Author: Janice Florent

1) Awards – Option to enter Issue Date when manually issuing awards

To provide greater flexibility when issuing awards, instructors can now use the Issue Date field in the Issue Award dialog. Instructors can manually enter an Issue Date when issuing awards, allowing them to backdate awards as needed. The Issue Date field defaults to the current date.

Previously, instructors could only edit the issue date of an award via API.

2) Quizzes – Additional question types in new quiz evaluation experience

The new quiz evaluation experience, introduced in September 2024/20.24.09, initially supported a subset of question types, including Multiple Choice, Written Response, True or False, Short Answer, Fill in the Blank, and Multi-Select. It also allowed Question Pools containing these question types.

To fully support the new quiz evaluation experience, this release expands support to include the following additional quiz question types:

• Arithmetic
• Matching
• Ordering
• Multi Short Answer
• Significant Figures

With full question type support, organizations can now transition entirely to the new quiz evaluation experience for a seamless and feature-complete workflow.

For additional information about the new quiz evaluation experience and planned updates, refer to the Release of the new quiz evaluation experience blog post.

3) Rubrics – Added Rubric Level Range Visual

This release introduces rubric level ranges in rubric headings, improving clarity for instructors and learners:

• Instructors can now see rubric level ranges while creating and evaluating rubrics, except for holistic rubrics and non-sequential custom points.
• Learners can view rubric level ranges in assessments, ensuring a clear understanding of point distributions.

Previously, instructors had to manually explain rubric level ranges to learners. This feature enhances consistency and reduces ambiguity.

The following behavior is expected:

• Instructors can see the rubric level ranges when creating and evaluating rubrics, except for holistic rubrics and custom points that are not sequential.

• Learners can see the rubric criteria level range when viewing rubrics, except for holistic rubrics and custom points that are not sequential.

This feature implements the following PIE items:

• D10881 (Hide rubric overall grade range and make it clearer)
• D8693 (Make Rubric Levels Ranges)

1) Brightspace Editor – Updated Accessibility Checker icon

This release updates the Accessibility Checker icon in Brightspace Editor to improve user recognition and understanding.

2) Email – Validation required when using the Copy external mail on all sent messages option

Users must validate their external email addresses whenever they use the Copy external mail on all sent messages option. This option is selected in either Email Settings or the Account Settings > Email tab.

Once users save their changes, the system sends a validation email message to the external email address. Users click the link in the email to validate the setting and email address. Unverified email addresses display a Not Verified - Click to Resend Verification Email status next to the Send a copy of each outgoing message to [external email] option. Users can resend validation emails, but the system does not copy messages to the external email address until it verifies the address. If users change their external email address, they must repeat the validation process.

Previously, Copy external mail on all sent messages did not require validation of external email. Any users who have previously configured Copy external mail on all sent messages do not require validation unless their external email address is altered.

Note:

• An external email is considered any email outside of Brightspace, regardless of whether it is within your institution's domain or not.
• Once you have an external email address configured, the text of the option changes to Send a copy of each outgoing message to [external email].

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

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)
• D7372 (Rubric Grading)
• D6165 (Select All option for Rubric)