Faculty can request to have two or more of their courses combined into a single course. Combining courses can be useful when you are teaching multiple sections of the same course or when you are teaching a course that is cross-listed. Merging courses allows you to have all the students in a single Brightspace course which can be useful for collaborative work. Merging courses reduces the number of courses an instructor has to manage within Brightspace, especially when each section has identical content.
Once your courses are merged, you can upload your course content and assignments into the merged course; communicate with the students in the merged course; setup collaborative course work; and have one Grade Book for the merged course. You can create groups within your merged course that correspond to the original course sections. This way you can target a particular course section (group) of students for specific things (e.g. send email to a specific group, make content available to specific group, enter/view Grade Book entries for a specific group, etc.)
NOTE: Merging of courses is typically done at the start of the semester before content is added and before students submit course work. You should wait to request your courses be merged if there is a possibility that there will be last minute changes to instructor course section assignments. You can request a Master Course Shell to build your course and then transfer the content into your merged course.
You should carefully consider whether merging courses is right for you. Some things to consider are:
There are Simple Syllabus considerations for merged courses:
If there is one instructor for the merged courses, no additional action is necessary.
If there are multiple instructors for the merged courses, the Brightspace Administrator will have to add all the instructors to the merged course. Doing so will give them edit access to the Simple Syllabus for the merged course.
Course enrollments for the merged courses will be combined which can make grading student work a challenge. If you create groups for the different sections, you will be able to view your Grade Book by groups to make grading easier.
Only one due date and start/end date can be assigned to an assignment, discussion, quiz, etc. Therefore you will not be able to assign different due dates and start/end dates to the activity (e.g., assignment, quiz, discussion, etc.).
If you decide you want to unmerge courses after students have submitted course work, student work and grades will be lost. Only student enrollments are retained when courses are unmerged.
Follow these steps to do it.
A system administrator will have to merge your courses. Send an email to Karen Nichols (knichola@xula.edu) if you want to merge courses. You should include the course ID (including CRN) for all the courses you want merged together.
NOTE: When courses are merged, one of the existing courses will serve as the "merged" course. If all the course sections are empty, it won't matter which one is used as the "merged" course. If you have already created content in a course, you should request that the course with the content be the "merged" course. This will reduce the need to copy content.
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: "why merge" by jflorent is dedicated to the public domain under CC0 and is a derivative of merging by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay
As you prepare to teach this fall, now is a good time to get started setting up your Brightspace courses. Our Information Technology Center (ITC) has created the fall courses in Brightspace.
NOTE: You should see your fall courses in the My Courses widget. If you do not see your fall courses in your My Courses widget, you should click on the link to "View All Courses" (located at the bottom of the My Courses widget). Verify that you are listed as the instructor for the course in Banner. You can find more information about the updated My Courses Widget sort logic at this link.
To get started, you can post your syllabus, course documents, announcements, and setup your Grade Book in your Brightspace courses. You can also customize your course homepage and/or course image/banner.
If you teach a course that is cross listed you will have a Brightspace course for each cross listing. You can combine the cross listed courses into one Brightspace course so that you can post course materials and grades to one combined Brightspace course. Combining courses may also work for you if you are teaching different sections of the same course and would like to have the different sections combined into one Brightspace course so that you can post course documents and grades in the one combined course. The beginning of the semester is the best time to submit a request to merge your Brightspace courses before you add course materials or grades to the courses.
Additionally, if the fall course you are teaching is the same as one of your previous courses you can copy the entire course (or copy components) into your "empty" Brightspace fall course.
NOTE: ITC will enroll students in the Brightspace courses at the end of the registration process, usually the night before the start of classes for the semester. If you want to view your class enrollments or email your students before they are enrolled in your Brightspace course, you can do so in Banner or through EAB.
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.
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 July 2025/20.25.07 release that were added to our system this month:
1) Assignments – Flexible text or file submission options for enhanced learner choice
This feature enables instructors to create a new assignment type that accepts submissions in the form of an uploaded file, text entered in Brightspace Editor, or both.
To create this new type of assignment, instructors must go to the New Assignment page, expand the Submission & Completion panel, open the Submission Type dropdown, and select the new File or text submission option.
The new File or text submission option appears in the Submission Type dropdown on the New Assignment page.
For these assignments, learners can choose how they want to demonstrate their learning. For example, if the assignment is an essay, learners can upload a file, paste a link to an external file in the text box, or type the entire essay into the text box. For assignments restricted to only one file, learners still have the option to add a text submission. Learners will also see an expanded Brightspace Editor for text submissions on the assignment submission page.
The new Submit Assignment page for learners, showing the option to submit files and the option to enter text in Brightspace Editor.
Previously, the available Submission Types were: File submission, Text submission, On paper submission, and Observed in person.
Note: Text submissions are not supported by the Annotations tool.
This feature implements the following PIE item:
D4773 (Assignment Folders should accept BOTH a file and a text submission type not just one or the other)
2) Groups – All group enrollments now processed via background job
To support upcoming changes to increase group enrollment limits planned for August 2025, all group enrollment workflows are now consistently handled by a background job.
Previously, group enrollments created through the Groups tool, APIs, and course copy operations were processed asynchronously to reduce timeouts and errors. With this update, all group enrollment methods (through the Manage Users tool, Classlist enrollments that add users to groups, enrollment APIs, Banner integrations, and Self Registration) are processed using the same background job mechanism.
For end users, this update ensures that when they complete an enrollment in a course offering, any corresponding group enrollments within that course are also processed automatically. This background process may take one to two minutes to complete.
This feature provides consistent and efficient group enrollments across tools and workflows, ensuring a seamless experience as enrollment limits increase, and preventing timeouts and errors during high-volume events.
3) Groups – Bulk enroll and unenroll users by CSV file import
Instructors can now bulk enroll or unenroll learners in existing groups using a comma-separated values (CSV) file in the Groups tool. This feature adds a new Import button to the Manage Groups page and an Import option in the Category drop-down menu. Clicking Import opens a guided workflow with detailed instructions for correctly formatting the CSV file. Each line in the file must represent a single action: either enrolling or unenrolling a learner from a specific group in the course. CSV file modifications are limited to learners currently enrolled in the course.
Once uploaded, the system validates the CSV file. If the file contains no errors, the enroll or unenroll actions are performed, and once completed, the import results are displayed immediately. If there are any errors found in the file, the process stops and generates a list of errors found.
Cancelling the process does not reverse completed actions. Only one import process can run at a time.
Administrators can configure the CSV file format in the Form Elements tool using the new form element BulkGroupEnroll. The following form element properties are customizable:
Username
Org Defined Id
Group Name
Group Code
Either Username or Org Defined Id, and Group Name or Group Code, are required to ensure there is enough information to complete the enrollment or unenrollment action.
The new workflow is available to roles with the Groups and Sections Management > Create/Edit/Delete Groups and Categories permission enabled.
The new Import option appears on the Manage Groups page and in the Category drop-down menu.The new Import page includes instructions to create a CSV file for enrolling and unenrolling users.After uploading a file, the Import page displays the process and checks for errors in the file.
This feature implements the following PIE items:
D8710 (Group enrollment from a file)
D7963 (Improve Group enrollments for 100+ students)
D294 (Create Groups and/or enroll students in Groups using a CSV Spreadsheet)
D6790 (Enrolling students in groups)
D11671 (Allow instructor to bulk enroll students across ALL group categories at once)
4) Quizzes – New Quiz Evaluation Experience is the default
Initially introduced in September 2024/20.24.9, the New Quiz Evaluation Experience is now enabled by default for all clients.
5) Quizzes – Full HTML Editor for Question Feedback
This update introduces the full HTML editor for question-level feedback in Quizzes, enhancing the instructor experience and aligning it with the editors already available for Attempt Feedback and Overall Feedback, including support for the equation editor and file upload features.
Previously, instructors could provide feedback on individual questions using only the inline HTML editor, which offered limited formatting and functionality. With this update, instructors can now:
Upload files securely
Insert equations
Use advanced formatting and media tools
The question Feedback editor now includes extended options.
This feature implements the following PIE item:
D12335 (Add the equation editor to the question feedback in the new quiz evaluation experience)
6) Quizzes – Reopen a submitted quiz attempt
Instructors can now reopen the most recently submitted quiz attempt, allowing learners to resume from where they left off. The new feature supports scenarios where learners run out of time or submit their attempt by mistake, reducing frustration from auto-submissions and improving overall quiz management flexibility.
Previously, instructors could not reopen a submitted quiz attempt. This update introduces the ability to return quiz attempts to an unsubmitted state and adjust time limits if needed.
Reopen a quiz attempt from Manage Quizzes by selecting an attempt and clicking Reopen.In the Reopen Quiz Attempt dialog, instructors can add extra time and confirm the reopened attempt.
This feature implements the following PIE items:
D1993 (Allow instructors the ability to unsubmit a quiz attempt)
D6069 (Re-Open a Quiz)
D6230 (Resume Quiz with Set Time Limit)
D7653 (Un-submit quiz option for instructor)
D7804 (Change Reset Quiz Attempt Workflow)
7) Quizzes – Statistics available for rubrics on written response questions
Instructors can now view rubric statistics for rubrics associated with written response questions across all learners’ first attempts in a quiz. Both Overall Statistics and Criteria Statistics are included with this update.
Previously, rubric statistics were limited or inconsistent for written response questions. With this update, the rubric statistics display data per quiz question for all users, not just the quiz overall.
The user interface clearly indicates that only first attempts with text are included in the stats.
This update provides instructors with consistent rubric statistics across all assessment types for better insight into how learners perform on written response questions in particular.
8) Rubrics – Options to improve rubric management
To improve efficiency when reviewing assessments, instructors can now clear rubric scoring using the new Clear Selections option.
This update supports instructors who need to reset scoring and start from scratch. Clearing the rubric score does not remove any previously entered feedback.
Click Clear Selections in the confirmation dialog to remove rubric scoring.
Selecting Clear Selections requires users to confirm the action. The option to undo this action appears in a pop-up window for a brief amount of time after clicking Clear Selections.
Previously, to modify scoring, instructors had to manually clear each rubric level.
In addition to the Clear Selections menu option, the Set All Ungraded option is also updated. When no rubric levels are selected, the option now appears as Set All to Yes and Set All to No in the menu.
Set All to Yes and Set All to No menu items are now available in Rubrics.
This improvement follows the recent release of the Set Ungraded option in the January 2025/20.25.01 release, to make it easier to manage rubric scoring.
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.
As you move forward with using Brightspace in your teaching and learning, you may have some Brightspace questions. Here is a list of Brightspace help resources you can use to get answers to your questions:
Also, did you know there is a virtual assistant that is integrated directly into Brightspace? If this is news to you, refer to Brightspace Tip #486: Lumi Chat to find out more about it.
Additionally, if you are having difficulties using any of the course tools, you can get help from D2L. This help is available 24/7 via Email and Live Chat. You will find options to request Email Support and Live Chat Support in Lumi Chat. You must be logged into Brightspace to access Lumi Chat.
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 PublicDomainPictures 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 June 2025/20.25.06 release that were added to our system this month:
1) Awards – Replacement strings for award issuer on certificates
Administrators and instructors can now personalize certificates and certificate templates in the Awards tool using new replacement strings. The {IssuerFirstName} and {IssuerLastName} strings insert the first and last name of the user who manually issues a certificate to a learner.
For manually issued certificates, the issuer name will utilize the name of the user that issued the certificate. In cases where a certificate using these replacement strings is conditionally released, the issuer name areas of the certificate will utilize the name of the account set by the d2l.Tools.Awards.AwardUserId configuration variable.
Note:
The replacement strings use preferred names if they are configured at the organization level.
If the issuer updates their name, the name that displays on the certificate reflects the current name setting at the time of issuance. Previously issued certificates do not update.
Depending on the certificate template, the inserted text may extend beyond the text box borders. Administrators and instructors may need to adjust the template layout to ensure issuer names appear correctly.
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 has a variety of formative and summative assessment tools available for instructors to use in their courses. You may be wondering which tool you should use. This blog post explains the difference between the Quizzes, Surveys, and Self-Assessments (SA) tools to help you determine which of the tools is the best tool to meet your needs.
A Quiz provides students with a score. Quizzes can be linked to the Grade Book to affect the final grade, but are not required to be linked to the Grade Book. This tool is commonly used for summative assessments (i.e., quizzes, tests, exams).
Surveys are not graded or scored, but do provide results to the instructor. Survey results can be viewed and downloaded as needed. Surveys can be anonymous.
Self-Assessments is a formative assessment tool that enables instructors to provide learners with a series of questions and give immediate feedback to their responses. A Self-Assessment is solely for the purpose of the learner to assess their understanding of the content. Instructors CANNOT view the results of a Self-Assessment, but they are able to see who has taken the Self-Assessment and the time spent on it. The omission of numeric evaluation enables learners to make reflective learning and course material comprehension their main priorities during a Self-Assessment.
The following table compares the feedback and reporting for each tool:
Quizzes
Surveys
Self-Assessments
Feedback for learner
Feedback is released based on the options set by instructor. Feedback can be setup to be instant (upon submission) or delayed.
Feedback is released after completion in the form of a report.
Feedback is provided immediately after answering question.
Reporting for instructor
Reporting for Instructors – yes, instructors can see summative feedback on scores and individual questions.
Reporting for Instructors – yes, reports are generated, and can be done so anonymously.
Reporting for Instructors – yes, but limited to who has taken SA and the time spent; instructors CANNOT view results of the SA.
This table provides some use cases for Quizzes, Surveys, and Self-Assessments:
Tool
Use Case
Quizzes
Measuring knowledge acquisition: Assess factual recall, comprehension, and application of learned concepts. Assess skills for the purpose of determining whether instruction has been effective.
Evaluating critical thinking: Open ended questions requiring analysis, synthesis, or evaluation can assess higher-order thinking skills.
Standardized test: Deliver high-stakes tests with secure features like time limits, question randomization, paging, and integration with lockdown browsers.
Formative assessment: Create low-stakes quizzes for students to practice and receive immediate feedback. Assess skills for the purpose of identifying areas needing improvement.
Surveys
Gauging student understanding: Use anonymous surveys to assess student comprehension of course material before, during, or after a lesson.
Gathering opinions on teaching methods: Evaluate the success of specific teaching approaches or gather suggestions for improvement.
Course satisfaction surveys: Collect feedback on student experience with the course content, delivery, and overall effectiveness.
Self-Assessments
Promoting metacognition: Encourage students to reflect on their learning progress, strengths, and weaknesses through self-evaluation activities.
Identifying learning gaps: Allow students to assess their own understanding of key concepts before moving on to new material.
Personalized learning: Use self-assessment results to tailor learning experiences or provide targeted resources based on individual needs.
By understanding the strengths of each tool, instructors can select the most effective tool for the job.
A Note About the Question Library
The Question Library is a central repository that stores and archives questions which you can reuse within a course. You can create multiple sections within the Question Library to organize your questions by type and topic, making it easier for you to find, use, and reuse questions in your quizzes, surveys, and self-assessments.
As a better practice for storage, organization, and easy access, I recommend that you create all your questions using the Question Library. You can also consolidate questions created within the Quizzes, Surveys, and Self-Assessments tools by importing them back into the Question Library.
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 StockSnap from Pixabay (image cropped)
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 May 2025/20.25.05 release that were added to our system this month:
1) Assignments – Retract feedback in bulk on the Submissions page
The Submissions page in the Assignments tool now aligns with Discussions and Quizzes, allowing instructors to retract feedback in bulk. This enhancement improves consistency and eliminates the need to use multiple tools for retraction tasks.
The bulk Retract Feedback option allows instructors to choose how many learners to retract published feedback from.
Selective retraction is also supported. Instructors can select users by checking the box next to their names and then clicking More Actions > Retract Feedback.
The More Actions > Retract All option retracts feedback for all users, regardless of which users are selected.
From the Submissions page, click More Actions and select Retract All to remove published feedback in bulk.
After clicking Retract All, instructors are notified of the number of evaluations to be retracted and must confirm by clicking Retract.
A confirmation dialog displays the number of learners affected. Click Retract to proceed or Cancel to exit.
Previously, instructors could only retract feedback individually in the Assignments tool.
This feature implements the following PIE items:
D1361 (Allow method to bulk unpublish dropbox feedback)
D5593 (Retract Assignment Feedback in Bulk)
2) Quizzes – Improved quiz monitoring with Session IDs in Attempt Logs
This release introduces the new d2l.Tools.Quizzes.ShowSessionId (Org Unit) configuration variable, which allows administrators to control whether instructors can view the Session ID column in quiz attempt logs.
When enabled, instructors can use session IDs to discern when learners have multiple sessions within a quiz attempt, helping detect potential academic dishonesty.
Check the Session ID column when viewing Attempt Logs > Detailed.
3) Quizzes – Enhanced Learner Submission View
The quiz submission page now features a sleeker, modernized layout. The previous banner image has been replaced with a checkmark icon, along with other visual updates.
The quiz submission page before this update.The quiz submission page after this update.
4) Groups – Export group enrollment data
Instructors can now export group enrollment data from the Groups tool for group-specific class lists and contact list creation.
A new Export button now appears in the Groups tool for users with the Manage Groups and Categories permission. Instructors can use this button to export group data to a CSV file. The exported content includes:
Group category details
Group names
User enrollment information
Enrollment dates
You can choose a specific group or all groups within a selected category to include in the export.
Previously, there was no built-in method to export group data or user enrollment dates from the Groups tool.
From the Manage Groups page, click Export to download group data.From the Export page, use the Select Category and Select Group drop-downs to choose the desired group set, then click Export to download group data.
This feature implements the following PIE items:
D295 (Export Groups: Export Group Enrolments and/or Statistics to a CSV spreadsheet)
D9175 (Add times and dates of students enrolled in groups created)
This feature partially implements the following PIE items:
D7413 (Viewing Group Category/Group Enrollments Quickly)
D345 (Show all Group Categories (or more than one Group Category) on the main Groups page)
D5236 (Printing Groups)
D454 (Group Statistics: View the date and time students self-enrolled in a group)
5) Quick Eval – Evaluate learners across Assignments, Discussions, and Quizzes
This release enables instructors to quickly iterate through their list of submissions in Quick Eval even if those submissions are sourced from different activity types or courses. For example, an instructor has activities to grade in Assignments, Discussions, and Quizzes and has been assigned items that appear in Quick Eval Submissions. The instructor directly accesses each submission to evaluate the items instead of navigating back to Quick Eval and going into each item again.
Previously, instructors had to click into each submission to view the evaluation and then click Back to Quick Eval to go to the Submissions view and then find the next submission to evaluate. With this release instructors are redirected to the next evaluation as listed in the Quick Eval.
From the Submissions view, select a submission and click on the linked learner’s name. In the activity evaluation page, use the forward and backward arrows to toggle to the next or previous learner to evaluate.
This feature implements the following PIE items:
D5475 (Add a "Next Item" button when grading from Quick Eval)
D8199 (Auto Advance to next item in Quick Eval)
6) Pulse – View recurring events
Pulse now displays recurring events from the Events tab. This ensures that any recurring events that an instructor creates using the Calendar tool properly displays in Pulse. Previously, recurring events did not display in Pulse.
7) Notifications – Unsubscribe from all
To improve user experience and reduce unwanted emails, notification emails from Brightspace now include an Unsubscribe link. Selecting the link opens a confirmation screen that allows users to opt out of email notifications, including instant and summary notifications.
Previously, users without login access could not unsubscribe unless they logged in to adjust their notification settings.
The Unsubscribe All Notifications confirmation page appears after clicking Unsubscribe in an email.
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.
Do you want your students to take a quiz or test online? Do you have a test that you normally administer on paper and you don’t want to retype all the questions into Brightspace? Learning and Teaching Services at Algonquin College developed a Test/Quiz Question Generator that provides an easy way of creating a collection of questions that can be imported into Brightspace.
Quiz questions have to be in a special format in order to be imported into Brightspace. The Test/Quiz Question Generator allows you to reformat your questions and it will create a CSV file that can be imported into Brightspace.
Additionally, the Brightspace Community developed a Quiz Question Converter that you can use to add a bank of questions to the Quiz Question Library. One benefit of using the Quiz Question Converter is that you can add feedback and hints to the quiz questions you are importing into Brightspace. Therefore saving you time in importing quiz questions with feedback and hints into Brightspace.
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.
Thursday, May 15th, is Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD). GAAD aims to get you talking, thinking, and learning about digital access/inclusion and people with different abilities and talents.
Accessibility is about everyone. It is extremely important for students with disabilities to have access to accessible course content.
Video Notes is a built-in media recording tool in Brightspace that allows instructors and learners to record short videos with a webcam. This makes it easy to personalize the learning experience with short, video-based feedback, comments, or instructions. Video Notes can be added where video attachments are supported and when the Brightspace Editor’s Insert Stuff option is available.
People who are deaf or hard of hearing rely on captions and subtitles to understand video content. But there are a lot of other great reasons for using captions. For example, you may have some learners who choose not to use the sound or they cannot use it without disturbing those around them. You may have some learners who are not native in your language or who have trouble understanding you. Closed captions and subtitles will allow these individuals to receive your message and understand it.
Did you know you can generate automatic closed captions for newly created Video Notes AND you have the ability to manually add or edit closed captions for all previously recorded Video Notes?
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.
Thursday, May 15th, is Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD). GAAD aims to get you talking, thinking, and learning about digital access/inclusion and people with different abilities and talents.
Accessibility is about everyone. It is extremely important for students with disabilities to have access to accessible course content.
The Brightspace Editor has a built-in accessibility checker that makes it easy to check for issues or offer suggestions to fix identified accessibility issues.
Follow these steps to do it.
To check for accessibility issues:
After you add content to the Brightspace Editor, click the accessibility checker icon.
The checker indicates if the content is free of accessibility issues, or offers suggestions to fix them.
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.
