News

April 2026: D2L Lumi Pro, a suite of Generative AI features integrated into Brightspace, is now available across Vanderbilt University. The Office of Learning Innovation is excited to announce that Lumi Pro, a generative AI feature within Brightspace, is now live at Vanderbilt University! The D2L Lumi Pro… Read More

In April of this year, Turnitin released an update to their product that reviewed submitted papers and presented their determination of how much of a paper was written by AI. As we outlined at that time, many people had important concerns and questions about this new tool,… Read More

Effective August 16, 2023, Vanderbilt has disabled Turnitin’s AI detection tool. To read more about why this decision was made, refer to this newer blog post.   Beginning on 4/4/2023, faculty who use Turnitin now have access to an additional tool – Artificial Intelligence… Read More

The Grade Center provides useful features to keep track of student grades, customize the Grade Center to your course, and provide students feedback on their work. Recently, Blackboard support has fielded several questions from instructors about how to upload graded documents for students to view feedback within the Grade Center… Read More

You may have heard about SIPX, a tool recently acquired by the Vanderbilt Library to streamline the copyright compliance process for course readings. With the addition of SIPX to the Blackboard tool set, instructors now have the ability to find course readings themselves from the library holdings (or from… Read More

Here at Blackboard support, we often get questions from faculty and teaching assistants about Blackboard’s compliance with the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act, the federal law that governs the privacy of student educational records. The good news is that the guidelines that protect student privacy in your physical classroom work… Read More

This summer the Blackboard support team will focus their support efforts from 7am to 4pm Monday through Friday. You can expect a fast and thorough response from our team whether you contact us by email or phone during those hours. We will continue providing support via email 4-11pm Sunday through… Read More

You should have received emails alerting you to Blackboard’s upgrade this weekend, or you may have seen the announcement on the Blackboard log in page. That upgrade period is now underway. We expect Blackboard to be available to users again no later than 8pm on Sunday May 22. Updates about… Read More

The Center for Teaching invites Vanderbilt faculty, staff, and students to a series of product demonstrations by the three vendors under consideration for Vanderbilt’s next course management system (CMS). The demonstrations, along with feedback from those who attend them, will inform Vanderbilt’s decision to renew its contract with Blackboard, set… Read More

The Center for Teaching, as the administrative home for Blackboard, is announcing a new Course Availability and Deletion Policy for Blackboard.  This policy, recommended by Vanderbilt’s Blackboard implementation team and approved by the Blackboard Faculty Advisory Committee, is intended to reduce the amount of storage space Vanderbilt purchases… Read More

Did you know that you can create tests or quizzes in Blackboard and have students take them online? The on-demand resources page of our website includes a guide to creating a test. The testing feature allows instructors to set up different types of questions, several of which are automatically graded. While… Read More

Regular Blackboard Maintenance Window: Early Sunday Morning 1:00-5:00 AM Central Time Between 1-5am early Sunday mornings, Blackboard undergoes weekly mmaintenance. Often, Blackboard continues to be available for users during that time, but occasionally a shut-down and restart of the system is required. Users should not plan on scheduling or taking… Read More

Many of you have visited us for Blackboard trainings and drop-in hours here at the CFT. What you may not know is that we have also taken that support model on the road to various schools, centers, and departments across campus. If you work with a group that you think… Read More

Beginning in the spring 2016 semester, Vanderbilt faculty will be able to integrate online textbook materials and grading with Blackboard. If your textbook includes publisher-provided online content, email us at blackboard@vanderbilt.edu or come see us during our drop-in support hours to find out if your textbook is one of the many… Read More

Have you ever run across a tool in Blackboard and wanted a quick explanation of what it does? Or are you a Blackboard power-user, determined to master every feature of our Learning Management System? If you have ever found yourself wondering about one of the more… Read More

We are excited to announce our November/December schedule of drop-in support hours. Drop-in support hours will take place on Mondays 1-3pm in the CFT workshop space from November 2nd – December 14th, with the exception of November 23 when we will be observing Thanksgiving break). During drop-in hours, faculty and… Read More

We are excited to announce our September/October schedule of drop-in support hours. During drop-in hours, faculty and staff who have Blackboard-related questions can stop by the workshop space of the CFT (even without an appointment) and find a team of specialists ready to assist. We can get you up… Read More

As the new administrative home for Blackboard, the Center for Teaching (CFT) is excited to announce a number of developments for Vanderbilt’s primary course management system, all part of Vanderbilt’s strategic investment in the use of technology to support student learning. New Features A number of platform upgrades were… Read More

OAK will be down Sunday, November 17 from 6AM to 10AM for maintenance.  We do not expect the outage to last the entire four hours.  Please visit the main OAK website for maintenance updates, OAK availability, and regularly scheduled maintenance dates. Note about Regularly Scheduled Maintenance: Though… Read More

TurningPoint, the student response system (clickers) used at Vanderbilt, will be upgraded Thursday, May 16 at 6:00 AM. NO OUTAGE IS REQUIRED. However, instructors will need to download the new TurningPoint client (instructions below). The new version, TurningPoint 5.2.0, is compatible with Office 2013. Students may need to verify… Read More