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.
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Photo Credit: "end" by jflorent is dedicated to the public domain under CCO and is a derivative of image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay
Brightspace calculates final grades for each student based on the grading system and the students' grades that are entered into the Grade Book. If the instructor wants more control over the final grades, perhaps to adjust the final grade for a student that is on the cusp of a higher grade, then adjusted final grades can be used and released to students instead of the calculated final grade.
If the instructor decides to use adjusted final grades for one student in the course, adjusted final grades must be used for all students in the course. This does not imply, however, that final grades must be manually adjusted for all students.
Adjusting final grades are implemented by the instructor for only the student or students that are deemed to need an adjusted grade. The remaining students final grades would be the final grade as calculated in the Grade Book.
Note: The Grade Book must be configured to use adjusted final grades. If you plan to use adjusted final grades, you should make the adjustments before you release final grades.
Follow these steps to do it.
To adjust final grades for all students:
Get into the course where you want to adjust final grades and click Grades in the NavBar.
Click on the Enter Grades link.
Scroll over to the Final Calculated Grade column and click on the arrow on the right of the column name and select Enter Grades.
In the Final Adjusted Grade section for each student, enter the adjusted grades and then click Save.
Once you have ensured that students' grades are accurate, you can release the final grades.
To adjust final grades for one or more specific students:
Get into the course where you want to adjust final grades and click Grades in the NavBar.
Click on the Enter Grades link.
Scroll over to the Final Calculated Grade column and click on the arrow on the right of the column name and select Enter Grades.
Click on the arrow on the right of the Final Grades and click Transfer All, then click Yes.
In the Final Adjusted Grade section, enter adjusted scores where necessary and click Save.
Once you have ensured that students' grades are accurate, you can release the final grades.
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Unlike other grade items and categories in the Grade Book, final grades are not available to students by default. Final grades must be released. When setting up the Grade Book, the instructor can choose to automatically release final grades so that the students can see their final grade throughout the semester. 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.
Additionally, you can selectively release final grades for some students now and release the final grades for other students later. For example, you can release the final grades for graduating seniors on one date and release the final grades for everyone else on a later date.
Follow these steps to do it.
To manually release final grades:
On the NavBar, click Grades.
On the Enter Grades page, from the Final Calculated Grade or Final Adjusted Grade context menu, click Enter Grades.
To release grades for all users, on the Final Grades page, from the Final Grades context menu, click Release All. To release final grades for a specific user, do one of the following:
Select the check box by the user name and click the Release/Unrelease link.
Select the check box in the Release Final Calculated Grade or Release Adjusted Final Grade column.
Click Save.
OR watch this video for instructions on how to release final grades:
NOTE: There is a slight change in the video instructions. The "Enter Grades" option should be used anywhere in the video where "Grade All" is referenced.
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Image credit: "final grades" by jflorent is dedicated to public domain under CC0 and is a derivative of grade by OpenClipart-Vectors on Pixabay
The new Discussion creation experience was one of the changes implemented with our April 2023 Continuous Delivery update. The new Discussion creation experience brings create and edit consistency changes from Assignments and Quizzes to Discussions.
D2L’s goal with the redesign is to simplify common tasks for first-time or infrequent users, while giving easy access to the advanced features that experienced power-users love. This first release is at full parity with classic discussions and brings refreshed workflows and improvements to restricting group topics and threads, associating topics to forums, and wording changes to a few settings that you may be familiar with.
The new discussion creation and editing experience
The primary panel on the left contains the same frequently-used fields as Assignments and Quizzes. These fields are most relevant to learners and are core to discussion topic creation. The right-hand panel provides advanced options such as start and end dates and release conditions. These options follow the same logical groupings as found in Assignments and Quizzes. Other topic-specific settings can be found in the right-hand panel.
Availability Dates and Conditions Accordion
While the right-hand groupings are collapsed, the summary text provides details about which settings are active so you can see which settings are applied at a glance.
Other Notable Changes
Beyond the restructuring of the topic creation page for consistency, the new experience also includes updates and wording changes to a few settings that you may be familiar with. These changes are designed to simplify workflows and to align more closely with the Daylight patterns. Here's a list of the notable changes:
Automatically create a new forum with same name and visibility as a new topic
Checkboxes now radio buttons for Allow anonymous posts and Users must start a thread
Topic type selector replaced by Manage Restrictions workflow
Restricting topic and separate threads
Restricting topic using groups and section restrictions
If you’ve tried the new discussion creation experience, but aren’t quite ready to commit to it, then switch back. Switching back is simple. You can switch between the new discussion creation experience and the old experience by clicking on the arrow in the upper right corner of the create/edit discussion page.
Switch between the new discussion creation experience and the old experience
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 a few updates in the April 2023/20.23.4 release that were added to our system this month:
1) Discussions – Introducing the new creation and editing experience
The new discussion creation experience brings create and edit consistency changes from Assignments and Quizzes to Discussions, making it familiar and easy to learn. This first release is at full parity with classic discussions and brings refreshed workflows and improvements to restricting group topics and threads, associating topics to forums, and wording changes to a few settings that you may be familiar with.
The new Discussions creation and editing experience
The primary panel on the left contains the same frequently-used fields as Assignments and Quizzes. These fields are most relevant to learners and are core to discussion topic creation. The right-hand panel provides advanced options such as start and end dates and release conditions. These options follow the same logical groupings as found in Assignments and Quizzes. Other topic-specific settings can be found in the right-hand panel.
2) Quizzes – Confirmation dialog for learners exiting a quiz
This feature introduces a confirmation dialog to learners closing in-progress quizzes. The dialog is context-based, providing additional information about the impact of exiting the quiz (such as whether a learner will be able to return to their quiz after exiting).
An example of a confirmation dialog displayed to learners closing in-progress quizzes
Previously there was no dialog or warning to learners who exited a quiz accidentally or on purpose.
Note: The dialog only appears when the learner selects the X [Close this Quiz] for the quiz. Closing the browser window or tab does not display the confirmation dialog.
This feature implements the PIE item D7289 (Close/Exit Quiz errors correction).
The X (Close this Quiz) button appears to a learner attempting a quiz
The message shown when a student tries to exit a quiz depends on the time limit and end date settings for the quiz. In every scenario after exiting a quiz, learners are directed back to the Quiz Details page.
The Exit Quiz confirmation dialog for quizzes with no time limit, no end date, or a time limit that expires before the end dateThe Exit Quiz confirmation dialog for quizzes with a time limit and no end dateThe Exit Quiz confirmation dialog for quizzes with an end date, no time limit, or an end date that will arrive before the time limit expiresThe Exit Quiz confirmation dialog for quizzes that have an end date in the past
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.
In a recent Chronicle of Higher Education article, Kevin Gannon wrote about what he describes as grading jail. He found that he would enter his grading jail around the 13th week of the term. After a career of repeat offenses against efficient and timely grading of student work, he saw that he could only blame himself. He described himself as a hopeless recidivist.
The hard time he served was enough to rehabilitate him, and turn him into a productive member of the grading society. He shared what he learned, hoping to save others from the same fate. He acknowledges that providing students with prompt feedback is a better practice. But too often this does not happen.
Kevin’s three strategies to better manage grading workflow are:
Pre-semester calendaring. Before classes start lay out a calendar for every month of the term. Then using different colors for each course, plot out the due dates for every assignment that you will give throughout the term. A cluster of different colors in a three-day span is a quick visual cue that you should reconsider some due dates.
Rubrics — done well — are your friend. A well-constructed rubric involves a significant investment of time on the front end, but once designed, using it to assess student work will cut grading time. The time saved allows you to concentrate on providing more meaningful individual feedback. Having specific criteria and clearly defined benchmarks provides consistency in grading.
Speech-to-text and voice comments. Using speech-to-text to transcribe comments in real time is one way to provide substantial feedback on a large amount of student work without getting writer's cramp. However, it is even more meaningful to record comments and then share them with individual students via an audio file they can listen to on any device.
Kevin says these three strategies are the academic equivalent of your “get out of jail free” card.
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.
If you have been following the news lately, you have heard a lot about generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) programs like ChatGPT. The advancements in AI writing technology have created a sense of unease among educators, who fear that students may use AI writing tools to plagiarize their work.
Last week Turnitin announced the launch of AI writing detection capabilities in Turnitin Feedback Studio. Turnitin stated that their technology is capable of identifying both AI-generated and AI-assisted writing, including ChatGPT.
An AI writing indicator has been added to Turnitin Feedback Studio. This indicator shows possible AI-generated content. Students will not be able to see the AI writing detection indicator.
AI writing detection indicatorExample of AI Writing Detection report
If you intend to use the Turnitin AI Writing Detector, it is important that you understand the results may NOT be reliable.
Tools that use artificial intelligence are developing rapidly. False positives are not just a possibility, but an inevitability. Consequently, Turnitin’s AI Writing Detector tool cannot be fairly used as a way to assess whether a student’s work may have been written by an AI tool. We strongly recommend that you use this functionality as a guideline, not a grading metric. The results should not be used as the sole basis for adverse actions against a student. Treat any flags the tool may raise as a reason to review the student’s work further.
Bart Everson and Elizabeth Yost Hammer led an "AI²: Artificial Intelligence and Academic Integrity" workshop recently. ICYMI, you can find the workshop recording and resources referenced in the workshop on our wiki.
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Image credit: image by Alexandra_Koch from Pixabay
I am writing this blog post as a follow up to my Brightspace Tip #277: Grade Book - Bonus Points blog post. I've received a few questions about bonus items in a weighted grading system. This blog post addresses how bonus items work in a weighted Grade Book.
Bonus refers to optional activities. Students are NOT penalized for skipping the activity. Points earned for Bonus activities will improve the student’s grade. Checking the Bonus option means that any points earned will be added onto the Final Calculated Grade. Bonus items appear in the Grade Book with a Star next to them.
Bonus grade items are not included in the maximum points for a category or final grade. They are added on top of the calculated grade. The Can Exceed option must be selected in order for users' grades to exceed the maximum points specified.
The Can Exceed and Bonus options can both be selected for a grade item.
If you allow an item to exceed 100% or include Bonus items, but do not check the box "Can Exceed" in the category and/or “Final Calculated Grade” settings, then extra credit will count but it will be limited to no more than 100% for the category or “Final Calculated Grade.”
If you create a “Bonus” item with no category, limit its weight to the most you wish to add to the final course percentage. For example, if you do not want to add more than 3% to any given final grade, limit the Bonus item’s weight to 3%. The bonus points can be any number of points because the weight makes the difference in the overall calculation.
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 a few updates in the March 2023/20.23.3 release that were added to our system this month:
1) Awards – Share achievements to LinkedIn profiles
Learners can now share achievements from the Awards tool directly to their LinkedIn profiles.
This feature simplifies showcasing awards in LinkedIn profiles. Awards can now be shared directly from Brightspace without using a third-party tool or creating a link to the award first.
To share an award to their LinkedIn profiles, learners can navigate to the My Awards page, select the desired award, click Share, and then click the new Share to LinkedIn button.
Shared awards appear in the Licenses & Certifications section of learners' LinkedIn profiles.
Allow users to share awardsShare award to LinkedIn
Previously, awards could be shared to LinkedIn by first sharing the award to Badgr or creating a public link to the award (available as of November 2022) and then copying the link to LinkedIn.
This feature implements PIE item D8491 (Share Badges Directly to LinkedIn).
2) Calendar – Prevent duplicate calendar events on copy/import to reduce performance issues
With this release, calendar events are checked to see if they are duplicates when performing a course copy or import. When either action is performed, Brightspace only copies the following:
Calendar events that have an association, such as to an activity that is being copied into the course offering.
A single unique Calendar event that is manually created.
When a user manually creates multiple calendar items, Brightspace compares the following fields when checking for duplicates:
Title
Description
Start Date (or Start Day for All Day Events)
End Date (or End Day for All Day Events)
If its an All Day Event
Repeat Every (e.g.: every day, every second month)
Repeat On (day of week, only valid for Weekly events)
Repeat Until Date
Repeat Type (None, Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Annually)
Event Visibility
Location
Group associations
This feature only applies when performing a copy into a course offering and when importing course packages. It does not check if existing events are duplicates.
Previously, manually created or imported calendar events were not checked for duplication, creating duplicate calendar items.
3) Media Library – Adapt the player to match available space or video resolution while using ISF Plugin
The ISF player insert is now responsive and adapts to match screen size. When using Insert Stuff in Brightspace Editor to insert a video, the video preview screen is updated to show a responsive player and will now scale to the available maximum width. Height and aspect ratio are still respected. Previously, the player was too small, especially for users with smaller devices. In addition, users had to specify a size to embed the player via ISF.
The layout slider will be removed as the responsive nature of this update makes it redundant. Existing videos that were added to Brightspace Editor before the 20.23.3 release will remain statically sized.
For customers using the sample HTML v3.0 Templates, the Video Lecture page, or who are managing any Learning Creative Services or third-party HTML templates and styles: please be aware that after the 20.23.03 update, videos hosted in the Brightspace Media Library are responsive automatically without having to insert videos into the video wrapper sections. Customers can now insert Brightspace Media Library videos where needed into any template as there is no longer a need to insert into a video wrapper section to make the video responsive. Customers wishing to continue using the video wrapper section with Brightspace Media Library videos can explore how to update their versions of the Sample HTML v3.0 CSS by visiting HTML Template (Version 3.0) - Brightspace.
4) User Management and Settings – Easily change language preferences using the User Menu
A new language selector is available in the user menu to easily change the language setting to the user’s preferred language. Previously, a user had to navigate to Account Settings or use a custom installed widget with a complex workflow. Users can continue to access language and locale within the Account Settings page; this update provides an option that you can more easily access.
Note: Only languages that are enabled by your organization are available for selection.
This feature implements the following PIE items:
D8920 (Language toggle feature)
D7508 (Preferred Language Selector)
The User Settings menu with the current language highlighted.
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? The Quiz Question Converter is a tool, from the Brightspace Community, that you can use to add a bank of questions to the Quiz Question Library.
The Quiz Question Converter will create a CSV file for import into Brightspace. Quiz questions have to be in a special format in order to be imported into Brightspace.
Example of a multiple choice question reformatted for the Quiz Question Converter.
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 your quiz questions along with the feedback and hints all in the same import file.
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.
