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Month: December 2023

Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #422: December Continuous Delivery Updates

the word update written on a chalk board

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 a few updates in the December 2023/20.23.12 release that were added to our system this month:

1) Announcements – Copy announcements to other courses in published state

The ability to copy announcements to other courses was originally released for the Announcements tool in the November 2023/20.23.11 release.

As of this December release, users with proper role permissions can publish copied announcements in other courses using either the Announcements tool or widget. This is done by selecting the Copy to Other Courses option from the announcement's context menu. In the Copy Announcement window, 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.

Previously, copied announcements appeared in draft form and required publishing in the destination course to complete the process.

Select Publish Announcement on Copy to publish the copied announcement in the destination course or courses.
Select Publish Announcement on Copy to publish the copied announcement in the destination course or courses.

2) Assignments – Interface improvements for annotations

D2L is updating the Annotations tool in Assignments to be a web component, as part of our internal technical maintenance work. As a result, the user interface for the annotations viewer is improved to include the following changes:

  • Error state includes updated dialog language.
  • Document conversion state now has in-page messaging and a loading icon. Previously, there was a dialog displaying the messaging.
  • General loading state now has a loading icon. Previously, there was no loading icon.
  • Note annotations and their print format show annotations instead of just the annotations icon.
If an error occurs while loading the assignment file, an error dialog appears.
If an error occurs while loading the assignment file, an error dialog appears.
The document conversion state appears while the assignment file is loading.
The document conversion state appears while the assignment file is loading.
When an assignment file is loading, the loading icon appears.
When an assignment file is loading, the loading icon appears.
If you print or convert an annotated file, the annotation appears on the page.
If you print or convert an annotated file, the annotation appears on the page.

3) Assignments and Discussions – Feedback field limitations for evaluation experiences

The Assignments and Discussions tools' evaluation feedback field is changing from a 500,000 character limitation to a 300,000 character limitation, resulting in an updated dialog warning appearing when the user hits 300,000 characters.

The character limit update improves performance and security for evaluations. Previously, when a user would enter over 300,000 characters, the new information may not have been saved. This potential save failure resulted in the loss of anything entered between 300,000-500,000 characters.

The warning message for character limitations appears when a user enters over 300,000 characters.
The warning message for character limitations appears when a user enters over 300,000 characters.

4) Calendar – View quiz start and quiz end dates as separate events in Calendar

When an instructor adds a Start Date and End Date in Quizzes and then selects Add Availability Dates to Calendar, both dates are displayed in the Calendar tool as separate events. Previously, only one event displayed showing when the availability of that quiz ended.

From Quizzes, instructors must enter a Start Date and End Date, and then select Add Availability Dates to Calendar.
From Quizzes, instructors must enter a Start Date and End Date, and then select Add Availability Dates to Calendar.
Users can see when a quiz is available as a separate event item from when it ends.
Users can see when a quiz is available as a separate event item from when it ends.

This feature implements the following PIE items:

  • D10060 (Consistency among Calendar Events (Start, Due, End Dates) for Quizzes and Assignments)
  • D9956 (Add quiz start dates to calendar widget)
  • D7273 (Add quiz start dates to calendar widget)
  • D5688 (Post Assignment and Discussion End Dates in the Calendar and Upcoming Events)

5) Quizzes – Better identify bonus questions in a quiz

Quizzes now clearly mark bonus questions with Bonus, improving learner understanding and addressing a previous lack of indication in Quizzes.

Learners completing a bonus question now see Bonus.
Learners completing a bonus question now see Bonus.

6) Rubrics – Grades tool now uses Consistent Evaluation interface for assessments

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.

Previously, evaluations for these types of activities used a pop-out Rubric grid when launching from the Grades tool. When users click the drop-down menu on the column header to enter grades, the rows with un-submitted work now use the Consistent Evaluation experience instead of the previous Rubric pop-out.

This feature addresses the following accessibility criteria:

  • WCAG 2.1 Success Criterion 3.2.4 - Consistent Identification
The Assessment column contains icons to indicate that there are evaluations available to complete.
The Assessment column contains icons to indicate that there are evaluations available to complete.
The grade item (in this example, a discussion submission) appears with the rubric collapsed on the right. Click the arrow beside the rubric name to expand the rubric assessment area.
The grade item (in this example, a discussion submission) appears with the rubric collapsed on the right. Click the arrow beside the rubric name to expand the rubric assessment area.

If you are interested in getting more information about these and all the December Continuous Delivery updates, refer to the Brightspace Platform December 2023/20.23.12 Release Notes.

Additionally, refer to the Brightspace Release Notes for Continuous Delivery Releases, for details about current, past, and to preview upcoming continuous delivery updates.

Want more information?

View current, past, and preview upcoming Continuous Delivery release notes
Instructors Quick Start Tutorial
Brightspace Known Issues
Request a sandbox course
Sign-up for Brightspace training sessions
You can find Brightspace help at D2L's website.
Join the Brightspace Community.
Try these Brightspace How-To documents.
Visit our Brightspace FAQs for additional Brightspace information
or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.

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 geralt from Pixabay

Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #421: Help Resources

F1 Help keyInstructors Quick Start Tutorial
  • Brightspace Virtual Assistant
  • Brightspace How-to Documents
  • Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
  • Brightspace Tips
  • Brightspace Help (on D2L's website)
  • Brightspace Community

    • 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 #413: Brightspace Virtual Assistant to find out more about it.

    Live Chat icon

    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 the Brightspace Virtual Assistant. You must be logged into Brightspace to access the Brightspace Virtual Assistant.

    Help Menu

    Want more information?

    View current, past, and preview upcoming Continuous Delivery release notes
    Instructors Quick Start Tutorial
    Brightspace Known Issues
    Request a sandbox course
    Sign-up for Brightspace training sessions
    You can find Brightspace help at D2L's website.
    Join the Brightspace Community.
    Try these Brightspace How-To documents.
    Visit our Brightspace FAQs for additional Brightspace information
    or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
    call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.

    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

    Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #420: Setup Your Spring Courses

    Our Information Technology Center (ITC) has created the spring courses in Brightspace.

    NOTE: You should see your spring courses in the My Courses widget. If you do not see your spring 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.

    As you prepare to teach this spring, you can get started setting up your Brightspace courses. 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.

    to do list

    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 spring 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 spring 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.

    About Inactive Courses:
    When ITC creates the Brightspace courses, they are set to inactive by default. Instructors have access to inactive courses but students who are enrolled in an inactive course do not have access to it. Faculty have no control over the active/inactive status of courses. Brightspace will not send alerts or notifications from inactive courses.

    ITC will make courses active after the first deregistration (dereg) of students who are not fiscally cleared. At that point students will be able to access to their courses. The dereg process usually occurs after registration. The registrar informs ITC of when the dereg process is complete.

    Follow these steps to do it.

    Listed below are links with instructions to:

    Want more information?

    View current, past, and preview upcoming Continuous Delivery release notes
    Instructors Quick Start Tutorial
    Brightspace Known Issues
    Request a sandbox course
    Sign-up for Brightspace training sessions
    You can find Brightspace help at D2L's website.
    Join the Brightspace Community.
    Try these Brightspace How-To documents.
    Visit our Brightspace FAQs for additional Brightspace information
    or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
    call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.

    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.

    Photo Credit: image by analogicus from Pixabay

    Published on Leave a comment on Spotlight on Part-time Faculty
    Skye Jackson
    Charles Brown
    Charles Brown
     
    Like many universities, Xavier has relied more and more on the skills and services of part-time instructors to fulfil its special mission. During my time as Director of First-year Composition, I've had the pleasure of working with many incredible writing teachers who only worked with us for a brief time and in limited capacity. These teachers are skilled and resourceful. They bring working knowledge of the discipline, its trends and directions, and a honed instinct to adapt to the norms of different institutions. They learn quickly, fit in well, and are absolutely crucial to our ability to deliver our course and program outcomes to students.
     
    Too often, though, they are left out of many aspects of faculty communities, from the official and decision-making ones, to the informal and collegial pieces as well. We need them and value them, but too often we come up short in supporting them in their work, and including them in ours.
     
    In an effort to address this gap, during the fall semester of 2023, CAT+FD piloted a program of support for part-time faculty that included a dedicated orientation and a series of monthly open sessions targeting their needs. It has been my pleasure to extend my work in composition to a newly created position supporting part-time faculty across the university.
     
    Our first semester of work had its ups and downs, to be expected in a pilot program. Without doubt, incoming part-time instructors were brought up to speed more quickly and efficiently this term. Having a point person with a broad base of institutional knowledge proved beneficial, someone to address the myriad "little things" that pop up day to day in a classroom. Beyond the day-to-day, there's also the special, mission-driven knowledge, the culture we are all steeped in, which often goes uncommunicated to part-time instructors. This cohort got access to much more of both kinds of knowledge, and we learned along the way how to better deliver even more of it in future semesters. I'm proud of the work we did and look forward to supporting an even stronger part-time cohort in the future.
     
    In the meantime, I'm thrilled to present snapshots of the amazing accomplishments of two of our outstanding part-time instructors, who completed the pilot program and became CAT+FD Certified Xavier Part-time Instructors.
     
    Charles D. Brown is a writer, filmmaker, and educator from New Orleans, La. His books include Looking Back On Sodom and the collection The Weird Ones, and two fantasy novels as C.D. Brown, Vamp City and Fate’s Stiletto. He has written and directed two feature films, including Angels Die Slowly (a gothic neo-noir available on Tubi) and Never a Dull Moment: 20 Years of the Rebirth Brass Band (available on YouTube). He has taught composition, English, and screenwriting at most of the major New Orleans universities, including fall of 2023 at Xavier.
     
    Skye Jackson was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Southern Review, Electric Literature, Green Mountains Review, RATTLE and elsewhere. Her chapbook A Faster Grave won the 2019 Antenna Prize. Her work has been a finalist for the 2023 Iowa Review Poetry Award, the RATTLE Poetry Prize, the RHINO Founders' Prize, and in 2021 she received the AWP Intro Journals Award. Skye's work was also selected by Billy Collins for inclusion in the Library of Congress Poetry 180 Project. In 2022, she won the KGB Open Mic Contest in New York City and served as the Writer-In-Residence at the Key West Literary Seminar in Florida. In 2023, she was a finalist for the Brooklyn Poets "Poem of the Year" award. Her debut full-length poetry collection, Libre, is forthcoming from Regalo Press and will be distributed by Simon & Schuster in summer 2024.
     
    Skye will be returning to teach at Xavier in the spring. We are so glad to have her back. Charles has accepted a full-time teaching position at Loyola, and we wish him the absolute best for the future.
     
    -Jeremy Tuman

    Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #419: End-of-Semester Tasks

    empty classroom

    As we approach the end of the semester there are a few things you can do in Brightspace to wrap up for the semester.

    Release final course grades

    Unlike other grade items and categories in the Grade Book, final grades are not available to students by default. Final grades must be released. If you did not choose to enable the automatic release of final grades when setting up your Grade Book, you will have to manually release final grades in order for students to see their final grade.

    Export your Grade Book

    Student access to courses is removed two weeks after the end of a semester. This process of making the courses inactive allows student work and grades to be visible to instructors but students no longer have access to the course. Courses will remain on the Brightspace system for three semesters before they are removed. You should export (download) your Grade Book to your local computer after you submit your final grades.

    NOTE: The export file that is created will NOT contain any student work or instructor feedback. Only the grades in your Grade Book will be exported.

    Create a master copy of your course

    Courses remain on the Brightspace system for three semesters before they are removed. You can request a Master Course Shell that you can use to develop and maintain your course materials. Master Course Shells will not be removed from the Brightspace system.

    Follow these steps to do it.

    Instructions are available for releasing final course grades, exporting your Grade Book, and requesting Master Course Shells.

    Want more information?

    Release Final Grades
    Export your Grade Book (video [2:03])
    Master Copies of Courses

    View current, past, and preview upcoming Continuous Delivery release notes
    Instructors Quick Start Tutorial
    Brightspace Known Issues
    Request a sandbox course
    Sign-up for Brightspace training sessions
    You can find Brightspace help at D2L's website.
    Join the Brightspace Community.
    Try these Brightspace How-To documents.
    Visit our Brightspace FAQs for additional Brightspace information
    or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
    call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.

    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.

    Photo Credit: image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay