This article is part of a series of articles explaining the new features and changes that will be introduced as part of the Blackboard upgrade scheduled for 26-28 July 2013.

The My Blackboard toolbar is a dropdown menu which appears at the top of shuspace.  It gives users and overview of activity across their Blackboard sites.  When there is something new on a Blackboard site (such as a new announcement, added content or discussion posts), a number appears in a red circle to alert users, similar to features found in Facebook or some email tools.

We believe the My Blackboard toolbar will prove popular in particular for students as it helps them to keep on top of what is happening across their Blackboard sites.  However staff will also find it useful to keep on top of discussions and other student activity on their Blackboard sites.

Here are some of the sections in the My Blackboard toolbar:

• The main dropdown has links to recently visited sites to help you quickly jump between sites you use the most
• Posts – recent discussion posts are shown together here for users
• Updates – new content, announcements, etc. across Blackboard sites are highlighted here for users
• Retention Centre – shows areas where students may be at risk in their Blackboard sites (such as not logging in recently). Designed for staff to check how their students are doing, this is also available inside of Blackboard sites. As a new feature we are still learning about it as well and are unsure how useful it will be.
• Calendar – this pulls together all of the calendars from all Blackboard sites and provides access to a personal calendar which students can use to add notes for themselves.  Due dates for online assessments are automatically populated in this calendar

In the future we believe this toolbar will be able to bring together online provisional grades and feedback for students, so they can quickly see how they are doing across their module sites.