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Highlighted New Features for UTMB Faculty

Blackboard Upgrade Overview Video - mp4

Student Preview (Instructor)

Instructors can view their course exactly as a student does by using a student account the system generates for them.

Student Preview

Inline Grading (Instructor)

For interactive tools and assignments, you can view, provide comments, and grade student-submitted items without leaving the tool page.

Grading Blogs Inline

Grading Discussions Inline

Grading Journals Inline

Grading Wikis Inline

Inline Grading for Assignments (Instructor)

Instructors can view student-submitted files "inline," meaning in the web browser, without requiring any plug-ins, applets, or client-side applications. Additionally, annotations tools areavailable as part of the inline viewer, enabling Instructors to provide feedback - comments, highlights, and even drawing/annotation - directly on the inline view of the document.

Inline Grading for Assignments - Instructor

Grading Assignments - How-to

Additional Inline Grading Updates (Instructor)

The following have been updated with Inline Grading:

  • Assignment, Blog, Journal and Wiki instructions have been removed from the details panel and is now above the content for quick reference. By default the instructions are minimized in Assignments but expanded in Blogs, Journals, and Wikis.
  • Goals can be aligned to Blogs, Journals and Wikis from the instructions panel.
  • Instructors can optionally choose to view students who have not submitted an assignment or posted an entry from the inline grading sidebar.

Inline Grading Updates

Grading: Anonymous Grading (Instructor and Student)

Instructors can hide student names from submitted assignments for anonymous grading.

Anonymous Grading - Instructors

Submit Assignments - Students

Grading: Delegated Grading (Instructor)

Instructors can delegate grading to specific users (like TA's).

Delegated Grading

Enhanced Groups Management (Instructor)

The Groups Management Building Block provides the ability to:

  • Easily see which students are in which groups, including which students are not in any groups.
  • Easily see and modify group memberships. Avatars are now available to distinguish among users.
  • Choose and manage membership for groups sets with an improved workflow.
  • Import and export groups and group memberships.
  • Sort columns, perform bulk actions for deleting groups, and create Grade Center smart views for one or more groups on the All Groups page.
  • Optionally, manage tool availability for all groups on the All Groups page.

Groups Management

Discussion Board Improvements (Instructor and Student)

The Thread Detail page is thoroughly redesigned yet maintains all of its existing functions. Highlights include:

  • All posts on one page - all of the posts in a thread are now visible at the same time on one page.
  • Role highlighting - posts made by forum managers and moderators now contain the user's course role and forum role.
  • Inline replies - when replying to a post, the content editor used to write a response appears on the same page, in the context of the discussion.
  • Post First Setting - instructors can use a new forum setting to require students to post to a forum before they can see other students' posts.
  • Accessiblity - The new experience of reading a thread is simple to consume with screen reader technology. We also removed clutter on the page, so screen reader and keyboard-only users have less to sift through as they navigate the interface.

Discussion Board Improvements - Instructor

Discussion Board Improvements - Student

Test Exceptions and Options - Survey Options (Instructor)

  • The new settings allow instructors to select one or more groups of students and make a number of exceptions to the already established availability settings.
  • A new setting lets you decide whether or not to allow a student to take a test after the due date has passed. If students are not allowed to take a test after the due date has passed, they will receive a message telling them the test cannot be completed because the due date has passed.
  • After they complete a test, test results and feedback are available to students. By setting up rules, you can set the release of progressive feedback to keep test results secure and prevent cheating

Test Exceptions and Options - Survey Options

Restrict Tests by Location (Instructor and Student)

Can now deliver tests from a specific physical location for high stakes exams.

Restrict Tests by Location - Instructor

Tests Restricted to Location - Student

Exporting Test Questions (Instructor)

All questions are now retained in exported and imported tests, including questions that originate outside the exported test, such as Question Sets, Random Blocks, and Question Links.

Exporting Test Questions

Test Access Log (Instructor)

Provides information about student interactions with a test attempt. Instructors and other users who are granted permission can view the Access Log for a test from the Attempts page of the test.

Test Access Log

SafeAssign Integration and Updates (Instructor)

SafeAssign Integration

SafeAssign Updates

SafeAssign Originality Report Changes (Instructor)

The SafeAssign originality report has been changed in the following ways:

  • The report has been updated with a new look and feel. The report now displays multiple attachments.
  • The email option has been removed. While viewing the report, you can "print to pdf" either natively or using a plug-in based on the operating system and browser combination that you are using to create an accessible PDF. Then, you can share the PDF in multiple ways, including secure email.
  • Each source now has a color unique to the source. Text matching the source is highlighted in the unique source color. There are a maximum of 30 different colors. This matches the maximum of 30 different sources.
  • By default, all citation source highlighting is on. Instructors can click Show/Hide All Highlighting to turn source highlighting off and on for all sources at once.
  • The report layout has been improved for narrow screens. The report information and citations now appear at the top of the submission when instructors reduce the width of the viewing area.
  • Instructors click Select Sources and Resubmit to determine which sources they want to include in the next report. By default, all sources are included. Instructors can clear the check box for each source to exclude from the results. This behavior is the reverse of previous releases.
  • The page instructors are redirected to after resubmitting a paper has been updated to be more in line with the styling of the new report.
  • During the redesign of the SafeAssign originality report, it became clear that the mixed script count was potentially showing misleading and confusing information. The mixed script count identifies the potential of multiple scripts used in an assignment to hide acts of plagiarism. It was discovered that the count was based on the number of words or sentences in the text and was only triggered by Cyrillic. The count should be based on all of the ways multiple scripts can be used to avoid plagiarism detection. Also, the areas where each script was used were not identified in the document and had to be manually located. For these reasons, while the originality report continues to alert you to any use of mixed-script characters within individual words anywhere in a submission, the word count will not be available until it can be accurate for all script combinations and all instances can be highlighted in the report.

SafeAssign Originality Report

Grade Center Improvements (Instructor and Student)

  • My Grades Ordering and design update: The page provides students with a new default option for the order grades are displayed in.
  • Define "Score Attempts Using" setting from the "Options" page: This is a workflow improvement to ensure you know about and can easily find this setting for tools that support multiple attempts.
  • Test total points adjustment: This enhancement addresses several related needs all revolving around the total points possible for tests and needing to adjust the total points possible.
  • Grading schemas greater than 100%: There is now an enhancement to allow for schema percentages to be greater than 100%.

Grade Center Improvements - Instructor

My Grades Update - Student

Date Management (Instructor)

After you have copied a course, speed up the transition of old dates to new one relevant for the new course using Date Management. From Date Management you can adjust availability dates, due dates, and adaptive release dates within a course.

Date Management

Calendar Enhancements (Instructor and Student)

The Calendar in Blackboard Learn has been significantly enhanced:

  • When accessed from My Blackboard or the Tools menu on the My Institution tab, the calendar displays a consolidated view of all of your institution, course, organization, and personal calendar events. Calendar events are color coded by course.
  • When accessed from a course, instructors and students see the course calendar from the course menu on theTools page. Instructors can use the calendar course tool as a primary way of managing and communicating the schedule of events and assignments in the course. Calendar supports due dates, if set, for gradable items. Clicking on calendar items allows an instructor to view or edit the item, or grade attempts on the associated item.
  • Students can use filtering options to selectively view only course level items. They can then click on an item to view item details, and if supported, create an attempt against the item.
  • Users can create recurring events by selecting the Repeat checkbox.

Calendar - Instructor

Calendar - Student