Thanks to those of you who attended last week's "Set Students Up for Success Using Release Conditions" workshop. This workshop, the 2nd in our #LEX Advanced series, helps you to build on the skills you learned in the #LearnEverywhereXULA course and shows how utilizing Release Conditions can set your students up for success in your classes.
NOTE: This is a repeat of a workshop from 2021; however, as you know, Brightspace is a constantly evolving system, and this workshop is a refresher for those who previously attended and brings users up to date with changes/improvements to the Release Conditions system.
In case you missed the training session or if you attended the training session and want to recap what was covered, a copy of the workshop recording and resources referenced in the workshop are available. You can find the workshop recording and other resources in support of the workshop on the CAT+FD wiki.
Additionally, if you did not get the opportunity to earn a digital badge for participating in the workshop, it's not too late to earn that badge. We have a corresponding “Release Conditions” module in the #LearnEverywhereXULA (#LEX) course that you can complete to earn a digital badge for this topic. The badge will count towards your #LEX Advanced certification.
I am writing this blog post as a follow up to my recent announcements blog post. ICYMI, you can find the blog post here: Brightspace Tip #561: Announcements.
Announcements can help boost learner engagement by providing regular and timely communications to all learners enrolled in a course. This blog post focuses on pinning, reordering, and copying announcements.
Pin Announcements
Pinning an announcement to the top of the Announcements widget keeps critical information immediately visible to students, preventing important updates from getting buried as new, less urgent posts appear. This feature ensures key messages remain prominently displayed on your course homepage. Multiple announcements can be pinned, but the most recently pinned message will appear at the top of your list.
Brightspace announcement with the option to Pin to top highlighted.Brightspace announcement with Pinned highlighted.
NOTE: While pinned announcements will appear at the top of the Announcements widgets, learners can dismiss announcements, including pinned announcements.
Unpin Announcements
There is no expiration date to remove a pinned announcement. You have to manually remove the pin. However, when you set an end date for a pinned announcement, the pinned announcement will not appear in the learners announcement widget past its availability end date.
Brightspace announcement section with option to Unpin highlighted.
Reorder Announcements
Did you create or update an announcement and need to move it to the top? Did you push back an assignment and want to change the order of your announcements? If so, you can reorder your announcements!
Brightspace announcement tool with the More Actions menu and the Reorder option highlighted.Brightspace reorder announcement page with the sort order column highlighted.
Copy Announcements
With just a few clicks you can quickly make a copy of a course announcement in the same course as well as copy the announcement to other Brightspace courses. This feature is built right into the shortcut menu. You don't have to copy and paste to duplicate the announcement.
Brightspace announcement section with the options to Copy and Copy to Other Courses highlighted.
Note: You must be enrolled in the course you copy from (source) and the courses you copy to (destination).
You can select the following options when copying announcements:
Copy announcements to other courses in draft state, so you can publish the announcement content from within the destination course later.
Publish copied announcements at the same time you copy it, bypassing the draft stage.
Attributes That Are Copied:
Headline
Display Author Information
Content: Includes associated files, such as inserted images.
Start and End Date: Start and end dates are not automatically offset. Dates remain the same as in the original course.
Attachments
Pin State
Attributes That Are Not Copied:
Assignments
Quick links to activities
LTIs
Release Conditions
Send Email Copy settings
Follow these steps to do it.
Pin an Announcement:
From the Announcements widget or the Announcements tool, select the dropdown arrow beside the announcement’s title, then select Pin to top.
A pin icon will appear beside the posted date.
Unpin an Announcement:
From the Announcements widget or the Announcements tool, select the dropdown arrow beside the announcement’s title, then select Unpin.
The pin icon will be removed.
Reorder Announcements:
From the Announcements tool, click on More Actions, then select Reorder.
Change the sort order number for the relevant announcements.
Click Save.
Copy Announcements:
From the Announcements widget or the Announcements tool, select the dropdown arrow beside the announcement’s title, then select Copy or Copy to Other Courses and follow the prompts.
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.
"Drip-feeding" is a term you will likely hear in association with online and hybrid learning. While the term "drip-feeding" is new to many people, most are familiar with the concept.
Drip-feeding is "scheduled lesson delivery." Essentially, instructors can determine when they want certain content in their courses to become available. Instructors can configure their course content and then set-up the sequential delivery of that content. Once set-up, the Learning Management System (LMS) will auto-drip the content to students without any more work by the instructor.
Utilizing date/time restrictions allow instructors to create content at a time that is convenient to them and make it visible to students at the appropriate time. This can be very handy because instructors can set-up their course content well in advance of when they want it to be available to their students. For example, create all the course content at the beginning of the semester, set the date/time restrictions, and then let Brightspace auto-drip the content.
The availability dates in Brightspace control when items are available to students. There are three types of availability dates, they are:
Start dates: These dates specify when a student can see the item. Students will see that the item exists, but they cannot open it beforehand.
Due dates: These dates specify when a student should complete an item. The dates will appear in the course calendar and students will be able to see and submit their work after the date has passed.
End dates: These dates restrict access to the item. They remove all access once the date has passed.
Some instructors may be hesitant to set date/time restrictions for the entire semester because assignment dates/times may need to be adjusted as the semester progresses. This means, the instructors would have to go into the content items to adjust the dates/times when necessary. The Manage Dates tool can simplify this process. The Manage Dates tool allows instructors to easily change due dates and availability dates at one time (all on one page). The Manage Dates tool will save instructors some time as they will not have to edit each individual item to adjust the dates/times.
Drip-feeding works well for courses that contain complex material that students need time to digest and complete. In this case, drip-feeding content may help your students not to feel overwhelmed.
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 January 2026/20.26.01 release that were added to our system this month:
1) Announcements – Images appear in emailed Announcement notifications
When instructors create an announcement (or administrators create a global announcement) which includes in-line images, any instant notification or emailed copy of that announcement now includes those images in the body of the email. Previously, only images added as file attachments to the announcement were included with the notification email, and in-line images were not shown.
Note: This update applies only to images. Videos embedded in announcements are not included in emailed announcement notifications.
This change ensures that learners who rely on email notifications can see the same visual content that appears in the original announcement, helping them notice important information that may have previously been missed when images were omitted from the email version.
This feature implements the following PIE items:
D7210 (Images in announcements do not appear in the email-version of the notification)
D12152 (Permit images to be sent in an email notification for an announcement)
D7939 (Include images in Brightspace-generated email of Announcements - partial release; videos are not included)
As part of D2L’s ongoing commitment to accessibility and inclusive design, with this release, they have made several updates to enhance the experience for users relying on assistive technologies.
The Submissions page in Assignments: The dropdown menus for submissions, feedback, and results per page now include accessible labels. Previously, these menus only had titles, which some screen readers could miss. This change ensures that all users can access and understand these controls.
The Submissions view in Quick Eval: The number of search results returned is now read aloud by assistive technology, making it easier for users to understand the scope of their results.
Quick Eval interface displaying filtered submission results, with the number of returned results now read aloudQuick Eval interface showing filtered activity results based on a search query, with the number of returned results now read aloud
3) Awards – Increased flexibility in Awards text fields
To improve localization and language flexibility, administrators and instructors can now personalize certificates in the Awards tool using new replacement strings. These strings populate dates in a short YYYY-MM-DD format, which provides more consistent rendering across multilingual certificate templates.
Previously, existing date replacement strings used long-form formats. This caused issues when certificates were created in one language and the date string rendered in another, often breaking formatting. The new short-form format resolves this issue.
The following replacement strings are now available:
{CourseStartDateShort}: Inserts the course start date.
{CourseEndDateShort}: Inserts the course end date.
{AwardDateShort}: Inserts the award issue date.
{AwardExpiryDateShort}: Inserts the award expiry date.
4) Quizzes – Single Session Quiz
Instructors can now require learners to complete a quiz within a single Brightspace login session, helping maintain academic integrity. When this setting is enabled, learners cannot resume the quiz using another browser session. For example, if a learner starts a quiz on a laptop, they cannot continue the quiz on another device such as a smartphone or tablet.
When this configuration variable is enabled, instructors can navigate to the Availability Dates & Conditions section while creating or editing a quiz and select Lock each attempt to a single login session.
From the quiz’s Availability Dates & Conditions section, select Lock each attempt to a single login session to restrict attempts to one active session
IMPORTANT:
This setting only restricts access to the quiz. It does not prevent learners from having multiple active sessions in Brightspace.
While this feature enhances academic integrity, you should use it with caution. We suggest reserving this option for live testing environments where you are available to assist immediately. If a student experiences a technical glitch or a dropped connection, they will be unable to resume the quiz attempt without your direct intervention to reset the session restriction.
This feature implements the following PIE item:
D11297 (Prevent multiple sessions taking one quiz attempt simultaneously)
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.
This weekend's forecast of wintry weather and freezing rains 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.
Video Notes is a built-in media recording tool in Brightspace that allows instructors and learners to record short videos (up to 30-minute video recording) with a webcam or up to 1GB file upload. 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.
Add a Description to a Module or a Topic in the Content area
Create an Announcement
Provide instructions when creating a Submission Folder for Assignments
Provide a feedback on students’ Assignments
Give a description of a new Topic in Discussions or make a post on a Discussion topic
Give students feedback in the Grade Book
Post a message in the Activity Feed
Anywhere Brightspace Editor is available
Learners can use Video Notes in these areas of Brightspace:
When adding comments to uploaded assignments in a Submission folder
When posting a new thread or replying on someone’s thread in Discussion topic
Anywhere Brightspace Editor is available
Follow these steps to do it.
To create and insert a video note in the Brightspace Editor:
In the Brightspace Editor, click the Insert Stuff icon.
Click Add Video Note.
Select Record Webcam Video, or Upload File.
If Record Webcam Video is selected, follow these steps:
Click New Recording.
Record up to 30 minutes of video and click Stop Recording.
To view the video note, click the play icon.
If you are satisfied with the video, click Next.
Enter a title, description, and audio language for the video note. To generate captions automatically, select Automatically generate captions from audio.
Click Next.
Click Insert.
If Upload File is selected, follow these steps:
Click Choose File and select the file you want to upload from your computer.
File format must be .mp4, .webm, .mov, .flv, or .f4v, and file size cannot be larger than 1GB.
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.
The Assignments tool is an efficient way to manage and collect your student's individual and group assignments digitally. Students use the Assignments tool to upload and submit assignments directly in Brightspace, eliminating the need to mail, fax, or email their work to instructors. On paper submissions, and observed in person assignments are also available and do not require file or text submissions to be made in Brightspace.
Did you know that you can quickly create new assignments from existing assignments using the Copy Assignment and the Copy to Other Courses options?
The Copy Assignment feature copies all settings of an existing assignment except the associated grade item and Turnitin settings.
Example of the Copy Assignment and Copy to Other Courses options as they appear in the drop-down menu for existing assignments
Instructors who teach multiple courses can Copy Assignments to Other Courses. To copy assignments to another course, you must be enrolled in both the source and destination course with a role having the permission Assignments > Copy to Other Courses in order to copy from source to destination.
Instructors can copy the following assignment attributes to the new destination:
Assignment folder and its properties, including instructions, assignment category, and visibility
Assignment properties including description and category
Attachments like direct file attachments, uploaded from Google Workspace or OneDrive, and audio and video files
Grade item and grade category
Availability dates
Submission and completion information, including the Optional Grade item and the course scheme if used.
Rubric(s) associated with the assignment. When copying an assignment that uses a shared rubric, instead of linking a copied assignment to a shared rubric, the rubric is also copied. The copied assignment links to the copied rubric. If an assignment uses a rubric that is archived, the rubric is copied and retains its archived state in the destination course.
The following attributes are NOT copied:
Instruction Quicklinks and attachment resources created with the Attach link to existing activity action
Instruction images added using Insert Image that were saved to course files
Availability release conditions and special access settings
Submission and completion information, including group assignment designation
Evaluation and Feedback information including Turnitin associations, competency, and outcome associations
Content topic associations (for example, if the assignment is linked from content)
Note: In some cases, references to links and images that are not copied may result in broken links.
Follow these steps to do it.
To copy an existing assignment, you should:
On the NavBar, click Activities and then click Assignments.
From the drop-down menu of the assignment you want to copy, click Copy Assignment.
The copied assignment opens in edit mode. Update the name, score, due date, instructions and other settings of the copied assignment.
After reviewing all the details, click Save and Close to go back to the Assignments page.
To copy an assignment to another course, you should:
On the NavBar, click Activities and then click Assignments.
From the drop-down menu of the assignment you want to copy, click Copy to Other Courses.
Click to select the rubrics and/or grade items if you want those items copied with the assignment.
In the Choose Destinations area, search by keyword or semester to find the destination courses for the assignment.
Click to select the destination course(s) for the assignment. Note: By default, the maximum number of courses you can select is 10.
Expand the Destination course to set the assignment location and visibility.
Click Next and you will be taken to the progress page.
NOTE: The progress page indicates the status of each destination course and any issues. If you navigate away from the progress page, a minibar notification in Brightspace indicates when the assignment has been copied to all the destination courses. You can click the notification to open the progress page to review the status and logged issues.
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.
Additionally, using Quicklinks provides direct, easily clickable links to specific course content, assignments, announcements, and more, within Brightspace. This makes it significantly easier for students, especially when using the Pulse app, to quickly find the information or activity they need without having to manually search through modules and sub-modules. This enhances the overall navigation and accessibility of the course for all students, including those who may be using assistive technologies or have learning differences.
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 using Quicklinks and 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.
Did you know you can easily insert files directly from OneDrive into your courses? The Microsoft OneDrive Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) App is integrated into our Brightspace system. Using the LTI could be helpful if your files are already stored in your Microsoft OneDrive.
The Microsoft OneDrive LTI is a significant shift from the traditional method of uploading files directly from your hard drive. When you insert a OneDrive file into Brightspace using the OneDrive LTI integration, a copy of the file is created for the course. This means the file in Brightspace is independent of the original file in your personal OneDrive.
A content area showing the Existing Activities menu with the Microsoft OneDrive option highlighted
You can edit the copy of your Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files directly in Brightspace. Any edits made to the file within Brightspace will not affect the original file in OneDrive, and vice versa.
A PowerPoint presentation in a content module with the Edit Document link highlighted
NOTE:
The copy of the file is stored in a dedicated SharePoint site that is automatically created for the course by the LTI integration. Brightspace provides a link to this SharePoint-hosted copy, but the file itself is managed by Microsoft’s SharePoint/OneDrive backend, not Brightspace’s internal file system.
Care should be taken when copying components of a course into another course. When copying linked or associated components, you must copy all of the related components at the same time. For example, the Microsoft OneDrive LTI content topic links to a SharePoint-hosted file, you must copy both components at the same time (in the same copy operation). As long as the associated components are copied together, links between them are retained. Copying the entire course into another course will maintain the links.
The Copy Course Components page with the Select individual items to copy option selected for both Content and External Learning Tools LinksThe Select Content Modules and Topics to Copy page with a content topic selectedThe Select External Learning Tools to Copy page with the corresponding LTI selected
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.
Announcements are one of the first things your learners see when they enter your course. Announcements can provide timely information for your learners about class activities and time-sensitive material. Announcements can be used to remind learners of assignment and/or test dates, post changes to the course, announce upcoming events (such as a guest speaker), etc.
You can create multiple announcements when setting up your course and select a specific day for the announcement to be displayed by choosing staggered future start dates. For example, you know now that you want to post an announcement about the midterm exam and another about the final. Write both announcements now, but set the midterm announcement to display the week before the midterm and the final exam announcement to display a week before the final. Students will not be able to view either announcement until its assigned start date.
Availability End Dates
When creating an announcement, you should set an end date for it so that when the information in the announcement is no longer relevant the system will retire the announcement.
Benefits of using availability end dates for announcements:
Reduces Clutter: Old, irrelevant announcements disappear, keeping the page clean and less overwhelming.
Improves Focus: Students are more likely to read current announcements because they aren't scrolling through stale announcements.
Creates Urgency/Relevance: An expiration date clearly defines how long an announcement is important.
Manages Information Flow: Prevents a logjam of information, especially early in the semester when many start-up messages are posted.
Increases Effectiveness: Makes it easier for students to find what's currently important, improving engagement with important content.
Reduces Course Copy Issues: Setting an end-of-semester date for announcements is good practice if you are planning to copy your course content into another course in an upcoming semester. This will force you to update the announcement start and end dates in the course you are copying to. Thus reducing the possibility the system will display an announcement before you want it to.
How to implement:
Schedule in Advance: Use Brightspace to schedule announcements to appear and disappear on specific dates and times.
Be Consistent: Set a regular cadence (e.g., weekly overviews) and stick to it so students know when to expect updates.
Use End Dates for Timely Info: Set an availability End Date for deadlines, event reminders, or weekly summaries.
Leave Blank for Evergreen Content: If an announcement (like a welcome to the course or instructor contact information) should always be visible, leave the availability end date blank. If the announcement being immediately available (in the destination course) after a course copy would present a problem, the announcement is NOT evergreen. In that case, you should set the announcement availability end date to the last day of the current semester.
Communicate Schedule: Let students know your announcement schedule in the syllabus.
By using availability end dates, instructors can manage the "information dump" and make their communications more strategic and impactful.
NOTE: You can use the Manage Dates tool to edit dates in bulk.
Email a Copy of Announcement
You can email a copy of the announcement to all users in your Classlist by selecting the "Send email copy" checkbox. When the checkbox is selected, the system emails the content of the announcement to all users in the Classlist, including those who have opted out of announcement notifications, upon publishing.
The Send email copy checkbox in Brightspace announcement
NOTE:
The checkbox will be automatically deselected when an announcement is copied or edited, and must be selected again before republishing.
The email will originate from the email address of the person who publishes the announcement.
For announcements scheduled to publish at a later date, clicking the Send email copy checkbox emails the copy to users in the Classlist at the time that the announcement is published.
Quicklinks
Instructors can use Quicklinks within the announcement to direct students to content that is inside or outside of their course. For example, instructors can create an announcement with quicklinks that take students directly to specific content files or assignments inside of the course.
Release Conditions
You can display (release) announcements based on conditions you choose by using Release Conditions. For example, instructors can add a Release Condition to an announcement that will display (release) the announcement when students complete an assignment.
Video Announcements
Consider using Video Notes (built-in media recording tool in Brightspace) or your favorite video sharing service to create video announcements for your learners.
In the Faculty Focus article, Building Community and Creating Relevance in the Online Classroom, Amy Erickson and Catz Neset suggested creating video announcements as a way to build community in your online courses. Their formula for successful announcements are:
Provide an introduction each week and share your availability
Give feedback and answer questions from the previous week
Showcase exceptional student work from the previous week
Highlight the objectives of the coming week and any special preparation or required resources
Connect your coursework to relevant current events
In another Faculty Focus article, Using Announcements to Give Narrative Shape to your Online Course, Dr. Nathan Pritts suggests using announcements to create a narrative that increases student engagement. He starts the semester by letting his students know that he will post around three announcements per week—on the first day of the week (to kick things off), then about three days later (positioned to help motivate and encourage forward progress), and finally, at the end of the week (to provide some closure and open a channel for any last questions). He labels the subject lines of his announcements so students can process and sort them at a glance. For example, some labels that he uses in the subject line are Course Policy, Instructional Content, and Dig Deeper. He uses the announcements as a roadmap to help his learners navigate the course.
Dr. Mark Gstohl uses video announcements in his courses. In the video announcement, he gives his students a tip that will help them with an upcoming assignment. He also uses humor in his announcement which goes a long way to building a rapport with his students.
If you make your videos generic (i.e., don't reference the semester, time of year, seasons, day of the week, etc.), you can re-use the announcements from semester-to-semester. That way you don't have to worry about recording when you are having a bad hair day. 😀
Follow these steps to do it.
Watch this short video for instructions on creating announcements:
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.
