Feature Changes in Blackboard Ultra

Course Announcements

Available

Instructors can now reschedule announcements by adjusting the show on/hide after dates to the future. The rescheduled announcement will create a pop up for the students.

Anonymous Grading

Available 

Additional functionality added January 5, 2023

Assignments

Available 

Improvements have been made to the grading functionality, including the ability to save settings in the inline grading tool.  Additional sorting controls have been added on submission pages.

Attendance

Available 

Audio/Video Feedback

Available 

Blackboard Mobile App 

Updated

There is now a single app called Blackboard, which has a blue Learn icon. Support for previous apps, Instructor (notebook icon) or Blackboard (pencil icon), is no longer available as of October 1, 2022.

Improvements have been made to the navigation to allow you to collapse the Faculty and Details and Action Menu for easier access to Course Contents.

Documents

Available with Changes 

Documents in Ultra courses more closely resemble a web page. They can include images, text, and uploaded files. Attached files will now give the option to render inline.

To Be Determined 

Planned for Future Release 

Not yet developed, but planned for Ultra courses. 

Bulk Download of Assessments

Available 

Now available for Ultra courses. 

Calculated Formula

Available 

This question type is now available in Ultra courses. 

Calculated Numeric

Available 

Calculated Numeric question type is now available in Ultra.

Calendar

Available 

Calendar view will now include icons for third party assignments.  For example, a VoiceThread assignment with a due date that appears in the calendar will now have the VoiceThread logo.

Calendar - Export

Available 

Exports sync with the calendar multiple times daily. 

Calendar - Import

New Feature 

ICS files only; does not update. 

N/A 

Discontinued 

Feature has been discontinued and will not be available in Ultra courses. 

Content Editor

Available with Changes 

You now have the ability to create LaTex equations directly in the Content Editor. The equation will display as text in the editor, but will render as an equation upon saving.

Copy Content

New Feature

You can now copy content to an Ultra Course from other Ultra Courses, Original Courses, and Organizations. You can copy all content or granular selections of content.

Improvements have been made to change how password protected tests, inaccessible font colors, and custom text sizes are handled when being copied into an Ultra Course. 

Additional improvements have been made to preserve empty folders and default course menus, as well as the preservation of font families when copied into an Ultra Course.

Course Image (YouTube video)

Available 

To Be Determined 

Planned for Future Release 

Not yet developed, but planned for Ultra courses. 

Course Faculty 

New Feature 

Now displays all instructors in multiple-instructor courses. 

Course Link

Available with Limitations 

Create course links to some content and tool types in Ultra courses. Additional content and tool types can now be linked. Links also now automatically adjust to link to the area in the  new  course after a course copy has been run.

N/A 

Discontinued 

Feature has been discontinued and will not be available in Ultra courses.  

N/A 

Discontinued 

The instructor-facing tool is not compatible with Ultra, but system admins can merge Ultra courses. Instructors may  contact the IT Service Desk to request a merge of Ultra courses. 

Course Messages

Available

Instructors can now message students from Private courses; the message will be sent to the student's OHIO email address.  Students can no longer message all course recipients.  Messages can now be sent from the assignment submission page.

Student Activity

Available with changes 

Course Activity Related to Grades can now be found under the Analytics menu area.  New functionality has been added to this area to highlight days of inactivity in the course, to incorporate student progress data, and to provide a student overview for the course.

Course Schedule 

New feature 

Instructors can add a course schedule in the "Details and Actions" menu. 

N/A 

Discontinued 

Feature has been discontinued and will not be available in Ultra courses. 

To Be Determined

Planned for future release 

Not yet developed, but planned for Ultra courses.

Course Tasks and Logs

New Feature

Instructors can now view the status of the following course processes: Copy, Convert to Ultra, Archive, Export, Import, and Restore.

To Be Determined 

Planned for future release 

Not yet developed, but planned for Ultra courses. 

Bulk Edit

Available with limitations 

Limitation: You can only edit within a single folder at a time; you cannot bulk edit items within and across folders at the same time.  

Decimal Points in Tests

Available 

Ultra tests now support decimal point values.

Parallel Grading

Available with limitations 

There can be only two graders specified, graders cannot be assigned subsets of students, graders cannot also be reconcilers, graders cannot see the rubrics/scores or feedback submitted by other graders, and students can only view the rubric/score and feedback submitted by the reconciler.  

Discussion Analysis

New Feature

Discussion analytics provide insights into forum participants and activities. This information can help to identify students who are participating or may need help and encouragement.

Discussions

Available with changes 

In Ultra courses, discussions with grading enabled have a detailed Discussion Analysis feature that provides insight on the level of complexity and critical thinking of a student's posts compared to their classmates'. You can now prevent students from posting to a graded discussion after the due date.  Instructors will now have the ability to deactivate post activity, which will prevent any changes being made to that discussion board once the setting is applied. 

Improvements have been made for the copying of Discussion Forums and Threads from Original Course View to Ultra Course view.

Limitation: You cannot prevent students from editing or deleting their posts while the discussion is active, but replies are not deleted when posts are deleted. Subscriptions are not available, but discussion posts are included in the Activity Stream and daily notifications.

Dropping Grades

Available with Limitations 

Ultra's Overall Grade calculation now allows for dropping a specified number of grades within a category.

N/A 

Discontinued 

Feature has been discontinued and will not be available in Ultra courses. 

Embed Media

Available with Limitations 

Limitation: Video can only be embedded from select sources, including YouTube and Vimeo. For other platforms, such as social media or news sites, create a link to the video.  

Exceptions

Now Available

There are times that instructors need to exempt students from assessments or activities in the course. Now instructors can provide "exceptions" in Ultra. Students can view exception items, though the student is not expected to complete the exception task. A student’s overall calculation will adjust for any exceptions. The overall points possible or weighting for a student with exceptions may change compared to other students.  Exceptions can now be added from the Gradebook Grid View.

Upload or Insert Local Files

Available with Limitations 

Upload files from desktop or cloud storage. Files can now be rendered inline within Course Content, Folders, and Learning Modules. 

Folders

Available with Changes 

Folders now expand and collapse, rather than opening a new page.  

Limitation: Folders can only be nested two (2) levels deep. 

N/A 

Discontinued 

Feature has been discontinued and will not be available in Ultra courses. 

Gradebook

Available with Changes 

By default, students only see the Current Grade in their My Grades; all other items must be explicitly made available to them. Many new functions have been added to improve the grading process, including sorting, filtering, and improvements to switching between submissions. You can now create multiple grade schemas in Ultra. See Blackboard's  Grading Help article  or watch the  Ultra Gradebook video  for more details on the changes.

Groups

Available with Changes 

Groups can be created in three different places within a course and can be used for the following purposes: Course Groups, Discussion Groups, and Assignment Groups. Group membership can be generated manually or randomly. Group Assignments support multiple attempts. Groups can be imported and exported.  Improvements have been made to the display of Course Group memberships.

Groups - Custom Enrollment

Available with Changes 

Instructors select the members of the groups from the list of students in the course.

Groups - Randomly Assign

Available with Changes 

Randomly assigns enrolled students to groups based on instructor choice of number of students per group, or number of groups per set.

Groups - Reuse Group

New Feature

Once you have created a Course Group, you will have the ability to reuse that group rather than creating a new group set.

Groups - Self Enrollment

Available with Changes 

Instructors set the number of students per group and the number of groups, students then select a group in which to enroll.

Insert Item from Web

New Feature 

Ultra courses natively embed videos from multiple websites including Panopto, FlipGrid, SlideShare, Prezi, VoiceThread, Vimeo, and YouTube. 

Institution-based cloud storage

New Feature 

You can add content from your OHIO OneDrive for Business account directly to Ultra courses. 

Document

Available with Changes 

Documents in Ultra courses more closely resemble a web page. They can include images, text, and uploaded files. Attached files will now give the option to render inline.

Question Analysis

Available 

Journal

Available with Limitations 

Limitation: Grading may be enabled for a Journal, which automatically creates a column in the Gradebook for the Journal. However, there is not yet a workflow for reading and grading a Journal simultaneously. This is on the road map for future development. Improvements have been made to the number of entries possible, navigation, and grading. 

Learning Module

Available 

Additional features are planned for Ultra courses. 

N/A 

Discontinued 

Feature has been discontinued and will not be available in Ultra courses.  

N/A 

Discontinued 

Feature has been discontinued and will not be available in Ultra courses. 

N/A 

Discontinued 

SlideShare content may still be embedded using the Insert/Edit Media from Web feature. 

N/A 

Discontinued 

YouTube content may still be embedded using the Insert/Edit Media from Web feature. 

Microsoft 365 Integration

New Feature 

Content from your OHIO OneDrive for Business account may be added directly to Ultra courses. 

Improvements have been made to how you create embedded or collaborative OneDrive documents, with them now having individual selections in the Create Content menu.

Password Protected Assessments

Available 

Now available in Ultra courses. 

N/A 

Discontinued 

Performance Dashboard is not currently planned for inclusion in Ultra courses, though many of the use cases supported by the Performance Dashboard are accommodated via the Course Activity Related to Grades report or directly in the Grade Center.

N/A

Discontinued

Portfolios can still be created, but the specific assignment type no longer exists.

Portfolios

Available 

Portfolios are available within Blackboard, but cannot yet be added directly to an Ultra course. 

Progress Tracking

New Feature 

Progress Tracking provides a way for students to monitor their own progression through their coursework. Instructor Reporting is available for items for which Progress Tracking is enabled.  Grading Status and Group Filters have been added for the instructor view.  An additional filter has been added to instructor reporting to select only the content currently visible to students.

Question Banks

Available

Instructors can now create new question banks within an Ultra course, as well as add, edit, and delete questions in existing banks. Sorting Controls have been added. You can now add descriptions to your question banks, and a search function has been added.  An option has been added to allow the reuse of questions within question banks.

Question Regrading

Available

Now available in Ultra courses. 

Question Pools

Available

Question Pools are the Ultra replacement of Random Blocks and Question Sets. 

Question Pools

Available 

Question Pools are the Ultra replacement of Random Blocks and Question Sets. 

N/A 

Discontinued 

Retention Center is not currently planned for inclusion in Ultra courses, though many of the use cases supported by the Retention Center are accommodated via the Course Activity Related to Grades report or directly in the Grade Center. 

Rich Text Editor (RTE)

Available with Limitations 

Tables are now available. Additional functionality of this tool is planned to include items such as emojis. New options are available within Tables.  

Roster

Available

Instructors will now have the ability to hide the roster from students. 

Rubrics

Available with Changes 

Points and Point Ranges are now available, size is limited to a maximum of 15x15. You can now copy rubrics between classes.  Performance level descriptions are now hidden by default when grading.  You can now deselect performance levels if another level is not appropriate, and criterion feedback is now collapsible. 

SafeAssign

Available with New Feature 

SafeAssign is available for Assignments and Essay questions in Tests in Ultra courses. 

To Be Determined 

Planned for Future Release 

Not yet developed, but planned for Ultra courses. 

Score Per Question

Available 

Now available in Ultra courses. 

SCORM

Available 

Peer Assessment

Available with Limitations 

Qualitative peer assessment is now available in Ultra courses, with additional capabilities planned for the future. 

Email

Available with Limitations 

Instructors can email students from the gradebook and can send email messages for some announcements. Students can no longer email from within the course, but they can send course messages instead. 

Single Student Progress Report

New Feature

Review the content you have created for students, its availability status, and your students' progress with the relevant date and time stamps.

Student Overview

New Feature

 ** A dedicated space for instructors to take notes about students in each course. 

To access the notes, instructors may select the Notes  tab on the Student Overview page. From there, an instructor can add notes and review any other notes for a student in that course. They can also review notes added by other instructors in the same course.

Student Preview

Available 

Instructors now have the ability to delete their preview account from an Ultra course. Improvements have also been made to the exit process for Student Preview.

N/A 

Discontinued 

Feature has been discontinued and will not be available in Ultra courses.  

Test Additional Time

New Feature

Available in Ultra with an option 50%, 100%, or unlimited extra time.

Test Question Filtering

New Feature

The question filter supports common test-taking strategies. For example, students may complete questions they know first and skip harder ones. The filter enables students to quickly return to skipped questions. Students may also use the filter to find essay questions.

Tests

Available with Limitations 

Hot Spot questions are now available, polygon shape has been added. Essay questions can now include a model answer for grading purposes. Additional randomization options have been added.  Extra credit questions have been added.  You can now prevent backtracking in tests with page breaks.

Insert YouTube Video

Available with Changes 

Video Everywhere, or Browse My Youtube Videos, is called Insert Youtube Video in Ultra courses. 

Web Link

Available 

You can now select whether a web link opens within the same page or in a new tab.

N/A 

Discontinued 

Feature has been discontinued and will not be available in Ultra courses.