In this article, the latest changes and updates will be described with links to the relevant Screensteps-articles. The updates are based on D2L "releases": the monthly updates from the supplier of Brightspace.
In May, D2L has made changes within the following Brightspace tools: Grades, Learning Outcomes and Manage Files.
Grades a: within the student view of the Grade tool, Instructor feedback files added in Assignments, Quizzes, and Discussions are now visible to students under Grades. Before, only the written feedback was viewable, and feedback files had to be retrieved within the Assignment, Quiz, or Discussion.
Grades b: within the Grades tool, it is possible to Publish (or Retract) all the grades. Now, while performing this action, a "Publishing in progress" pop-up displays until the publishing action is completed. When the action has been finished, the pop-up will disappear. Before, it was sometimes unclear whether the action was successfully applied.
You can read more and see screenshots within the following articles:
- Waar kan ik mijn cijfers zien in Brightspace? (a)
- Where can I see my grades in Brightspace? (a)
- Grades publiceren aan je studenten (b)
- Release Grades to your students (b)
Learning Outcomes: previously, learning outcomes could be aligned directly or through rubric criteria to group assignments but were not assessable within the evaluation interface of the Assignment tool. Now, Instructors can assess learning outcomes aligned directly to group assignments or through rubric alignments. Instructors can also apply a learning outcome score while evaluating a group assignment. All group members will receive the same learning outcomes score.
In summary, learning outcomes now work the same way for both individual and group assignments.
This information has been added to the following articles:
Manage Files: a minor change for when users add (zip) or extract (unzip) one or more files to a ZIP archive in Manage Files. A new dialog confirms that files are being zipped or unzipped within the background. Once the process is complete, you will receive a notification within Update alerts, also known as the bell icon on the top right next to your name. This information has been added to the following articles:
In April, D2L has made changes within the following Brightspace tools: (Learning) Outcomes and Discussions.
Outcomes: Instead of typing everything, now, it is possible to easily import outcomes from a CSV file. Read more in these articles:
Discussions: the (attached) files are displayed within a different part of the discussion, this is a minor visual change. You can also add an attachment within your discussion assessment. Read and see more within these articles:
In March, D2L, has made a change to the following Brightspace tools: links and quizzes.
Links: there are different ways to add a link in your HTML page in Brightspace. Previously these different ways were all visually different from one another. Now the visual display of adding a link is more consistent between the three ways to add a link. Read more in these articles:
Quizzes: there has been a small change regarding the downloading of quiz reports. When you downloaded a quiz report previously, you would have to wait until the download was completed to start navigating in Brightspace again. Now the download happens in the background and you can navigate through Brightspace while the report is downloading. You can find this info within the following articles:
In February, D2L has made a change to the following Brightspace tool: quizzes
Quizzes: in the question library, which is part of the quizzes tool, there are no longer any question mark symbols next to questions to prevent visual clutter. The folder icon however does still appear next to sections. Read more in these articles:
PDF: we also recommend to use pdf files in the content of your course instead of word or excel files. Word files for instance can become distorted when viewed by students, whereas pdf files are much more reliable. We also advise students to hand in pdf files for the same reason. You can find these tips to use pdf files within the following articles:
In January, D2L has made a few small changes within the following Brightspace tools: Assignments, Awards, Grades, Learning Outcomes and Quizzes.
Assignments: there is a limit of 300 thousand characters when giving feedback. When you exceed this limit, now, the following message will appear: "There is one or more errors in the information entered."
Awards: Students can now export earned awards by using the new Export Digital Credential button. Read the following articles to read exactly how:
Grades: If the Can Exeed option has not been set, and a tool sends a grade higher than the maximum set for the grade item: the maximum score appears in the grade book.
Learning Outcomes: you can now give the Outcome a Short Code to make it easier to find within the Achievement Standards Network. To learn more about Learning Outcomes, please check the new screensteps article:
Quizzes: when instructors grade quiz attempts, any ungraded written response questions now remain as "pending evaluation" until the instructor manually grades them. Read more in these articles (within the red text bar):
There are three tools that have been changed within the December release:
Rubrics: When an evaluator assesses an assignment or discussion in the Grades tool, the rubric now uses the Consistent Evaluation interface whether there is work submitted for evaluation. This is consistent with the assessment experience for assignments or discussions in other areas of Brightspace.
These are the relevant articles:
- How do I assess an Assignment using a rubric
- Hoe beoordeel ik een assignment met behulp van een rubric
- Grading Assignments
- Assignments beoordelen
Discussions: With this release, administrators can now determine how users assign forums to topics in the New Discussion Topic Editing experience. The newd2l.Tools.Discuss.CreateForumWorkflowconfiguration variable enables administrators to choose either the existing streamlined behavior for assigning discussion topics to forums or an option to directly select a forum on the primary panel. The default setting for the configuration variable is the existing streamlined workflow.
Please check these articles for more information:
Announcements: As of this release, instructors can publish copied announcements in other courses using either the Announcements tool or widget. This is done by selecting the Copy to Other Coursesoption from the announcement's context menu. In the Copy Announcementwindow, there is a new check box option labeled Publish Announcement on Copy. When this box is selected, the announcement is directly published in the destination course or courses, skipping the draft stage. If the check box is not selected, the announcement copies as a draft into the destination course or courses.
These are the relevant articles:
The biggest change in this release is the possibility to copy Announcements to other courses. Previously you could only copy within the same course.
You'll find both options in the menu of each Announcement. Please note that a copied Announcement is always a draft. So you need to (check and) publish them manually.
These are the relevant articles:
If you use the 'Publish all' option for Assignments and Discussions you now get a message with information on what student evaluations you're about to publish. Please note that the message 'You have x remaining learners with unpublished feedback' might also mean there is no feedback given at all.
Please check these articles for more information:
Within the HTML page, now it is possible to set the text direction on a page in the Brightspace Editor. Just as in Word Documents, you can now align the text left to right or right to left. Previously it was only possible to set the text direction attribute on Selected Items.
To do this:
- Go to a HTML page
- Click on “Other Insert Options”
- Click on Attributes
- Click on “Page Attributes”
- The new option will show up there
These are the relevant articles:
D2L has also made adding Release Conditions in the Content easier. When creating a new Lesson, HTML document or Weblink users are able to add a release condition immediately. When creating a Content-item, it was already possible to give a start and end date, now you can also (already) add a release condition.
For more information and screenshots, you can check these articles:
Within the Quiz tool, the Timer Settings have been enhanced. Now, as an instructor, you have the option to make a quiz start asynchronous or synchronous.
- Asynchronous meaning: the timer starts when the learner launches the quiz.
- Synchronous: Timer starts on the start date.
These are the relevant articles:
Within the Announcement tool, now it is possible to pin a specific announcement for instructors. Relevant articles:
Within assessing an Assignment with the Rubrics tool, the Name and type of Assignment will be displayed more clearly when you full-screen the Rubric. Relevant articles:
Within the Quiz tool, the Timing menu has been simplified and redesigned. For example, now it is possible to enable Automatically submit the quiz attempt when a student exceeds the set time limit.
Relevant articles: