New group enhancements scheduled for December Ultra update

Ungraded assignments also coming this month

Managing large numbers of students and groups is an important tool in Blackboard. In the current version of Ultra, faculty had to create assignments and discussions before they could create and attach a group to the graded activity. With the December update, the Groups Set tool is enhanced to allow faculty to create groups before attaching them to assignments.

An additional enhancement to the groups tool will also allow faculty to assign students to a group if they are not already in one or move a student to a different group. This setting addresses an important need when students join a class after a group activity has started or if they do not join a self-enrolled group by an appointed deadline.

Example of moving student to a different Ultra group

Note: Group Sets still do not have a bulk student enrollment option. We have reported this as a priority need to the Ultra developers. Self-enroll is not available for Group Sets.

With the December update, faculty can create ungraded assignments. The existing workaround required using a zero-point test question; the upgrade to assignments now allows faculty to set the entire assignment to zero points.

The next Blackboard Learn update will be posted to our test site around December 10th and pushed to production in early February 2020. Faculty who are interested in test driving new features before they are released to production should open an RT ticket to request early access.

As always, if you have any questions, please consider the following options: