Blackboard has a new look

The Blackboard upgrade to the new Ultra Base Navigation has been successfully completed. You will see the new-look Blackboard the next time you log in. Your courses haven’t changed, but the way you navigate around Blackboard should now be easier and more intuitive, whatever device you’re using.

We’ve been working with our Student Digital Champions on some of the decisions around the look and navigation – thank you to everyone who contributed!

“I really like the ease of navigation of the updated Blackboard.”
– University of Bristol student

You can find more information and guidance in our Blackboard Ultra Base Navigation guide.

Screenshot of the new Blackboard log in page

 

Blackboard’s Look and Navigation is Changing, Wednesday July 5, 3.45pm – 6pm

On July 5, we’re updating Blackboard to use the new Ultra Base Navigation. This update will give Blackboard a modern look and feel and provide easier access to important information.

Ultra Base Navigation has a modern, intuitive navigation menu that sits outside of courses and is always available.

Your courses will not change, and you can submit work just as you are used to. They will look and operate exactly as they do now.

The benefits of Ultra Base Navigation include:

  • A modern, intuitive user experience.
  • Improved accessibility.
  • It works well on mobile devices. This navigation is designed to work well regardless of what device you’re using.
  • Just one click away. No matter where you are, UBN provides clearer paths to where you want to go, minimizing clicks and saving time.

To enable Ultra Base Navigation, Blackboard will be unavailable for a short time on the afternoon of July 5, between 3.45 pm and 6 pm. After this, you will see a redesigned login page for Blackboard and can use the new navigation as soon as you log in.

You can find more information, with screenshots, on the project webpage: Blackboard Ultra Base Navigation.

The look of the Blackboard submissions page is changing.

The interface for Blackboard submissions such as essays, some timed assessments and some exams is changing on the 2nd of June 2023. There is no change to functionality, but you should familiarise yourself with the difference before any deadlines.  

After the 2nd of June, if you need to upload a submission, this option is contained within a concertina menu. This makes the interface less confusing, allowing you to select the options you need without having to navigate the options you dont.

Below are three images: one showing the current interface and two showing the new interface.

The old interface has all the ‘Attach Files, ‘Write Submission and ‘Add Comments’ functions on display. 

Old submission point: this is the old submission point for Blackboard which has all upload options on display.

 

The new interface places the features you are used to behind concertina menus.

 

New submission point (unexpanded): the new submission points have three clickable options: one called "Create Submission", one called "Upload Files", and one called "Add Comments"

 

Once expanded with a click, the same options are available to you. 

 

New submission point (expanded): once the "Upload Files" option is clicked, three buttons are revealed; one for "Browse Local Files", one for "Browse Content Collection", and one for "Browse Cloud Service". 

 

 

Now resolved – Blackboard access disruption


This issue is now resolved. IT Services has restarted the University’s DNS servers, which has fixed the on-campus Blackboard access issue that was persisting this morning. If you are still experiencing any issue, please contact IT Services.


The Blackboard access issue from yesterday, which was fixed by Blackboard at source, is persisting for some users today – notably, people attempting to access Blackboard on campus. IT Services is investigating why this is the case, supported by Blackboard.

In the meantime, you may be able to access Blackboard using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) or by using a mobile phone as a hotspot. If you are still encountering problems on your own device, you can attempt to resolve them by flushing your DNS, using the instructions found on the IT Services status page.

We understand that many students might have had submission deadlines yesterday or today. The Schools are aware of the problems affecting Blackboard access. If this situation applies to you, your School or Faculty will be in contact with further instructions. If you have any urgent concerns, please contact your School Admin team for the best localised support for you.

Now resolved – Issue concerning submission receipts not being received is being investigated


This issue is now resolved


Today (20th April 2023), Blackboard reported an issue which may have prevented some students from receiving submission receipts for Blackboard assignments, or which may be causing a delay to them being received. The Digital Education Office is working with Blackboard to investigate this issue and ensure it is resolved.

Update: Between around 12.00 and 1.15 today, a global Domain Name Server issue affected the blackboard.com domain, meaning that some services that need to access this domain were unable to. These included accessing Turnitin and Qwickly Attendance through Blackboard, and there was also a delay in submission receipts arriving (due to domain checks in mail servers). This issue has now been resolved, and all services should be working normally.

Student experiences of online assessment

Written by Olivia Muggleton, Student Digital Champion.

Olivia Muggleton

Olivia recently presented at one of BILT’s Show and Tell events on Student Experiences of Online Assessment. It was a great event and we thought we should share it with the student community too.

Student Experiences of Online Assessment

Last week I was tasked with presenting a few of my thoughts to university staff as part of the Bristol Institute for Learning (BILT) Show, Tell and Talk webinar event. This webinar focused on the topic of online assessments and included talks from university staff and BILT Student Fellows on the behind the scenes of online assessment and their feedback on its success so far – including the wellbeing and accessibility aspects of this new mode of learning. I was fortunate enough to be able to use my role as Student Digital Champion to represent the student experience and offer some feedback from the people who are impacted most by the move to online assessments – Us!

In my presentation I focused on the experience of preparing for online assessments and how this has changed quite significantly over the past couple of years. So firstly, how can you prepare? Beyond revision of the unit’s course content, online assessments carry with them a whole load of technical challenges, whether they’re timed open-book over a number of hours or days, or whether they require hand written text or diagrams to be scanned and submitted: and if you get that far, the next challenge is saving with the correct file names and formats and submitting into the right submission port – and as with any other online activity, accessibility is also an incredibly important factor. So in acknowledging these additional requirements, lets discuss some of the online assessment preparation resources that are available to us as students.

Digitally Ready ‘Digitally Ready for Assessment’

Digitally Ready on Blackboard

Digitally Ready provides students with resources and advice with respect to online learning. Under this specific subheading of the ‘digital induction’ links can be found to all relevant pages such as student services, wellbeing support, the university assessment and exam arrangement pages, as well as the Study Skills resources on Exams and Wellbeing.

As well as signposting, Digitally Ready provides a virtual walkthrough of the Assessment, Submission and Feedback (ASF) areas in Blackboard and a step by step checklist to go through as soon as we know about a timed online exam, including what to do in the event that something goes wrong – overall, a really extensive and helpful resource. The SDCs are also currently working with the Strategic programmes and projects team to provide feedback to improve the ASF area for students.

I’m particularly fond of the Padlet that sits in this section which allows students to view and input their own preparation advice. This provides helpful, practical advice, tried and tested by people in the same situation, but it also builds a sense of community among peers, which has perhaps felt a bit lacking owing to the transition to online learning.

Study Skills ‘Exams and Wellbeing’ and ‘Online open-book exams’ resources.

The Study Skills service create a wealth of resources for students which cover just about anything you could need advice or guidance with. Especially relevant for our purposes are the ‘Exams and Wellbeing’ page and the ‘Online open-book exams’ page. The first of these is a well organised and structured resource which particularly focuses on the stresses that students might feel in the run up to exams. Rather than focusing on the technicalities and revision as such, it provides students with a refreshing insight into recognising unhealthy stress and advice on how to avoid it by better organising yourself and maintaining perspective. The ‘Online open-book exams’ resource delves deeper into the specific requirements of this mode of online assessment and provides some insightful advice regarding certain myths which surround online open-book assessments and some tips on preparing and revising for different assessment formats – for instance unseen, short-term seen and long term seen questions. This resource does tend to be most helpful in terms of aiding an approach to revision, but it nicely caters this to the relatively new format of online assessments. What I like most about this resource is its interactivity and varying format which really encourages engagement – and combined with the possibility of catering it to your own assessment format I think it’s a really appealing and useful page.

Study skills

DEO ‘preparing your submission’

This is a resource that we as SDCs have been quite involved with, we worked with the DEO to give some detailed student informed feedback on the layout and content of this resource and its practical ease for us to follow. This resource really delves into the technicalities and thoroughly explains each and every step involved in preparing to submit an online assessment in multiple formats, on Blackboard or Turnitin.

While it is predominantly focused on the technical side of preparation, I feel that this, alongside the ‘Submitting assignments in Blackboard or Turnitin’ guidance, are really invaluable resources, especially to students in first year who are likely to be entirely unfamiliar with this form of assessment via these platforms. More generally, I feel the DEO’s resources are really helpful as they provide an interactive (and thoroughly detailed) resource for students to click through and follow.

Preparing your submission

What are your thoughts?

Do you have any thoughts on these resources or on online assessments in general? We SDCs are here to champion the student perspective and experience so if you feel that there’s something we should know, please reach out so that we can be even more representative of your voice! We are also always working on giving feedback on university resources and areas of the online learning environment including but not limited to assessments, so subscribe to DigiTalk to keep up to date on our latest developments.

Further resources

 

No Blackboard downtime this year

Unlike in previous years, there will be no summer downtime (when a system is out of action or unavailable for use) for Blackboard this year. This is because, last summer, we moved our Blackboard system onto a ‘cloud’ infrastructure. This means our system can automatically scale to meet demand, and can also receive bug fixes and upgrades more quickly, without any downtime.

The Digital Education Office.

Check Edge and Chrome are up-to-date if submitting work to Turnitin through Blackboard

If you are submitting work to Turnitin through Blackboard, please ensure your Edge or Chrome browsers are up-to-date, or use a non-Chromium browser such as Firefox or Safari. If you don’t, you may find your ‘resubmit’ button doesn’t work.

How to check your browser is up-to-date: Edge, Chrome

ICT Proficiency icon

ICT Proficiency

Knowing how to keep your browsers, software, and apps up to date is a really important digital skill. Often, updates fix known problems, improve security, and give you a better experience. As in this example, sometimes older versions of software experience bugs or problems, which can impact you at important times like when you’re submitting assessments. Most of the time, you’ll find the option to update your software in that software’s settings. If you follow the links in the post above, you’ll see how to do this in Edge and Chrome.

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