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Brightspace Tip #414: October Continuous Delivery Updates

the word update written on a chalk board

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 October 2023/20.23.10 release that were added to our system this month:

1) Brightspace Editor – Users can set the Text Direction attribute for the entire page

This feature allows instructors, when creating Content or Widgets, to set the directionality for all text on a page when using the Attributes menu in Brightspace Editor. The Text Direction attribute can be applied to the entire page by navigating to Attributes > Page Attributes and selecting the desired text direction. The attribute can have text be Default, Left to Right or Right to Left.

Previously it was only possible to set the text direction attribute on Selected Items.

Attributes page with default selected for the text direction
Set the text directionality of your Content or Widget by selecting it from the Text Direction drop-down menu.

2) Assignments and Discussions – Limit for field restrictions enforced

When evaluating activities in Assignments and Discussions, users can no longer use the Publish or Save Draft buttons if their evaluation exceeds the limit for field restrictions. This limitation applies to the Overall Grade, Overall Feedback, and Annotations fields. Previously, a warning was displayed in the Overall Feedback field when the limit was reached, but the limitation was not enforced; and users could continue attempting to save their evaluation by clicking Publish or Save Draft.

3) Chat – Intent to end-of-life for Chat

With this release, users accessing the Chat tool now see a banner indicating the tool will no longer be available as of January 2024.

the Chat tool displays a banner about the tool's EOL date.
The Chat tool displays a banner about the tool's EOL date.

For more information about this update, refer to Intent to End Of Life Notice for: Chat.

4) Pulse App – Accessibility improvements

Brightspace Pulse app is updated to provide a more consistent assistive technology experience between iOS and Android platforms. In addition, there is an added option to enable 3rd Party cookies within the Pulse app settings. As a result of these changes, users are required to log back in to the Pulse app.

If you are interested in getting more information about these and all the October Continuous Delivery updates, refer to the Brightspace Platform October 2023/20.23.10 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

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