IT News and Updates:
Posted 2/4/25
Artificial Intelligence Functionality in Academic Technology
FeedbackFruits Presents Acai: Pedagogy Driven AI for Enhanced Learning and Teaching
Feedback Fruits has introduced new artificial intelligence features under its Acai platform. Available in the Automated Feedback tool, Writing Coach, provides real-time, AI-powered writing feedback, helping students refine their papers and improve their writing skills before submission. Available in the Peer Review and Group Member Evaluation, Feedback Coach, analyzes peer feedback and provides guidance to aid student skill development and foster a culture of constructive feedback and collaboration. Available in the Interactive Video, Document and Audio tools, Engagement Assistant turns passive learning into active learning by creating pedagogically driven question cards and discussion prompts, saving faculty time and enhancing student engagement across various teaching formats.
Interested in adding these tools and features to your course? Review the How to Add a FeedbackFruits Activity to a Blackboard course Knowledge Base article.
Conversations with Intelligence: Using Blackboard's AI Conversation Tool in Your Course
Students are often able to deepen their understanding of a topic simply by articulating their thoughts in a conversation, but who has time for one-on-one conversations with every student about every topic? That's where Blackboard's new AI Conversation tool can help! With this tool, you can create AI Conversations around a topic or scenario to engage your students. AI Conversations include Socratic questioning and role play exercises. Students can explore and reflect on their own thoughts or role play a situation related to their learning or career path. You, as the instructor, can then review these conversations and grade them if you wish. Join this workshop to see how this tool works and to share ideas with colleagues about possible use cases for your courses.
Interested in adding this tool to your course? Review the General Information for AI Conversation Tool in Blackboard which includes resources for using the tool from the faculty and student experience.
Single Sign On Now Available for Qualtrics
To set up an account for Qualtrics, you no longer need to request access through a service request. You can now simply browse to
https://qualtrics.sacredheart.edu and log in using your regular Sacred Heart account. If you are already logged into MySHU in your browser, you may not even be prompted to log into Qualtrics. You will simply accept the license agreement and you’re ready to go. For Instructors leveraging Qualtrics in your course, your students can create their own Qualtrics accounts in the same way. Simply provide a link to
https://qualtrics.sacredheart.edu in your Blackboard course and they can create their own accounts as needed. Access is automatically granted for the remainder of the academic year.
If you have a Qualtrics account with the University that is not single sign on, keep an eye out for communication from Academic Technology to learn more about moving to the new Qualtrics instance.
Blackboard Updates for January 2025
On January 9, 2025, Blackboard released the newest updates to the Learning Management System. Below are highlights from the update, and a full overview can be reviewed on the Technology Tutorials resource page.
Make Course Available to Students
The process for making a course available to students has been moved from the course landing page into the course settings. For detailed instructions for how to make the course available, please review the knowledge base article available in the IT Self-Service Portal.
Automatic Zeros Default to Off in the Gradebook for New Courses
With the new update to Blackboard, you may need to enable the automatic zero feature for missed assignments.
- In the gradebook tab of the course select the gradebook settings icon located in the top right.
- Scroll down to the Automatic Zeros section, and select the option for Assign automatic zeros for past due work.
- Select Save at the bottom to save your changes.
Direct Grade Entry for Assignments from the Grid View
Instructors can now enter assignment grades directly in the Grid view or Submissions page with improved accuracy and consistency. Previously, grades entered in these views were stored at the override level, which caused confusion as underlying attempts remained ungraded and continued to display the Needs Grading and New Submission flags.
Attempt Submitted Added to Release Conditions
Instructors can now use item submission status for a release condition. For example, an instructor who wants students to access a document only after submitting a quiz would use a release condition. Students can access content items without needing to wait for a grade to be posted.