Category: Service announcements

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

Posted on by digitaleducation

We are aware of an issue affecting the display of the ‘Submit on behalf of’ functionality in Turnitin’s assignment inbox. The issue has been reported to Turnitin Support Engineers, who are currently investigating.

In the meantime, if you need to upload a paper on behalf of a student, there is a workaround available for non-anonymous assignments: selecting the three dots in the Options column for the student and clicking Upload.

For further details, please refer to the guide to Submitting on behalf of a student.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this may cause.

2025/26 Blackboard courses now available

Posted on by Hanrahan Highland

The annual creation of Blackboard unit courses has been carried out, and the 2025/26 Blackboard courses are available to access. We are now working on building “parent” courses, where these are needed.

This year, all courses are Ultra courses, using the new Ultra templates created with the faculties. You can find your courses in the usual way, by logging in to Blackboard.

Instructor enrolments are copied from the previous year’s courses, where these exist; instructors will need to be manually enrolled onto all new courses. Please contact your school office if you need to be added to any new Blackboard courses.

Information on training and support for Blackboard Ultra is available on the Blackboard Ultra move project site.

Please note that, because of the early creation of courses, some tools that link to other University services outside Blackboard – such as Re/Play and Talis Aspire Resource Lists – will not be fully functional until those services have carried out their annual switch-over. For Re/Play, links to Collections won’t work until mid-July. For resource lists, links can be added to your 2025-26 lists from Thursday 29 May; please contact lib-resource-lists@bristol.ac.uk or your Subject Librarian if you require any support with this.

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

[Open] Blackboard annotate intermittent issue

Posted on by digitaleducation

Blackboard is continuing to investigate an intermittent issue with document rendering in the Annotate tool, which is affecting users globally.

When this happens, students submitting assignments with attachments might see an error message asking them to try again later. Please note that this does not stop the submission, but it can be confusing as students cannot view the document’s content during the upload process. However, students can confirm that their submission has been successful by looking at their digital receipt.

Blackboard developers are collaborating with their partners to fix it, and a solution will be included in a future update.

If you have any questions or encounter this issue and need support, please email us at digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.

[Closed] Blackboard Annotate: intermittent document rendering issue

Posted on by digitaleducation

Blackboard is currently investigating an intermittent document rendering issue affecting the Annotate tool. Instructors using Blackboard assignments and attempting to annotate papers via the online interface may be affected.

The supplier is actively working to restore the service to optimal performance, and we are closely monitoring the situation. We will provide updates as we have them.

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

Introducing New Interactivity Features in Re/Play

Posted on by david.c.morgan

Re/Play now includes interactive elements to enhance your presentations. With these new features, you can add text, buttons, and hotspots directly onto your videos, helping to guide your students and link to additional content seamlessly.  

Getting Started 

Open your presentation and click Edit Interactions. This brings up an editor, with a grid to help you accurately place and customise your interactive elements. All elements can be repositioned. For text and hotspots, you can also resize them—hold the Shift key to move without resizing.  

Types of Interactions 

  • Text: Add text overlays by choosing a preset size and colour and set the alignment. For enhanced readability, pair your text with a background hotspot or button.  
  • Buttons: Create clickable buttons with sample text and a chosen size and colour. You can set these to pause the video when clicked, and easily link them to another presentation, a specific time within the current one, or an external URL.  
  • Hotspots: Highlight areas with hotspots that come in circle or rectangle shapes. Customise their appearance, adjust opacity, and set them to pause the presentation as needed. Hotspots can be annotated using a textbox and offer flexible linking options.  

Best Practices 

  • Plan Your Layout: Use the grid to ensure interactions align with your content.  
  • Keep It Simple: Focus on the most relevant interactions to maintain a clear, engaging presentation.  
  • Enhance Accessibility: Tag interactive elements and use chapters to make them easily identifiable for students.  

We hope you enjoy experimenting with these new tools to create more engaging and interactive learning experiences. You can find more information on our Re/Play support pages. If you have any questions or need further support, please email digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.  

[CLOSED] Some Blackboard Assignment Email Receipts not being received

Posted on by digitaleducation

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. However, the receipts are always being stored in Blackboard.

As a temporary measure, we 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.

 

UPDATE: Issue has been resolved. We are investigating the cause with Blackboard. Students making submissions should now receive receipts via email. Students who submitted work between Wednesday 15 Jan and Friday 17 Jan should still check receipts as described above. Please report any new instances of issues receiving receipts to digital-education@bristol.ac.uk

[Open] Issues with managing content in Re/Play

Posted on by Pete Herbert

We have been made aware that there are problems with adding Re/Play content to Blackboard courses and viewing recent recordings in the My Re/Play area of Blackboard.

We are working with the supplier to resolve these issues and will provide updates as soon as we are aware of any changes to the service.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may be causing and if you have any questions please email digital-education@bristol.ac.uk