Anthology, the leading educational technology company, today announced a sweeping set of innovations across its award-winning learning management system, Blackboard^®, and marked its fourth consecutive year as the fastest-evolving LMS. These advancements are designed to streamline instructional design, lighten educators’ administrative load, and support student success at every stage of the learning journey.

“We continue to lead the way in the responsible, ethical, and impactful use of AI, delivering real results where it matters most,” said Bruce Dahlgren, CEO of Anthology. “By working closely with our customers, we ensure our solutions are solving the realities facing higher education today. These new powerful capabilities support faculty, strengthen student engagement, and advance institutional success.”

AI That Works for You: Supporting Student Success and Faculty Efficiency

Anthology is expanding its AI-powered capabilities in Blackboard with the Anthology Virtual Assistant, AVA, a suite of tools designed to help instructors use their time more efficiently, enhance student support, and promote responsible, transparent use of generative AI. Complementing the existing AI Design Assistant, AVA features deliver meaningful, time-saving support for everyday teaching and learning tasks.

• AVA Automations are personalized nudges to keep students engaged and on track. With AVA Automations, instructors can set performance- or time-based rules to automatically send personalized messages to students—for example, to celebrate a high grade or remind them to log in. Messages are instructor-written, fully customizable, and logged for full transparency. This feature will be included in the core Blackboard license and available to all users at no additional cost.
  
  
  
  
• Instructors spend valuable time each week responding to common student questions. AVA Responses serves as the first line of support by providing students with instant, AI-generated answers based on course content. Whether it’s a question about deadlines or grading criteria, responses are linked to the original source and shared with the instructor, who can review and confirm as needed—saving time while keeping students informed.
  
  
  
  
• The AVA Feedback Assistant helps instructors deliver high-quality, student-friendly feedback in less time. Summarize Feedback auto-generates a clear summary based on rubric selections and grading criteria. Rewrite Feedback turns informal notes or fragments into polished, constructive messages. With both features, instructors save time on grading tasks while still delivering clear, personalized feedback to students, all while maintaining full oversight of AI-suggested responses before sharing.
  
  
  
  
• AVA Playground gives all students equitable access to a range of generative AI models within Blackboard—at no cost to them, and without needing external accounts or tools. This secure, opt-in environment supports AI literacy by allowing students to explore and experiment with emerging technologies in context. All activity is logged for transparency, giving instructors visibility into how AI is being used to support learning.

All of the Anthology Virtual Assistant capabilities will be offered as a free trial to current Blackboard customers through June 30, 2026.

Driving Student Success Through Recognition and Results

New features in the Blackboard experience help institutions recognize student achievement and track learning progress—boosting engagement, driving continuous improvement, and strengthening institutional identity.

• Blackboard Achievements: AI Badge Creator. Educators can easily design achievement badges within their courses, helping motivate learners and reflect institutional branding. This capability will be part of the core license of Blackboard.
  
  
  
  
• Outcomes. The new outcomes functionality for Blackboard helps institutions easily measure, manage and showcase student learning. Faculty will be able to align assignments to learning outcomes and track student achievement over time within the flow of their courses. At the same time, institutions are empowered to assign and relate outcomes across the institutional hierarchy, disciplines, and programs, making it easier to support accreditation, highlight areas of strength, and guide continuous improvement.
  
  
  
  This launch builds on Anthology’s ongoing investment in mastery and competency-based learning, including tools like the Mastery Gradebook, which helps educators evaluate performance against defined skills and standards. Anthology Outcomes is a Core feature available to Blackboard customers in Canada and the United States.

Bringing Learning to Life: Immersive Video Tools That Drive Student Engagement

Launched last year, Video Studio was created to help instructors easily create, upload, and share engaging video content without the need for external tools or licenses—and without worry over storage or streaming limits.

Today, Video Studio has advanced to support 360-degree video and immersive video experiences through VR-handoff compatibility—giving instructors powerful new ways to engage learners. Whether simulating lab environments or fieldwork, this innovation brings learning to life and prepares students and those continuing their professional development for real-world challenges.

Powerful Tools for Efficient Teaching and Streamlined Content Management

• The AI Design Assistant for Documents expands upon the AI Design Assistant capabilities and makes it easier than ever for instructors and instructional designers to craft engaging, high-quality course materials directly within Blackboard. With a single click, the AI Design Assistant analyzes an existing document and recommends optimized layouts, inserts relevant royalty-free visuals, and suggests formative knowledge checks—each aligned with instructional design best practices. Instructors can review, refine, or regenerate these suggestions, ensuring full control while accelerating the content creation process.
  
  
  
  The AI Design Assistant for Documents will be available as part of the core Blackboard license and released globally in July 2025.
  
  

• Learning Object Repository (LOR). The Learning Object Repository (LOR) helps institutions save time and ensure consistency by centrally managing key course content across Blackboard. Whether it’s a syllabus used by multiple instructors, an academic integrity policy, or student support information, the LOR allows administrators to create and maintain a single version of these important documents—ensuring accuracy and reducing duplication across courses and organizations.

Together, these enhancements make it even easier to scale high-quality learning experiences and keep content aligned across the institution.

Experience the industry’s most modern learning management system with a free trial at www.anthology.com/try.

About Anthology

Anthology delivers education and technology solutions so that students can reach their full potential and learning institutions thrive. Millions of students around the world are supported throughout their education journey via Anthology’s ecosystem of flagship SaaS solutions and supporting services, including the award-winning Blackboard^® (LMS), Anthology^® Student (SIS/ERP), and Anthology^® Reach (CRM). Through the Power of Together, we are uniquely inspiring educators and institutions with innovation that is meaningful, simple and intelligent to help customers redefine what’s possible and create life-changing opportunities for people everywhere. www.anthology.com.

Note to editors:

Blackboard is the fastest-evolving LMS. In 2022, 2023, and 2024, Blackboard released more new features than any other major LMS—191 in the past 12 months alone, compared to 109 for D2L Brightspace and 79 for Instructure Canvas. This pace of innovation is publicly documented in each vendor’s release notes:

• https://help.blackboard.com/Learn/Administrator/SaaS/Release_Notes
• https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Canvas-Releases/tkb-p/canvas-release
• https://community.brightspace.com/s/article/All-Release-Notes

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