What's New

Expand group management search capabilities: Instructors using the group management system can now search for students who are already assigned to a group, not just those still waiting to be assigned. A new dual search lets instructors look up an individual student and the groups in a set at the same time, so they can instantly see which group a student is in, move them, and manage large, fully assigned group sets without losing track of anyone.

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.

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.

Start AI Conversations in a new immersive experience – 4001.2: AI Conversations now open in a dedicated, focused view that gives students more space to engage with Socratic, Roleplay, and Pulse Quiz activities while hiding setup and assessment details that are not relevant during the conversation. Students explicitly start the conversation with a new Start conversation button, creating a more intentional and distraction-free experience without changing how instructors create AI Conversations.

Extend Your Top To Dos feature flag to August 2027: Your Top To Dos provides students with a single, focused list of their most urgent deadline-driven tasks on the Courses page, with direct links to complete them. The administrator-managed feature flag will now be in place until the August 2027 release, giving institutions additional time to evaluate the feature and provide feedback before it becomes the default experience for all students.

Quiz Students with the New AI Conversation Type Pulse Quiz: Pulse Quiz is a new AI Conversation type that generates course content-grounded questions in real time, with an instructor-defined persona guiding students through a quick, low-pressure knowledge check. Each student receives a unique quiz experience, helping reinforce learning and self-assessment while allowing instructors to review conversation transcripts and provide feedback without relying on automatic grading.

Lock an AI Conversation to a Specific Language: Instructors can now enforce a language for AI Conversations, ensuring the AI responds in the selected language throughout the entire interaction, regardless of student requests or the language of the source content. This helps maintain consistent language immersion and practice across AI Conversation activities.

Specific members rule no longer blocks other release conditions: Release conditions now work together as intended. When you add a "Specific members or groups" rule alongside other rules, such as date-based access, students who meet any rule can see the item. These students also show up correctly in the gradebook and grading views. This update will be included in the October 15 production release.

Improvements to the beta Content Editor in Blackboard Documents: We've made a number of improvements to the beta Content Editor that make it faster, more predictable, and more accessible to use. These updates include keyboard navigation, list behavior, file and image handling, and new math authoring support.

Manage rubrics from a dedicated course rubrics page: Rubrics now have a dedicated management page in the course, replacing the previous workflow of managing rubrics directly within the Gradebook Settings and Assignment Settings panels. The new page displays all course rubrics in a sortable, searchable table and includes options to create, generate, import, export, duplicate, and delete rubrics.

Export and import rubrics: Instructors can now export rubrics from their course and import them into other courses, making it easier to reuse and share rubrics across courses.

View exception indicators in the gradebook grid view: Instructors can now identify students with exceptions at a glance directly from the gradebook grid view, without having to select individual cells.

Display username and last access date in the gradebook grid view: Instructors can now display username and last access date as optional columns in the gradebook grid view using new toggles in Gradebook Settings.

Display points possible in the gradebook list view: Points possible is now displayed as a sortable column in the gradebook list view, giving instructors an at-a-glance view of point values for each gradable item.

Restore submission receipt search for anonymously graded assignments: Instructors can now search by submission receipt number in the gradebook to locate submissions for anonymously graded assignments, with results displayed in a dialog.

Configure editing permissions for Learning Object Repository objects: Administrators can now specify which attributes of a Learning Object Repository object instructors can edit after it's added to a course, rather than locking all attributes. This gives institutions a way to keep parts of an object standardized while giving instructors flexibility to adapt other parts.

Reveal student identity for anonymous assessments: Authorized users can now temporarily reveal a student's identity for a specific submission on an anonymously graded assessment, without breaking anonymity for other students or submissions. Every reveal is logged with a reason and timestamp, providing institutions with a clear audit trail. Access to the new privilege is controlled by a new tool in the Tools Framework that is disabled by default. This capability is controlled by a new tool in the Tools Framework (off by default) and a new privilege. To use this capability, the tool will need to be enabled and users will have to be assigned the new privilege

Prepare for the Retirement of LTI 1.0 and 1.1 Support: Blackboard LMS will end support for LTI 1.0 and 1.1 tools on September 30, 2027, requiring institutions to transition integrations to the more secure LTI 1.3 standard to avoid service disruptions. Administrators can use the phased timeline and LTI integration inventory to identify affected tools, coordinate upgrades with providers, and ensure a smooth migration while benefiting from stronger security and modern integration capabilities.

Preserve activity data for Tests, Discussions, and Journals: Activity data for Tests, Discussions, and Journals can now be preserved in the Bulk Copy and Convert conversion process. This enhancement helps institutions retain historical records while continuing their transition to Ultra.

Course Catalog: Updated UI displays Course Catalog Premium name: The Course Catalog UI now displays the Course Catalog Premium name in places that previously showed the legacy TDM name. This update reduces confusion about the product name and increases recognition of the Course Catalog Premium product.