Ultra Update – June 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 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;
  • Communication and collaboration;
  • Tests and assignments;
  • Learner progression and personalised experience;
  • Gradebook;
  • Blackboard Core.

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

Highlights

Add dividers to documents

Instructors can now add divider blocks to Documents. Dividers provide a clear way to structure a Document into sections. They can be resized to span up to four columns.

Screenshot of the Document block creation screen: Divider is shown as a block type and highlighted with a blue square.
Image 1. Dividers are now included as a block type.
Screenshot of a Document with several columns: text stating learning outcomes and an image of three people kayaking. The divider at the bottom has been expanded across multiple columns.
Image 2. Dividers can span multiple columns in a Document.

Create jumbled sentence questions

Instructors can now create jumbled sentence questions for tests. This question type lets instructors define one or more paragraphs with blanks for students to complete. Additionally, instructors can:

  • Add distractors
  • Add automated feedback for correct and incorrect answers
  • Designate questions as extra credit
  • Use accessibility tools, such as keyboard-only workflows, to create this question type

To create a Jumbled Sentence question, enter the question text and define the blanks by enclosing the correct answers in square brackets (see image below).

Screenshot of creating a jumbled sentence question. The question text reads: Single water molecules are held together by [covalent] bonds and multiple water molecules are held together by [hydrogen] bonds. The kind of bond where atoms are sharing electrons but are not sharing them equally is [polar covalent bond].
Image 1. Creating a jumbled sentence question.

Please see the Release Notes for further information.

Unread discussion post indicator

An indicator has been added to the Discussions tab which shows the number of unread discussion posts from anywhere in a course.

A screenshot showing an 'Introduction to Humanities' course. The course has one unread discussion post which is indicated by a purple 1 next to the discussions tab.
Image 1. New unread discussion post indicator.

Other updates include:

Perform bulk category changes in item management

Enhanced overall appearance and usability of knowledge checks

Please see the Release notes for full details on other updates 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.

Questionmark OnDemand Scheduled Maintenance 21 June 2025 09:00 – 15:00

Posted on by daniel.sinclair

Questionmark will be carrying out scheduled maintenance on Saturday 21 June between 09:00 and 15:00.

The purpose of the maintenance is to deploy system updates to ensure the ongoing reliability, security and up time of the platform.

During this time users may experience service disruption. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

If you have any questions, please email digital-education@bristol.ac.uk

[RESOLVED] Jumbled Sentence questions incorrectly copying from Blackboard Original to Ultra

Posted on by digitaleducation

Issue  

Currently, Jumbled Sentence questions are incorrectly copying from Blackboard Original to Blackboard Ultra courses.  

This question type is due to be released in Blackboard Ultra on June 6, but currently Jumbled Sentence questions are not supported, and a partial copy is being produced when any attempt is made to copy them (for example, as part of a larger pool or test with multiple questions). These partial copies contain the written element of the question but are not functional.  

Actions needed 

Until June 6, tests or question pools/banks with Jumbled Sentence questions should be not be copied between Blackboard Original and Ultra courses. After June 6, these can be copied with full functionality expected.  

Jumbled Sentence questions that have already been copied will need to be deleted and then re-added after June 6.  

 

Resolved: 06/06/25

Following an update to Blackboard, Jumbled Sentence Questions can now be created in Ultra courses and can be copied from Original courses to Ultra courses without issue.

[Open] Gradebook will sometimes not display Turnitin submission statuses

Posted on by digitaleducation

Turnitin has informed us of an intermittent known issue causing the Blackboard Gradebook to fail to sync with Turnitin. More information can be found on Turnitin’s known issues log.

In the meantime, instructors can continue marking as usual via Turnitin’s Assignment Inbox by entering marks there, and also manually in the Gradebook column for affected students. We also recommend using Turnitin’s Assignment Inbox to check for non-submissions, rather than relying on the Gradebook.

We will provide an update as soon as we have one.

Questionmark OnDemand Scheduled Maintenance 17 May 2025 09:00 – 15:00

Posted on by daniel.sinclair

Questionmark will be carrying out scheduled maintenance on Saturday 17 May between 09:00 and 15:00.

The purpose of the maintenance is to deploy system updates to ensure the ongoing reliability, security and up time of the platform.

During this time users may experience service disruption. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

If you have any questions, please email digital-education@bristol.ac.uk

[CLOSED] Marks extract from Blackboard issue

Posted on by Hanrahan Highland

Update: This issue was resolved at around 5 pm on 29 April.

You may be experiencing an issue with extracting marks from Blackboard to SITS/eVision, which we believe is being caused by the current IT Services issue with a range of web-hosted applications (noted under “Exam Timetables Down” on the IT Service Status page). We are investigating this and will provide updates here as we have them. In the meantime, it may be necessary to manually enter any marks that are needed in eVision urgently.

Please accept our apologies for this disruption.

[CLOSED] Re/Play authorisation error affecting unit collections

Posted on by david.c.morgan

Update: A software version update applied overnight on 29th April has resolved the authorisation error.

We are experiencing a technical issue where students and staff cannot access some Re/Play recordings through Blackboard course menu links (Re/Play Collections), when viewing permissions are set to “Only Shared Users”.

Our team is actively working with our service provider to resolve this issue as quickly as possible.

Please contact digital-education@bristol.ac.uk to arrange a temporary access solution until a permanent resolution is applied.

[Resolved] ‘Submit on behalf of’ button in Turnitin is currently unavailable

Posted on by digitaleducation

The supplier has notified us that the ‘Submit on behalf of’ functionality in Turnitin’s assignment inbox has been restored.

The incident occurred between 11 April and 17 April. The impact of the issue was limited, and most Turnitin users were unaffected.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused. If you have any questions, please contact digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.