Ultra: What's new in the Ultra Experience?
UMBC's Blackboard receives monthly updates as part of Blackboard's continuous delivery model. As a software industry standard practice, continuous delivery updates are small, may include maintenance, enhancements and/or new features, and are delivered on a more frequent and consistent basis. Read the latest news about Ultra updates at myUMBC.
This page lists the monthly updates. If you are looking for specific features, please see: What tools are available in an Ultra course? or Is Ultra right for me?
The most recent updates are posted at the top of this page.
July 2, 2026 (v4000.19)
Functional Area | Feature | About | Learn More |
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Functional Area | Feature | About | Learn More |
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Reporting | Rubric evaluation report | Instructors can now run a Rubric Evaluation Report directly from the gradebook for any graded activity that has a rubric associated with it. This report aggregates rubric data across all student submissions, giving instructors a clear picture of how students are performing against each rubric criterion. | |
Communication & Engagement | Discussion description field | Discussions and Journals now include a dedicated Description field, creating a clearer way to communicate context before students engage with an activity. The prompt no longer appears on the Course Content page. Instructors can use the description to set expectations and reserve the prompt for the engagement question or task itself. | |
Communication & Engagement | Preview existing message thread | When a user starts a message and adds recipients, the existing conversation with those participants loads automatically, so the user can quickly verify the recipient and context of past messages with that recipient. Longer conversations are accessible by scrolling or a See previous messages link that loads the full history. | |
AI Tools | Set time limits for AI Conversations | Instructors can now manage the duration of AI Conversations by setting a time limit. They can choose between two time-limit options, depending on whether they want to time the whole assessment or only the conversation itself. |
Updates in July include:
Users can now view their favorite courses directly within the Course Switcher, reducing the need to return to the Courses page. The Course Switcher now includes a Favorites tab that surfaces courses marked as favorites on the Courses page.
Instructors can now add their own content to folders and learning modules that originate from the Learning Object Repository (LOR). Instructor-added items are fully editable and behave like standard course content — instructors can update titles, descriptions, body content, visibility, release conditions, and other settings at any time. Changes to instructor-added items apply only to that course and do not affect the LOR source or any other associated course.
June 4, 2026 (v4000.17)
Functional Area | Feature | About | Learn More |
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Functional Area | Feature | About | Learn More |
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Assessments | Answer-level feedback | When creating or editing a multiple choice or multiple answer question, instructors can turn on Option Feedback, which prompts Feedback textboxes to appear beneath each answer option. Instructors can enter the answer options and feedback for any of the options. | |
Assessments | Lock answer in fixed position
| Instructors can now lock specific answer options in a fixed position so they remain in place when other options are randomized. This is useful for answer choices such as "None of the above" or "All of the above" that should always appear at the end of the list regardless of randomization settings. | |
Grading | Rubric usability improvements | Several usability improvements are available for rubrics:
Grades entered in the rubric grade pill update the attempt grade immediately. |
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Updates in June include:
Istructors can now check which announcements a student has read or not read on the new Announcements tab of the Student Overview page.
The Learning Object Repository (LOR) now supports Folders and Learning Modules. When synchronized to a course, Folders and Learning Modules are read-only with Title, Description, Thumbnail (including alternative text), and visibility locked.
May 7, 2026 (v4000.15)
Functional Area | Feature | About | Learn More |
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Functional Area | Feature | About | Learn More |
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User Management | Groups Management | Blackboard redesigned Groups management to significantly improve usability, performance, and flexibility for instructors. This update addresses long‑standing challenges with creating, organizing, and managing groups, especially in large courses, and delivers a clearer, faster, and more consistent experience across group types. Idea Exchange ID: Not applicable | Create and Manage Groups (instructor) Review release notes for instructors
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Grading | Discussion Due Date | The second due date for Discussions now appears in the Gradebook's Overview and Gradable Items pages, allowing instructors to be more aware of and responsive to student discussions needing grading. Idea Exchange ID: Not applicable | |
Content Management | Release Conditions | Instructors can now view release conditions inherited from a parent learning module or folder directly within the release conditions panel of individual items. Inherited conditions appear in a read-only format, giving instructors a clear picture of all conditions that apply to an item, including those set directly on the item and those cascading from a parent container. This update also ensures that discussions hidden within a learning module are no longer accessible from the Discussions tab. Discussions now respect the release conditions applied at the learning module level. Idea Exchange ID: LEARNU-I-3969 | |
Course Management | Search function in Course Switcher | The Course Switcher now includes a search box that allows users to quickly find and open any course they have access to. Instead of browsing the full Courses page, users can open the Course Switcher, search by course name or course ID and navigate directly to the selected course. Idea Exchange ID: Not applicable | |
Assessments | Answer-level feedback Postponed | When creating or editing a multiple choice or multiple answer question, instructors can turn on Option Feedback, which prompts Feedback textboxes to appear beneath each answer option. Instructors can enter the answer options and feedback for any of the options. | |
Assessments | Lock answer in fixed position Postponed | Instructors can now lock specific answer options in a fixed position so they remain in place when other options are randomized. This is useful for answer choices such as "None of the above" or "All of the above" that should always appear at the end of the list regardless of randomization settings. | |
Course Management | Guest access Postponed | Blackboard supports built‑in guest access for Ultra courses, allowing users to browse course content from the Course Catalog without being enrolled in the course. This enhancement allows students to review available courses and understand course structure before enrolling. Use cases include:
Courses must be open to be visible to guests; closed or future courses do not appear in the guest catalog. Guest access is set by the system admin. |
Additional updates in May include:
Blackboard refined spacing and layout behavior in Documents to reduce unnecessary vertical white space and improve overall readability and visual balance. These updates improve the presentation of content items, including images within content blocks, and apply consistently when editing existing content, creating new content, or using AI‑generated layouts.
The group filter selected in the Gradebook grid view now carries over into Flexible Grading. Instructors who filter by a group in the Gradebook will find only the students from that group when they enter Flexible Grading, and the active group filter is displayed within the Flexible Grading view. This update reduces the need to re-filter after switching views and keeps instructors focused on the most relevant students for their current grading task.
April 2, 2026 (v4000.12)
Functional Area | Feature | About | Learn More |
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Functional Area | Feature | About | Learn More |
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Communication & Engagement | Multiple Due Dates | When instructors create a discussion with two due dates and participation requirements, both sets of requirements appear on the Course Content page, Discussion pages, the Gradebook student and instructor views, and the instructor’s Discussion analysis panel. Students can track expectations throughout the workflow without navigating back to the discussion itself. | |
Communication & Engagement | AI Conversation Message Limits | Instructors can now guide the length of AI‑supported conversations, including Socratic Questioning, by setting message limits. These controls help students understand when to complete an interaction and keep conversations focused on the intended learning activity. | |
Communication & Engagement | Improved Images in Announcements | Announcement emails now show images, which gives users a clearer preview of announcement content. When users select a thumbnail, the system opens the original announcement so they can read it with full context. | NA |
Communication & Engagement | Discussion Analysis Labels | Student posts and replies now have Substantive Content and Non-substantive Content labels in the instructor discussion analysis page. Green highlights include a Substantive Content label. Red highlights include a Non‑substantive Content label. The labels appear consistently across the analysis panel and meet accessibility requirements. | Create Discussions (Instructor) View Discussion Performance and Analytics |
Assessments | Specify assignment submission type | When creating or editing an assignment, instructors can define the expected submission type to guide how students submit their work. Selecting a specific submission type streamlines the student experience and reduces ambiguity about what is required. Instructors can select one or more expected submission types when configuring an assignment:
By default, File upload and Text entry are both selected. The selected submission type is visible in assignment settings and student‑facing details. Instructors can change the selected submission type until students have started submitting attempts. Students are informed of the expected submission type and see a submission workflow optimized for that format. | |
Gradebook | Adjust grades for individual student attempts within grade submissions | Instructors can override a group attempt score for individual group members directly from the grading interface. The interface clearly indicates when grades differ across group members, and adjustments can be removed by restoring a student’s grade to match the group attempt score. | NA |
Additional updates in April include:
Blackboard improved how student names appear in Flexible Grading. The name display format is now linked to the selected sort order. By default, student names are now shown as Surname, First Name to help instructors quickly locate students. When sorting by First Name (ascending or descending), names display as First Name Surname.
Based on instructor feedback, Blackboard made several improvements to multiple-choice and mulitple answer questions:
For the multiple-choice question, the default number of answer options a student can select is modified from 4 to 1.
When creating or editing a multiple-choice or multiple-answer question, instructors can change the number of answer options that a student can select.
Multiple choice answer options alphabetical labels (A, B, C, D) have also been restored.
Blackboard increased the SafeAssign file size limit to 25 MB for DirectSubmit submissions. This change supports larger documents that include images, tables, and complex formatting, reducing submission issues for students.
Automations now copy when courses are copied, restored, or imported. Automations are always copied in an inactive state and must be reviewed and activated in the destination course.
The Learning Object Repository (LOR) will support the Institutional Hierarchy, allowing UMBC to create dedicated content with delegated ownership, clearer governance, and granular control for colleges and departments. Objects can be filtered by type (e.g., documents or files). Any objects created or uploaded to the LOR are scanned by Ally for accessibility. With this structure in place, UMBC will begin exploring how best to deploy this functionality to the campus.
System admins can now retain activity data for Assignments during the Bulk Copy and Convert conversion process from Original to Ultra. This enhancement allows students to access their historical assignment submissions and instructor feedback in converted Ultra courses.
March 5, 2026 (v4000.10)
Functional Area | Feature | About | Learn More |
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Functional Area | Feature | About | Learn More |
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Content Creation & Management | Generate Knowledge Checks with AI | Instructors can now generate multiple choice Knowledge Checks in Documents using AI. Questions are created based on document content and selected course items, and instructors can choose and edit the generated options. Existing manual Knowledge Check workflows remain unchanged. | Idea Exchange ID: Not applicable |
Communication & Engagement | Add 2nd participation requirement & due date in discussions | Instructors can now set two separate due dates with distinct participation requirements for Discussions, offering clearer expectations and more structured engagement. Students benefit from transparent progress tracking and updated indicators as they complete requirements across both due dates. | Create Discussions (Instructor) Idea Exchange ID: Not applicable |
Assessments | Partial Credit Update | Partial credit values for answer options no longer need to total 100%. Instructors can assign values freely within the allowed range, and the system continues to provide warnings without blocking setup. Existing behaviors for negative marking and regrading remain supported. | Idea Exchange ID: Not applicable |
Grading | Anonymous Grading by Question | Flexible Grading now supports anonymous grading in Question View. Student names, avatars, and IDs are replaced with anonymous identifiers while grading. All actions available in non‑anonymous Question View remain available in anonymous mode. | NA Idea Exchange ID: Not applicable |
Assessments | SafeAssign File Increase | SafeAssign now supports submissions up to 25 MB, reducing failures caused by the previous size restriction and better accommodating larger documents with complex formatting. Support for the same 25 MB limit in Direct Submit is planned for April. | Idea Exchange ID: Not applicable |
Assessments | SafeAssign Metadata | SafeAssign now includes a new metadata analysis layer within the Originality Report. In addition to traditional text matching, instructors can access contextual insights in the new Document Properties section in the report summary. | Idea Exchange ID: Not applicable |
Additional updates in March include:
Course Messages now automatically organizes new messages into existing conversations or creates a new one when needed. Learn more.
The Question Title field now appears only when the metadata option is enabled when creating a Test. This update reduces accidental use of the title field when instructors only intend to enter question text. The workflow remains consistent with other optional metadata fields.
February 13, 2026 (v4000.8)
Functional Area | Feature | About | Learn More |
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Functional Area | Feature | About | Learn More |
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Course Content | Stack blocks vertically in Ultra Documents | Instructors can stack blocks in a single column in Documents to create cleaner layouts and reduce whitespace. A new toggle in the block toolbar allows switching between column-level and block-level editing. In column mode, actions apply to the entire column. In block mode, instructors can resize, move, or delete individual blocks. Columns can also be dropped into another block’s area for more flexible layouts. These changes work with existing features such as undo/redo, printing, and AI layout generation. This enhancement also includes accessibility improvements for screen readers. | N/A Idea Exchange ID: LEARNU-I-5104 |
Engagement | Automations remind students to check their feedback | Instructors can create automations that send a message to students who have unread feedback after an instructor-defined number of days. This feature saves time by automatically encouraging students to review their feedback, promoting student engagement. | For more information, check: Automations Idea Exchange ID: Not applicable |
Additional updates in February include:
For students, the Achievements tab displays a count of unread badges, and the New pill will consistently show in the Earned and To Earn sections.
Screen readers will provide clearer descriptions for buttons and image previews. Aria-labels and alt-text are consistent across views. Tooltips were added to buttons for better context. Decorative images are marked correctly, and fallback alt-text is provided for custom images.
Additional updates to Blackboard provide functionality for System Admins.
January 8, 2026 (v4000.6)
Functional Area | Feature | About | Learn More |
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Functional Area | Feature | About | Learn More |
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Course Management | Redesigned course navigation |
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Course Design | Usability improvements for Ultra Doc layouts | Blackboard restructured the menu for document block layout, organizing by type of change (row, size, and position). Selecting the edit icon for a block prompts a menu with three options: Change row, Change [block/column] size, and Change [block/column] position. Each of these options have a sub-menu, with the related actions.
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Assessment
| Expanded question options for true/false | Blackboard expanded the display options for true/false questions to include:
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Additional updates in January include:
To reduce setup time when creating a multiple choice question, Blackboard changed the default number of answer options from three to four. Instructors can add or remove answer options.
Instructors can now define the number of answer selections that a student can make for each multiple choice question. When the student takes the assessment, the system enforces the instructor’s selection limit.
Blackboard optimized rendering of MCQ and True/False questions, significantly improving load times for large tests. For example, a 200-question test now loads in ~5 seconds, down from ~25 seconds, which equates to an 80% improvement.
Instructors can now access an activity log for each automation in their courses. The activity log lists the action date and time the automation was triggered and identifies the student and item that triggered it. This feature gives all instructors in the course visibility into when automations occur and which students receive automated messages.
View previous updates to the Ultra Experience.