ÃÛÌÒÊÓƵ

ÃÛÌÒÊÓƵ - An Illinois Public University

Center for Teaching and Learning

News

To ensure you're always up‑to‑date with the tools that power your online teaching and learning experience at ÃÛÌÒÊÓƵ, the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) provides regular updates on essential software. Stay informed with the latest CTL news regarding ÃÛÌÒÊÓƵ Blackboard, the cornerstone of our online course management, and its evolving features. We also cover crucial updates and best practices for Collaborate, our platform for synchronous online sessions, where you can connect with students in real time. Furthermore, our news will keep you apprised of developments with Panopto, our robust video platform, empowering you to create, manage, and share engaging video content. Get the latest on Respondus, the essential tool for secure online assessments, and Via, our comprehensive solution for fieldwork and experiential learning. By staying connected with CTL news, you'll harness the full potential of these and other online teaching and learning software to enhance your pedagogical strategies and student success.

ÃÛÌÒÊÓƵ Black text

08/16/2026

Summer 2026 Term - Ends

August 16, 2026, marks the last day of the Summer 2026 semester.

Final Grades are due by August 23, 2026.

Gradient blue and green abstract 'A'

08/06/2026

Upcoming Update: Enhanced Blackboard Gradebook Experience - 08/06/2026 - Ultra Only

We are writing to share that Blackboard will be introducing several navigational and interface improvements to the Blackboard Learn Ultra Gradebook on August 6, 2026. This will not impact Instructors using Learn Original.

Please be assured that these updates are strictly cosmetic and functional in nature; your gradebook data, grade calculations, grading schemas, and course settings will remain completely unaffected.

What’s New?

These updates have been designed to streamline your workflow and reduce the number of clicks required to manage your assessments:

  • Everything in one place: The new Grade Details panel opens alongside the gradebook when you click any student's cell. You can now view submission details, feedback, grader notes, accommodations, and posting status without ever navigating away from the main view. A similar Assessment Details panel provides the same efficiency for column-level information.
  • Streamlined grade entry: You can now hover at the top of any column and click the "pencil" icon to enter edit mode. You can then quickly move through students using the Enter key. A "sticky" pencil icon will follow you as you scroll, a feature specifically requested by faculty managing large courses.
  • Improved display control: You now have greater flexibility in how you view your data. You can toggle between first-name-first or last-name-first, show or hide the student ID column, and easily sort by name, ID, overall grade, or any individual assessment column.
  • A smarter "To-Do" panel: The old Overview tab has been replaced by a dynamic To-Do panel. This keeps you focused within the gradebook while highlighting exactly what needs your attention—such as ungraded submissions and unposted grades—all organized by assessment.

Resources

To help you get acquainted with these changes before August 6th, we have provided the following documentation:

We encourage you to review these materials to see how these updates will enhance your gradebook management experience.

If you have any questions please contact the Center for Teaching and Learning.

White letter R in an orange circle

07/31/2026

Discontinuation of Respondus 4.0 Authoring Tool

Please be aware that this will be our final year of support for Respondus 4.0. The software will be officially discontinued July 31, 2026. After this date, the Respondus 4.0 desktop application will no longer be supported, updated, or guaranteed to function correctly with Blackboard Learn. Any quizzes or exams created and managed solely within Respondus 4.0 will need to be migrated or rebuilt using alternative methods.

Please Note: This discontinuation applies ONLY to the Respondus 4.0 authoring tool. The Respondus 4.0 authoring tool is primarily used by instructors to create and publish quizzes directly to the LMS.

This DOES NOT affect Respondus LockDown Browser or Respondus Monitor. Respondus LockDown Browser and Monitor, our secure testing environment and proctoring solution, will continue to be fully supported and available for use in your courses. You can continue to create and deploy quizzes that require LockDown Browser and Monitor directly within your LMS.

We understand that Respondus 4.0 has been a valuable tool for many of you in importing large sets of questions. We want to assure you that a highly effective and fully supported alternative is available: the Upload Question method directly within Blackboard Learn.

This built-in Blackboard feature allows you to prepare your questions in a plain text file (formatted correctly) and then easily upload them into your Blackboard courses, achieving the same outcome as Respondus 4.0. Please see the tutorial for both and for more information.

If you have any questions, require personalized assistance, or encounter any issues during this transition, please do not hesitate to contact Center for Teaching and Learning.

Thank you for your understanding and cooperation as we continue to enhance our learning environment.

Gradient blue and green abstract 'A'

07/30/2026

Blackboard Learn Scheduled Maintenance July 30, 2026

Please be advised that our vendor, Blackboard, has scheduled maintenance for the ÃÛÌÒÊÓƵ Blackboard Learn environment.

To ensure the continued performance and stability of the platform, the system will be unavailable during the following window:

  • Date: July 30, 2026
  • Time: 1:00 AM CDT
  • Duration: Approximately Two (2) Hours

During this maintenance period, Blackboard Learn will be inaccessible. Users attempting to log in will be redirected to a splash page indicating that the site is currently under maintenance.

We recommend that you plan your work accordingly and save any progress in the system prior to the start of this window.

Thank you for your patience and understanding as we work to maintain our systems.

If you have any questions please contact the .

Old square logo with red X, new colorful M365 ribbon logo with green checkmark.

07/01/2026

Class Collaborate No Longer Available As Of July 1, 2026

The ÃÛÌÒÊÓƵ contract for Class Collaborate will end June 30, 2026. We transitioned to Microsoft Teams Meetings for your live sessions and Panopto for recorded lectures. Class Collaborate, and its recordings, will NOT be available after June 30, 2026. This means that all recordings associated with all courses will be permanently removed from the system after this date.

We ask that faculty please begin using Microsoft Teams Meetings for live sessions, as it is now fully integrated within Blackboard course shells. This integration will allow for scheduling, hosting, and recording of your live classes directly through Blackboard.
 
For pre-recorded lectures, we recommend using Panopto. Panopto provides a user-friendly interface for recording, editing, and sharing your lecture videos. It also offers advanced options such as timestamped viewer analytics, captioning, and embedding into Blackboard courses. 

If you wish to retain your existing Class Collaborate recordings, you may download them by accessing the Recordings tab within the Class Collaborate portal in each Blackboard course. Should you wish for these downloaded recordings to be accessible within future Blackboard courses, you may upload them to .

  • Please note the following regarding recording retention policies:
    Microsoft Teams recordings will be available for 180 days before being removed. If you would like to keep recordings after 180, please upload to Panopto.
  • Panopto recordings will not be removed unless there is no activity for 13 months. Following this period, they will be archived for four years before final removal

For future workshops on Panopto and downloading your Class Collaborate recordings, please check the CTL Faculty Workshops page or use the .

We appreciate your cooperation during this transition.
 
Questions about Blackboard? Please contact Blackboard Support.

CTL @ NiTe

06/15/2026

Course Creation and Instructor Enrollment

Fall 2026 courses are created and ready for instructors to build their online, hybrid, or web‑enhanced courses.

Students will not be enrolled in Blackboard until 08/17/2026 and will not have access to Fall 2026 courses until 08/31/2026.

C in dark blue diamond, T is light blue diamond, & in light gray diamond and L in orange diamond

06/01/2026

Blackboard Learn Course Retention

This message is to inform you about an upcoming change to how long course content will be retained in Blackboard NewLearn. To optimize system performance and storage, ÃÛÌÒÊÓƵ will begin keeping only 5 years' worth of Blackboard courses.

What this means for you:

  • Effective June 1, 2026, we will begin removing courses older than 5 years, which will be permanently removed from the Blackboard NewLearn environment.
  • The last year of the 5 retained years will be a full archive, while the remaining 4 years will remain active on Blackboard NewLearn.
  • Anything outside of the 5-year window will be removed.

The following terms will no longer be available in the Blackboard NewLearn environment beginning June 1, 2026 and no longer accessible:

  • 18FA (Fall 2018)
  • 19SP (Spring 2019)
  • 19SU (Summer 2019)
  • 19FA (Fall 2019)
  • 20SP (Spring 2020)
  • 20SU (Summer 2020)
  • 20FA (Fall 2020)

The following academic shells will be archived (removed from the NewLearn environment, but can become available, if needed):

  • 21SP (Spring 2021)
  • 21SU (Summer 2021)
  • 21FA (Fall 2021)

Action you may need to take:

If you have courses older than the 5-year retention period that you wish to preserve, you have the option to download your course archive files. This will create a packaged copy of your course, only accessible using the Blackboard platform. These files would need to be given to the Center for Online Teaching and Learning to restore in the Blackboard environment. Please note that these requests are accepted on a case by case basis. You also have the option to download specific content, which can be accessible without Blackboard.

How to download course archive files:

You can download these archive files from within the tool itself within each course. Please consult the Blackboard Help documentation for specific instructions on exporting course content.

Accessing specific content from older courses:

If you need to access specific items such as your gradebook, discussion posts, assignments, tests, or other course materials from courses that will be removed, you may be able to download those directly from within the tool inside the course before they are removed. We strongly encourage you to download any necessary historical data as soon as possible.

We understand that this change may require adjustments. Please plan accordingly to ensure you have access to any content you need from older courses.

If you have any questions or require assistance please contact blackboard@govst.edu.

ÃÛÌÒÊÓƵ Black text

05/18/2026

Summer 2026 Term - Begins

May 18, 2026, marks the first day of the Summer 2026 semester.