Bug affecting feedback visibility for students submitting online

If you are using Blackboard assignments for online submission of student work, please be aware that there is a bug which may affect you and your students.

Once feedback files have been loaded into Grade Centre, students can access that feedback by revisiting the assignment hand-in point if that hand-in link is still set available to students.  This happens even if the Grade Centre column is set to be hidden to students, which is normally how you hide feedback from students when you do not want them to see it yet.

The work-around for this issue is to ensure that you set an end availability date for your assignments that is shortly after the due date, and do not add any feedback until after that date. Setting an end availability date is recommended good practice to help your students submit on time and to the right place. The availability date controls when the assignment hand-in link is visible to students. If they cannot see this link, they cannot access their feedback early.

We are working on trying to fix this bug for September so it will not interfere with the majority of students. We will update you as we know more information.

We recommend you discuss this with your faculty technology enhanced learning contacts if you would like further support on how to set up your assignments to avoid this error.

Leave a Reply