On January 13, 2018, ITS will update our Blackboard system from the October 2014 release to the Q2 2017 release. This includes several feature enhancements and additions delivered over four product release cycles: Q4 2015, Q2 2016, Q4 2016, and Q2 2017. Complete Release Notes and notable feature enhancements or additions are described below.January 2018
High impact changes with the latest release include:
In-line Grading for Assignments ( MODIFIED )
In-line Grading is the feature of the Assignments tool that enables you to embed comments and mark-up within student paper submissions for limited file types such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and PDF. This feature is undergoing a change that will take effect for UAlbany at the time we apply the Q2 2017 upgrade on January 13.Blackboard’s In-line Grading feature uses a web service provided by Box Inc. (Box) that's called Crocodoc. Box is changing it's web service from Crocodoc to New Box View. New Box View offers several improvements, including improved rendering fidelity and expanded support for new file types. In-line Grading will use the New Box View web service in UAlbany's Blackboard Learn release after the upgrade on January 13, 2018.
Edge Browser
Microsoft Edge browser is not fully compatible with New Box View.
Changes to In-Line Grading on January 13
The user experience for winter session instructors and students will be impacted as a result of the Blackboard upgrade on January 13. Annotations made using In-line Grading with Crocodoc prior to January 13 will be converted and viewable in New Box View after the upgrade. Crocodoc annotations will NOT be editable after the conversion as they are "burned" into a PDF format during the conversion process. New annotations can be added later using the New Box View features.
The assignment conversion may still be in process when Blackboard returns to service on that day. If so, In-line Grading may be unavailable for up to 2 to 4 hours while assignments are being converted.
Change Management Resources
Complete Release Notes and notable feature enhancements/additions/changes
Q4 2015
- Release Notes
- Browser Support - Microsoft Edge now supported
- Discussions - thread-to-thread navigation
Q2 2016
Q4 2016
- Release Notes
- Cancel/Submit buttons pinned to bottom of pages
- Content - Drag and Drop file upload
- Assignments - Submission receipts (with enhancements)
- Send Grade Reminders to Students
- Fewer Needs Grading Items
- Course Activity Overview Report Filter by Groups
Q2 2017
Deprecated Items
- Various Modules & Themes
- Virtual Classroom/Chat
- Record from WebCam
- See Release Notes > Deprecated Items for more details
Note: Some features listed in Release Notes may not be available for our license or they require additional configuration before we can enable them.