Turnitin is a plagiarism detection tool that is integrated into our Brightspace system. Turnitin checks student work for potential plagiarism and allows instructors to provide electronic feedback to students through markup, proofing, and rubrics tools.
Instructors typically create an Assignment submission folder with Turnitin enabled. When students submit their assignments they are checked for potential plagiarism. However, there may be situations where an instructor needs to submit a paper to be checked by Turnitin.
The Quick Submit feature allows instructors to submit papers and receive Similarity Reports without creating an Assignment in their course. This is ideal for instructors who would like to use Turnitin to spot check submissions and have these papers in electronic format. Quick Submit SHOULD NOT be used if the instructor desires to have students submit their own papers or plans on using PeerMark (peer review assignment tool) or GradeMark (make comments on and assess student papers). Instructors should create an Assignment and enable Turnitin for the assignment instead.
Follow these steps to do it.
To use Quick Submit to submit a paper:
Log in to your Turnitin account natively through www.turnitin.com.
Activate Quick Submit by clicking on User Info from the top of the instructor homepage.
On the preferences page, select yes from the activate Quick Submit drop-down menu. The Quick Submit tab will appear on the instructor homepage, making the Quick Submit inbox available for use.
To start the upload process, click on the Submit button in the Quick Submit inbox and follow the instructions.
Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.
#LearnEverywhereXULA (#LEX) is our award winning Brightspace course that is organized around the eight General Standards for Higher Education set forth in the Quality Matters Higher Education Rubric Sixth Edition. The information, activities, and assignments in the #LEX course aids faculty in developing high quality, well-designed, objective-driven courses on Brightspace for Xavier University of Louisiana (XULA) students.
When faculty complete the #LEX course, they have the opportunity to expand their horizons even more through #LEX Advanced certification. With the certification, faculty learn about using design and automation features available in Brightspace to apply better pedagogical practices within their courses by making them more user-friendly, accessible, and efficient.
#LEX Advanced takes a deeper dive into tools like Rubrics, Release Conditions, Intelligent Agents, HTML Templates, Awards & Badges, and more. #LEX Advanced certification also includes topics such as accessibility, academic integrity, rethinking assessment strategies in the age of AI, securing online testing environment, online discussions, group work, and video lectures.
A #LEX Advanced badge can be earned for participation in a #LEX Advanced workshop OR for completing its corresponding module in the #LEX course.
Our #LEX Advanced certification has five levels. Faculty can move up a certification level with every fourth #LEX Advanced badge they earn. Complete four modules to earn the #LEX Advanced Level 1 certification. Complete eight modules to earn the #LEX Advanced Level 2 certification. Complete twelve modules to earn the #LEX Advanced Level 3 certification. Complete sixteen modules to earn the #LEX Advanced Level 4 certification. Complete twenty modules to earn the #LEX Advanced Level 5 certification.
Faculty can view the badges they've earned by clicking on Activities in the NavBar and then click on Awards within the #LearnEverywhereXULA course.
Are you interested in becoming #LEX Advanced certified? Attend one of our upcoming #LEX Advanced workshops to start earning your badges. Alternatively, you can earn badges by completing modules in the #LearnEverywhereXULA course.
NOTE: Faculty who are not enrolled in the #LearnEverywhereXULA course can request enrollment using this enrollment request form.
#LEX Advanced Certifications
Congratulations to those faculty who have earned #LEX Advanced Certification!
Turnitin Feedback Studio is a program that checks student work for potential plagiarism and allows instructors to provide electronic feedback to students through markup, proofing, and rubrics tools.
Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.
Use the Assignments tool to help you set and manage deadlines, unclutter your inbox, and save trees!
The Assignments tool is an efficient way to manage and collect your student's individual and group assignments digitally. You can use the Assignments tool to create and edit assignments, see users’ submission times, view submissions on the Evaluate Submission page, associate assignments to rubrics, and return submissions to learners with their grades and your feedback.
For assignments that included file submissions, you can download the submissions to your computer for review offline.
This blog post answers frequently asked questions about creating an assignment using the Assignments tool.
When you create an Assignment with the new Assignment Creation Experience, the default when you enter points in the “Grade Out Of” field is that the “In Grade Book” option will be automatically selected.
The “In Grade Book” option will automatically create a grade item (column) in the Grade Book. The grade item is created with the same name as the Assignment.
Example showing the “In Grade Book” option when points are entered.
If you setup your Grade Book before creating the Assignment and you already have a grade item (column) for the Assignment in your Grade Book, you would associate the Assignment to the grade item by using the "Edit or Link to Existing" option and then navigate to the grade item in your Grade Book that you want to associate the Assignment with.
Example showing the “Edit or Link to Existing” option in the drop-down list.Example showing the option to “Link to an existing grade item” with the grade item selected.
If you DO NOT want the system to create a column for the Assignment in your Grade Book, then you should select the "Not in Grade Book" option.
Example showing the “Not in Grade Book” option in the drop-down list.
The drop-down menu also allows you to reset the Assignment to ungraded, if necessary.
NOTE: Even though the new Assignment Creation Experience can automatically create a grade item (column) in your Grade Book, we still suggest you setup your Grade Book first and when you create your Assignments then choose the option to “Edit or Link to Existing” grade item in your Grade Book and navigate to the grade item that you want to associate the Assignment with.
Choosing to automatically create grade items in your Grade Book may present a problem when viewing your Grade Book from the Enter Grades tab. If you find the extra wide column headings that are created because of a long assignment name to be problematic, then you can edit the grade items and enter a shorter name for them. You can edit the grade items one at a time or edit them in bulk.
Example showing a grade item being edited to enter a short name for it.
You can edit grade items in bulk from the Manage Grades tab. First, select the grade items you want to edit and then click Bulk Edit.
Example showing grade items being selected for a bulk edit.Example showing short names entered for grade items on the bulk edit items and categories page.
You will see the short names when you view your Grade Book from the Enter Grades tab.
Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.
OK, OK, after being here for 25 years I'm not actually new. I got a new job title, though! Doesn't that count for something? Well, to be honest, even the title isn't new. It became official four years ago last month. But for very complicated reasons, I never got around to announcing it... until now.
When I introduce myself as a "Creative Generalist" in a professional context, I always feel compelled to add that, yes, that's my official job title. In part, that's because it was a long time coming. It took years of advocacy to get my job title changed. But mainly it's because I relish the title itself, and what it means. I feel it's just about the perfect descriptor for who I am and what I do.
The Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Faculty Development invites you to join us for a regular silent meeting. We'll meet each Wednesday afternoon throughout the 2024-2025 academic year. Drop in when you can.
What to expect?
As the Meditation Room of the Chapel is located directly beneath the bell tower, we are using the bells in our timer. They chime quarterly, so our period of silence begins at 2:00 and ends at 2:15.
But I've never done this before!
You needn't have any experience with meditating; just stop by and give it a try. There's no commitment and no pressure.
Why meditate?
Meditation has numerous well-documented benefits, including stress management, improved emotional balance, increased focus and awareness and increased responsiveness to student needs.
All welcome
This is open for everyone in the Xavier community, for people of any faith or no faith.
Date: all school year (whenever classes are in session)
Time: 2 - 2:15 PM
Location: Meditation Room, St. Katharine Drexel Chapel
Would you like to send your students email (e.g., welcome to the course, reminder about something important, congratulations for a job well done, give them a nudge when they might need to work harder) -- without having to do a lot of extra work to make it happen? The Brightspace Intelligent Agents tool can help automate this process for you.
Intelligent Agents allow instructors to delegate some of the course communication and notification tasks to the system, based on specific triggering activities in the course. Intelligent Agents can be used to both recognize student achievement and warn of potential problems. For example, you can use Intelligent Agents to:
Check for users that have not logged into the course
Check for users that have not logged in within a specific number of days
Notify users with grades below a certain level
Congratulate users with grades above a certain level
Check for users that view a specific content topic
The automatic notifications that are generated when specified course performance criteria are met can be sent to instructors, advisors, and/or students.
ICYMI: Updates were made to the Intelligent Agent Create Agent page to facilitate additional scheduling options and frequency options to allow for improved flexibility. Changes to the Create Agent page include:
Two new agent frequency options:
One-Time Run allows instructors to choose a single date and time to run.
Hourly allows instructors to choose a date and time to run between. If no dates are chosen, the Hourly agent runs every hour with the first time being "now" (that is once the agent is saved and enabled).
The existing Daily, Weekly, Monthly and Annually options all now have a Scheduled Time option that users complete to determine what time that the agent will run on the dates scheduled for the agent to run.
The Intelligent Agent (IA) scheduling page with the Hourly option and IA will run every 8 hours for a specified period.
Repetitive emails may lose their effectiveness, so use Intelligent Agents sparingly. Consider using Intelligent Agents when there isn't a better way of communicating. Ask yourself,
Would an announcement work better?
Would a personally crafted email work better?
Would a discussion board posting work better?
If the answer is no, then consider using an Intelligent Agent!
Follow these steps to do it.
To create an Intelligent Agent:
On a course NavBar, click Course Admin.
Click Intelligent Agents.
On the Agent List page, click New Agent.
On the New Agent page, enter a name.
Enter a description into the Description field.
If you want to assign a category to the agent, select an option from the Category drop-down menu or create a new category by clicking the Add Category link.
If you want the agent to be active, select the Agent is enabled check box.
Expand Scheduling, and under Frequency schedule how frequently agent criteria is evaluated. Choose a frequency option from the dropdown menu and complete the schedule dates and repetition options as needed.
Expand Criteria, and under Role in Classlist do one of the following:
If you want the Intelligent Agent to be applicable to all roles in the Classlist, select the All users visible in the Classlist check box.
If you want the Intelligent Agent to be applicable to select roles, select the Users with specific roles check box and select the respective roles.
Select your criteria (login activity, course activity, or attach Release Conditions).
Under Actions > Repetition, select how often you want the agent to take action.
If you want the agent to send an email when the set criteria are satisfied, expand Actions, and under Send an Email, select the Send an email when the criteria are satisfied check box and enter your email details and relevant attachments.
Click Save and Close.
NOTE: You can perform a practice run or a manual run of an Intelligent Agent at any time in a course.
Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.
Image credit: Image by TheDigitalArtist from Pixabay
D2L (the company that owns Brightspace) uses Continuous Delivery to update our Brightspace system. The Continuous Delivery model gives us regular monthly updates allowing for incremental and easily integrated changes with no downtime required for our Brightspace system.
Our Continuous Delivery update occurs on the 4th Thursday of each month. D2L provides release notes to help users stay up-to-date with the changes.
Here are some of the updates in the January 2025/20.25.01 release that were added to our system this month:
1) Brightspace's minimum for supported browser versions
Brightspace's minimum for supported browser versions increases every January and July. The January update increases the minimum supported browser versions to:
Chrome 129
Edge 129
Safari 18
Firefox 130
The minimum legacy browsers are now:
Chrome 94
Edge 94
Safari 15
Firefox 92
The following browsers are no longer supported:
Chrome 67
Edge 80
Safari 12
Firefox 67
D2L has also added support for Firefox ESR, versions 115 and above. For an optimal experience that offers better performance, accessibility, and security, D2L recommends using the latest version of a supported browser to access Brightspace. D2L is also updating the browser classification system with this release; browsers are either Supported, Legacy, Unsupported (Warning), or Unsupported (Blocked). For more information, refer to this updated Browser support topic.
2) Consistent Evaluation – Assignment and Discussion evaluations now synchronized with Grade Book
The individual scores and feedback from Assignment and Discussion grade items are now synchronized with the grade book using the Update button regardless of whether a change was made. The Update button in Assignments and Discussions evaluations is always available to update, even when no changes were made. This feature also enables instructors to verify that the information between the grade book and the Assignment or Discussion tool is properly synchronized.
Previously, In Brightspace, when an instructor evaluated an assignment, discussion, or quiz using a rubric and saved it as a draft, then added feedback directly in the grade book and saved, the feedback did not sync back to the evaluation page when the instructor clicked Update.
Note: Consistent Evaluation for quizzes is excluded from this update as Grades sync works seamlessly. Individual quiz question attempts are not sent to Grades upon saving, and publishing the quiz using the Completion Summary ensures no sync issues occur.
3) Rubrics – Streamline grading with minimum or maximum score for ungraded rubric criteria
This feature updates the instructor workflow of evaluating a rubric and providing feedback to learners. Now, instructors can quickly assess all ungraded Rubric criteria and then go back through to add feedback where necessary. To provide a more streamlined experience for instructors using analytical type rubrics for assessments in the Consistent Evaluation experience for assignments, discussions, and written response quiz questions, the instructor can automatically set ungraded levels to a minimum or maximum value.
From a drop-down beside the rubric name in each assessment pop-out, or from a context menu in Consistent Evaluation, there are two options:
Set Ungraded to [top rubric level name]: where all ungraded levels within this rubric are set to the maximum value using the top level of the rubric.
Set Ungraded to [lowest rubric level name]: where all ungraded levels within this rubric are set to the minimum value using the bottom level of the rubric.
When an instructor selects an option, a confirmation dialog appears to advise of the bulk action and provides an option to undo the update.
Previously, instructors were required to click individual criteria, which, for large rubrics was a time-consuming task involving many clicks to set the rubric score to 100%.
Note: The updated functionality does not appear as an option in the following scenarios:
If there is only one level in the rubric
If the rubric is holistic type. It is only available for analytical type rubrics
In Assignments and Discussions, click to open the context menu beside the rubric name to choose an option for all ungraded criteria
In Consistent Evaluation, click the drop-down menu beside the rubric name to choose an option for all ungraded criteria
This feature implements the following PIE items:
D10306 (Tick all rubric options automatically/remove tick boxes)
D9336 (Include a Clear All for Rubric Evaluation)
D7630 (Auto-Populate Rubrics for Students with Perfect Score)
Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.
Next week's forecast of wintry weather and a hard freeze in our area should be a reminder that course delivery is vulnerable to unplanned events. Potential interruptions to class activities include but are not limited to natural disasters, widespread illness, acts of violence, planned or unexpected construction-related closures, severe weather conditions, and medical emergencies.
Here are a few things you can do in Brightspace to help you prepare should the need arise.
Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.
Brightspace Pulse is a mobile app that can help learners stay connected and on track with their Brightspace courses. It provides one easy view of course calendars, readings, assignments, evaluations, grades, and announcement items. The app can help learners make better decisions about how to handle their workload, when to submit assignments, and when to prepare for tests. Real-time alerts can let learners know when classes are canceled, class is meeting in an alternate location, or new grades are available. The schedule view and weekly visualization enables learners to quickly at a glance view what is due today, this week, and upcoming across all their courses.
While the Brightspace Pulse app is designed for the learner, instructors can benefit too.
While the Brightspace Pulse app is designed for the learner, instructors can benefit too. When instructors enter due dates or end dates for assignments and activities the information is populated in the Pulse app enabling learners to stay connected and on track. Thus, instructors can spend less time reminding and more time teaching.
Instructors can make their courses Pulse friendly by including due dates or end dates for assignments and activities. When instructors do not enter due dates or end dates, no associated information is available in the Pulse app.
The Pulse app is great for helping students stay on track in face-to-face classes as well. Instructors can set up their face-to-face assignments and activities as events in the Brightspace course calendar. Students will get those date feeds in the Brightspace Pulse app.
Help keep students on track for success in all their courses by including a due date or end date for assignments and activities.
Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.
