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Author: Janice Florent

Technology Coordinator in the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Faculty Development at Xavier University of Louisiana

About Janice Florent

Technology Coordinator in the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Faculty Development at Xavier University of Louisiana

Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #316: Course Design Suggestions

singing bowl

I usually get a lot of questions from faculty related to setting up their Brightspace courses. In the spirit of starting the summer session with less stress, I offer the following course design suggestions to reduce your course setup and management stress:

Setup Grade Book First

Setting up your Grade Book before adding assignments and activities that will be graded simplifies your course creation workflow. Grade items are not automatically created in the Grade Book. Instructors have to setup their grading system and create grade items separately.

When you setup your Grade Book first, you can associate the assignment/activity with the corresponding grade item in the Grade Book at the time you are creating the assignment/activity. This eliminates going back and forth between creating assignments/activities and the Grade Book.

Use Due Dates

Use due dates in Brightspace to help students stay on track. Dates automatically populate into the course calendar. Students will see due dates when they look at entries in the course calendar.

Enter due dates and availability (start/end) dates when you create assignments, assessments, discussion topics and forums, etc. Keep dates aligned with the dates in your syllabus to prevent student confusion about when an assignment/activity is due.

Make Names Consistent

Avoid naming assignment/activities one thing in the syllabus and another in the course (and/or still another in the Grade Book). If your assignment is listed as "Week 5 Short Essay Paper" in the syllabus, but your assignment submission folder is labeled "Educational Technology", you can expect to field questions and/or excuses from students who can’t figure out what they’re supposed to do.

Make things easier for students by making sure an item is named consistently throughout the syllabus and course, and things will be easier for you as well.

Keep Information Consistent

Posting multiple copies of assignment instructions or supplemental material in multiple places in the course is an invitation to trouble because there isn’t necessarily a correlation between them—they can be completely different documents. When there’s a change to the assignment, you have to remember to make edits everywhere you might have posted the information, or risk giving students conflicting information.

Use Quicklinks instead of posting multiple copies of assignment instructions or instructional material. Quicklinks are useful because they allow instructors to provide students with a direct link to content in the course. Quicklinks are great for making sure information is consistent throughout the course. For example, instructors can create an announcement or email for students with links that take students directly to specific content files or assignments inside of the course. Because this is a direct link to information in the course, when you make a change to the information it will be updated everywhere in the course because it’s linked.

Copy Course or Copy Components

You do not have to start from scratch when creating content for your course. If you created content in one course you can copy that content or copy components from that course into another course. For example, if you are teaching multiple sections of a course, you can create all the content in one course section and then copy the content into the other sections. Likewise, if you created content in one course (e.g. rubrics, discussions, quizzes, etc.) you can copy that specific content into another course. Copying course content is particularly useful at the start of a semester as it allows you to copy content from a previous semester to a newly created empty course.

Follow these steps to do it.

Listed below are links with instructions for:

Want more information?

Setup your Summer Course
Setup your Grade Book
Use Date Management
Using Quicklinks
Copy Course or Copy Components

View all the Brightspace training recaps
Instructors Quick Start Tutorial
Brightspace Known Issues
Continuous Delivery release notes
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 Arcadia11 from Pixabay

Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #315: Setup Your Summer Course

As you prepare to teach this summer, now is a good time to get started setting up your Brightspace courses. Our Information Technology Center (ITC) has created the summer courses in Brightspace.

NOTE: You should see your summer courses in the My Courses widget. Last July's Continuous Delivery Updates implemented the updated My Courses Widget sort logic. If you do not see your summer 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.

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.

notepad with pen

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 summer 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 summer course.

Follow these steps to do it.

Listed below are links with instructions to:

Want more information?

View all the Brightspace training recaps
Instructors Quick Start Tutorial
Brightspace Known Issues
Continuous Delivery release notes
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 Engin_Akyurt from Pixabay

Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #314: End-of-Semester Tasks

end road sign

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 all the Brightspace training recaps
Instructors Quick Start Tutorial
Continuous Delivery release notes
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: "end" by jflorent is dedicated to the public domain under CCO and is a derivative of image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #313: April 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 April 2022/20.22.4 release that were added to our system this month:

1) Intelligent Agents – Create Agent page facilitates more flexible scheduling and frequency options

Building on the Intelligent Agents – Agent List page changes | Updated feature released in February 2022/20.22.2, this feature changes the Intelligent Agents Create Agent page to facilitate additional scheduling options and frequency options to allow for improved flexibility.

The changes to the Create Agent page include:

  • A modernized user interface. This is a visual upgrade and does not impact functionality.
  • Scheduling options have been moved to the top of the page.
  • The ability to expand/collapse each section on the agent creation page (Scheduling, Criteria, Actions) to improve usability.
  • Two new agent frequency options:
    • One-Time Run allows instructors to choose a single date and time to run.
    • Hourly allows instructors to choose a date and time to run between. If no dates are chosen, the Hourly agent runs every hour with the first time being "now" (that is once the agent is saved and enabled).
  • The existing Daily, Weekly, Monthly and Annually options all now have a Scheduled Time option that users complete to determine what time that the agent will run on the dates scheduled for the agent to run.
  • The Subject line of the agents' emails now supports up to 128 characters. This brings it inline with the Email tool. Previously, the character limit was 100 characters.
The Intelligent Agent (IA) scheduling page showing the Hourly option and IA will be run every 8 hours.
The Intelligent Agent (IA) scheduling page showing the Hourly option and the IA will run every 8 hours.

This feature implements PIE items D7457 (increase Intelligent Agent email character limit to 128); D5830 (Allow easier 'once off' intelligent agent scheduling); D5208 (Add "Time' Option to Restriction to Schedule of Intelligent Agent); and D7726 (Ability to Run Intelligent Agents Multiple Times Per Day).

2) Group/Section Management – Asynchronous Group Creation

This feature moves group creation and enrollment to background task, minimizing risk of timeouts when creating large numbers of groups requiring enrollments.

When instructors create and save a new group category, the Groups tool displays the category and prompts instructors that their group or groups are being created in the background; further, it indicates that the instructor will be notified once the groups are created. The instructor who created the group receives a subscription alert in the minibar that indicates that the groups for their courses have been created.

While this is in process, the Brightspace UI indicates that "Group creation is in progress". While processing, users are unable to make changes to groups or enrollments.

To facilitate these changes, and the potential for allowing clients to make much larger numbers of groups in a category, this feature introduces pagination to the Groups tool, that limits each page to a maximum of 200 groups. In addition, the header row for the category has been moved to above the grid and the Delete and Email options are added to the Category dropdown menu.

The group creation confirmation popup window.
The group creation confirmation popup window.
The updated Groups page with the 'Group Creation in Progress' message highlighted.
The updated Groups page with the 'Group Creation in Progress' message highlighted.
The updated Groups page with the Category dropdown menu and the Delete and Email options highlighted.
The updated Groups page with the Category dropdown menu and the Delete and Email options highlighted.

If you are interested in getting more information about these and all the April Continuous Delivery updates, refer to the Brightspace Platform April 2022/20.22.4 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
View all the Brightspace training recaps
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 #312: Get Feedback from your Students

typewriter with the word feedback typewritten multiple times on piece paper

Instructors can create surveys in Brightspace and use the statistics tools to monitor current course trends, seek opinions, and assess user satisfaction.

Surveys are an excellent way to solicit feedback from learners regarding any aspect of a course. You can gather anonymous or non-anonymous opinions and information from users. Unlike Quizzes, survey questions do not have to have right or wrong answers and Likert-style rating questions are possible.

Some examples of the types of uses for surveys are: seeking feedback on the effectiveness of active learning exercises, the need for clarification of course material, and/or seeking suggestions for course improvement.

ICYMI, read my New Twist on End-of-Semester Evaluations blog post.

Follow these steps to do it.

To create a survey:

  1. On the NavBar, click Activities, then click Surveys.
  2. On the Manage Surveys page, click New Survey.
  3. Enter a Name and select additional settings for your survey (e.g. choose the option to give instant feedback and/or make results anonymous).
  4. To add questions directly to the survey, click Add/Edit Questions. Alternatively, you can add questions from the Question Library.
  5. Click Done Editing Questions to return to the survey page.
  6. Click the Restrictions tab to modify the survey's availability.
  7. Uncheck the Hide from Users checkbox.
  8. Specify a date range for the survey, if appropriate.
  9. Set the attempts allowed for the survey.
  10. Click Save and Close.

To track survey progress and results:

Based on how you have set up the survey properties, you might see a list of all users or just the overall survey results with anonymous responses.

  1. On the NavBar, click Activities, then click Surveys.
  2. On the Manage Surveys page, click the context menu next to the name of your survey and click Statistics.
  3. In the Users tab, search for users and their listed attempt types. You can restrict your search of survey results by attempt in the Attempts tab.
  4. To view a specific user's results, click on an individual attempt. To view the number of attempts per question within a survey, click View Overall Results at the bottom of the page.

Want more information?

Setup a Survey (video)
Ensure anonymous survey participation
Track Survey Progress and Results
Monitor Course Trends and Assess Satisfaction

Question Library Quick Reference Guide (pdf)
Benefits of Question Library (video)
Create a New Question (video)
Import Questions into Question Library (video)

View all the Brightspace training recaps
Instructors Quick Start Tutorial
Continuous Delivery release notes
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 | Pixabay License

Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #311: Grade Book – Adjust Final Grades

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.

wrench

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:

  1. Get into the course where you want to adjust final grades and click Grades in the NavBar.
  2. Click on the Enter Grades link.
  3. Scroll over to the Final Calculated Grade column and click on the arrow on the right of the column name and select Enter Grades.
  4. In the Final Adjusted Grade section for each student, enter the adjusted grades and then click Save.
  5. 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:

  1. Get into the course where you want to adjust final grades and click Grades in the NavBar.
  2. Click on the Enter Grades link.
  3. Scroll over to the Final Calculated Grade column and click on the arrow on the right of the column name and select Enter Grades.
  4. Click on the arrow on the right of the Final Grades and click Transfer All, then click Yes.
  5. In the Final Adjusted Grade section, enter adjusted scores where necessary and click Save.
  6. Once you have ensured that students' grades are accurate, you can release the final grades.

Want more information?

Understanding the Grades Tool (video)
Troubleshoot Final Grades (video)
Adjust Final Grades
Release Final Grades
Final Grades FAQs
Grades FAQs
Brightspace Tip #304: Grade Book

View all the Brightspace training recaps
Instructors Quick Start Tutorial
Continuous Delivery release notes
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 mscanland66 from Pixabay

Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #310: Grade Book – Release Final 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. 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:

  1. On the NavBar, click Grades.
  2. On the Enter Grades page, from the Final Calculated Grade or Final Adjusted Grade context menu, click Grade All.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.

Want more information?

Troubleshoot Final Grades (video)
Adjust Final Grades
Release Final Grades
Final Grades FAQs
Grades FAQs
Brightspace Tip #304: Grade Book

View all the Brightspace training recaps
Instructors Quick Start Tutorial
Continuous Delivery release notes
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: "final grades" by jflorent is dedicated to public domain under CC0 and is a derivative of grade by OpenClipart-Vectors on Pixabay

Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #309: Quizzes – Using a Shutdown View

power off button

I am writing this blog post as a follow up to Brightspace Tip #308: Use Submission Views to Show Quiz Results. As you may know, Submission Views are created to allow students to go back and review a submitted quiz. The Limited Duration option allows the instructor to choose what information the student sees immediately after completing the quiz (i.e., after the student clicks on the Submit Quiz button).

Additional Views are created with a specified release date and time that allow instructors to determine what students can see when they go back to review a quiz. Currently, there isn’t an option to set an end date for a Submission View. Therefore, a Submission View is active until the system encounters a subsequent Submission View with a later date/time making it the active view.

Better practice when setting up Submission Views is to create a “Shutdown View”. This ensures that quiz questions and answers are not available past the time the instructor plans to have it available. A Shutdown View will eliminate the need for the instructor to remember to delete Submission Views when they are past their usefulness.

Well-structured Submission Views for an exam where the instructor wants students to be able to see the quiz questions and user responses for a limited amount of time could look like this:

Example of an exam that is available for a limited amount of time for students to review
Example of an exam that is available for a limited amount of time for students to review

In the example above, the testing period for the quiz ends on April 3rd at 6 PM. The “After Testing Period Ends” Submission View will be active on April 5th at 6 AM. The Shutdown View will be active April 6th at 11:59 PM. Students will be able to see the quiz questions with their responses in between April 5th at 6 AM and April 6th at 11:59 PM.

Creating a “Shutdown View” with an end of the semester date/time is good practice if you are planning to copy a course with quizzes that have Submission Views into another course. This ensures that a quiz with a Shutdown View will force you to update the Submission View settings in the course you are copying to. Thus reducing the possibility that you have a Submission View enabled before you want it to be. Even if you do not plan on reusing the exam in the future, setting up a “Shutdown View” is a better practice that can prevent future problems.

Example of an exam with an End of Semester Shutdown Submission View
Example of an exam with an End of Semester Shutdown Submission View

Did you know you can use the Manage Dates tool to edit dates in bulk? Also, the Manage Dates tool provides you with a quick way to see which quizzes have Submission Views set. You can edit Submission Views from the Manage Dates tool as well.

Example of quiz with Submission View dates displayed in the Other Dates column of the Manage Dates tool
Example of quiz with Submission View dates displayed in the Other Dates column of the Manage Dates tool

Want more information?

Brightspace Tip #308: Use Submission Views to Show Quiz Results
Setting a Submission View
Customize Submission Views (video)
How to view a completed test submission (pdf)
Brightspace Tip #251: Manage Dates

View all the Brightspace training recaps
Instructors Quick Start Tutorial
Continuous Delivery release notes
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 Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #308: Use Submission Views to Show Quiz Results

Submission views can be created to allow students to go back and review a submitted quiz. Customizing the submission view allows instructors to choose what information the student sees upon completing the quiz, as well as what they can see when they go back to review a quiz. The default submission view shows the overall score to the student (when they submit their quiz) and nothing else. To release more information to students (i.e. feedback, their submitted answers, the answers to each question, class averages and statistics, etc.) you need to either edit the default submission view or set up an additional submission view.

The Default View is what students see immediately upon submitting their quiz. The Default View typically does not allow students to see answers to a quiz, but does allow them to view their score on auto-graded items. If you adjust the Default View to allow students to see the answers to a quiz, keep in mind the Default View is what students see as soon as they submit their quiz. Thus, showing answers in the Default View while the quiz is still in progress would reveal answers to the quiz before ALL students have submitted the quiz.

submission view - additional view

Additional Views can be created with a specified release date and time that allows instructors to release information, or answers, after a certain time. For example, an Additional View could be created for after all students have submitted the quiz (i.e., after the quiz is closed) to allow students to view which questions they answered correctly and/or incorrectly, as well as answers to questions. Another Additional View could also be created to allow students to see the class statistics and could be set to release at the end of the semester. If a quiz has multiple attempts, you can also specify a score required on an attempt in order to release the submission view.

I recommend you create an Additional View and name it “Shutdown View”. For the Shutdown View you would select "No" for the Show Questions option (in the View Details section) and enter the date/time you would like the first additional view to close to your students (in the View Restrictions section). This additional view will “shutdown” the first additional view as only the most recent submission view is the active one. This will ensure that your quiz questions and answers are not available past the time you plan to have it available. You may decide that you want the submission view to be available to your students through the end of the semester. In this case, I suggest creating a “Shutdown View” with an end of semester date/time. Creating a “Shutdown View” with an end of the semester date/time is good practice if you are planning to copy a course with quizzes that have submission views into another course. This ensures that a quiz with a Shutdown View will force you to update the settings in the course you are copying to. Thus reducing the possibility that you have a submission view enabled before you want it to be.

Important Notes:

  • Submission Views DO NOT take effect until the quiz scores have been published. The “Allow attempt to be set as graded immediately upon completion” option must be checked. This option is found in the Assessment tab.
  • The Limited Duration option allows students to only be able to access the submission view for a short period immediately after completing the quiz. This option SHOULD NOT be used if you want students to review at a future date/time. In this case you should set up an additional view for the date/time you want the view to start AND set up a “Shutdown View”.
  • You should provide students with instructions on how to view a completed test submission.

Want more information?

Setting a Submission View
Customize Submission Views (video)
Brightspace Tip #272: Quizzes – Using a Shutdown View
How to view a completed test submission (pdf)

View all the Brightspace training recaps
Instructors Quick Start Tutorial
Continuous Delivery release notes
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.

Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #307: March 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 March 2022/20.22.3 release that were added to our system this month:

1) Announcements — Create new announcements quickly with new Copy option

This feature adds a new Copy option in the context menu of an announcement in both the Announcements tool and the Announcements widget. The Copy option is applicable to both course level and global announcements. This only appears when you are in the org unit where the announcement was created.

Users click Copy, which opens a new edit announcement page in draft mode with the details of the original announcement copied over. The following details are copied:

  • Headline, with "Copy of " appended to the front
  • Content
  • Display Author checkbox setting
  • Show Start Date setting
  • Attachments
  • Release Conditions

Start dates and/or end dates are not copied over. No notifications are triggered by this action until the edit page is saved.

Previously, users had to manually select the content of an announcement and paste it into announcement creation.

The new Copy option in the context menu.
The new Copy option in the context menu.

This feature implements PIE item D4608 – Ability to Copy Announcements.

2) Content — Media Library added to Classic Content Experience

This feature adds the Media Library to the Classic Content Experience, which is accessible by navigating to Existing Activities > Media Library.

The Media Library option in the Existing Activities dropdown menu of the Classic Content Experience.
The Media Library option in the Existing Activities dropdown menu of the Classic Content Experience.

For more information about the Media Library functionality, refer to Evolving The Audio-Video Experience in Brightspace Community.

3) Content - Workflow improvements to creating media topics

When creating a new video or audio topic in Content, instructors no longer must wait for the uploaded media file to finish processing to continue creating the topic. While the media file remains unavailable during processing, instructors can navigate away from the upload page to work on other content creation tasks. If another user attempts to access the media file in the topic before processing is complete, a message prompts them to wait for the media file to become available. When processing is complete (or the uploaded media file is invalid or corrupted), a notification displays from Update alerts on the navbar, with a link to the organization home page. Previously, instructors had to wait for a media file to complete processing before they could continue creating the topic. Also, a lack of status information about the media file processing caused some instructors to upload media files multiple times, believing that the processing had completed or failed.

Video file processing messages from Update alerts on the navbar
Video file processing messages from Update alerts on the navbar

If you are interested in getting more information about these and all the March Continuous Delivery updates, refer to the Brightspace Platform March 2022/20.22.3 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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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