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 some of the updates in the September 2024/20.24.9 release that were added to our system this month:
1) Assignments – Update to assignment annotations PSPDFKit
With this release, the software that powers annotations (PSPDFKit) in the Assignments tool is updated from version 20.24.03 to 20.24.04. As part of this update, the unsupported PSPDFKit Bookmarks tool is disabled and the Bookmarks option in annotations is removed to avoid confusion. This update also fixes defects and prevents further defects related to PSPDFKit being out of date.
Previously, instructors could click Bookmarks and add bookmarks to the document. However, added bookmarks were not saved after refreshing the page.
2) Quizzes – Attach rubrics to written response questions
For Brightspace implementations that use the new quiz evaluation experience, it is now possible for instructors to attach a rubric to written response (long answer) questions on a quiz.
Subsequently, within the quiz, instructors can use the rubric to grade the written response quiz questions. The rubric appears below the learner's answer or the instructor can click Pop Out to open the learner response in a separate dialog, enabling the instructor to view the rubric and the written response in separate windows.
Learners can now see the rubric for written response quiz questions while they are taking the quiz. After the quiz is complete and graded, the learner can review the rubric in the graded quiz for any feedback the instructor provides during the evaluation.
NOTE: The rubric is visible to learners provided the rubric visibility option is set to make visible to students.
3) Quizzes – Optimize productivity with an improved quiz evaluation experience
Grading workflows are now optimized in the quiz evaluation experience to improve instructor productivity. The new quiz evaluation experience can now be turned on in the quiz page you are grading.
After instructors have opted into the new experience, they can scroll between users and select the quiz attempt they want to evaluate for the user.
In the main assessment area there are now two panels, which is consistent with other updated experiences in Brightspace. The following question types are supported in the new quiz evaluation experience:
- Multiple choice
- Written response
- True or false
- Short answer
- Fill in the blank
- Multi-select
- Question pools
All other types of questions (matching, arithmetic, significant figures, and multi-short answer) are not currently supported.
If users attempt to use an unsupported question type, an alert message appears:
On the left panel, evaluators can filter by Pending evaluation or Retaken questions only, and can view attempt details, quiz questions, and answers. From this area, evaluators can leave feedback for specific quiz sections.
On the right panel, evaluators can enter or review the grade and feedback for the quiz attempt, or use other quiz management options, such as Edit Quiz, Preview Quiz, Reset Evaluation, and Quizzes Event Log, in the Evaluation Options menu.
This feature implements the following PIE item:
- D10157 (Add the ability to attach a rubric to Written Response Questions for grading)
More information about the New Quiz Evaluation Experience can be found in the Brightspace Community.
If you are interested in getting more information about these and all the September Continuous Delivery updates, refer to the Brightspace Platform September 2024/20.24.9 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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or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.
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