While this is not a CAT+FD event, we believe it will be of interest to Xavier faculty.
![Tennessee State University is an AA/EEO employer.
A.I. for ALL
Open Education Summit
This Summit focuses on Artificial Intelligence (AI) advancements, aiming to enhance education and to equip a future digital workforce, with dedication to inclusivity and diversity through the use of
Open Educational Resources (OER).
Date: June 5 - 7, 2024
Tennessee State University
Avon Williams Downtown Campus-SMART Center -Nashville, TN
www.ai-tnstatesmartcenter.org/aiforallsummitt2024
Summit Highlights
National Keynotes ~ Engaging Panels ~ Hands-On Workshops ~ Innovative AI Exhibits ~ AI Art Gallery ~ AI Tools
Summit Themes
• Bridging the Digital Divide: Inclusive AI Education for Global Communities
• Innovating Pedagogy with AI: The Next Frontier in Teaching and Learning
• AI for Educational Equity: Leveling the Learning Field with Open Access
• AI Tools for Every Stage of Education: Pre K-12 – Lifelong Learning
• Ethics and Policies for AI: Policies, Guardrails, Safety, and Privacy
• Shaping the Future for Open Education with AI
Complimentary Registration by April 19th
No cost registration to ensure the Summit is accessible to all. Must Register to Attend.
Call for Presentations by March 31st
*Papers will be published in a special edition by USDLA
Summit Contact: smartcenter@tnstate.edu or 615.963.7113
Partnerships: William and Flora Hewlett Foundation - Open Educational Resources (OER),(USDLA) United States Distance Learning Association, TMobile Education, MERLOT - Affordable Learning Solutions, MIT – Open CourseWare, HBCU-C2 (Everyone Can Code and Create)](https://i0.wp.com/cat.xula.edu/food/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/AI-for-All-3.jpg?resize=625%2C809)
(for thought)
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 February 2024/20.24.2 release that were added to our system this month:
The question mark (?) icon that appears next to questions in Question Library is removed to prevent visual clutter. However, the folder icon that appears in Question Library next to each section remains.
This change only impacts Question Library and the question mark icon remains in other areas of Brightspace.
With this release, a Powered by D2L Brightspace footer now appears on select pages in Brightspace. The footer appears on the following pages:
This replaces the footer that previously appeared at the bottom of the login page and removes the corresponding Do not display D2L branded footer setting from the Login Page Management tool.
To learn more, refer to the Powered by D2L blog post in Brightspace Community.
If you are interested in getting more information about these and all the February Continuous Delivery updates, refer to the Brightspace Platform February 2024/20.24.2 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.
View current, past, and preview upcoming Continuous Delivery release notes
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.
A misconception about 21st-century students is that they are proficient with all technology, even in the absence of clear instructions. Many students know how to use online platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook for fun, but have no idea how to leverage them for academic or professional use.
In an article in the Times Higher Education, Elizabeth Losh says universities must stop presuming that all students are tech-savvy. Many educators assume that young people are digital natives and they should know how to use technology. Gen Z may be savvy about using social media personally. However, they are not as savvy about how to use tech tools academically or professionally.
I don't appreciate when professors just assume because we are young we know how to use this stuff...we are learning with y'all. - Anonymous Xavier Student
In feedback from some Xavier students, they stated that their professors assume they know how to use Brightspace when in fact they do not. To better serve our students, faculty should not assume students are digital natives. Instructors can help students learn the basics for the tools that will be used in their course by providing them links to how-to resources.
Did you know that we have a list of Brightspace how-to resources for students on our CAT FooD blog? You can find Brightspace how-to resources at the following links:
Additionally, here's an example of how you might include how-to instructions for a discussion forum in your Brightspace course:
In this example, instructions for the Q&A forum are provided along with instructions on how to post to the forum as well as a link to a how-to video.
Including information on how to use course tools will go a long way to helping students to be successful in your course.
Accessibility Is Not Just for Individuals with Disabilities [1:02:10]
Thanks to those of you who attended last week's "Accessibility Is Not Just for Individuals with Disabilities" workshop. The workshop, the seventeenth in our #LEX Advanced series, helps you to build on the skills you learned in the #LearnEverywhereXULA course and will give you the skills and knowledge you need to create accessible course materials that can benefit everyone.
In case you missed last week’s training session or if you attended the training session and want to recap what was covered, a copy of the workshop recording and resources referenced in the workshop are available. You can find the workshop recording and other resources in support of the workshop on the CAT+FD wiki.
Additionally, if you did not get the opportunity to earn a digital badge for participating in the workshop, it's not too late to earn that badge. We have a corresponding “Make It Accessible” module in the #LearnEverywhereXULA (#LEX) course that you can complete to earn a digital badge for this topic. The badge will count towards your #LEX Advanced certification.
#LearnEverywhereXULA (#LEX) is our Brightspace course that is organized around the eight General Standards for Higher Education set forth in the Quality Matters Higher Education Rubric Sixth Edition. The information, activities, and assignments in the #LEX course aids faculty in developing high quality, well-designed, objective-driven courses on Brightspace for Xavier University of Louisiana (XULA) students.
When faculty complete the #LEX course, they have the opportunity to expand their horizons even more through #LEX Advanced certification. With the certification, faculty learn about using design and automation features available in Brightspace to apply better pedagogical practices within their courses by making them more user-friendly, accessible, and efficient.
#LEX Advanced takes a deeper dive into tools like Rubrics, Release Conditions, Intelligent Agents, HTML Templates, Awards & Badges, and more. #LEX Advanced certification also includes topics such as accessibility, academic integrity, securing online testing environment, alternative assessments, online discussions, group work, and video lectures.
A #LEX Advanced badge can be earned for participation in a #LEX Advanced workshop OR for completing its corresponding module in the #LEX course.
Our #LEX Advanced certification has four levels. Faculty can move up a certification level with every fourth #LEX Advanced badge they earn. Complete four modules to earn the #LEX Advanced Level 1 certification. Complete eight modules to earn the #LEX Advanced Level 2 certification. Complete twelve modules to earn the #LEX Advanced Level 3 certification. Complete sixteen modules to earn the #LEX Advanced Level 4 certification.
Faculty can view the badges they've earned by clicking on Activities in the NavBar and then click on Awards within the #LearnEverywhereXULA course.
Are you interested in becoming #LEX Advanced certified? Attend one of our upcoming #LEX Advanced workshops to start earning your badges. Alternatively, you can earn badges by completing modules in the #LearnEverywhereXULA course.
NOTE: Faculty who are not enrolled in the #LearnEverywhereXULA course can request enrollment using this enrollment request form.
Congratulations to those faculty who have earned #LEX Advanced Certification!
Updated: 21 May 2024
Image credits:
image by PDPhotos from Pixabay
"#LEX Advanced Certificate of Completion" by jtodd1 | CC BY 4.0
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 January 2024/20.24.1 release that were added to our system this month:
In the Assignments and Discussions evaluation experience, the tooltip for reporting evaluation errors is updated to include clearer language. The tooltip appears when a user enters over 300,000 characters into the Overall Feedback field or enters an invalid grade into the Grade field.
The new tooltip reads "There is one or more errors in the information entered". Previously, the tooltip read "There are invalid grades on this page", excluding various errors that may have caused the tooltip to appear. The new language makes the types of errors clearer as it encourages users to review the entire evaluation.
Learners can now export their earned awards in a standards-compliant format using the new Export Digital Credential option. This feature allows the download of certificates or badges as an industry-standard Open Badges 2.0 compliant Badge for their own record keeping or sharing.
Badge Baking is the process of embedding digital credentials within the badge image. This approach ensures that the user has legitimately earned the badge by including a verification link used to check the integrity of the embedded information. To learn more about Badge Baking, refer to Open Badges Baking Specification.
For Baked Badge, the supported format in Brightspace is PNG only, and the recommended pixel size of the badge should be no smaller than 200 px x 200 px.
Note: Not all applications support Open Badges 2.0 Badge Baking. Some third-party applications strip meta-data from images, causing baked badges to be non-compliant with Open Badges 2.0.
To download an award, learners must navigate to the My Awards page, select the desired award, click Share, and then click the new Export Digital Credential button. In the opened window, learners must provide their email address to link to their award and ensure verification, and then click Export.
Exporting a digital credential downloads badges or certificates as a .png file with the award data embedded in the image.
Previously, awards could only be exported as a public URL or through the LinkedIn and Badgr integrations.
This feature implements PIE item D6128 (Awards: Incorporate Open Badge Standards).
This release updates the Insert Stuff > My Computer file picker with the version currently used in the Insert Image workflow, which allows drag-and-drop file uploads from the user's computer.
Previously, the Insert Stuff > My Computer file picker used an older file picker that did not support drag-and-drop of files.
This feature implements the following PIE item:
With this update to Brightspace Virtual Assistant, clients who are subscribed to End User Support (EUS) Services can now enter their search string or question in the new text field at the bottom of the tool. Previously, users would need to select the I have a different question option to have access to a freeform field where they could then type in a query to receive Brightspace Community resources.
When instructors grade quiz attempts, any ungraded written response questions remain as pending evaluation until the instructor manually grades them. Previously, when instructors clicked Publish or Update for a quiz attempt, the written response question's pending evaluation status would be removed.
If a written response question is not graded, the status shows a pending evaluation message for both the learner and instructor view. In the learner view, learners always see the message "This question has not been graded" until the instructor grades the question. The instructor view displays the message "not auto-graded; a default value of 0 was assigned" until they grade the question.
If you are interested in getting more information about these and all the January Continuous Delivery updates, refer to the Brightspace Platform January 2024/20.24.1 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.
View current, past, and preview upcoming Continuous Delivery release notes
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.
Instructors can now set up quizzes that start and end at the same time for ALL learners with the new synchronous quizzing option. This feature was introduced with our September 2023 Continuous Delivery updates.
The addition of synchronous quizzes enables instructors to set up a quiz where the quiz timer starts on the start date for all learners rather than when the learner launches the quiz (asynchronous). The quiz timer then ends for all learners at the same time. This facilitates quizzes where the instructor requires all learners to take the quiz at the same time similar to in classroom learning and supporting medium-high stakes quizzing.
A synchronous quiz starts at the Start Date and ends when the time limit has lapsed, regardless of any action taken by the learner. For example, if a learner clicks "Start Quiz!" 15 minutes after the start date on a 1-hour quiz, they only have 45 minutes left to complete it. To indicate when a quiz becomes available, learners have a countdown timer on the Quiz Information and Start Quiz pages. The Start Quiz! button becomes available when the start date and time is reached.
Note: If no start date and time is set for the synchronous quiz, the No Start date set alert appears under the selected option, and you cannot save the quiz. The Due Date option is disabled for synchronous quizzes because students do not choose the time frame of when to take the synchronous quiz, therefore there is no need to set a due date.
To ensure that learners are aware of upcoming synchronous quizzes, instructors should create instructional or manual solutions. For example:
Note: Instructors must modify or review quizzes one-by-one to avoid accidentally modifying quiz availability dates for synchronous quizzes.
Instructors should provide learners with information about a synchronous quiz before it starts. Learners can also access information about synchronous quizzes in the Quiz Information page.
Quiz Timing Improvements
Quizzes FAQ: Hot Tips and Workarounds
Brightspace Tip #254: Tests and Quizzes
Resources for the Quizzes Tool
View current, past, and preview upcoming Continuous Delivery release notes
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.
Instructors can grant quiz accommodations to learners through the Classlist tool. Instructors can assign accommodations to specific learners that apply across ALL quizzes instead of applying them on a quiz-by-quiz basis. The accommodations option allows the instructor to give the learner more time to complete quizzes at the course level.
Once granted, the accommodations apply to all quiz activities in a course for that learner. The additional time can be applied in terms of quiz time multipliers (for example, 1.5 x quiz time) or +minutes (for example, an additional 30 minutes) on every quiz in a course.
Accommodations for Instructors:
Accommodations for learners:
Quiz-specific special access can overwrite an accommodation for any user on a quiz-by-quiz basis. When you overwrite an accommodation and then click Save, a warning describing the impact of overwriting the accommodation appears. Accommodations set for learners in Classlist are displayed in the Special Access for the quiz.
Set Up Brightspace Accommodations by Learner for All Quizzes
Brightspace Tip #207: Quizzes – Special Access
Special Access in Quizzes
Quizzes FAQ: Hot tips and workarounds
Brightspace Tip #254: Tests and Quizzes
Resources for the Quizzes Tool
View current, past, and preview upcoming Continuous Delivery release notes
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.
Quizzes can include bonus/extra-credit questions. Bonus questions are questions that will not hurt the learner’s overall score if they do not answer them correctly, but can improve the learner’s overall score if answered correctly.
Questions randomly drawn from a question pool cannot be set as bonus questions.
Points for questions that are ‘bonus’ will not calculate into the total points for the quiz but are added on top of the overall points. For example, you have 11 questions in a quiz and each question is worth 1 point. One of the eleven questions in the quiz is a bonus question. The total point value for the quiz will be 10 points and not 11 points. This is because learners would be able to get 1 extra credit point for the bonus question if they answered it correctly and are not penalized if they skip or do not answer the bonus question correctly. In my example, a learner who answered all eleven questions correctly would have an overall score of 11/10. While a leaner who answers the 10 non-bonus questions correctly but skips or does not answer the bonus question correctly would have an overall score of 10/10.
Quizzes clearly mark bonus questions with the word "Bonus" so that learners understand that the question is a bonus question.
If your goal is to have the Bonus question replace a missed question in the quiz (in other words, the highest score that can be earned on the quiz is 100%), then you do not have to do anything else in your Grade Book for the overall score to calculate correctly. This assumes you have created a grade item in your Grade Book and have associated the quiz with the grade item already.
If learners can earn higher than 100% on the quiz, then you have to make sure your grade item in the Grade Book is configured to be able to receive a score greater than 100%. The same holds true for the category if the quiz’s grade item is in a category and the category can be greater than 100%.
Let’s assume for the example above, you want the learners to earn higher than 100% for the quiz and the quiz’s grade item is in a category in the Grade Book. When setting up the corresponding Grade Item in the Grade Book, you would enter 10 as the maximum points for the quiz and also check the “Can Exceed” checkbox for the grade item, because it is possible for a learner to earn more than 10 points on this quiz.
If your grade item is a category in the gradebook and you want any bonus points to replace missed points in that category (in other words, if the max score students can earn for that category is 100%), then you do not have to do anything else for the overall score in the category to calculate correctly. If you want students who earn higher than a 100% in that category to bump up their final grade, then you must edit the category and check the “Allow category grade to exceed category weight” checkbox for the category. Doing so will allow the category to exceed 100%.
Having ALL the questions in a quiz marked as a bonus creates a problem when the system calculates the overall score for the quiz. Therefore, if you have a quiz where the entire quiz will count as extra credit (i.e., all questions are bonus questions), then DO NOT set ANY of the questions as bonus in the quiz itself. Instead, you should identify the associated Grade Item in the Grade Book as a bonus grade item. When you set the quiz up with all the questions as non-bonus questions and the associated grade item in the Grade Book as a bonus, the system will calculate the overall score for the extra credit quiz correctly.
To create bonus questions in a quiz:
Note: If you no longer want the question to be a bonus question, repeat steps 3-5 to remove the bonus setting. By clicking the Toggle Bonus option, you can add or remove the bonus setting.
About Brightspace Quizzes
Manage Quiz Questions
How do I change a quiz question to a bonus question?
Demystifying Bonus Items in a Weighted Grade Book
View current, past, and preview upcoming Continuous Delivery release notes
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 credits: bonus by DegenerSumon from pngtree and image by Pixaline from Pixabay
Our November Continuous Delivery Updates introduced a new negative grading option in Quizzes that allows instructors to deduct a percentage of a question's point value for incorrect answers submitted.
You may be wondering what is the rationale for using negative grading on a test. Deducting points for incorrect answers on a test is a common practice that serves several important purposes:
While deducting points for incorrect answers can be effective in promoting accurate assessment and encouraging deeper learning, it is important to use this practice judiciously. In some cases, it may be more appropriate to provide partial credit for incorrect answers that demonstrate some understanding of the material. Additionally, it is important to provide students with clear feedback on their incorrect answers so that they can learn from their mistakes and improve their understanding.
Negative grading applies specifically to question types that can be auto-graded, for example, multiple-choice, multi-select, and true/false questions. The only question type that cannot be auto-graded is written response.
Instructors can also enter negative values when manually grading individual quiz questions or manually updating all quiz question attempts from the Quizzes tool.
To ensure that instructors can view accurate quiz statistics, Question Statistics are also updated to account for this new functionality. Therefore, if negative grading is enabled, Question Statistics may display the following differences in statistics:
To ensure that learners are fully aware that negative marking is enabled for a quiz, the Summary page of a quiz explicitly notifies the learner that for each question answered incorrectly, a percentage of that question's point value is deducted from the final attempt grade. Even though a notice about negative grading will be on the Summary page, we recommend that the instructor also include this information in their quiz instructions for the learners.
Also, learners are given the opportunity to explicitly clear previously-selected answers to auto-graded questions by clicking Clear Selection. This gives learners the opportunity to leave the question blank and receive a mark of zero (0), instead of forcing them to guess and enter an answer that could possibly incur a percent deduction. Also, see the note about Mandatory questions below.
Learners who are given the ability to view questions after submitting their quiz by their instructor can review questions that received negative score deductions for incorrect answers.
Note:
About Brightspace Quizzes
Create a quiz with negative grading
Manage Quiz Questions
View current, past, and preview upcoming Continuous Delivery release notes
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 Sabine Kroschel/Pixaline from Pixabay (image cropped)