The document summarizes new features in Blackboard 9.1, including a global navigation menu, consolidated calendar, redesigned discussion board, enhanced content editor, video recording tool, improved grading features like inline grading and item analysis, and a retention center to help identify at-risk students. It also directs users to the updated help site for more information on using Blackboard's new features.

1. And why it won’t frighten you!
What’s New in Blackboard 9.1

2. New Features
 Global Navigation
 Communication
 Calendar
 Discussions
 Video Everywhere
 Content Editor
 Grading
 Retention Center
 Inline Grading
 Item Analysis

3. Global Navigation
Located in the upper right
corner, the new global
navigation menu provides
one-click access to
My
Blackboard, Courses, an
d Organizations.

4. My Blackboard
 Accessed from the Global Navigation
menu, My Blackboard consolidates information
from all your Courses and Organizations.
 Posts
 Calendar Dates
 Retention Center

5. Calendar
 The Calendar Tool has been enhanced to display a
consolidated view of all events from the
Institution, Courses, Organizations, and the personal
calendar.
 Calendar events are now color coded by course and due
dates for assignments and tests are automatically added.

6. Discussion Board
 The Discussion Board has been redesigned to be
more practical.
 Forum descriptions are given when you create a thread so that
you can include instructions.
 All of a thread's posts are now visible at the same time on one
page.
 A new feature requires students to post to a discussion
before seeing other students’ posts.

7. Content Editor
 The new content editor is more robust and
gives you more options when entering text.
 HTML
 Remove formatting
 Preview
 Mashups

8. Video Everywhere
 Video Everywhere is a new
tool in the content editor that
can be used by both
instructors and students to
record video using a webcam.
 These videos can be
embedded into the site
wherever a content editor is
available-
tests, assignments, Discussio
n Boards, and more!

9. Content Collection
 The Content Collection allows you to manage
content by organizing it in folders and by
centrally storing it within Blackboard.
 The Content Collection makes it easier to
manage permissions for your content, place
content into your Blackboard sites, and share
content among users.
Video

10. Inline Grading
Inline Grading streamlines the grading process. It allows
instructors to view, comment on, and grade student
assignment files without leaving the grading page.
Image Source

11. Retention Center
 The Retention Center provides
an easy way for you to
discover which students in
your course are at risk and to
communicate with these
students to begin immediate
improvement.
 It also provides information on
your involvement in the course
so that you can become more
aware of how you contribute to
student achievement.
Video

12. Item Analysis
Item Analysis allows instructors to evaluate the quality of
each test question and helps you recognize questions
that might be poor discriminators of student
performance. Poor questions can be identified and then
quickly changed with the Automatic Re-grading feature.

13. Oldies (But Goodies!)
 Just because we’re updating to a new version
of Blackboard doesn’t mean anything is being
removed. You can still use great features, such
as:
 Blogs, Wikis, and Journals
 Learning Modules
 Smart Views in the Grade Center

14. help.blackboard.com
 Blackboard has reinvented their support site!
The new site features detailed guides, helpful
videos, and more information on the new
features.
 Content has also been organized by user
groups, making it easy to find information just
for instructors.