Resource

December 2020 Release

With this release, Instructors are now equipped with additional tools to boost student engagement for example improvements to Ultra’s Rich text editor, feedback timing control, HTML/CSS code blocks, student list view and journals. 

Also, we simplified some workflows for Administrators as they now can manage third-party LTI tool availability by institutional hierarchy and receive user’s most recent session data with support tickets using the new support panel session data feature.

The Learn SaaS release v 3900.4 was released to production environments on December 3, 2020

Highlights include:

Ultra Course View

  • Rich text editor improvements: Users will have access to more formatting tools in the Ultra Course View's rich text editor. Users can format content in a variety of different ways, including font colors, font sizes, and font style
  • Custom HTML/CSS code blocks in Ultra course documents: Instructors can create, edit, and delete custom HTML/CSS code blocks and fully customize the appearance of their Ultra course documents.
  • Ultra feedback timing controls: Instructors can set up timed release to automated question feedback, correct answers, and question scores. They can also select when to show feedback: after submission, after due date, at a specific date, or after the assessment is graded.
  • Support panel session data. Users will now be able to capture their most recent session data (last 30 actions the user has taken) and send it to their administrators to attach in support cases.
  • LTI tool availability by institutional hierarchy: Administrators can now manage the availability of third-party LTI tools according to their institutional hierarchy, similar to how they can with Building Block tools.
  • End of SOAP Web Services capabilities: Blackboard SOAP Web Services were officially deprecated on January 4, 2019 (see the original announcement).

As of December 31, 2020, Blackboard Learn SOAP Web Services are no longer supported, as they have reached the end of life per our deprecation policy.