What's New in Blackboard on laptop screen - Laptop sitting on desk with hands touching keyboard - Huskie dog on flower pot and coffee cup in background on desk

What’s New in Blackboard – Fall 2025

News, Technology Trends, Web Tools

Blackboard released several updates over the past few months aimed at improving teaching and learning. Below we’ve outlined the most significant updates. Additional information can be found on the Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning’s Blackboard Updates page. For more information on Blackboard updates or to request support with using Blackboard in your courses, please contact the Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning.  

Achievements 

Blackboard Achievements New Badge Screen with Icons and Preview of BadgeAchievements are course-level badges that can be created to motivate students and recognize accomplishments. Improvements this spring and summer increased the usability of the tool. Achievements can now be copied across courses when completing a full course copy. (Note: this feature is not available for granular copying.) Additionally, instructors can now view achievements in Student Preview Mode. In July, Anthology released the most significant update to the tool, enabling instructors to retroactively assign achievements. If a student earned the required score on an item prior to the creation of the achievement, for example, the badge will automatically be issued once an achievement has been paired with the assessment!

Assessments 

When it comes to assessments, the Jumbled Sentence question type has been added to Blackboard Ultra. This format requires students to select the correct sequence of words or phrases to complete a sentence, providing an interactive option for testing comprehension.

Screenshot of Item Management page demonstrating how to bulk change item categories

In addition to this new question type, Blackboard has also introduced updates to assessment settings. Instructors now have the option to chose “no category” within the settings, and they can also streamline grading by making bulk changes to assessment categories directly from the item management page in the gradebook.

Ultra Documents 

Image of cat with text above the picture demonstrating the captions feature. Text says, "Tabby is one of the most common fur patterns in cats."

Several new features aimed at improving visual design and user experience are now available in Ultra Documents. Dividers can be added to distinguish visually between sections or items. Users can also add captions to images to provide context or citation information, and they can appear above or below the image. 

Perhaps the most exciting update to Ultra Documents is the ability to use the AI Design Assistant to generate document layouts. The Design Assistant can help improve the layout, suggest images, add headings, and generate knowledge check questions. As with all AI in Blackboard, instructors can choose to keep, regenerate, or remove the suggestions. 

Teams Integration in Blackboard 

Screenshot of Microsoft Education LTI highling plus button used to add the item to a Blackboard course

Last but not least, a new Microsoft Teams LTI was released this summer. The option to integrate your Blackboard course with Teams from the Details and Actions panel has been removed. Now, instructors will need to use the Microsoft Education Integration to create a course Team or to use the Teams meeting scheduler. You can find detailed instructions on CITL’s Teaching and Learning with Blackboard page.  

Resources 

Visit CITL’s Teaching and Learning with Blackboard site for guides, tutorials, and more information on updates. For support, you can contact CITL at 815-753-0595 or at citl@niu.edu. Questions can also be submitted via our website.

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