The new features in this month’s Blackboard’s upgrade will be available from Friday 5th September. This month’s upgrade includes the following new/improved features to Ultra courses:
- Enhance Documents with block styling options
- Add and manage question titles in tests, forms, and banks
In addition, and as previously announced, the following changes will take effect from Monday 8th September:
- End of Life: Padlet LTI NILE integration
- End of Life: Assist tab in main NILE menu
- End of Life: LearnSci LTI 1.1 links
Enhance Documents with block styling options
When creating or editing a Document content item, instructors are now able to style blocks on the page using built-in icons that have been designed by the Blackboard team to enhance visual appeal and direct student attention.
The option to add one of the new styles is available from the block menu as shown in the screenshot below.
The styles available are Question, Tip, Key points, and Next steps. The results of each are demonstrated in sequence in the following image.
More information about creating Documents can be found on the Blackboard Help website: Creating Documents
Add and manage question titles in tests, forms, and question banks
Instructors can optionally utilise titles when creating or editing questions in tests, forms, and question banks on a course. Students will not see the titles when taking tests. The main purpose of this new feature is to help instructors locate previously created questions for reuse in other tests or forms.
End of Life: Padlet LTI NILE integration
Important Note: Padlet itself is NOT being removed – only the method of sharing Padlets with students is changing.
On the 8th of September 2025 Padlet will be removed from the Content Market in NILE, meaning that all links to existing Padlets which have been embedded in NILE courses via the Content Market will stop working and will become automatically hidden from students.
UON staff can continue to use Padlet with their students, but staff will now need to access Padlet via https://uon1.padlet.org (selecting ‘Continue with Microsoft’ and entering their UON username and password) and share their Padlets in NILE via web links rather than using the Content Market. No other Padlet functionality will be affected, and students will not need to login to Padlet to be able to contribute to Padlets that have been linked from NILE courses using web links.
More information about logging in, setting up and using Padlet is available from: Learning Technology Team – Padlet
More information about creating web links in NILE courses is available from: Blackboard Help – Web Links
End of Life: Assist tab in main NILE menu
Blackboard have recently announced the end of life for the Assist tab which appears in the main NILE menu and which provides students with information about University support services, etc. The Assist tab will be removed from NILE on the 8th of September 2025.
In order to provide students with information in NILE about the University’s support services, the information which currently appears in the Assist tab now appears in all 25/26 programme and module-level NILE courses in an item called ‘Help and support for UON students’*. In programme-level courses this is in the ‘My programme’ area of the course and in module-level courses this is in the ‘About this module’ area of the course.
Please note that the ‘Help and support for UON students’ item cannot be edited by staff as it is managed and maintained centrally.
*In courses taught by partners the item is called ‘Help and support for students studying with partner institutions’ and only includes information relevant to partner students.
End of Life: LearnSci LTI 1.1 links
Following on from LearnSci’s implementation of the LTI 1.3 method of adding LearnSci resources to NILE Ultra courses, LearnSci have advised that resources added using the old LTI 1.1 method will stop working on 8th September 2025. LearnSci resources added to Ultra courses using the LTI 1.1 method will have been added via ‘+ Create > Teaching tools with LTI connection’, whereas resources added via the LTI 1.3 method will have been added using ‘+ Content Market > LearnSci’.
A LearnSci resource added using the LTI 1.1 will look like the first link in the screenshots below, with the rocket next to the title. A LearnSci resource added using the LTI 1.3 will look like the second link, with the LearnSci icon next to the title. Once the LTI 1.1 is switched off the old links will appear to staff with a ‘This link is broken’ message and will be automatically hidden from students. LTI 1.3 links will be unaffected.
All LearnSci resources added using the LTI 1.1 will be fully functional until the end of August 2025. Where staff are using LearnSci resources for the 25/26 academic year they will need to ensure that when new NILE courses are being set up that any old LTI 1.1 links that have been copied over are removed and replaced with new 1.3 links. If staff want LearnSci resources to be available to students in old NILE courses any 1.1 links will need to be replaced with 1.3 links.
More information
As ever, please get in touch with your learning technologist if you would like any more information about the new features available in this month’s upgrade: Who is my learning technologist?
