Although it sounds like a major version upgrade, there are no additional functionality changes within CE/Vista 8 except for the addition of SafeAssign, Scholar, and The Learning Environment Connector.

The version number was originally going to be "CE6 App Pack 3" until Blackboard decided to unify the CE/Vista and Academic Suite version numbers.

Release 8 feature SafeAssign™, a tool that compares submitted Assignments against a set of academic essays to identify areas of overlap. SafeAssign can be used to prevent plagiarism and to create opportunities to help Students identify how to properly attribute sources rather than paraphrase.

SafeAssign draws from several different databases: the Internet, ProQuest©, ABI/Inform© database, institutional document archives, and the Global Reference Database, which includes content submitted into SafeAssign from Blackboard-powered institutions.

SafeAssign content must be created itself, and that previously created Assignments cannot be integrated with SafeAssign.

SafeAssign is integrated with the Gradebook.

Blackboard Scholar® is directly integrated within the Blackboard Learning System™ - Vista,/CE Enterprise Licenses, providing access within the Course environment.

Scholar is a social bookmarking service customized for education. Social bookmarking is an activity performed over a computer network that allows users to save and categorize a personal collection of bookmarks -- stored or retrievable web pages -- and share them with others. It provides a new way for Students and Instructors to find educational resources on the Web for Courses and research. Furthermore, by storing and sharing associated information with each resource through tags and disciplines, Scholar allows users to evaluate the resources and find the most relevant and reliable.