Brightspace Tip #487: December Continuous Delivery Updates

1) Brightspace Editor – TinyMCE version

This release updates Brightspace Editor to TinyMCE version 7.2.1 across all production instances, following its initial rollout to test environments in October. This update provides minor defect fixes from TinyMCE, but introduces no functional changes to the editor itself. While no known issues have been identified, D2L recommends that all clients review their course content edited with the Brightspace Editor to ensure all content functions as expected.

2) Consistent Evaluation – Learner View of Grade in Assignments, Discussions, and New Quiz Evaluation experiences

Consistent Evaluation enables instructors to evaluate learner submissions to Assignments, Discussions, and Quizzes using an improved and optimized experience. With this release, the Consistent Evaluation and the New Quiz Evaluation experiences are updated to provide instructors the ability to view the grade scheme that is applied to learners in real time, based on the grade they enter during the evaluation process. For example, if the grade scheme applied to a course is a Letter Grade, instructors can view that letter grade instantly from the consistent evaluation experience. The letter grade is based upon the grade entered during an evaluation. The instructor can also choose to Hide Learner View of Grade or Show Learner View of Grade directly from the evaluation experience. This update also applies to the Completion Summary option available in the New Quiz Evaluation experience.

Note: The Consistent Evaluation experience is the only available evaluation experience for Assignments and Discussions. However, it is still an optional and opt-in experience for Quizzes. For more information about how to opt-in to the New Quiz Evaluation experience, refer to Quizzes – Optimize productivity with an improved quiz evaluation experience | New. For more information about the New Quiz Evaluation experience, refer to Visual tour of the new quiz evaluation experience.

Previously, instructors could not view the applied grade scheme grade when evaluating a submission. Instructors would have to save the grade they entered during their evaluation, and then navigate to Grades to compare the grades entered in the evaluation experience to the applied grade scheme grade.

Note: Grade Schemes are set up using the Grades tool. Schemes can be set up with different representations of grades, including Letter Grades. In the following examples, the Grade Scheme applied is Letter Grade and the submissions are linked to that grade scheme. For more information about how to create a Grade Scheme, refer to Create Grading Schemes using the Grades tool.

This feature implements the following PIE item:

• D7572 (New Assignment Grade Experience - Add Letter Grade Preview for Overall Grade and Rubric Score).

3) Lumi Chat – Improved user experience with generative AI and surveys

Originally known as Brightspace Virtual Assistant (BVA), Lumi Chat is an inline help tool that is integrated into Brightspace for clients with the End User Support package. It is the first point of contact for end users to ask product questions directly within Brightspace and receive persona-specific documentation from Brightspace Community. Two new changes are coming to Lumi Chat this month:

• Generative AI responses for users' questions
• CSAT (Customer Satisfaction) Surveys

Lumi Chat now provides generative AI responses to users' queries. Generated answers take the user query, identify the user's intent, and create a freeform text answer with information from D2L's knowledge bases while also linking to related documentation resources where applicable. The update improves user experiences with increased precision and problem-solving power at no additional cost to End User Support-subscribed clients.

Note: Lumi Chat functions independently of other D2L Lumi products and does not use any D2L Lumi generations.

Additionally, CSAT (Customer Satisfaction) Surveys are now integrated into Lumi Chat to gather feedback on the user experience. The survey is prompted automatically when the user closes the chat window after entering queries and is accessible any time through the star icon in the Lumi Chat window. Participation in the prompted survey is optional for users and does not include an additional cost or enablement steps.

4) Rubrics – The Criteria descriptions limit increased to 500 characters

To support larger criteria descriptions, administrators and instructors can now add up to 500 characters to the description of the criteria when creating and editing rubrics. This new limit provides more context about learning expectations.

Full descriptions of criteria are available in the Learner view.

For instructors, when evaluating, up to three lines are displayed. To display the complete text, they must click more.

Previously, the Criteria description field was limited to 256 characters.

Important: This change applies only to new rubric items created or edited after this release. Existing rubrics retain their original 256-character limit unless manually updated.

This feature implements the following PIE items:

• D6443 (Brightspace Rubrics – Expand characters allowed in description of criterion)
• D9982 (Increase the Character limit for the Rubric criteria description)
• D5135 (Rubric Criteria Description)

5) Pulse – External links open in native browser

The November 20.24.11 Release Notes General Announcements communicated that the Brightspace Pulse app would stagger the release of updates until January 2025.

As part of that staggered update cadence, external links now open in a device's native browser to improve user experience and enable new functionality.

Additionally, this update applies new security upgrades that strengthen login and content access for a safer learning environment, including an update to the log in process to include Proof of Key Code Exchange (PKCE) and deep linking for a more secure mobile app log in experience.

Previously, external links opened using the in-app browser, which had limited functionality and did not strengthen log in with new security features.

To ensure that users can access these improvements, they must first update their Pulse app to the latest version. Then, they must log out and log back in to their Pulse app to apply the required update.

Step 1: Update the Pulse app to the latest version

Users can refer to either the Google Play Store or Apple App Store to update the app.

Step 2: Log out and log back in to the Pulse app

The Pulse app will prompt users to log out to apply the latest security updates and gain access to the ability to view external links in your native browser.

Users can choose one of the following methods to log out:

• Use the in-app prompt to log out
  • From the prompt, users can tap Log out now and then log back in to apply updates.
• Remove account from Pulse app
  • Users can also tap and hold their account name in Pulse to select Remove Account. Then they can tap Add Account to find their institution and log in again with their credentials. This also applies the required security updates.

Important: For security purposes, users have 30 days from when they are notified by the prompt to log out of the Pulse app. After 30 days, users will be automatically logged out of all Pulse accounts, and they will need to manually log in to Pulse again to continue using Pulse.

Note: For more information about how to log out of all accounts, or remove and add accounts in the Pulse app, refer to Manage multiple Brightspace Pulse accounts. If users encounter difficulties logging back in, refer to the Logging in section of Troubleshooting Brightspace Pulse.