Making Blackboard Ultra courses available to students

Posted on by Hanrahan Highland

Once your Blackboard course is ready for your students, the final step is to make the course available to them. In Blackboard Ultra, this looks slightly different to how it did in Original. When you are in your course, at the top right of the screen, you will see a “CLOSED” (or “OPEN”) indicator – shown below.

To change this, click on the indicator, which will pull open the ‘Course Settings’ pane. Under ‘Course status’, select “Open” to make the course accessible to students. Then close the ‘Course Settings’ pane by clicking on the purple cross at the top left.

All Blackboard courses for the coming teaching block should be accessible to students at the start of Welcome Week.

Ultra Update – September 2025

Posted on by jamie.gilder

One of the advantages of our move to Blackboard Ultra is the ongoing potential for new feature releases and updates. New releases take place on the first Thursday evening of every month, which is much more frequently than for Blackboard Original. We will communicate about new features and changes via this blog. If you want to be kept up to date with the latest information, we recommend subscribing to the blog. 

This release has new or updated features in the following areas:   

  • Instructional design; 
  • Tests and assignments; 
  • Communication and collaboration; 
  • Gradebook. 

These improvements impact instructors, students, and administrators. Below you’ll find our highlights, and more detail on the most relevant updates.

Highlights

Block styling options for Documents

Block styling has been added to Documents, giving instructors new ways to add visual appeal and guide student attention. Each styling option adds colour and an icon to a block. The options are:

  • Question Mark 
  • Tip
  • Key points
  • Next steps
Screenshot showing the purple edit toolbar on a block in a Document. The Block styling option is highlighted, showing a dropdown menu containing the different styling options.
Image 1: Instructors can select styling options from a dropdown menu that appears in Edit mode on all block types.

Please see the Release Notes for further information and best practice guidance for using block styling.

Question titles in tests, forms and banks

Instructors can now add question titles when working on questions in tests, forms, and banks. Question titles are optional, they are not visible to students and they are non-unique. Question titles are recommended. They can help with the organisation of questions and to quickly identify questions that have presented issues during an assessment.

A screenshot of the question creation screen showing a single question: Question 1. The Question Title field is highlighted with a blue box. Just below the field is the text 'Question titles are not visible for students'.
Image 1: The question title field.

Question titles appear when: 

  • Creating or editing questions in tests, forms and banks 
  • Adding questions to pools (Add Question Pool workflow) 
  • Viewing questions in a pool (View Questions workflow) 

Titles do not appear when the instructor views or marks submissions for the test or form. Students do not see the question titles when they take a test or review their submission.

Other updates in this release include:

Please see the Release notes for further information on these updates and others in this release.

Further help and support

For more guidance on using Blackboard Ultra, please explore Ultra Essential Guidance. 

Students can view an Ultra orientation and advice on using Ultra from their Help for Students sections (or equivalent) in your Blackboard course.

Turnitin AI detection update

Posted on by digitaleducation

Turnitin has expanded its capabilities to detect the output of AI tools that re-arrange AI-generated text in an attempt to bypass AI-detection tools (sometimes called “humanisers”).

This AI detection update is incorporated into Turnitin’s AI writing report and does not require any changes in your assignment settings. There are no visual changes to the report or the highlighting in the report. Reports generated before August 27, 2025 will need to be resubmitted if you want them to make use of this new capability.

Key changes for assessment workflows in Blackboard Ultra

Posted on by Dan Wilson

As many of you will already be aware, Blackboard Ultra has new and changed functionality that may necessitate changes in some assessment workflows around the University. While we have been actively engaging with school leads and local Digital Education colleagues in areas known to be using the affected workflows, we now ask that everyone reviews their current assessment workflows to ensure that you are prepared for the move to Ultra.

If your school or faculty is considering the use of any of the following assessment tools or practices this coming academic year, please read the relevant sections below.

Turnitin

There are minimal changes to this tool in Blackboard Ultra, but the way in which you access the Assignment Inbox has changed slightly. Please read through the updated Turnitin workflow guidance to see these changes.

Blackboard Assignments (download/upload, offline marking)

There are minimal changes to this tool in Blackboard Ultra, but the way in which you set up the assignment and manage the Gradebook (formerly Grade Centre) has changed. Please read through the updated Blackboard Offline workflow guidance to see these changes.

Continuous improvements are being made to this tool to address some of the issues you may have previously encountered. We will blog about these improvements when they become available.

As a new feature, Blackboard Assignments now include the ability to automatically run submissions through Turnitin to generate similarity reports. However, this practice comes with several limitations that must be considered. Please see the assessment planning page before using this feature.

Blackboard Assignments (non-anonymous, online marking)

There are changes to this workflow regarding setting up the assignment and managing the Gradebook (formerly Grade Centre). Marking has remained largely the same, but the way you access submissions has changed slightly. Please read through the updated Blackboard Online workflow guidance to see these changes.

As a new feature, Blackboard Assignments now include the ability to automatically run submissions through Turnitin to generate similarity reports. However, this practice comes with several limitations that must be considered. Please see the assessment planning page before using this feature.

Blackboard Assignments (anonymous, online marking)

There are significant changes to this practice. If you previously used the Mark with usernames hidden functionality, this is no longer available in Blackboard Ultra. Following feedback from Bristol and other UK institutions, Anthology (Blackboard’s supplier) are working to develop functionality that allows for trust-based anonymity, but any solutions they develop will not be available for this academic year.

The more strict, fully anonymous, Hide student names function in Blackboard Ultra severely limits your ability to manage these assessments and significantly increases the burden on staff and students. The Digital Education Office recommends against using this. Please see the assessment planning page and contact the DEO for a consultation if this is a route you are considering.

If you are still considering which workflow to use, or if you have any questions regarding assessment practice, please don’t hesitate to contact the Digital Education Office (digital-education@bristol.ac.uk) for support. 

Enhancing assessment and Feedback: Welcoming FeedbackFruits to the University of Bristol.  

Posted on by Roberta Perli

As part of our ongoing commitment to enhance the student assessment and feedback experience, the DEO is thrilled to announce the onboarding of FeedbackFruits!  

FeedbackFruits offers a suite of digital tools designed to support peer review, contribution to group work and automated feedback. 

FeedbackFruits is available through Blackboard Ultra. The integration can be found in the Course Tools.  

To get started, visit the DEO FeedbackFruits dedicated page, where you will find information about support, guidance and training.  

The ‘Getting started with FeedbackFruits’ self-paced course is also now available on Develop.  

We look forward to supporting all colleagues who are interested in using FeedbackFruits. If you have any questions, please email digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.  

Deletion of very old Blackboard courses (2015-16)

Posted on by Hanrahan Highland

In line with the University’s Data Retention policy, we will be deleting all Blackboard unit courses from the academic year 2015-16 (and earlier). These courses are already unavailable to staff and students. The deletion will take place on September 1 – please contact the DEO (digital-education@bristol.ac.uk) before that date if you have any questions or concerns about this process. Once the courses are deleted, their content will no longer be available on our Blackboard system.

Unit Teams created for 2025/26

Posted on by digitaleducation

New Unit Teams have been created for 2025/26. A Unit Team is created for every unit in Blackboard and students on the unit are automatically enrolled as members. Unit Directors for the course are enrolled as owners. Your students will not be able to view or access your Team until you have activated it.

Microsoft Teams are a great way to interact and collaborate with colleagues and students on your unit. Unit Directors will be sent an email with a link to their Unit Team and information on how to activate it. If you think you have not been sent an email for a course you are a Unit Director on, please check that the correct information is in the unit catalogue. You will be able to ask any owner of a Team to be added to it.

Before activating your Unit Team, check out IT Services’ Unit Team activation and set-up for step-by-step instructions on how to set up your Team. If you do not wish to use your Unit Team, please do not activate it and hide the Team instead of deleting it.

For further information, please see the DEO’s MS Teams for Teaching web page.

If you haven’t already done so, to get the best experience with Microsoft Teams, we recommend installing the Teams desktop client.

If you have any technical questions regarding Unit Teams, please contact the IT Service Desk.

If you have any educational questions regarding Unit Teams, please contact digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.

New Turnitin AI writing score column in the Assignment Inbox

Posted on by digitaleducation

From 5 August 2025, Turnitin has introduced a new AI writing score column within the Assignment Inbox of the classic Standard Assignment in Feedback Studio. This feature is retroactive and applies to previously submitted work.

The AI writing score column is only visible to instructors on the course. Students do not have access to it.

AI Writing disclaimer
AI Writing disclaimer

Before the AI writing scores become visible, users must first read, scroll down and accept a disclaimer. This will appear the next time you access a Turnitin assignment and only needs to be accepted once. If the disclaimer is declined, the AI score will remain blurred in the submission list.

If you have any questions about this feature, please get in contact with digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.