What's New on Blackboard version 7

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Blackboard was upgraded April, 2007 to version 7.2. Instructors will see the changes beginning with Summer 2007 courses. On December 27, 2007, Blackboard was upgraded to version 7.3. The new features for 7.3 are noted below.

During Fall 2007, a fourth application server was added and system memory was doubled. The results of these changes were increased performance and stability during the end of the semester peak usage.

For your convenience, we are offering the following ways to learn about the new features and tools:

A text summary of new features is provided below.
A PowerPoint presentation can be viewed.
A PowerPoint presentation with audio is available.

Email Enhancements

Instructors sending email through Blackboard will have the option to receive Return Receipts.
Blackboard email users will also find a spell check option at the bottom of the message text box.

In version 7.3, the names are listed in alphabetic order by last name.

Assesment and Gradebook

Some of the new features include:

Assessments may now be set to unlimited attempts or a specified number of attempts. The Gradebook can be set to record the last attempt, first attempt, highest score, lowest score, or an average of all scores.
Assessments may be deployed as self-assessments and not included in gradebook score calculations.
Questions may be designated as "Extra Credit" in assessments. The points possible for the assessment will not include the points for the extra credit question.
Instructors will have the option to import and export assessments in the Test Manager. Instructors can also copy a single assessment from one course into another.

Multiple Attempts and Self Assessment Tutorial

Discussion Board

The Discussion Board is now searchable. The search can also be filtered by forum or current thread.
Grading tools previously only available in the Discussion Grader Building Block, are now available within the Discussion Board.
A five-star system for purposes of peer review is now available.
Threads within the Discussion Board are now subscribable; users will be notified of new postings via email when subscribed to a thread.
Adaptive Release rules are now available in Discussion Boards.
Discussion Board forums now have availability options, so that they may exist without being available to students.
Instructors can lock forums to prevent new postings, but still allow users to review existing postings.

Discussion Board Overview Tutorial
Discussion Board Rating and Grading Statistics Tutorial
Discussion Board User Management & Moderation Tutorial

New features in version 7.3:

The user can view the course discussions in a tree view (restored from version 6.3).
New icons, "Mark as Read" and "Mark as Unread" allows the instructor to classify which forums have been read or not.
The search tool has been enhanced. The icons, "Subscribe" and "Unsubscribe" allows users to subscribe or unsubscribe to a forum.
Within a thread table of the course discussion page several enhancements have been made.
Grade and tag columns have been added to the pages, as well as a "Grade" icon that allows the user to navigate to the Modify Grade Item page and grade the student's forum performance.
The Subscribe and Flag indicators columns have been added, allowing the user to see the subscribed and flagged forums.
The date column includes the exact time of the latest change to the forum.
The number of unread posts in the Unread Posts column is a clickable icon that directs the user to the text of these unread posts.
Within a post, a user can now rate a post based on a star rating system.
The user can also navigate to both the "Previous Post" and the "Next Post".
Tagging messages: tags allow arbitrary message grouping independent of thread or thread status.
Forum managers or instructors can create and apply text labels of their own choosing to messages in a forum.
Discussion board users can read, filter, and search messages using the tags, but cannot create new tags.
Within the Modify Forum page, there are a number of new, available forum settings. As well, the forum moderator can select the forum availability date and time restrictions.

Course Copy

Discussion board forums, course cartridge materials, and adaptive release rules may be copied.

Visual Text Box Editor

Users can opt in to the Visual text Box Editor (WYSIWYG), which is now cross-browser, cross-platform compliant. It is off by default.

Early Warning System

This tool can be used to communicate warnings to students about a performance problem in a course. Warnings will be generated only when an instructor refreshes the Early Warning System and chooses to send out the warnings. There are three options for rules in the Early Warning System:

Grade Rule: Identifies when student performance on an item is equal to or below a certain level.
Due Date: Identifies when a student does not complete course work when it is due (only works with Assignments or Assessments created through Blackboard. Due Date Rules cannot be created for manually graded items).
Last Access: Identifies the last time a Student accessed the course online.

Language Packs

In addition to the languages already available in Blackboard (English, Spanish, Italian, French, German, Portuguese, and Dutch), simplified Chinese and Japanese will also be available.

Spell Check

A spell check is available in e-mail and other Blackboard functions.

More Characters Supported

Blackboard now supports more special characters. This means you won’t see the funny symbols when copying files from Word.

Student Feedback Surveys

Survey Templates that are also used in the Ongoing Course Assessment are now available in the Survey Manager to be used at any time by instructors to get feedback from students.