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Brightspace Tip #212: February Continuous Delivery Updates

update

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 February 2021/20.21.2 release that were added to our system this month:

1) Accommodations – Quiz accommodations

This new feature enables instructors to grant quiz accommodations to learners through the Classlist tool. Instructors can assign accommodations to specific students that apply across all quizzes instead of applying them on a quiz by quiz basis.

Accommodation options currently available include: more time to complete quizzes at the course level and the ability to bypass right-click restrictions in quizzes. The right-click restriction in quizzes is the ability for learners to right-click in the quiz while taking the quiz.

The new Edit Accommodations option in the Classlist
The new Edit Accommodations option in the Classlist
The new Edit Accommodations dialog box
The new Edit Accommodations dialog box

Once granted, these accommodations apply to all quiz activities in a course for that learner. The additional time can be applied in terms of quiz time multipliers (for example, 1.5x quiz time) or +minutes (for example, an additional 30 minutes) on every quiz in a course.

Quiz-specific Special Access can overwrite an accommodation for any user on a quiz-by-quiz basis. When you overwrite an accommodation and then click Save, a warning describing the impact of overwriting an accommodation appears.

Further accommodation options and enhancements are planned for this year.

2) Assignments - Save progress and visual enhancements

This feature builds on the Assignments – The new assignment creation experience | Updated feature that was released in the January 2021/20.21.1 release.

  • Now, the Save button in the new assignment creation experience enables an instructor to save their progress while creating or editing an assignment. Previously, Save and Close was the only option.
The Save button in the new assignment creation experience
The Save button in the new assignment creation experience
  • The scrollbars on the main and right-hand panels now appear thinner and less noticeable, providing more vertical space when creating or editing an assignment.
  • The name of the assignment appears in the immersive navbar along the top of the page.
The name of the assignment on the immersive NavBar and the less obtrusive scrollbar in the new assignment creation experience
The name of the assignment on the immersive NavBar and the less obtrusive scrollbar in the new assignment creation experience

3) Quick Eval - Homepage widget

Quick Eval can now be added to organization and course homepages as a widget to allow instructors to view and access any submissions awaiting evaluation. The Quick Eval widget displays a list of up to six activities with submissions to evaluate. The activities are sorted by due date, with the earliest date first. The icon indicator in the widget shows the type of activity (assignment, discussion, or quiz), and the number of unevaluated submissions for each activity. The due date and course information are also visible below the title of each activity. Course information is only shown if the widget is accessed from the organization homepage.

Activities dismissed in the Quick Eval tool are not displayed by the Quick Eval widget.

The Quick Eval widget on course homepage displaying no submissions needing evaluation
The Quick Eval widget on course homepage displaying no submissions needing evaluation
The Quick Eval widget on the Organization homepage displaying unevaluated activities from multiple courses
The Quick Eval widget on the Organization homepage displaying unevaluated activities from multiple courses

NOTE: Are you interested in Customizing your Course Homepage with widgets? You can find information explaining how in this blog post.

4) Rubrics - Warning dialog for partial evaluations

Previously, if an instructor attempted to publish a partially completed rubric evaluation, the partial evaluation dialog appeared. If the instructor tapped Enter on their keyboard, the partial evaluation was published.

Now, the default button behavior has changed so that tapping Enter on the page returns the user to the rubric to complete the evaluation. This change adds a verification layer to reconsider their action and ensure that instructors are not mistakenly publishing incomplete evaluations.

The partial evaluation warning dialog appears the same, but has updated default behavior.
The partial evaluation warning dialog appears the same, but has updated default behavior.

If you are interested in getting more information about these and all the February Continuous Delivery updates, refer to the Brightspace Platform February 2021/20.21.2 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
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Instructors Quick Start Tutorial
Brightspace Known Issues
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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

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