Service announcements and essential information from the Digital Education Office
We previously reported a service disruption with Turnitin that was causing slow student uploads and a delay in Similarity Report generation. This issue has now been resolved by the supplier.
Reports that were stuck in pending should now have been generated, and student submission times have returned to normal. If you are still experiencing issues with report generation, please contact digital-education@bristol.ac.uk for support.
The Digital Education Office has been made aware of an unexpected service incident affecting Turnitin. During this time students may find that submission uploads are slow and both staff and students may find that similarity reports are stuck processing.
We have tested this locally. We are finding a delay in processing reports, but currently no delay in upload times.
Our expectation is that stuck reports will process once the issue has passed.
We are monitoring the reports from the supplier. We will update this post with more information when it becomes available.
We previously identified an issue with TurnitinUK.com that affected bulk uploading of files. This issue has now been resolved, and bulk upload is working as expected.
Please accept our apologies for the disruption.
As part of the support for the onboarding of Feedbackfruits, a dedicated tool to support Peer Review and Contribution to Groupwork, we are running two webinars useful to those who are already using the tool and those who are interested in using the tool, but these people should still reach out to DEO before putting anything into practice for a consultation.
The sessions will be recorded. Please register to get a link to the recording.
We look forward to seeing you!
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:
These changes impact instructors, students, and administrators. Below you’ll find our highlights, and more detail on the most relevant updates.
Instructors now have more flexibility when downloading the Gradebook for offline use. Previously, downloads included only the columns visible to instructors.
A new Include Hidden Items option appears when selecting Full Gradebook in Download Options. When selected, the download will contain all Gradebook columns, including those hidden from instructor view.
Some changes have been made to column navigation in the Marks view of the Gradebook. Changes include:
For Assignments, Tests, Forms, Discussions, and Journals:
For Manual Items, Calculations, and Total Calculations:
Please see the Release Notes for further information on these updates and others in this release.
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.
The Digital Education Office has been made aware that some images in Blackboard Test assessments that have been copied from one course to another are not displaying correctly to students. This issue can occur when either tests or question banks are copied between Blackboard courses. We are actively investigating this issue with the supplier and will provide an update when it is resolved.
The standard checks and validation process described in our Blackboard Tests workflow will ensure any issues are discovered. At a minimum, this process should include:
Any issues with image display can be remedied by re-uploading the same images directly to the affected question/s and then rechecking these questions using a Test Student User account.
If an error persists after following this standard validation process, please contact digital-education@bristol.ac.uk for further support, including “Issues with image display in Blackboard Test” in the email title.
Questionmark will be carrying out scheduled maintenance on Saturday 15th November 2025, 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
We are pleased to announce that IT Services have completed their critical work to the network and Xerte is now available again.
Xerte is currently unavailable due to critical work on the network being carried out by IT Services.
We will blog again when work has been carried out and Xerte is available.
Turnitin have informed us that their services will be unavailable due to scheduled maintenance on Saturday 25 October between 16:00 and 22:00 BST. During this maintenance window, users will be unable to submit or mark papers, or to view marks, feedback or similarity and AI reports.
Further information is available on the Turnitin status page.
Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this may cause.