In Blackboard Learn Ultra, you can access assignment submissions through Gradebook or via individual Assignment dropboxes. You can also see all of your students' submissions that need marked on the global Marks page (accessed from the main Blackboard menu).
When marking assignments directly within the browser, you can use Blackboard Annotate (BB Annotate) to add inline comments and custom feedback in the assignment file that was submitted.
📘 BB Annotate
When you open your student’s submission in your browser, you can use Bb Annotate to add feedback (inline annotation) within the assignment file itself. A toolbar is displayed at the top of the main window where you can select how you wish to add feedback directly onto the assignment submission. There is a variety of tools to choose from with the most commonly used being text, freehand drawing and quicknotes.
You cannot use the inline annotation in Panopto video assignments.
Other features available include a sidebar summary view, for you to provide overall text, video or audio feedback, and a section that displays the rubric grading criteria if one is being used.
Bb Annotate grading workflow
On the Assignment Submission page, supported file types open in the browser. You can view and annotate these document types in the browser:
Microsoft® Word (DOC, DOCX), PowerPoint®(PPT, PPTX), Excel®(XLS, XLSX)
OpenOffice® Documents (ODS, ODT, ODP)
Digital Images (JPEG, JPG, PNG, TIF, TIFF, TGA, BMP, HEIC)
Source code (Java, PY, C, CPP, etc)
Medical Images (DICOM, DICM, DCM)
PDF
PSD
RTF
TXT
WPD
Annotation sessions expire after one hour. You'll receive a warning message before your session expires.
When you have finished adding feedback, your annotations, text and other files are saved on the page. You can return to review or continue to add more if you wish.
Bb Annotate is supported on current versions of Firefox, Chrome, Edge, and Safari.
Document View Settings
A. Sidebar: View Thumbnail, Outline, or Annotation views of the submission.
B. Pages: Use the arrows to jump to different pages in the submission.
C. Pan: Move the submission on the page.
D. Zoom: Zoom in and out of the submission.
E. Fit: Adjust the view to fit the page, fit the width, or select the best fit.
Annotations
Select each tool to view the tool properties.
F. Drawing, Brush, and Eraser: Draw freehand on the submission with various colors, thickness, and opacity. Select the eraser to remove annotations. You can erase parts of a freehand drawing with the eraser or select the Delete icon to delete the whole drawing.
G. Image or Stamp: Choose a preloaded stamp or create your own customized stamp or image to add to the submission.
H. Text: Add text directly on the submission. You can move, edit, and change the text and select the font, size, alignment, and color of the text.
I. Shapes: Choose Line, Arrow, Rectangle, Ellipse, Polygon, and Polyline. Each shape has its own settings to change the color, width, opacity, and more.
J. Comment: Provide feedback in comments. Your comments appear in a panel next to the submission.
*Students can access the annotated files but won't be able to add annotations in their submissions.
K. Print: Print the submission with the annotations.
L. Download: Download the submission with the annotations
*A known issue with some browsers' built-in PDF viewer may not display all your annotations. Please view annotated PDFs in a native PDF viewer such as Adobe Acrobat.
M. Search: Search the submission for specific text.
N. Content Library: Create a bank of reusable comments. You can add, edit, delete, and search comments in the library. You can also add a comment directly to the submission page from the menu. Select the plus sign to add a new comment to the Content Library. You can Place comment, Copy to Clipboard, Edit, or Delete content from the library. Type keywords or phrases to search for saved comments.
Highlighter: Select specific portions of the submission to highlight. As you highlight text on the submission, an additional menu opens. You can highlight, strikethrough, underline, squiggle, or comment on the highlighted section.
