There will be no significant changes noticeable to staff and students in the December Blackboard system update. The update will mainly focus on performance improvements and core and security.
Weblearn maintenance: 4 Jan 2025
Saturday 4 January 2025, 2am to 8am
Weblearn will be undergoing database maintenance work on Saturday 4 January between 2am to 8am.
During this time Weblearn will be unavailable to students and staff.
Ultra Documents – check accessibility score and fix broken weblinks
Open the document in Edit mode and then wait a couple of seconds – the accessibility percentage gauge will then be displayed next to visibility options at the top of the document.
Simply click on gauge to open the report to review and fix the accessibility issues.
Broken weblinks will show as ‘The HTML content contains broken links’
Download Option for Student Activity Log
Release date: 7 November 2024
The student activity log is now available to be downloaded.
Note: the Student Activity Log shows the past 140 days of student activity.
To access the log:
Open the Gradebook page in the module
Click on the ‘Students’ tab
Select the student you would like to view the log for
Click on the ‘Activity log’ tab
Modules unavailable to students show as ‘Locked’
Release date: 7 November 2024
Modules which are not available for student access currently show as ‘Private’ on Weblearn. To make the status clearer to students the status is being updated and will show as ‘Locked’
Role Play option added to AI Conversation
AI Conversations provide active learning opportunity to encourage critical thinking on a set topic. Engaging with AI Conversations and learning how to critically evaluate the conversation responses can support the development AI literacy.
The new Role Play option provides an opportunity for students to apply knowledge in a simulated environment.
The instructor defines a role play scenario where the student interacts with an AI persona to gain practical experience in a safe environment for experimentation.
The AI persona can be customised by editing the name, image and ‘personality traits’ . The instructor selects the complexity of the responses to suit the learner cohort.
Once the role play has been set up, the preview chat can be used to check the AI responses based on the provided scenario before releasing it to students.
Auto-generate Question Banks with the Design Assistant
Release date: 3 October
The AI Design Assistant allows you to automatically generate test questions based on selected items of module content, short descriptions, learning objectives or topics. The October release includes the option to be able to create banks of reusable questions using the design assistant.
Email notifications for followed discussions
Release date: 3 October
Students and lecturers can now choose to receive immediate email notifications for Discussion activity.
Turnitin Originality reports for Weblearn Assignments
AI Conversation – Socratic Questioning
New Weblearn module layout
Release date: 5-6 September
The new Weblearn module layout provides a clearer and more defined look and feel for students, and easier to use add and move content options for staff.
Student View
Staff View
Add MCQs to Ultra Documents with Knowledge Check
Release date: 5-6 September
‘Knowledge Check’ allows you to add multiple choice questions to Ultra Documents and create engaging, interactive content. Instructors can view the question results which display detailed metrics.
Students have unlimited attempts to answer the question. They can select an answer and receive immediate feedback on whether their answer is correct or incorrect.
Answer the question in the student view
Student Activity Log
Release date: 5-6 September
The Student Activity Log shows the past 140 days of student activity within a module including access dates for the following:
Module access
Assessment started, draft saved, submitted and auto-submitted
Turnitin assignment link (LTI item access) access
Discussion activity
Journal access
Note: the log is not updated in real time and it can take up to an hour for the data to display.
Gradebook – Overview tab
The new Gradebook Overview page provides quick access to submissions which need marking or are ready to be posted to students.
Originality Reports for Weblearn Assignments
Turnitin Originality Reports can now be embedded in Weblearn Assignments, allowing instructors to create online submissions that can accept multiple files and produce a similarity report for each text based file.
Each submitted file be processed by Turnitin, and the Similarity Match will be shown as a ‘pill’.
The image below shows the ‘0%’ match for a PowerPoint file, to see the match for the Word document, instructors need to click on the tab for the document.
If a submission file (eg an image or a .zip file) can’t be processed by Turnitin, the pill will display a warning message.
If the submission contains elements like inline text or images, all files will be rendered on one tab and the ‘pill’ will show next to each inline document.
AI Conversation
AI conversation is a new Participation and Engagement tool that allows instructors to provide a Socratic questioning exercise guided by AI. AI Conversation lets students explore their thoughts on a topic and are not meant to confirm or deny any student input.
Blackboard have redesigned the Ultra Documents to improve content design and presentation.
Documents will use ‘blocks’ which can be resized and positioned to create a more interesting layout.
The block types include:
Content block: add content using the content editor
HTML block: embed HTML content such as a Padlet
File upload block: upload files from your computer
Cloud upload block: upload files from OneDrive
Content Collection block: reuse files already uploaded to the module
Convert a file block: upload a file form your computer which will be converted into a Document Block. Supported file types include PDF, PowerPoint and Word.
Adding assessment instructions to Weblearn assignments has been made clearer and easier.
Print Tests
Release date: Already available on Weblearn.
Copies of Tests can be downloaded from the ‘Content and Setting’ page using the new ‘Print’ option. You can choose to either download the questions only, or include the correct answers on the downloaded file.
Note: if you have added a Question Pool to the test, the Pool cannot currently be included in the download.
Multiple performance criteria in release conditions
Release date: 6-8 May
Release conditions determine when students can view module content. Release conditions are on the content’s visibility setting on the module content page. Currently, you can set:
Which module members or groups have access;
When the module content is accessible, visible, and hidden;
When student performance is necessary for completing an assignment or scoring.
Instructors can now set more than one performance criteria per content item.
Image 1. Release condition panel with additional performance criteria selected
Make sure that you are familiar with the Online submission guidelines and the location in your module(s) where students should find their online submission points
Original modules: Online Submission content area
Ultra modules: Assessment component folder added to the Assessment folder
Are you using the right assessment tool for your purpose?
Check the Select Assessment tool guide to find out what tools are available at London Met.
Creating Weblearn and Turnitin Assignments in Ultra
Check out the guides if you’re new to online assessment in Ultra or need a reminder on how to set up groups and assignments.
Training sessions for Ultra modules, Original modules or a Panopto refresher are available for sign up at vletraining.eventbrite.co.uk
Ultra Session Recordings
If you can’t find a suitable time to attend a session or would like to review a session you have attended previously, the following session recordings are available on Panopto (login required)
2023-24 Weblearn modules and Modules Handbooks are now available
ULTRA and ORIGINAL Weblearn modules 2023/24
Modules for 2023/24 are now available for request on Weblearn. Modules need to be set up on Evision for 2023/24 to appear on Weblearn, if you can’t find your module in the request form, please check that it is on Evision before contacting Weblearn Support.
All L 3, 4 and 7 modules have been set up as Ultra module.
The module handbook template is now available, please use the template to update your handbook to make sure you are providing the correct information to students for 2023/24. The shared folder also contains example tables with teaching dates for each academic period to make it easier to update your Weekly Timetable on Weblearn.
To access the module request forms, log into Weblearn and click on
Institution page > Weblearn Help and Module Requests > Request Access to Modules and Course Sites
Once you have requested your 2023/24 modules, they will appear under ‘Upcoming Modules‘ and show as ‘Private’ until they become available to students one week before the start of teaching. You can edit the private modules as needed, but students won’t be able to access them until Sep 19th for YEAR and Autumn modules.
As part of the University Digital Transformation programme all academic staff and students will be moved to Microsoft 365 (M365) over the Easter break.
This means that none of the following Google Apps will be available to you after you have migrated to M365 and it’s very important that you are prepared for the change.
Google apps not available after migration:
Google Drive
Gmail and Calendar
Docs, Sheets and Slides
Contacts
Chat and Meet
Forms
Groups
You will already be familiar with many of the M365 apps available like Teams and MS Office. Once you have migrated all of your M365 apps and files stored on OneDrive can be accessed from one platform.
OneDrive: personal file storage
SharePoint: Teams files and institutional file storage
Outlook: email and calendar
Microsoft Forms
MS Office apps
Teams
Find our more about the project: Microsoft 365 (login required)
How does this affect Weblearn?
Google Drive files will be automatically transferred to OneDrive during the migration, but the file sharing options can not be transferred and need to be set up again in OneDrive.
A number of current Weblearn modules include links to shared Google files or forms which will stop working after the migration. This includes:
Weblinks and html links on Weblearn items to Google folders or files
Links to Google Forms
Google file links shared with staff by Students, eg for large file submission
Module leaders or content providers will need to replace Google file links with links to files stored on OneDrive or upload smaller files ( < 200 Mb) directly to Weblearn.
If your students have shared Google file links with you, you need to download the file to your OneDrive to retain access.
If your students submit files larger than 200Mb, they can’t be uploaded directly to Weblearn. Please instruct your students how to submit large files using OneDrive.
Previously students submitted those files via a link to their Student Google Drive. The Google links provided by students will not work after the migration, but students will retain access to their migrated file on OneDrive.
If your module contains an online submission via Google Drive and you need to retain access to the shared files, you need to download the files from Google Drive prior to the migration.
Any Google file shared as a link with students as a Weblink or on a Weblearn item will become unavailable to students after the migration. The files need to be moved to OneDrive prior to the migration and the link on Weblearn needs to be replaced with a shared OneDrive link.
If the file is no longer needed, remove the link to Google drive from your Weblearn module.
Essential files:
If the shared file should remain available to students, move the file to OneDrive, create a share link for the file and update the link in the Weblearn module.
Google file link shared in Announcement:
Old announcements do not need to be updated if the announcement is no longer relevant. If the Google Drive announcement link should still be available after the migration, please change the link to a file stored on OneDrive.
Sharing Google Forms
Google Forms can’t be migrated, but form data saved into a google sheet will be automatically transferred to a MS Excel file and stored on OneDrive during the migration.
If you are planning to use forms that need to be available to other users after the migration, you need to use M365 forms.
