Feature highlights
These are some of the Blackboard Ultra features and updates released on April 3rd 2025. Updates will be automatically available within your courses, organisations and content menus. You’ll find more detailed release notes below.
Alert Status now a Tag for Messages
Student ‘View’ Button in Gradebook for feedback
Reviewed Feedback Pill in Gradebook Student tab
Marking Group Assignments now inline with other Blackboard Assignments
Alert Status now a Tag for Messages
Topic: Communication
Feature Details: When checking your student’s course activity in the analytics area, a message sent to all students with alerts will now show as a consolidated tag.
What does this mean for you?: This may help you have one tag in a post rather than a longer list of student names. When you have filtered and selected the students with alerts, it may also help identify why you have sent the message to students for future reference. This group is only available when selecting from the analytics page, and cannot be used in the main message area as you can with other course groups.
Student ‘View’ Button in Gradebook for feedback
Topic: Assessment
Feature Details: Students now have a View button in the Gradebook to access feedback for new assignments. Clicking on the View opens the panel to access Blackboard and Turnitin Assignments.
What does this mean for you?: This is for you to be aware of as this is a slight change for students’ viewing the Gradebook. (Also see next item) For your students, this should make access to feedback clearer and smoother.
Reviewed Feedback Pill* in Gradebook Student tab
Topic: Assessment
Feature Details: When feedback is released, you can view whether a student has accessed it within the Student Tab in Gradebook.
What does this mean for you?: Whilst many students do view their feedback, it can be hard to know whether students have seen it or not in their assessment once available. Gradebook now gives students a Reviewed/Not reviewed pill next to their submission status. This is accessible when looking at an individual student within the Gradebook.
*Pill is the term used by Blackboard for their elliptical content areas usually either messages or grade imputs.
Print Documents
Topic: Content
Feature Details: Blackboard documents can now be printed as a pdf or paper copy when useful. This is available for staff and students.
What does this mean for you?: Static content such as pictures and text will display on the page. Files such as powerpoints will only show their collapsed heading; knowledge checks will display and show as complete with the answers OR as the pure question if the individual student has not taken them yet.
Marking Group Assignments now inline with other Blackboard Assignments
Topic: Assessment
Feature Details: Blackboard Group assignments were a slightly different marking experience and have now come into line with other Blackboard marking features.
What does this mean for you?: Moving between Group submissions will now be on the side panel. This view allows better readability of submitted files and more space to mark. Individual student feedback will be listed below the main rubric and feedback, not tabbed through as before. Group and Individual feedback are still across tabs in the student feedback view. The new pop out rubrics feature is hoped to be added after release.
What do you think of these new features? If you have an idea for a Blackboard feature or improvement, please raise a ticket with the TEL Team. We regularly attend the Blackboard interactive Office Hours feedback sessions where we can raise these, as well as post on their Ideas Exchange.