: Previously, the text within the input field was "Type a response." The text within the input field is now "Post a response to the discussion."
  • Avatar update: We previously included the user's avatar beside the input field. We removed the avatar to increase the area for adding content to the discussion. 

A discussion response, with preview text in the text field reading "Post a response to the discussion" and a Post button in the bottom right

  • Streamlined response entry: The text field for entering a response is now directly below the discussion topic for a more intuitive experience.
  • Instructor indicator: When an instructor posts in a discussion thread, an indicator beside their name now identifies them as an instructor. 

A discussion response post, with Instructor and Draft indicators beside the name Emma Harp

  • Aligned draft indicator: The Draft indicator is now aligned with the user's name, enhancing clarity.
  • Enhanced search field: The search field for participant names now includes a magnifying glass icon for better visibility. 

The Participation section of a discussion, with a list of participations. Above the list is a search bar with a magnifying glass to the right of the text, "Find participants"

  • Simplified group discussions: The large banner beneath group discussion posts has been removed. Users can now directly select their group without distraction. 

A group discussion topic, with a dropdown for group names

Gradebook

Gradebook accessibility enhancements

The Gradable Items tab in the Gradebook now features a redesigned interface to improve accessibility and navigation for keyboard-only and screen reader users. This enhancement supports an accessible experience for instructors grading student work, reducing the time and effort required to manage student grades.

With this update, the Gradable Items tab uses a table-based layout to enhance usability:

  • Screen reader users can now hear both header and row announcements, allowing for smoother navigation through student submissions.
  • Keyboard users can now move efficiently across rows or down columns using arrow keys.

Text-based columns in Gradebook

Instructors can now create text-based columns in the Gradebook. These columns allow instructors to record up to 32 characters. The column is not restricted to text input.

Instructors can:

  • Create text-based columns via the Add workflow in both the grid view and Gradable Items page;
  • Name the column, control student visibility, and add a description;
  • Add and edit text information for a specific student using an inline eidt workflow.

Text-based columns exclude the following:

  • Points values (automatically set to 0 points)
  • Due dates
  • Categories
  • Gradebook calculations and related calculation UIs

Content in text-based columns auto-posts and supports sorting functionality within the Gradebook grid view. Instructors can also download and upload text-based columns using the Gradebook's upload/download function.

Add Text Item

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