Blackboard Update Planned for Dec. 24 and 25

Blackboard Learn

The new originality report lists all matches in the right-hand panel.

The annual Blackboard Learn upgrade will take place during a 24-hour period beginning at 11 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 24 through Wednesday, Dec. 25. Students, faculty and staff will be unable to access Blackboard during this time.

Several new features will be enabled with this upgrade, including hosted attendance tracking, updated originality report features and expanded calendaring integration.

This upgrade will remove the social profile section, which will require all users to update their profile information and photos for the spring semester. Instructions on how to add a profile picture are available at tips.uark.edu.

Using Collaborate, instructors will be able to host a Collaborate session that automatically tracks attendance and allows it to be calculated into a student's grade. Learn more about the new attendance reporting feature.

Updated layouts for the SafeAssign Originality report will also improve usability for all devices, including mobile. View the new report layout.

Blackboard Learn's current calendaring feature limits activities and assessments to only Blackboard tools. In the new release, this capability will be expanded to include content from third-party solutions when using a web browser. Learn more about calendaring.

Some features will no longer be available following the upgrade, including course cartridges and all items listed under the Social Learning Tools section. The Textbook course content tool will no longer be able to search by ISBN to create new textbook entries. However, existing content created using the Textbook tool will continue to provide relevant textbook information.

If you have additional questions about these Blackboard Learn upgrades, contact blackboard@uark.edu.