We are excited to announce the launch of a new tool called Bb Annotate!
Blackboard developed Bb Annotate in response to client feedback on the current Box View that displays student Assignment submissions in the browser and allows for limited annotation and commenting.
Bb Annotate provides a more robust set of features so that you are able to customize feedback. Bb Annotate offers all of the basics provided by Box View, such as viewing a variety of file types directly in the browser (including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, JPEG, PNG, PDF), adding drawings, and commenting. That is just the beginning, though.
Among its many new features, Bb Annotate offers:
- the ability to comment at a specific point or by highlighting the text
- a sidebar summary view of all text comments
- additional options for highlighting and marking up text (including color, strikethrough, underline, and squiggle)
- customizable tools for freehand drawing (including color, thickness, and opacity)
- shapes such as arrow, rectangle, ellipse, and more
- customizable stamps and images
The most powerful feature is the new Content Library. This allows you to create a bank of reusable comments for frequent feedback you provide. You can add, edit, delete, and search comments in the library and then use those comments in any course you teach.
Learn more about Bb Annotate in the following video, or attend an upcoming workshop.
Bb Annotate will become available the week of May 25, 2020 for both Original Course and Ultra Course View. Existing annotations and comments made in Box View will be converted to the new format and will be removable but no longer editable.
In the future, Blackboard plans to make Bb Annotate available for other assessment types, such as Tests, and as a more user-friendly a replacement for the whiteboard in Blackboard Collaborate.
