Assessment News

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

What if a wrong answer could teach just as much as a right one? This month’s Blackboard update brings tools that let instructors do exactly that: Guiding students not just to the correct response,...

Have you ever spent more time wrestling with Blackboard's Groups tool than actually designing the group work itself, especially in a large course? The May Ultra update delivers meaningful...

Have you ever wanted students to see exactly what's expected of them in a discussion, without having to navigate back to the assignment details to check? Or needed to recognize that one group...

In January, UMBC faculty and students will experience a redesigned course navigation in Ultra that makes key areas easier to access and understand. The updated layout brings a full-width header...

Blackboard will roll out a refreshed interface in early January, introducing a cleaner, more intuitive design that aims to make everyday teaching tasks faster and more efficient. One change is...