Instructional technologies provide many opportunities to support assessment and track student performance in Blackboard.
The following articles provide details describing the best practices we regularly publish to support our pedagogical community of practice.
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Restrict File Types in Assignment Submissions in Blackboard's September Update
Preview Outcomes mastery also available in gradebook
A student submits their essay as a Pages file. Another turns in a .zip when you asked for a single PDF. By the time you notice, you're chasing down a resubmission instead of grading. September's...
Posted: September 17, 2026, 3:00 PM
13 Tips to Get Your Blackboard Course Ready
Checklist to optimize your course before the semester starts
The week before the semester starts can feel like a sprint: A full inbox, a syllabus that still needs one more edit, and a course shell that isn’t quite ready for students yet. Before the scramble...
Posted: August 12, 2026, 10:00 AM
Blackboard's August Update Redesigns Grading, Navigation, and Group Tools
A quick rundown of what's new for faculty & students
Blackboard's August update is one of the bigger releases we've seen in a while, touching grading, navigation, assessments, and course workflows all at once. Here's what's changing, organized by...
Posted: August 7, 2026, 3:31 PM
Level Up Your Course: Join Us for Blackboard Week (August 10th–14th)
Daily webinars to optimize your Fall courses
As we gear up for the FA2026 semester, Instructional Technology is hosting Blackboard Week from August 10th to August 14th. Whether you are completely new to Blackboard or a seasoned pro looking...
Posted: July 28, 2026, 10:00 AM
Blackboard Launches New Gradebook on August 7
Same grades, less clicking.
After a year-long redesign with faculty feedback sessions – including on-site at UMBC – Blackboard will launch a new gradebook starting August 7, 2026. The redesigned gradebook grid view will...
Posted: July 20, 2026, 10:00 AM
FA2026 Courses Created in Blackboard on July 15, 2026
Reminder: New Course Creation & Student Enrollment Process
Blackboard course shells for Fall 2026 were created on July 15, 2026. All Fall 2026 courses listed in the UMBC Schedule of Classes (SOC), regardless of designation as lecture, lab, etc, or...
Posted: July 16, 2026, 8:00 AM
Streamline Grading and Feedback with Gradescope
Pilot in Blackboard Begins Fall 2026
In partnership with the Math and Physics Departments, the Division of Information Technology is pleased to announce a pilot for Gradescope, a feedback and grading platform that integrates with...
Posted: July 14, 2026, 11:30 AM
July Update Brings Rubric Evaluation Report to Ultra Courses
Discussion descriptions, AI conversation timers, course favs
This month's Ultra update provides a new report that gives instructors class-wide rubric data at a glance, and a dedicated field that separates discussion context from prompt. Paired with clearer...
Posted: July 2, 2026, 10:29 AM
7 Accessible Practices for Creating and Sending Email
Accessibility starts before you hit send.
Email is one of the most universal communication tools we have at UMBC, and one of the most commonly overlooked places where accessibility breaks down. Whether you’re sending a department update,...
Posted: June 16, 2026, 12:30 PM
Ally's New Auto-Tagging Feature Takes the Hard Work Out of PDF Remediation
Accessible PDFs, now with less manual work.
If you've ever run an Ally course accessibility report and found a long list of untagged PDFs, you know the feeling: the problem is clear, but the path forward is time-consuming. Tagging PDFs for...
Posted: June 11, 2026, 2:41 PM
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