One of the changes implemented in our system with last week's July Continuous Delivery Updates was the end-of-life status for the old My Courses Widget sort logic. This means the old My Courses sort logic has been retired. With this change, the My Courses Widget now uses the Updated Sort Logic setting by default.
The Updated Sort Logic is intended to better organize the courses in the My Courses widget. The Updated Sort Logic presents both pinned and unpinned courses in the My Courses Widget, promoting the pinned courses to be displayed first in the widget.
The updated sorting logic in the My Courses Widget does not auto-pin courses, and allows the end-user to pin and rearrange courses in an order that makes sense to them. The updated sort logic tries to populate the widget with up-to 12 courses, starting with the user’s pinned courses, then pulling in unpinned courses by enrollment date until the widget contains 12 courses. The result is that most users get a sensible My Courses Widget with no intervention on their part, while pinning and customization is still available for the users who need it.
The Pinned tab appears in the My Courses widget when users pin courses
A new Pinned tab now appears in the My Courses widget. The “Pinned” tab displays only the courses that a user has pinned, similar to the old sort logic. The Pinned tab allows learners and instructors to create a curated view of their pinned courses. The Pinned tab appears in the widget only after a user pins a course in the Course Selector. The tab remains in view until all courses are unpinned. The My Courses widget remembers the last viewed tab and shows that same tab the next time the homepage is viewed. This makes it easy for instructors and learners who only wish to view pinned courses to see those courses upon login.
NOTE: The Pinned tab only appears when a user has one or more course pinned – tabs are not displayed to the user that contain 0 courses.
The View All Courses navigation drills down into the courses by showing manually pinned courses, followed by current enrollments, then future enrollments (if available and visible to the user), then past enrollments (if available or visible to the user) as the default sort. If the user changes the sort order, the filter does not separate pinned courses from other courses based on sort order, filters, and search terms.
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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 July 2021/20.21.7 release that were added to our system this month:
1) Assignments – Add categories in the New Assignment Creation Experience
This feature builds on the Assignments – Brightspace Editor in the new Assignment Creation Experience | New feature that was released in April 2021/20.21.4.
The new assignment creation experience supports the alignment of assignments to categories. Instructors can add new or existing assignment categories when creating or editing a new assignment.
The new assignment creation experience with the ability to align assignments to categories
2) Brightspace Editor – Available in ePortfolio External Comments and Quiz Builder
External users adding comments in Brightspace ePortfolio can now use the new inline limited version of Brightspace Editor.
The Quiz Builder now supports the new inline Editor
The inline Editor in the Quiz Builder
The right-click menu is no longer available when creating tables.
3) My Courses Widget - Updated Sort Logic configuration variable
The d2l.Tools.MyCoursesWidget.UpdatedSortLogic configuration variable has now reached end-of-life status and no longer appears in the Config Variable Browser. With this change, the My Courses Widget now uses only the Updated Sort Logic setting by default.
Previously, the My Courses Widget sorting logic was set by the d2l.Tools.MyCoursesWidget.UpdatedSortLogic configuration variable. By default, this configuration variable has been set to ON since 2018, with the option to revert to the old sorting logic. The option to revert to the previous sorting logic in the My Courses Widget is no longer available with the removal of this configuration variable.
The Pinned tab appears in the My Courses widget when users pin courses
To reduce redundancy in the Quizzes tool, the Introduction field is being phased out. In this release, when an instructor creates and/or edits a quiz, the Introduction field is no longer available.
If any quiz previously had text in the Introduction field, on clicking Edit, the text is automatically appended to the Description field. A message appears indicating that these two fields have been merged. Instructors can review the modified quiz description prior to saving the quiz.
Note: In some interfaces, for example Classic content, the Instructions field is displayed. This Instructions field already maps to the quiz Description field. Hence, there is no change to this workflow.
The Edit Quiz page with the message that appears when you edit a quiz containing an introduction
Note: Check the visibility of the Description field prior to saving the quiz.
When importing a course using Import/Export/Copy Components, text in the quiz Introduction field automatically appends to the quiz Description field. The export and copy workflows remain unchanged.
When viewing a quiz topic in the Classic Content tool, the text in the Introduction field now appears under the Instructions header.
A view of a quiz in the Classic Content tool - text in the Introduction field will appear under the Instructors header
5) Quizzes – Relocation of the Reports Setup functionality
The Report Setup tab on the Edit Quiz page is now available on the context menu of a quiz and reads as Setup Reports.
The Reports option available on the quiz context menu is also updated and reads as View Reports.
The New Quiz page with the Reports Setup tab before the updateThe Quiz context menu before the updateThe updated quiz context menu with the Setup Reports and View Reports options
6) Quizzes - Set grace period time to 0 minutes
When setting an enforced time limit for a quiz, instructors can now set the grace period for a quiz to 0 minutes, in place of the default grace period setting of 5 minutes. Entering a 0 minute grace period flags the quiz attempt as exceeded immediately when the quiz time limit is reached by the learner. Quiz attempt logs display when the learner attempt exceeds the regular time limit, grace period time limit or any extended time limit. Grace period of 0 minutes can be set for quizzes with special access restrictions as well.
Note that setting a grace period can support learner accessibility requirements and other situations, such as slow internet connections when completing quizzes.
Enter 0 in the Grace Period field that appears with the Enforced Time Limit option for a quiz
7) Quizzes - Status and workflow changes for quizzes with ungraded questions
To support instructors who need to manually score questions within quizzes, the following quiz status and quiz grading workflow updates are available:
For quizzes that contain questions that need to be manually scored (such as Written Response questions) AND that have the "Allow attempt to be set as graded immediately upon completion" option disabled, a new Pending Evaluation status appears beside the quiz attempt on the Grade Quiz page.
While evaluating a quiz attempt with unevaluated questions, the instructor can now select Pending evaluations in the Question View drop-down menu to filter for only the questions that require manual evaluation.
Instructors can now filter the Users tab by status. The available filters are: Published, Saved as draft, Pending evaluation and an empty status. The empty status denotes a quiz with auto-scored questions, where all questions are evaluated and there is no question evaluation pending.
The updated quiz status filters appear on the Attempts tabThe new Pending Evaluation filter appears in the Question View drop-down menu to easily locate questions requiring manual evaluation by the instructor
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.
VoiceThread (VT) transitioned to new VoiceThread assignments on yesterday (June 30th). The new VoiceThread assignments are a major overhaul and redesign of the entire experience. VoiceThread has added lots of new features, tightened the integration with our learning management system, and streamlined workflows to better guide everyone through the assignments process.
The new interface for the VoiceThread Assignment types
What do you get in this automatic update to new Assignments feature? First and foremost, none of your past assignments will break! You and your students will start seeing the upgraded interfaces described in the videos below, but no work will be lost, and everyone can continue completing and grading existing assignments without interruption. Just keep in mind that old assignments will retain old features and policies. To take advantage of all new policies and features, instructors will need to build a new assignment. Once you update, the new assignments you create will use all new features.
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.
Traditional testing relies on multiple choice, true/false, and written response type questions. In authentic assessments, students apply concepts to real world situations by completing meaningful task-based assessments. This type of assessment engages a variety of skills and effectively measures higher levels of learning than traditional assessment.
Authentic assessments are widely viewed as pedagogically superior, yet multiple-choice assessments are often preferable to instructors and students alike.
In an Inside Higher Ed opinion piece, Eric Loepp challenges instructors to rethink the premise that multiple-choice questions cannot meet the standards of authentic assessment. He argues that there are situations where higher-order multiple-choice questions can be used for assessment. If this has piqued your interest, you can read more in his “The Benefits of Higher-Order Multiple-Choice Tests” opinion piece for more information.
Image credit: Exam by Alberto G. licensed under CC BY 2.0
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 June 2021/20.21.6 release that were added to our system this month:
Format painter – you can now copy and apply text formatting
2) Brightspace Platform – LaTex rendering in quiz questions
This feature releases the d2l.Tools.WYSIWYG.InlineLaTeX (OrgUnit) configuration variable that renders inline LaTex equations in the HTML Editor and in the new Brightspace Editor. As a result, scientific and mathematical equations are rendered seamlessly without the need to use the LaTeX equation option in the Equation Editor.
A Content topic with some inline LaTex equations and a learner’s view of the equations
3) Email – Auto save outgoing messages
When users send email messages, these sent messages are automatically saved in the Sent Mail folder. As a result, the User Account > Email Settings > Save a copy of each outgoing message to the Sent Mail folder check box is no longer available.
The Email Settings page before this email setup improvementThe Email Settings page after this email setup improvement
When an attached rubric is deleted from an evaluated assignment, if evaluations of that rubric have been performed, the user now receives a detach rubric confirmation message for the assignment. This change applies to the New Assignment Creation Experience.
The Rubric Detachment confirmation dialog
5) Rubrics – Reorder criterion groups
In order to increase the value of rubric criterion groups, it is now possible to reorder those criterion groups in the New Rubric Creation Experience. If more than one criterion group appears in your rubric, direction arrows appear to the left of the criterion group header to reorder the criterion groups in the rubric. If only one criterion group appears in your rubric, the direction buttons do not appear.
Direction arrows located beside the criterion group header
6) Google Workspace - Widget branding updates
The Google Workspace widget for Brightspace Learning Environment features an updated interface, including a name change from Google Apps to Google Workspace. All widget updates are part of the Google design rebrand only; there are no changes to the steps or workflows within the app.
The widget includes the following updates:
The widget name now appears as Google Workspace
New icons
“Google Mail” now appears as “Gmail” in the app text
New tool tips appear when hovering: Open Gmail, Open Google Calendar, Open Google Drive, Widget Settings
The updated Google Workspace appTooltips/alternative text appears when hovering over icons in the app
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.
ICYMI, VoiceThread (VT) announced their transition plan to move to new VoiceThread assignments. The new VoiceThread assignments are a major overhaul and redesign of the entire experience. VoiceThread has added lots of new features, tightened the integration with our learning management system, and streamlined workflows to better guide everyone through the assignments process.
October 2020 through June 2021 is the official transition period for the new VT assignments. During this time institutions and instructors can adopt the new assignments. All courses and institutions that have not yet adopted new assignments will be automatically upgraded at 11:59pm Eastern Time on June 30, 2021.
The new interface for the VoiceThread Assignment types
Instructors can transition to the new VT assignments now. What happens when you update? First and foremost, none of your past assignments will break! You and your students will start seeing the upgraded interfaces described in the videos below, but no work will be lost, and everyone can continue completing and grading existing assignments without interruption. Just keep in mind that old assignments will retain old features and policies. To take advantage of all new policies and features, instructors will need to build a new assignment. Once you update, the new assignments you create will use all new features.
If you are ready to transition to new assignments before the automatic upgrade that will occur on June 30th, you should enable the option to start using the new features for the course on your course's VT Home Page. You have to enable the option for each course that you want to start using the new assignment feature. Watch this video for instructions.
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.
A common question in online learning is “How do we keep students from cheating in online exams?” A shift from traditional means of assessment (quizzes, tests, exams) to authentic and alternative assessments is critical in virtual settings.
If faculty try to assess their students the same way they did in a face-to-face setting, they will most likely find themselves frustrated, as well as frustrating their students.
In a recent Faculty Focus article, Laura McLaughlin, EdD, and Joanne Ricevuto, EdD, provided some recommendations to improve the use of assessments in virtual environments and decrease concerns regarding cheating. Their recommendations are:
Allow choice in assessments: Let students decide how they will demonstrate their learning.
Authentic and stackable assessments: Students should be told why they are assigned a particular assessment, and why it is relevant to their learning.
Trust students: Provide alternative assessments (not quizzes and tests) where the concern of cheating is off the table.
Frequent feedback and communication: Provide feedback that helps learners improve their learning.
Teaching in a virtual environment creates an opportunity to rethink your practices, try something new, and embrace deeper and more engaging ways of assessing students without using lockdown browsers or worrying about students cheating.
Did you miss our (Re)Thinking Exams workshop? If you want to learn about ways you can challenge your students to demonstrate what they've learned while teaching in an online environment, watch this (Re)Thinking Exams workshop recording. In this workshop, Dr. Elizabeth Yost Hammer and Dr. Jay Todd discussed and demonstrated ways that focused active learning activities can be used in place of more traditional methods of assessment like quizzes and tests.
The sudden shift to remote learning has led to concerns about new opportunities for students to engage in unauthorized shortcuts. Last spring, three academic integrity and STEM professionals from the University of Maryland Global Campus, a primarily online institution, shared research on academic integrity in online courses, strategies for promoting integrity in remote learning environments, and examples of how content learning is achieved in any setting designed for online education. ICYMI, here's a link to the Proactive Approaches for Academic Integrity in Remote and Online Learning workshop recording.
Image credit: image by mohamed_hassan from Pixabay
Many faculty are teaching remotely as a result of the pandemic. One topic related to teaching remotely that comes up often is student engagement during Zoom class meetings. Instructors who meet their students synchronously through Zoom want to know that the students are paying attention and are engaged during the class session. Some instructors feel that for student engagement in a synchronous class they should force the students to turn their cameras on during the class meetings. This article by Karen Costa, a Faculty Development Facilitator, explains why it is a really bad idea to force students to turn their cameras on from a trauma-awareness and equity perspective.
Are you looking for ideas for student engagement in Zoom sessions that do not require you to force your students to turn their cameras on? In an article posted on LinkedIn, Karen Costa provides some practical strategies that can help you to engage your students in a Zoom session. A few of her strategies are:
Encourage students to use non-verbal feedback including raise/lower virtual hand, answer yes/no to questions, speed up/slow down, and emoji reactions (clapping hands, thumbs up).
Ask informal questions throughout the session and encourage students to use the chat to engage with you and their peers.
Use formal and/or informal polls.
Embrace the pause. Pause during the class session to give students time to think and answer.
Invite students to share out via audio and or audio/video in addition to answering in the chat.
Teach students how to be on-camera in a Zoom session (e.g., lighting, background, virtual background, mute/unmute microphone).
Normalize the fear of being on-camera.
Try using breakout rooms.
Make the chat the heart of your session.
Set the tone for engagement from moment one.
If this has piqued your interest, you can read more about these strategies in Karen’s Making Shapes in Zoom article.
Also, we have Zoom how-to resources on our CAT FooD blog. You can find links for the Zoom how-to resources here:
The “Work To Do” widget is a new feature implemented in our May Continuous Delivery Update. The Work To Do widget was designed for learners and it displays all their overdue and upcoming learning activities across courses or within a course. This widget can help learners to keep track of assignments and activities that are due.
Now, all quizzes, assignments, checklists, etc., with due or end dates in the near future or past appear in one place on the learner’s My homepage in the “Work To Do” widget. Overdue work appears at the top of the list, and upcoming items appear below.
Example of the Work To Do widget
Learners will see the “Work To Do” widget on their My Home page as well as their course homepages. The learner will be able to see overdue and upcoming learning activities for each course where the default course homepage is being used.
Example of the Work To Do widget showing no activities due
The Work To Do widget can be seen by users with the role of student. Instructors will see the Work To Do widget when they view the course as a student.
Note: Instructors who have opted to customize their course homepage and want their students to be able to see the Work To Do widget on their customized course homepage, will have to add the widget to the course homepage.
For additional information and frequently asked questions about the Work To Do widget, see the following article in the Brightspace Community: Introducing the Work To Do Widget.
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.
