What's New?

Expanded release conditions for content items: Instructors can now set release conditions based on activity for both assessed and non-gradable content items, such as documents, media, or course links. Conditions include Opened or Started, enabling flexible learning pathways and prerequisite engagement.

Improved group membership handling in Flexible Grading: Flexible Grading now reflects group membership at the time of submission accurately when viewing an attempt. Groups with no members display a “?” avatar and “No members” label on the Submissions page, and their names are non-selectable.

Aligned submission counts with visibility settings: Submission counts in the Gradebook now respect the Show/Hide Unavailable Students setting, ensuring consistent totals across views like the Submissions page, Student Activity tab, and Gradable Items page.

Standardized tabbed interface in Flexible Grading: All submission types—text, files, mixed content, and LTI—now appear in a consistent tabbed interface. Tabs include Instructions, Submission, and dedicated file tabs, improving grading efficiency and navigation.

Improved Automations experience: We made several enhancements to Automations. Instructors now have better visibility of Automations actions such as which instructor executed each automation, increasing transparency. Improvements such as added pagination and improved error messaging lead to a smoother experience when creating and managing Automations.

Specify Participation Requirements for Discussions: Instructors can now define required numbers of posts and replies for discussion participation, giving students clearer expectations and aligning engagement with instructional goals. Progress is tracked and visible to students, enhancing transparency and accountability without altering grading workflows.

AI Conversation – Remove Originality Reporting: The Originality Reporting option has been removed from AI Conversation settings, as AI persona interactions do not produce meaningful originality results. This change improves clarity and streamlines the instructor experience.

Video Studio in Assessment Feedback and Flexible Grading: Instructors can now use the full Video Studio workflow—including recording, uploading, captioning, transcription, and editing—directly within assessment feedback and Flexible Grading. This enhancement supports more personalized, accessible, and engaging communication with students, without requiring additional licensing or configuration.

Learning Module Table of Contents – Instructor View: Instructors now have access to a collapsible Table of Contents panel within Learning Modules, enabling quick navigation and visibility into unpublished content without switching to Student Preview. This update streamlines course review and organization while aligning the instructor experience with the student view.

AVA – Responses to Student Messages: AVA can now automatically respond to common student messages sent to instructors by referencing visible course content, reducing instructor workload and providing students with immediate, contextual help. Instructors can review and clarify AVA’s replies, and the feature is off by default but can be enabled per course or institution wide.

MathJax – Support Inline and Display Formulas: We’ve expanded MathJax capability in the Content Editor to include additional LaTeX delimiters for rendering mathematical formulas. This enhancement improves compatibility with standard STEM workflows and makes it easier to upload exam content without modifying source files.

Video Studio – Record Screen and Camera Simultaneously:Instructors and students can now record their screen and camera at the same time in Video Studio, enabling more dynamic, immersive content for lectures, walkthroughs, and feedback. This feature is available in Announcements, assessment feedback, and flexible grading without requiring a Video Studio license.

Video Studio: Recording Minimize Workflow: Instructors and students can now minimize the camera view and Video Studio controls during recordings, allowing for clearer screen-focused presentations while maintaining a visible speaker overlay. This flexible workflow enhances feedback and instructional videos and is available anywhere Video Studio is enabled—no license or setup required.

Course Catalog: Use Trust Payments to pay for courses: Institutions can now offer Trust Payments as a payment option in Course Catalog, giving students greater flexibility and choice when purchasing courses.

New Spectator Role (Course Role): The Spectator role provides read-only access to Ultra courses, ideal for auditors, observers, or reviewers who need to view content without editing or accessing administrative features. It enhances secure oversight and collaboration without requiring activation or configuration.

Customize grade pills for incomplete items: Grade pills for incomplete submissions now display in gray, making them visually distinct and reducing confusion for students and instructors. This update improves clarity without requiring any configuration.

Schema-based gradebook calculations: A new Calculated schema option allows gradebook calculations to use numerical schema Grade Names instead of raw assessment scores. Admins can enable this feature in the Tools framework. This type of calculation is beneficial for grading scales that starts from values other than zero, for example the Chilean grading scale that ranges from 1 to 7 and where a zero grade still counts as 1.

Enhance Control Over LTI Tools (Proctoring Tools) with Institutional Hierarchy: Institutions using Blackboard’s Institutional Hierarchy can now manage LTI proctoring tool placements at the node level, enabling administrators to assign different tools to specific campuses or departments. This update improves governance, supports complex rollout strategies, and enhances the instructor experience by showing only relevant tools during assessment setup.

Import/Export Privileges for System and Course Roles: Administrators can now export and import role privileges in Blackboard via CSV files, streamlining the review and update process for System and Course roles. This enhancement simplifies privilege management across Ultra and Original courses with no activation or configuration required.

Switch On or Off Discussion Tool Visibility: Administrators can now toggle the Discussion tool for Ultra courses and organizations, hiding all related components without data loss. This improves control over course features and supports cleaner interfaces for new courses.

Permanent “Course Complete” Banner in Closed Original Courses: When an Original course is marked as complete, a permanent banner now appears on all course pages stating: This course is complete. No further modifications are allowed. This banner provides clear visual confirmation that the course has ended. It aligns Original courses with Ultra courses, where this banner already exists. Currently, the banner is informational only—users can still make edits. In an upcoming release, editing completed Original courses will be restricted.

Bulk Change Question Points in Tests: Instructors can now update point values for multiple test questions at once, including by type or selection, streamlining assessment editing.

Improved navigation from Gradebook column headers: Gradebook column headers now offer direct access to submission pages, improving navigation and consistency.

Choose whether to include hidden items in Gradebook downloads: Instructors can choose to include hidden items when downloading the gradebook for offline use.

Automatically send messages to students based on course-level rules: Instructors can now create automations that send congratulatory or supportive messages based on custom score thresholds, enabling timely, personalized feedback that boosts student engagement and saves time.

Generate or upload custom Achievement badges: Instructors can generate or upload custom badge images for Achievements, enhancing student recognition and personalization.

Use name or ID to search object Associations in the Learning Object Repository:Administrators can now search courses and organizations by name or ID when reviewing the associations for an object in the Learning Object Repository. This improvement streamlines the process of locating relevant learning objects, making it faster and more intuitive to manage object associations.

Quick enroll in Ultra courses: Administrators can now use Quick Enroll in Ultra Course Settings to temporarily join a course as an instructor. This feature streamlines troubleshooting and content updates by allowing admins to enroll in courses, make changes, and then unenroll—all within the course UI.

Node-Admin “Login As” Restriction: This update enhances security by limiting the use of the "Login As" feature for Node Administrators. Node admins can only use "Login As" within their assigned nodes, preventing unauthorized cross-node access. System Administrators retain full privileges, and no activation or configuration is required.

Configure Grade Pill Decimal Display and Rounding: Admins can set grade pill decimals and rounding preferences for clearer grade presentation, without affecting stored values.

Grade Export: Choose which grade value is displayed on the grade-level approval screen: Administrators can now choose which grade value appears on the grade-level approval screen, aligning it with the instructor's gradebook view to reduce confusion.

Group subjects into Programs for aggregated reporting: Courses can be grouped into Programs for institution-wide reporting and analytics, supporting advanced curriculum insights.

Course Catalog: Duplicate existing offerings from the Offering Management screen:  Managers can now duplicate existing offerings directly from the Offering Management screen, streamlining the creation of new offerings by reusing existing configurations and updating only the necessary details. This enhancement reduces setup time and effort.