During the break between summer and fall semesters Blackboard will be upgraded to version 9.1 Q4 2015. This upgrade will also include several service pack upgrades to take us from our current Blackboard Learn 9.1 SP 13 version. Upgrading to the Blackboard Learn 9.1 Q4 2015 release gives us a number of exciting new features as well as a few bug fixes. New features include:
1) Student Preview: With the new Student Preview, instructors can navigate their courses just as their students would. The Student Preview feature provides a new button that appears in the breadcrumb bar next to the course Themes and Edit Mode buttons and is shaped like an eye.
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- View short video: Student Preview [2:23]
- View more information about Student Preview
Note: With the new Student Preview feature available, test students are no longer needed. The "Add Test Student" course tool will be removed and all test student accounts will be removed from Blackboard after the upgrade.
2) Date Management: Once a course has been copied, professors can update the dates of items in the course from one location.
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- View short video: Date Management [3:12]
- View more information about Date Management
3) Groups Management: Now, you can easily see which students are in a group, which groups have been active, modify group membership and export group memberships among classes.
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- View short video: Groups Management [2:44]
- View more information about Groups Management
4) Grade Center Improvements: There are a few new improvements to the Grade Center:
- Grade Schemas allow an A+ to be more than 100%.
- The "Options" page allows you to set the "Score Attempts Using" option. This is a workflow improvement that ensures you can easily find this setting for all tools that support multiple attempts.
- Test total points adjustment: This enhancement address several related needs, all revolving around the total points possible for tests, and needing to adjust the total points possible.
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- View more information about Grade Center Improvements
5) My Grades: My Grades has an ordering and design update. The My Grades page provides students with a new default option for the order their grades are displayed in.
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- View more information about My Grades
6) Inline Grading: Inline Grading has been updated to include discussion boards, journals, wikis, and blogs.
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- View short video: Improved Inline Grading [2:02]
- View more information about Inline Grading
7) Anonymous Grading: You can add another layer of fairness and impartiality to your grading by using the anonymous grading feature. The anonymous grading feature allows you to hide student's names while grading.
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- View more information about Anonymous Grading
8) Delegated Grading: When there are multiple instructors assigned to a course, you can delegate who grades which assignments, or delegate a specific person to grade everything for a specific set of students.
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- View more information about Delegated Grading
9) Significant Figures in Calculated Formula Test Questions: You can now select the number of decimal places or significant figures for generated correct answers.
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- View more information about Significant Figures in Calculated Formula Test Questions
10) SafeAssign Integration: SafeAssign is now integrated with the Assignment tool. SafeAssign originality reports are viewed in the Grade Center where you also have access to the Inline Grading feature.
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- View short video: Deeper SafeAssign Integration [3:44]
- View more information about Deeper SafeAssign Integration
11) SafeAssign Originality Reports: SafeAssign reports have a redesigned format.
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- View more information about SafeAssign Originality Reports
12) Course Message Notifications: You can now be notified of new messages in the My Blackboard Updates area, the What's New Module, and in your email.
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- View more information about Course Message Notifications
13) Thread-to-Thread Navigation in Discussion Boards: Users are able to navigate to the next or previous thread in a discussion from the Thread Detail page without having to navigate back up to the Discussion Forum page.
14) Special Characters in Assignment Titles: When a user uploads a file and the filename contains special characters (such as / \ : ? * " < > |), the system will replace the special character with an underscore (_).
15) Microsoft Edge Browser Support: The Microsoft Edge (Windows 10) browser is now supported.
Want more information?
Get more information about the new features of Blackboard Learn 9.1 Service Pack 14 and April 2014 Release.
Sign up for a Blackboard workshop or stop by one of the drop-in sessions for one-on-one help.
Explore Blackboard’s On Demand Learning Center.
Check out help for instructors at help.blackboard.com.
Try these Blackboard How-To documents.
Visit the Blackboard FAQs for additional blackboard information
or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.