What's new in Blackboard 8?

A Smarter Blackboard Grade Center™

Our newly redesigned Gradebook now enables teachers to focus on teaching, not data entry. New features include in-cell editing, grading periods, smart views and progress reports.  Flash video overview

Facilitating Self and Peer Assessments

Self and peer assessment features help facilitate student group work for faculty. Created by a client, Self Evaluation enables students to review and grade their own assessments by following criteria set by their instructor. With Peer Evaluation, students can review work submitted by their peers using specific criteria, compare their responses and offer constructive criticism. Flash tutorial

Social Learning Network Expands Further with Scholar™

Blackboard Scholar™ is now integrated into the Blackboard Learning System – Basic License. This innovative social bookmarking feature, available at no additional cost, enables users to access an academic resource-sharing service customized for education. See this public sample to see how this works.

Managing Digital Content Easily with the Blackboard Content System

The Blackboard Content System meets the diverse needs of constituents across an institution in a secure fashion—whether the users are students, instructors, librarians or administrators. Enhancements in this release include: Improved Workflows, a new Collaboration Page, Enhanced Metadata, an insightful 360° view page and the ability to reuse content with Reusable Objects.

UMCP specific documentation for using version 8 is being created.  Check back here for links to it soon.