What's New in Blackboard 6.3?
Here are some of the key changes:
Blackboard 6.3 Animated Tutorials - Require Flash Player
1. Changes to how information is displayed or how you can allow students to navigate your course:
- Only Course Titles are displayed in the My Courses and Courses: Quick View panels.
- Navigation Panel: You can now expand or contract the navigation panel to adjust its size. Simply hold the mouse over the border on the right side of the navigation panel till an arrow pointer appears. Click and drag with this pointer till the navigation panel is the desired size.
- Communication, Course Tools and the Course Map have been combined in a single Tools box.
2. Features to help faculty build a course site:
- Syllabus Builder: Blackboard 6.3 provides a template that allows you to quickly and easily create a syllabus for your course in any content area. You can also modify the look and feel of the page as desired.
- Glossary Builder : You can now create a course specific glossary containing all the key terms for your course.
3. Enhanced features for quizzes:
- Randomize Multiple Choice: Instructors have the option of randomizing the answers in multiple choice questions. The answers are randomized for each assessment attempt, which helps prevent cheating.
- New assessment questions: A wide variety of question options are now available for online quizzes including numeric response, hot spot, jumbled sentence, either/or, and Likert Scale.
- Survey and Assessment Response Downloads: Downloaded assessment attempts now include all questions in the assessment. Survey results download in the same manner as assessments.
- Assessment Completion Status: Students can skip questions if they wish to in a question-by-question assessment and return to them later. The Completion Status bar will display the questions they have attempted and the ones they skipped. This feature only works if Prohibit backtracking is turned off.
4. Enhanced features for the grade book:
- Partial credit: You can assign partial credit to responses in some question types when creating online assessments. If partial credit is allowed, each incorrect answer can specify what percentage of the total points should be given for that answer.
- Gradebook Null Option: New option to exclude untaken or ungraded items when calculating the Total and Weighted Total.
4. New features for language support:
- Adaptive Release: Instructors can display content to certain users for a limited period of time, or only after users meet (or fail to meet) predetermined requirements. Adaptive release allows an instructor to create custom learning paths through course content and activities. Content items, discussions, assessments, assignments, or other activities can be released to students based on a set of criteria including: date and time, specific users, group membership, grades or attempts on a particular test or assignment, or Review Status of another item in the course.
- Multi-Language Support: Courses can now be offered completely in Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, and Portuguese. To change the locale (language) for your course, go into the Control Panel and choose Settings and then Choose Locale.
5. Enhanced feature for course site analysis:
- Performance Dashboard: This is a course tool that allows instructors to see key information and outcomes for all course users. It displays the last time users logged in, their course role, content availability by user based on Adaptive Release criteria, Review Status for content items, and a direct link to the Gradebook: User Grade List page for individual users.
- Review Status: If Review is enabled for a content item, users see a Mark Reviewed icon from the course view. When users have completed their review of the item, they click on the Mark Reviewed button. The item then displays a Reviewed icon. The instructor can view progress from the Performance Dashboard or the User Progress page in the Control Panel.
