Author: digitaleducation

[Open] Blackboard assignments with Turnitin enabled not generating similarity score for some students.

Posted on by digitaleducation

We are aware of a few cases where similarity reports are not being generated for work submitted to Blackboard assignments with Turnitin enabled.

When opening a student submission, instructors will usually see a similarity score percentage in the top right corner of the marking interface. However, there is a slight risk that this score may not appear for a few students.

We are currently working with Turnitin and Blackboard to resolve the issue.

In the event that you identify a student that has no similarity score, we advise that you follow this temporary workaround to generate a similarity report:

    1. Create a folder in the Assessment, submission and feedback area of your course and name it Similarity Checking. Please leave it hidden from students.
    2. Open the folder, click on the + icon and select Course Tools.
    3. In Course Tools, scroll down and click on Turnitin Assignment (LTI) to create a new Turnitin submission point. Name it as Staff Only Similarity Check.
    4. Hide the submission point from the students.Download original file icon in Blackboard assignment
    5. Download the originally submitted work from the Blackboard assignment by clicking on the Download Original button encircled in pink.
    6. Upload the student submission to the Staff Only Similarity Check Turnitin submission point on their behalf to generate the reports.
    7. Repeat step 6 as many times as you need.

If you have been affected by this issue or would like further advice, please message us to digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.

Refreshed Appearance and Navigation for Blackboard – Coming January 2026

Posted on by digitaleducation

As part of regular updates and improvements, Blackboard will be receiving a refreshed and improved course navigation interface from late evening on Thursday, 8 January 2026. 

Course content, course tools, and how to navigate within each course are not affected by this update. Access to assessment and other tools will remain unchanged for both you and your students.  

What will be changing?

1. Courses will appear in a full screen 

When you enter a course, it will now fill the screen rather than layer on top of the Blackboard Home page. This reduces the clutter on the screen significantly, making better use of the space.An image of the new, full screen view of a Blackboard course

2. Use the “Home” button to leave a course 

The pink “X” button to leave a course has been replaced with a “Home” button, which takes you back to the Blackboard home page. This reduces the risk of closing courses unintentionally. 

3. Course menu repositioned 

Within a course, the horizontal course menu is now located directly above the course banner, prioritising the course content in your field of view. 

4. Course titles overlayed on top of the course banner 

The banner image for your course now stretches across the breadth of the screen, and the name of your course is overlayed on top of this image. To improve contrast and ensure the name is legible for all users, a gradual vertical fade has been introduced to the image. 

Highlights the location of the home button in the top-left of the screen, the location of the horizontal course menu above the banner image, and the course title overlayed on top of the banner.

5. New Course Switcher 

To make it easier to move quickly between courses without having to return to the Home page, a Course Switcher has been added to the top of the screen in each course. This shows the most recent courses you’ve visited by default, with an option to “View all” if the course you are looking for isn’t immediately available. 

Shows the new course switcher menu, located in the top-left of a course page

 

6. Streamlined Home page menu 

The left-hand menu on the Blackboard Home page has been slightly redesigned. Now, your profile image will appear at the top of the list, and the option to sign-out has been placed at the bottom of the menu, separated from the other options.  Highlights the location of the profile and sign out options in the revised Home page menu on Blackboard.

 

Do I need to do anything?

1. Review course banner  

Now that course names are overlayed on top of course banners, some images may lead to problematically reduced contrast, making the title hard to read for some users. If you find your image is no longer suitable, you can change this quickly and easily by following the instructions provided by Blackboard. If your course banner has been set by your faculty, you should refer to them for further support. If you need any help with changing course banners, contact digital-education@bristol.ac.uk, with the subject line “changing course banner”.  

2. Students needing support or guidance 

We’ve provided a student-facing version of this update. Please use this link to disseminate this information to your students if you think they would find it helpful, or to answer any queries from students.

[Open] Issue with accessing group submissions in Blackboard Gradebook cells

Posted on by digitaleducation

We have identified an issue in the Blackboard Gradebook when attempting to access group submissions via the Marks tab. The issue occurs when clicking on the New Submission cell and then selecting the View Submission option, when a message appears saying: “Assign this mark to everyone in the selected group?” This behaviour appears to be a bug and has been reported to the supplier. The DEO’s recommended approaches for Marking group assignments in Blackboard Online do not use these steps and are thus unaffected, so we suggest that you use these. However, if you prefer to use the affected process, we have developed a workaround:

  1. Access the Gradebook and identify the group assignment column.
  2. Click once on the assignment column header once to sort it in ascending order (↑).
  3. Click on the New Submission cell and then select View Submission to access the marking panel.
  4. Mark the assignment.
  5. Close the panel once you have completed the group marking, this will take you back to the Gradebook.
  6. Repeat steps 3 – 5 until you have finished marking; you will be able to access submissions normally until you exit the Gradebook.
  7. If you have left the Gradebook and need to continue marking, please repeat the steps from 1.

If you would prefer to view a recording showing how to resolve this issue, please use the following link: View_group_submission_fix.

If you have any questions, or require further support with this issue, please let us know at digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.

Assessment Period: Key Information for Students and Administrators

Posted on by digitaleducation

As we approach the assessment period, the Digital Education Office (DEO) would like to remind students and administrators of best practices for file preparation and assignment submission to keep in mind during the exam period. Please share this information with your students; we have also published this guidance on our DigiTalk blog if you would prefer to send them a link with the information.

Familiarise yourself with DEO’s guidance

It’s important for students to familiarise themselves, before their assignment deadline, with the guidance on preparing submissions in several formats, and with the assignment submission interface. You can do that now by looking at the three guides below:

For a list of assessment information relevant to students, please see our online submission guides for students.

How to avoid last-minute issues when submitting assignments

  • Allow as much time as possible to submit before the deadline, so that if you experience any technical difficulties, you can receive advice and resolve the issue before the submission due date and time.
  • Use a wired connection, as it tends to be more reliable than wireless connections, especially if the file to be uploaded is large.
  • Always use a laptop or PC rather than a tablet or mobile device when submitting work to Blackboard. We do not advise using the Blackboard app for assignment submissions.
  • Close any documents you are uploading before submitting them, as files being synchronised in the cloud may not save the latest changes until they are closed. It is also recommended to close any windows and programs other than Blackboard that could interfere with your submission.
  • Use Microsoft Edge as it is the recommended browser for accessing institutional resources, such as Blackboard. Google Chrome and Firefox are also supported. Please avoid using Safari, as its default privacy settings may cause access issues.
  • Always follow your school’s submission instructions. If you encounter issues, try switching browsers or clearing the cache; if problems persist, attempt resubmission or wait and try again later. For further assistance, contact your school office.

 If you have any questions about this blog post, please message us at digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.

Ultra Update – December 2025

Posted on by digitaleducation

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:   

  • Communication and collaboration; 
  • Gradebook;
  • Learner progression and personalised experience;
  • Integrations;
  • Blackboard Core.

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

Highlights

Release conditions expanded to include activity on items, including non-assessment content

Release conditions can now be based on whether a student has opened or started content items. This includes non-assessment items such as documents, media, and course links. An example usage is setting release conditions which require students to open a reading or watch a video before an assessment becomes available.

This update has led to some changes in the release conditions interface, with the term Performance now replaced with Activity. While this change in terminology should be noted, existing functionality for assessment-based release condition rules remains the same.

Improved handling of group membership changes

The Flexible Grading and Submissions pages have been updated to show changes in group membership more clearly. 

On the Submissions page, if all members are removed from a group: 

  • The group avatar displays a ? icon. 
  • A No members label appears. 
  • The group name becomes non-selectable.
A screenshot of the submissions screen, showing a group assignment with three submissions. Group 2 is highlighted with a blue box. The group avatar shows a question mark, and there is a no members label under the group name.
Image 1. The No members label on the submissions screen.

For active groups, the Flexible Grading interface always shows the current group members for each attempt.

A screenshot of the flexible grading interface showing a group, written assessment. The group members are displayed in the bottom-right of the screen, below the marking rubric.
Image 2. The Flexible Grading interface. Group members are shown in the bottom right.

Additional supported delimiters in MathJax

MathJax support in the Content Editor now includes additional LaTeX delimiters for rendering mathematical formulas. Instructors and students can now use: 

  • \(…\) for inline equations 
  • \[…\] for display equations 

These options are in addition to the existing $ delimiters. 

Other updates in this release include:

Please see the full Release notes for information on other updates in this release.

Further help and support   

For more guidance on using Blackboard Ultra, please explore the Digital Education Development blog. 

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 writing reports update

Posted on by digitaleducation

Turnitin has informed us that they updated the AI writing report on 14 October to improve accuracy while keeping false positives to a minimum. This update is part of their ongoing work to respond to the evolution of generative AI.

How will this update affect your AI reports?

Previously generated AI writing reports will not be updated retroactively. However, this improvement may result in some changes in AI scores between draft submissions made before the update and final submissions made after the update.

This update is automatically applied to all new submissions to Turnitin assignments and to Blackboard assignments with Turnitin enabled. You will not see any visual changes to the AI writing report or its highlighting, and you do not need to change any settings to benefit from the update.

Reminder about AI report interpretation

Although this technology has improved since its release, Turnitin AI writing reports can occasionally produce false positives. This means the report might incorrectly flag text as AI-generated. For this reason, Turnitin results should always be reviewed by subject experts and used as supporting evidence, not as a replacement for academic judgement.

If you have any questions about this update, please message us at digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.

[RESOLVED] Turnitin Delay in Similarity Reports and Student Upload Time

Posted on by digitaleducation

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.

[CLOSED] Turnitin Delay in Similarity Reports and Student Upload Time

Posted on by digitaleducation

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.

 

Ultra Update – November 2025

Posted on by digitaleducation

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;
  • Gradebook;
  • Blackboard Core.

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

Highlights

Option to include hidden items in Gradebook downloads

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.

A screenshot of the Download Grades panel. In the 'download options' section is an option to download the full gradebook, with a toggle switch labelled 'include hidden items'.
Image 1. Include Hidden Items toggle switch in Download Marks panel.

Updated Gradebook column navigation

Some changes have been made to column navigation in the Marks view of the Gradebook. Changes include:

For Assignments, Tests, Forms, Discussions, and Journals:

  • The Edit option has been replaced with a View Submissions option.
  • When selecting a cell, the View option now reads View Submission.

For Manual Items, Calculations, and Total Calculations:

  • A View option has been added to the column header that routes to the submission page.
A screenshot of the Marks view of the Gradebook showing a grid of students, assignments and marks. A column header has been selected above an assignment labelled 'Check your knowledge'. The column options are visible, including the new View submissions option which has a small eye icon next to it.
Image 1. Updated column navigation in the Marks view of the Gradebook.

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.