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What's New

Production November 2026 (4001.4)

Note

For maintenance release build numbers and bug fixes, visit Maintenance Releases.

For release status and delays, visit Blackboard Status.

Instructors

  • Print and download rubrics: Instructors can now print blank and scored rubrics or download them as PDFs using the browser's print dialog. Printed rubrics support offline grading and student feedback, and they make it easy to include rubrics in accreditation or instructional review documentation.

  • Use AI Writing Tools in overall feedback: Instructors can now use AI Writing Tools when writing or rewriting overall feedback in flexible grading. This makes it easier to refine the clarity and tone of feedback before sharing it with students.

Students

  • Course Catalog: Use Authroize.net to pay for courses: We added Authorize.net as a payment service provider. This gives students whose institutions have implemented it the option to use Authorize.net to purchase courses from Course Catalog. As we continue to add more payment service providers, students gain greater flexibility and choice when paying for courses.

Instructors and Students

  • Submit in-progress attempts on behalf of students: Instructors can now submit a student's in-progress assignment or test attempt from the Student Overview page and document the reason as part of the workflow. To provide a clear record, the submission receipt and the submission review show the name of the instructor who submitted the attempt, the reason provided, and the date.

    Note

    We are holding this feature to address an accessibility concern. This functionality will tentatively be available in mid-November.

  • Use ten second rewind and forward buttons in Video Studio player: We're adding 10-second rewind and forward buttons to the Video Studio player, one on each side of the center play/pause button. They help learners jump back or ahead when the scrubber is hard to use: mostly on mobile and tablet, and when the player is embedded at a small size in Ultra documents. In the compact layout, the buttons drop the "10s" label and show only the icon. To meet accessibility guidelines, each button is at least 24px wide with a 16px icon.

  • November improvements to the beta Content Editor in Blackboard Documents: The beta Content Editor now includes accessibility enhancements, streamlined file management, and expanded authoring capabilities, including Content Collection access, image properties during upload, and support for LaTeX \begin{...}...\end{...} environments. These updates make the editor more accessible, consistent, and flexible, helping instructors create and manage content more efficiently.

Administrators

  • Learning Object Repository Source Information:Administrators can now view source information for Learning Object Repository (LOR) objects, including where they are stored within the institutional hierarchy. This makes it easier to locate, manage, and update repository objects by showing the exact node level where the content originates.

  • Overall Grade Override Notation: The Grade Export v2 Instructor Approval workflow now supports the display and approval of the gradebook Overall Grade Override Notation. The Overall Grade Override Notation value will be included in the Grade Export v2 grade data extract. The inclusion of the Overall Grade Override Notation value only applies when the Grade.getSchemaValue method is used in the Column Mapping.