Welcome to the Blackboard Mailbag, where we feature a commonly asked question that has been hitting our mailbox recently: blackboard@fordham.edu. You’ll find an archive of all of the previous questions and answers on our fordham.edu/blackboard website.
Note: Features may change with future updates.
We’re excited to kick off the second year of the Blackboard Mailbag! Whether you’re a returning reader or joining us for the first time, this weekly blog is your go-to resource for answering the most frequently asked Blackboard questions from our faculty community.
This year, we’re adding even more tips and tricks to help you get the most out of Blackboard, enhance your online teaching experience, and streamline course management.
What’s New This Year?
In addition to responding to your questions, we’ll be expanding our content to include:
Best Practices: Discover new ways to organize your course, engage students, and leverage Blackboard’s tools to make your teaching more effective.
Feature Spotlights: Get an in-depth look at some of the lesser-known tools and functions within Blackboard that can save you time and effort.
Seasonal Guides: Timely tips for preparing your course materials, grading efficiently, and keeping students on track throughout the academic year.
This semester, we’re kicking things off with a round-up of new Blackboard features introduced since the spring, along with a special spotlight on the Blackboard AI Design Assistant—a powerful tool that helps you streamline course design and improve student engagement.
Stay tuned for tips, best practices, and answers to the questions that matter most to you throughout the semester!
What’s new to Blackboard since the spring semester?
If you haven’t explored the Idea Exchange yet, we highly recommend checking it out, especially if you have feedback on specific features or suggestions for new ones. The Idea Exchange is Blackboard’s platform for tracking and managing enhancement requests. You can upvote ideas, see development plans, and track the status of features being researched or implemented. Note, you’ll need to create an account to access it, but it’s a great way to have your voice heard in shaping future updates.
Now, onto a list of some of those new features and improvements!
- Hide unenrolled students from Gradebook [Students who drop the course cannot be deleted from the course. For more on Fordham Blackboard’s policy on enrollments please see the Faculty EdTech Handbook]
- Enhanced Document design for layout of content
- Improvements to creating assignments
- Assessments can now be printed (as well as answer keys)
- Add question feedback when grading a test by question
- Forms now support anonymous responses
- Multiple rules for release conditions
Bb AI Design Assistant
- Course structure suggestions
- Discussion generation
- Journal generation
- Rubric generation
- Assignment prompt generation
- Test question generation
- Question Bank generation
- Insert or generate images
Don’t forget—you can sign up for a workshop this semester through our Techshop Calendar, where we offer hands-on sessions covering a range of tools and topics. If you have specific questions or need personalized assistance, you can also schedule a one-on-one meeting with us using the EdTech Consultation Calendar.
For additional FAQs and resources about Blackboard, visit fordham.edu/blackboard, attend one of our workshops, sign up to meet with us on our EdTech Consultation Calendar via Zoom, or reach out to us with your availability and we will work with you to accommodate small groups and one-on-one sessions.
Have feedback or suggestions on features? Blackboard’s parent company Anthology hosts The Idea Exchange. This is a place specifically for Blackboard to track and manage enhancement requests. It allows for things like upvoting ideas and sharing development plans and statuses. You will need to create an account to access the Idea Exchange.