New features and enhancements in Service Pack 8 (SP8) and Service Pack 9 (SP9)
New features and enhancements will be coming to the Bellevue University Blackboard in time for the Fall 2012 semester. The Bellevue University Blackboard team will be installing Service Pack 9 on Wednesday, August 22, 2012. Service Pack 9 (SP9) is cumulative and contains the enhancements and features of Service Pack 8 (SP8). Below is a explanation of the features and enhancements that will be available after the update to SP9:
(click on the thumbnail to open a screenshot in a new window or tab)
Enhancements (Changes):
Collapse Course Menu Behavior (SP9)
In response to user confusion around the collapsing course menu behavior, the course menu has been modified to only retain its collapsed state for the duration of the user session and on a per-course basis. When a user enters a course for the first time in a given login session, the menu will be expanded. If the user collapses the menu, it will stay collapsed for that course only, until either the user expands the menu again, or until the user's session ends.
Visual Text Box Editor (VTBE) and Math Editor
The new VTBE would provide state of the art web-based text editing, while supporting Blackboard Learn specific functionality such as mashups! The VTBE and Math editor are used by virtually every person who edits content for use in a course or organization within the Blackboard Learn platform. The VTBE will deliver a vastly improved experience for editing HTML and math equation content within Blackboard Learn. Continuing Blackboard’s support of industry standards, we are developing the new VTBE on an industry standard for web-based WYSIWYG editors – TinyMCE. The new Math Editor is being developed based on forward-looking technology provided by WIRIS.
New Features:
Course-to-Course Navigation (SP8)
When in a course, click the Action Link next to the course title to jump from course to course to access the same page/tool. For example, if you are in one course’s Grade Center, you can jump to the next course’s Grade Center easily to complete your grading tasks. As a student, you can jump from one course’s announcement page to another.
http://ondemand.blackboard.com/r91/movies/bb91_tools_course_to_course_nav.htm