Category Archives: EMA

[OPEN] No access to complex release conditions in Blackboard Ultra

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Access to complex, multiple-rule release conditions in Blackboard Ultra courses is currently unavailable. This is preventing the establishment of new rules and the review and verification of existing rules. We understand the potential impact of this and the concern it may cause.

Alongside Blackboard, we’re urgently investigating the cause of this issue and seeking a resolution as soon as possible. We will provide updates here when they are available.

If you have any concerns or questions about this, please contact digital-education@bristol.ac.uk

[Open] Slow document conversion when submitting to Blackboard Ultra

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We have been made aware that the document preview interface for submitting a Blackboard Ultra assignment is currently taking longer than usual to load. Please note that this does not affect students’ ability to submit their files.

If, when uploading a file, a student encounters delays in the document preview loading, or the message “The conversion needs more time. Please try again later,” they can proceed with the submission without waiting for the conversion to complete, provided they are confident they have attached the correct file.

After submission, they should return to the submission point and click the download icon to verify that their work has been uploaded correctly. If everything appears as intended, they can consider their work submitted and record their receipt number as usual.

This issue is currently affecting multiple universities. We have reported it to Blackboard and will provide updates once it has been resolved.

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

Student access to Turnitin submission points – reminders for assessment period

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Ahead of the assessment period, we would like to remind you of two issues that may interfere with student access to their Turnitin submission points:

  1. The “Open in New Window” setting in Blackboard for Turnitin submission points
  2. The use of Internet browsers with strict privacy settings (eg Safari with its default factory settings).

For Administrators: Blackboard ‘web link options’ for Turnitin submission points

We recommend that instructors and administrators edit their Turnitin assignments to open in the same window as the Blackboard page, as opening in a new window may be treated as a “pop-up” window and blocked by some browsers. To do this:

  • Click on the chevron next to the Turnitin assignment and select Edit
  • Scroll down to the Web link options section and change “Open in New Window” to “No”

  • Click Submit at the bottom of the page.
  • You will see a pop-up asking if you would like to change the Turnitin submission to open in a new window; click Cancel.

  • You will exit the Edit page; click on the assignment to check that Turnitin opens in the same tab.

For Markers and Students: Internet browsers with strict privacy settings

We are aware that people are sometimes seeing the error message ‘Invalid or missing state’ when trying to access Turnitin. This issue has been reported to Turnitin and is linked to the privacy settings of the users’ internet browser.

Please make the following information available to students and staff in your school, to assist them if they encounter this error.

If using Safari, we recommend that users try accessing Turnitin via Chrome or Microsoft Edge in the first instance, as Blackboard and Turnitin submissions have been successfully tested with these University-supported browsers.

If switching browsers is not a suitable solution or you, we suggest updating the browser’s security settings to enable JavaScript and third-party cookies. The ‘Invalid or missing state’ message comes up when launching a Turnitin assignment in a new browser window with third-party cookies and/or JavaScript blocked. This can be resolved by editing the browser’s Privacy & Security preferences so that it will not block any background scripts that Turnitin is trying to load.

Please follow the steps below for your preferred browser:

  • In Safari, select Safari > Preferences > Security > Web content > Enable JavaScript
  • In Firefox, select File > Preferences > Privacy & Security; if Strict is enabled, please change this to Standard
  • In Microsoft Edge, select Microsoft Edge > Preferences > Cookies and Site permissions > JavaScript > Allowed (recommended)
  • In Google Chrome, select Settings (you can open the Settings page by clicking the icon with three stacked horizontal lines in your browser’s menu bar) > Privacy & Security > Site Settings > Content > JavaScript > Ensure that the option ‘Sites can use JavaScript (recommended)’ is enabled.

If you would rather not enable JavaScript and/or third-party cookies in general, please instead add “api.turnitin.com” and “api.turnitinuk.com” to the sites that are allowed to use JavaScript / third-party cookies.

Once you have completed reviewing your browser’s Privacy & Security preferences, please close your active browser and re-open a new browsing session so that any changes can take effect.

If you experience any problems, please contact the DEO via digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.

Updated Marks and Feedback integration

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The University will update its current offline marking tool, which allows administrators to bulk download and upload assessments, starting in October 2024. The update will not change the functionality of the tool, and all older files will still be available.

Why is this happening?

Blackboard no longer supports our current version of the offline marking tool, which allows administrators to bulk download and upload assessments. They will be replacing our old Marks and Feedback extension with a newer version that uses a more modern integration standard, called Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI). This change was planned to take place during the summer break, but technical issues have pushed it back until now.

LTI benefits

  • Interface improvements
  • Compatibility with Blackboard Ultra
  • Time stamps for uploads
  • Long-term support

Key differences

The new Marks and Feedback tool mirrors the functionalities of the old version. There are slight differences in the menu for accessing the new tool. However, the overall functionality will remain the same, and the student experience will not be affected. The key differences are:

  • A slight change in the way staff access the new tool
  • Bulk downloads that take more than two minutes to process will appear in the ‘previous download’ view
  • Previous downloads will no longer be available as a column in the assignment list.

Key dates

After 30 September 2024, the existing Marks and Feedback extension will be unavailable for downloads, uploads and releasing grades. From 1 October, new Blackboard offline assignments will use the Marks and Feedback LTI. Files that were submitted before this change, and to old courses, will still be available in the new tool.

How to access the new Marks and Feedback tool

Depending on whether your course is using Blackboard Original or Blackboard Ultra, you will have different ways of accessing the tool.

Blackboard Original view

For Blackboard Original, instructors will be able to access the tool via Course Tools under Course Management. The ‘Assignment Anonymity’ tool will be replaced by ‘Marks and Feedback Settings’, while ‘Marks and Feedback’ will replace the following items:

  • Download assignments
  • Download, Upload, and Release uploaded grades
  • Release uploaded grades
  • Upload grades and feedback.

In the image to the right, the items highlighted in red will be replaced by the Marks and Feedback LTI tool links, in green. (Please click on the image to enlarge it.)

Blackboard Ultra view

For Blackboard Ultra, instructors will need to navigate to the Course Content area and then click on the right-hand Course Tools section to open the panel showing ‘Marks and Feedback’ as well as ‘Marks and Feedback Settings’.

In the image to the left, you can see the new LTI tool links highlighted in green. (Please click on the image to enlarge it.)

 

 

Useful links

Further information

Any further updates will be added to this blog. In the meantime, if you have any questions, please contact digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.

Launching the new tool for transferring marks from Blackboard to SITS/eVision

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We’re excited to announce the launch of the new ‘Grade Approval’ tool for transferring marks from Blackboard to SITS/eVision. This advanced tool features a powerful new search function, enabling quick and efficient identification of students and assessment marks. While the functionality remains the same, Blackboard have significantly improved the user interface, making it easier to transfer marks from Blackboard to SITS/eVision.

The new tool is now available for both Original and Ultra courses. It replaces the ‘Mark Approval and Transfer’ tool (which was available from the Grade Centre > Manage area). Please refer to the updated guidance on BEAM – specifically, section 3.2 for extracting marks for assessment, and section 4 for reassessment, for Original courses. Information about mark extraction in Ultra courses is included in the Ultra Assessment Workflows guidance.

If you have any queries, please contact digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.

Important update on marks extract from Blackboard to eVision/SITS

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We are currently working on enhancing the marks extraction tool that transfers marks from Blackboard to eVision/SITS. During this time, you might encounter issues with transferring marks for assessments that have due dates/times. We are actively working with our service provider (Anthology) on resolving these problems and expect to have them fixed by September 6. Marks for assessments with a due date/time that need to be transferred out of Blackboard before September 6 should be manually entered into eVision/SITS.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

If you have any queries, please contact digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.

[Resolved] Issue with Blackboard receipts

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Blackboard has successfully resolved the issue with their receipting tool. Consequently, students submitting work to a Blackboard Assignment should now receive a confirmation email containing the details of the submitted work and a link to the document.

Please note that the issue only impacted student submissions to Blackboard Assignments on Tuesday, 7 May. Nevertheless, all receipts were securely stored in Blackboard, and students were able to access their submission records by navigating to the Submission Receipts section within My Marks.

[Closed] Issue with Blackboard receipts

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We have identified an issue with our Blackboard receipting tool, which is currently not always sending out email receipts to students after they have submitted their work. The receipts are always being stored in Blackboard, however.

As a temporary measure, we therefore advise students to check the “Submitted” section of “My Marks” after submitting their work. If a receipt is not recorded there, they should attempt to submit their work again and then contact their school if the issue persists. However, if a receipt is present, they should take a screenshot, note the time, and be assured that their work has been successfully submitted.

We are prioritising this matter and have raised it with Blackboard as an urgent issue. We will provide updates as soon as the issue has been resolved.

Changes to Blackboard Submission Receipts will not be Implemented

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In a prior blog post, we announced that Blackboard was deprecating support for the Receipting Building Block, which we use to customise the receipts students receive when submitting work to a Blackboard Assignment. This would have resulted in changes to the email receipt that students receive after submission.

Following further discussions with Blackboard, we are pleased to announce that these changes will no longer be implemented, meaning that: 

  • Students: will continue to receive a detailed email receipt including a link that they can use to download a copy of their submitted document(s).  
  • Administration Staff:  will continue to be able to review submission receipts stored for within the content system of a given course. 

The default wording on student receipts will continue to be: 

Your submission has been received. We have recorded the following details: 

Submission ID: ID NUMBER 

User: STUDENT NAME 

Student ID: STUDENT NUMBER 

Assignment: NAME OF SUBMITTED DOCUMENT(S) 

Course: NAME OF COURSE 

Date of Submission: SUBMISSION DATE AND TIME 

This submission contained the following attached files: 

LINK TO FILES AND SIZE OF FILES 

Please retain this email receipt. Do not reply to this email. If you have any queries about your submission, please contact your school. 

 

 

The look of the Blackboard submissions page is changing

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The interface for Blackboard submissions such as essays, some timed assessments and some exams is changing on June 2, 2023. There is no change to functionality.

After June 2, if students need to upload a submission, this option will be contained within a ‘concertina menu’. This makes the interface less confusing, allowing them to select the options they need without having to navigate the options they don’t.

Below are three images: one showing the current interface and two showing the new interface.

Old submission point: this is the old submission point for Blackboard which has all upload options on display.

The old interface has all the ‘Attach Files’, ‘Write Submission’ and ‘Add Comments’ functions on display.

New submission point (unexpanded): the new submission points have three clickable options: one called "Create Submission", one called "Upload Files", and one called "Add Comments"

The new interface places the same features behind concertina menus.

New submission point (expanded): once the "Upload Files" option is clicked, three buttons are revealed; one for "Browse Local Files", one for "Browse Content Collection", and one for "Browse Cloud Service". 

Once expanded with a click, the same options are available.