Blackboard's August Update Redesigns Grading, Navigation, and Group Tools
A quick rundown of what's new for faculty & students
Blackboard's August update is one of the bigger releases we've seen in a while, touching grading, navigation, assessments, and course workflows all at once. Here's what's changing, organized by where you'll notice it first.
Grading & the Gradebook
The biggest change in this release is a rebuilt Gradebook Grid View. Since the gradebook is where most instructors spend the most time in Blackboard each week, this one's worth knowing: instructors get a reorganized layout and a new way to manage grading tasks, arranged so you spend less time hunting for the right cell and more time actually grading.
Image 1: Example of redesigned Blackboard gradebook featuring streamlined grid view
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Learn more: Redesigned Blackboard Gradebook Hub
- Sign up: Navigate the New Gradebook (8.14 or 8.19)
Navigation & Course Content
Blackboard also reworked how students and instructors move through course content. The four changes below are small individually, but they touch every course, every day. Faculty and students alike should notice fewer wrong turns and mis-clicks once they adjust:
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Full pages, not panels: Learning modules, folders, and individual items (documents, assessments, links) now open as full pages instead of sliding panels.
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Breadcrumbs: New breadcrumbs on content pages show exactly where you are within a course's module and folder structure.
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A clearer exit: The purple "X" for closing content is replaced with a labeled exit option in the navigation banner.
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Home button, redefined: Selecting Home from inside a course now takes you to the Courses page.
Image 2: Content now opens as a full page with consistent headers and breadcrumb navigation, rather than as stacked overlay panels. The exit option now sits within the navigation banner, reducing accidental page closure.
Assessments & Student Engagement
Two changes aim to help students stay focused and on schedule: a new focus state reduces the chance a student wanders off mid-quiz, and a new to-do list gives students one place to see what's due, which may mean fewer "I didn't know this was due" emails in your inbox.
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Focus state for tests and assignments: When students begin a test or assignment, navigation and visual distractions minimize automatically. Grading and assessment functionality don't change, and students can still navigate away if they need to.
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A student to-do list: A new "Your Top To Dos" component on the Courses page surfaces up to five of a student's most urgent, deadline-driven tasks across all their active courses.
Workflow & Collaboration Tools
A handful of updates cut down on repetitive setup work for faculty running content-heavy or group-based courses. None of these change what you can do in Blackboard, but they change how long it takes to do it, and for anyone managing group projects or long-running discussion boards, that adds up:
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Duplicate content items: Instructors can now duplicate items directly on the Course Content page, retaining all original content and settings (LTI items aren't supported for duplication).
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Faster group setup: Drag and drop now manages group membership, and instructors can create multiple groups at once instead of one at a time. This is a real time-saver in large courses.
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Discussion sorting: Instructors and students can sort discussion posts newest-first or oldest-first. The chosen order is remembered per discussion, applies to nested replies, and works the same on mobile.
Image 3: Instructors can drag and drop students to assign them to a group.
Also New This Release
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Export question banks: Instructors can export a question bank to their local device to back up content or share it for reuse across courses.
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Targeted answer feedback: Students now see answer-level feedback only for the multiple-choice options they selected. Instructors still enter feedback for all options the same way.
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Journal-based release conditions: Instructors can set release conditions based on a journal's submission status, supporting more personalized learning pathways.
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Automation sender control: Anyone with automation editing permissions can now set who automated messages appear to come from, separate from who authored the automation.
When can you expect the update?
Faculty should see the latest updates in their Ultra courses around August 8, 2026. The next update to our Ultra test environment will take place on August 11, 2026; release notes will be posted to the What's New in Ultra page. Faculty who are interested in test driving new features before they are released to production should open an RT ticket to request early access. Please watch the FAQs, including the What's New with Ultra page, and myUMBC for additional information about Blackboard.
For additional information about the latest updates to Ultra, and to get a sneak peek at upcoming releases, please register for our Discover What’s New in Blackboard for Teaching & Learning FA2026, scheduled for Wednesday, August 12, 2026.
Connect with Instructional Technology
As always, if you have any questions about teaching, learning, and technology at UMBC, please consider the following options:
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Follow the Instructional Technology & DoIT myUMBC groups
Posted: August 7, 2026, 3:31 PM
