Blackboard Collaborate Ultra: March Release (3/21/19)
Posted: 2019-03-15 07:30:30 Expiration: 2019-03-21 16:30:00
Blackboard plans to deploy the March release from Midnight to 5:00 a.m. on Thursday, March 21, 2019. Access to the Blackboard Collaborate Ultra service may be intermittently available during this time frame. Please select this news item for more information about the new features and browser support updates.
The following features and updates are expected as an outcome of the release:
- Moderators can determine an attendee's relative ability to exchange audio, video, or even perform an application share during a session by using the session user connectivity indicators
- Moderators can add their own questions and answer choices with the new Collaborate custom polls. Select the poll type, type your question and answer choices, and select Start
- Browser support updates:
- Adding native WebRTC-based support for users in Safari 11 on MacOS, Safari 12 on MacOS, and Microsoft Edge on Windows 10.
- Adding (beta) native WebRTC-based support for users of Safari in iOS 11 and iOS 12.
- Ending support for browsers that do not natively support WebRTC, and require the use of Adobe Flash for media - this means ending support for Internet Explorer 11 on Windows and Safari 10 on MacOS.
The vendor states that the last change is made to support browsers that natively support WebRTC. WebRTC is needed to use many of the collaborative features of the service (e.g,. desktop sharing, etc.). Users who access sessions with a non-supported browser after this release will not receive notification as a compatibility check does not occur when using the service.
Additional information, including screenshots of the feature additions, is available in the vendor's Release Notes for Collaborate Ultra.
-- Blackboard Collaborate Service