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Blackboard Learn 3900.13 Release

Date Published: May 06,2021


CategoryPlanned First Fix Release:SaaS - v3900.12.0; Product:System Infrastructure; Version:SaaS
Article No.: 000075523
Product:
Blackboard Learn

Information:

Blackboard is pleased to announce the release of the 3900.13.0 (May 6, 2021) update of Learn SaaS for production environments (full release number 3900.13.0-rel.24+cf04977).  This update will replace the previous v.3900.8.0 release.

Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View
Proctoring Services Framework - In the Ultra Course View, we are pleased to announce the delivery of a proctoring framework to allow proctoring providers to integrate their solutions with Learn Ultra. To support high stakes secured proctored examinations has become an important component of online learning provision. With the rapid shift to blended and fully online learning due to the Covid-19 pandemic, many institutions have pivoted towards proctoring solutions to improve their capabilities to support online digital secured examinations. Thus, Blackboard has put together the necessary efforts and provide a mechanism to allow Proctoring solutions to be supported in the native Learn Ultra assessment flow.
With this release, Blackboard has developed a framework to allow proctoring providers to integrate their solutions into the native test settings of the Ultra Course View. By working closely with a number of key proctoring providers and the IMS Global Organization, Blackboard's Proctoring Framework has been built with a core focus on standards and interoperability in mind.
By leveraging and certifying against the very latest IMS LTI Proctoring standard and combining this open standards based approach with Blackboard’s own Premium APIs, we have been able to provide an extensible framework allowing partners and clients to build and deploy their integrations in Ultra. Alongside all Proctoring partners we are already working closely with, we expect to see many additional solutions and services within the assessment security realm aligning to this specification in the coming months.
Blackboard is the first and currently only LMS provider to be certified against this latest Proctoring specification.
The Proctoring Services Framework includes the following features to support instructor creation and student completion:
  • Configuration of proctoring provider: instructors can choose to configure a proctoring solution for a native Ultra test. Selecting the desired integration from the corresponding drop-down list will allow the proctoring integration to display their native settings inline.
  • New proctor secured detail and iconography: both instructors and students will see clear contextual detail and iconography in the assessment peak panel and also on the course outline indicating a test has been proctor secured.
  • Student launch: students who need to complete a proctor secured test in Ultra, will follow the same procedure for access as with a non-proctor secured test, but will include additional security settings as per the proctoring solution prior to assessment access.
  • Native Ultra assessment security: instructors can combine the flexibility of a proctor-secured test alongside the existing native Ultra access code functionality, supporting a more enhanced security flow for students taking an online test.
  • Native Ultra assessment setting support: instructors can continue to utilize the existing settings functionality with a proctor-secured assessment, including but not limited to class conversations, multiple attempts, grading categories, grading schema, automated feedback settings and additional tools depending on the selected question types used.
Dropping grades inside categories for overall grade calculation - In the Ultra Experience and Ultra Course View, we are pleased to announce the delivery of dropping grades inside categories for overall grade calculations, as we understand flexibility is key in a LMS when we talk about managing final grades calculations for students, and there are different ways in which instructors and institutions would like to set what is considered in the overall grade calculations.
From this release on, instructors and other privileged roles will be able to decide if they want to add additional rules to how their overall grade is calculated when using calculation by categories. They'll be able to drop as many grades as they want (lowest/highest), as long as there are more items inside the category than dropped items, or to choose just the lowest or highest grade to be considered for that category. This feature serves a great variety of use cases, for instance, to help students at the end of the term or to remove outliers (highest/lowest) grades in order to get a better sense of students’ performance.
When rules are in place, students can gain access to their overall grade calculation details and see if some additional rules have been set by their instructors, which gives them clarity on how their grades are calculated and why their calculations might defer from the ones displayed in their gradebook.
Ultra Experience, Ultra Course View, Original Course View

Ultra messages: Unread message indication - We are pleased to announce the inclusion of Unread message indication for messages on the Ultra Base Navigation. This was a highly requested feature from our community, and we are excited to bring this capability to our clients. This solution will provide a clearly identifiable number count highlighting any new messages received for both Original and Ultra courses. When a user selects the Messages tool on the base navigation, the red number count will change to a red pill icon as to reduce distraction, but navigating away from this page will again show the unread message count. This capability will provide a greater level of transparency and engagement when new messages are sent and received for all users, and continues our commitment to enhancements for the Messages tool in Ultra.

Ultra Experience, Original Experience

Upgrade notifications for administrators - In the Ultra and Original Experiences, System administrators for Learn deployed in SaaS can opt-in to receive email notifications when an upgrade process starts and completes. This is particularly helpful for SaaS clients who want to be able to communicate with their support teams and user communities, with greater specificity when feature changes are available or bug fixes have been implemented. Users with the full System Administrator role can opt-in at Admin Panel > Notifications > System Alert Settings. Each administrator must opt-in individually to receive emails.


You can view maintenance items for 3900.13.0 on Behind the Blackboard.  Our Known Issue articles provide information for individual bug fixes, and may include bug descriptions and which Learn versions were affected. You can filter bug fixes by SaaS release for easier navigation. Here are a few highlights of issues fixed in this release:
  • Additional Spaces Rendered on Anchor Tag Preceding any HTML Tag - Article #75274
  • Anonymous Grading Usernames Revealed in Digest Email - Article #75177
  • Ultra - Audio Feedback in Ultra Course Assignments Displays code Instead of date and time Information - Article #59680
  • Blank Page Item in Course Menu Access Denied for Guests - Article #57301
  • Conditional Availability Removes Time Limit Info on Tests - Article #75164
  • An Error Occurs when Editing Ultra Gradebook Settings if Course Role does not have "Delete Materials" Permissions - Article #75109
  • The OK Button in Goal-Performance Tool does not Respond when no Goals are Aligned to the Student - Article #75170
  • Not Found Error Occurs in Hotlinks and Web Links to Folders Using Alternative Domain - Article #75237
  • HTML in Questions of Original Experience Tests can Cause Errors when Converted or Imported to Ultra Experience Courses - Article #59449
  • Filtering the My Tasks Module by Course does not Work - Article #74961
  • Files Inserted through the Editor have Excessive Spacin - Article #74955
  • New VTBE "+" Attempts to Display Incompatible Media File Formats like PSD, TIFF and WMA Inline - Article #74958
  • Exact Course Copy Fails on TMP_KEY_MAPS_PK Constraint - Article #69615
  • Rubric Scores are not Rounded - Article #75331
  • SafeAssign Icon Links Disappear Under Originality Column in Grade Center - Article #75233
  • SCORM Attempts not Deleted when User Enrollment is Deleted - Article #74926
  • Error Occurs during SIS Course Creation Using a Template Course - Article #75200
  • Korean Language Pack Replaces Spaces with '20'  - Article #75287
  • OAuth Signature Validation Failed Message Appears when Clicking the Application Authorization Tool - Article #61159
  • Missing 'Edit Course Image' Label in Language Pack Editor in Ultra - Article #75183
  • Custom Color Palette and Theme Still Applied after Converting to Ultra - Article #59776
  • Unable to save Blackboard Collaborate Ultra Option in the Edit Group Set Properties - Article #70341
  • Cannot Update Notification Settings - Article #75242
  • When Selecting Recipients for Enterprise Survey Response Period, There's No Way to Identify or Exclude Child Sections of Merged Courses, Which Causes Students to Receive Two Copies of Each Survey - Article #61132


Top Issues

Article Number Component Service Pack(s) Description Target Fix Release Patch Available
000078412 Data Management & Integrations, Course Tools Ultra In Ultra view mode, when Safari browser is used the 'Enable Microsoft Teams' link will be missing. However, the link will be available when other browsers are used. Future Reference
000078607 Learn Ultra Screen readers, particularly NVDA fail to recognize the ‘Three Dots’ sub-menu within the Ultra Base Navigation courses section when viewed in ‘Tile view’. <br><br>This affects users who rely on screen readers for navigation and interaction.<br><br><br>  Future Reference
000078606 Data Management & Integrations Ultra When creating a course, if a feed file has one of the Course Description fields with one double quotation mark, the feed file will get corrupted and throw an error once integrated with the system:  &#39;Invalid data for attribute: courseBatchUid. Skipping entire record. Reason: The Course BatchUid is not valid&#39; Future Reference
000078570 Learn Ultra When users log into the Blackboard Mobile App and they navigate around the tabs, the error &#39;There is an issue on our side Please try again later.&#39; is displayed.  Future Reference
000078573 Learn Ultra The issue occurs during the conversion process within Blackboard Learn. Specifically, it occurs when the system assumes a static constant handle for the PanoptoCourseToolApp, leading to a failure in converting the tools to LTI within the Blackboard Learn SaaS environment. Future Reference
000078601 Course Tools Ultra When Using the Google Chrome Browser in Ultra Courses the Input Area of the Discussion Board Does not Expand.  Future Reference
000078600 Course Tools Learn 9.1 3900.89.0, Learn 9.1 3900.91.0, SaaS When a discussion is made unavailable to students, users with the grader role get an access denied message when they try to add a grade. Future Reference
000078592 Learn Ultra When downloading gradebook data to work offline, the feedback provided is not shown in the graphical user interface (GUI). Future Reference
000078604 Language Packs Ultra Users observe repeating dates in the Ultra Calendar when their operating system time zone is set to -4:00 Santiago and their Learn profile is configured to use the Spanish Language Pack. Future Reference
000078590 Learn Ultra In Ultra View Courses that have names longer to the field in which the value is shown in course outline, titles are not positioned correctly. Instead of aligning to the left (for English, as that might differ for different language packs) it is centered. Future Reference


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