Curriculum and Instructional Support Center: Blackboard Updates

Enhanced pop-out rubric

We made several enhancements to the pop-out rubric in the Gradebook.

• Attempting to close the pop-out rubric without saving your changes prompts a warning, reminding you to save your changes.
• Selecting Save no longer closes the pop-out rubric.
• We improved keyboard navigation, specifically arrow key and tab interaction, for the grid table.

Review student engagement with announcements

Instructors can now verify which students have marked an announcement as viewed. By selecting the viewer count on the main Announcements page, instructors can open a list showing who has and hasn’t acknowledged the message. From this list, instructors can send a message to follow up with students who haven’t viewed the announcement or confirm that key information was received. This helps instructors understand how effectively their announcements are reaching students. 

Apply the No Category option to Gradebook Items

Instructors can now remove an item from a category when it's not needed, without automatically assigning it to another category. The No Category option appears in the Grade Category dropdown menu for all items, making it easy to keep grading structures clean and organized.

Selecting No Category ensures that the item is not linked to any grading category, and no data is stored for it in the system. This provides a more streamlined way to manage grades without unnecessary assignments. Instructors can now tailor grade organization more precisely to fit their course needs.

Add captions to image blocks in Documents

Instructors can now add captions above or below image blocks in Documents. Captions provide context and support understanding, helping students engage more deeply with visual content.