This guide will outline the Release Conditions feature in Blackboard.
Hint: The effects of Release Conditions are aimed at users in the ‘Student’ role.
Types of release condition
Blackboard supports three possible forms of release condition and two unconditional forms of release. These are:
- Unconditional:
- Visible to students: the content is available on an open-ended basis without any condition.
- Not visible to students: the content is invisible on an open-ended basis without any condition.
- Release Conditions: the content may become visible or invisible to students depending on a range of criteria. These can be one or a combination of:
- Membership: content is only visible to certain members of the course or certain groups
- Date/Time: content is only available after a certain point in time, and/or until a certain point in time
- Activity: content is only visible to course members who have reached a certain performance criteria. For assessed items, this could include achieving a score in a test, or achieving a certain grade via the Blackboard Gradebook. For unassessed items such as documents, media or course links, the activity includes unopened, opened/started or where the student has marked the item as complete.
You can create multiple rules and release conditions to support more complex branching logic within a course.
Setting a release condition
- On a piece of content, Folder or Learning Module, select on the ‘…‘ to the right of the item
- Select ‘Release Conditions‘
- When the new window opens choose a criteria (or several) for the conditional release of content
- Select ‘Save‘
- When you have added a release condition, you can add an additional rule by clicking on the ‘Add Rule’ option in the left-hand menu
Instructors can now view release conditions inherited from a parent learning module or folder directly within the release conditions panel of individual items. Inherited conditions appear in a read-only format, giving instructors a clear picture of all conditions that apply to an item, including those set directly on the item and those cascading from a parent container.
This update also ensures that discussions hidden within a learning module are no longer accessible from the Discussions tab. Discussions now respect the release conditions applied at the learning module level. When instructors open the Release Conditions panel for an item inside a learning module or folder, a read-only summary of any conditions inherited from the parent container appears alongside any conditions applied directly to the item. This helps instructors understand the full set of access rules in place and determine whether additional conditions are needed.
How do I know that the right students can see/not see my content? You can use your Student Preview User to test Release Conditions for piece of mind or for more complex performance or membership-based criteria.