Content Visibility and Release Conditions

Blackboard Ultra allows instructors to control the visibility of course content by making items visible or hidden to students, or by setting content release conditions based on date time, user/group ID, or grade performance.

By default, all newly-created content in Ultra course view is hidden from students until you make it visible. Other instructors, TA's, and course builders can see all course content regardless of its visibility setting.

To adjust the student visibility of an item, open the dropdown menu in the item header. You can make an item visible to all students or hidden from all students.

Release Conditions (formerly called "Adaptive Release" in Blackboard original course view) can be used to manage an item's visibility based on different criteria, including:

Making an item visible only to certain students or groups
Setting an item to become visible at a certain date/time, and/or to be hidden after a certain date/time
Making an item visible based on individual performance on a specified graded item or Gradebook column

Instructors and TAs can change the visibility settings of an item at any time. Course builders, graders, and students do not have access to visibility settings.

Blackboard item visibility and release conditions menu

Setting Release Conditions

To manage visibility of a course content item based on specified criteria, open the visibility dropdown for the item and select Release conditions. This will open the Release Conditions panel as shown below. Conditions can be set based on individual users or groups, date/time, or performance. You can create one or more rules for an item; when all conditions for a rule are met, the item will become visible to the indicated students.

For example, for an in-class quiz in a course with multiple meeting sections, you could create a separate group for each course section, then in the quiz release conditions create rules that specify the date/time of access for each group. In the screenshot below, Rule 1 specifies that students in the group “Monday” can access the item after 3:15pm on Mon, 10/14. Rule 2 specifies that students in the group “Wednesday” can access the item after 1:30pm on Weds, 10/16.

To set a release condition based on user/group membership, select Specific members or groups. You can then search for students enrolled in the course by name or NetID. You can also set visibility by group, using an existing group or group set. Once the release condition is set, the item will be visible to the specified users and/or groups, and hidden from all other students. To make a rule that applies to all students, select “All members” and then specify other date- or performance-based conditions below.

To set a date/time release condition, check Date/Time to open the "Access from/Access until" options. Select the date(s) and time(s) that the item will be released and/or hidden. If "Acess from" is selected, the item will be hidden from students by default, then become visible at the specified date/time. If "Access until" is selected, the item will be visible to students by default, then be hidden after the specified date/time. If both are selected, the item will only be visible to students between the two specified dates/times, and hidden before and after.

To set a performance release condition, check Performance, then select the "Gradable item" you wish to use as the release condition. You must use an existing graded item or gradebook calculation. Under "Grade requirement," the menu will automatically populate with scores from 10-90% at 10% increments, rounded to the nearest point, or you can select "custom range" to manually set minimum and maximum points thresholds. Once the performance release condition is set, the item will be hidden from students until they fulfill the requirement (for example, scoring at least 80% on the specified assignment); once a student fulfills the requirement the item will become visible.

When you have created the rule(s) you want, scroll to the bottom of the panel and click Save to activate the release conditions and return to the Content page.

When creating multiple rules, bear in mind that a student must meet ALL conditions for at least one rule in order to access the content item.

Displaying Release Conditions

For date/time or performance-based release conditions that apply to all members of the course, you can choose whether to Hide an unreleased content item from student view entirely (identical to setting it to “hidden” from the dropdown menu in the course content list) or Show the item header and information about the release conditions, but lock the item so students cannot cannot open it until they fulfill one or more rules. In the latter case, students will see a “Content isn’t available” message below the title of the item and can click on it to read about the date and/or performance rules to unlock the item.

If a release condition is based on specific members or groups, then the content item will always be set to show the locked item and information about the other release rules to the indicated students. Any students who do not belong to one of the specified groups will have the content item fully hidden. For example, in a merged graduate/undergrad course, if an item has a release condition for the group “grad students” and a date for the first class meeting after the midterm exam, graduate students, who are members of the specified group, will be able to see the locked item in the course content area and the date/time it will be unlocked, and will be able to open it starting on the specified date. Undergraduates, who are not included in the “grad students” group will not see or access the locked item at all either before or after the specified date.