No, I'm not referring to the legendary Jet magazine, founded in 1951 by John H. Johnson. That would be cool and interesting and educational in its own right, but I'm afraid I'm talking about something much more mundane.
As we announced back in December, we're moving our "CAT FooD" newsletter to the JetPack platform. That's transition is almost complete. Your receipt of this message indicates success — assuming it came to your email.
Yes, our inboxes are clogged these days, but email remains the best way to stay in touch for certain things. We hope timely info from CAT+FD is one of those things!
We didn't make this change lightly, but it should offer several advantages. For one thing, it gives you more power to customize exactly how often you get your newsletter delivered. Also, it integrates more seamlessly with our publishing platform, WordPress.
What do you have to do? Nothing! If you were subscribed to the old newsletter, we've already added you directly to the new newsletter. In fact, an email version of this post should come directly to your inbox. You should get it twice, actually: once via the new system, instantaneously using JetPack, and once via the old system, overnight using MailChimp. We'll shut the automated MailChimp newsletter down after this one last post. It will be strictly JetPack after that.
Having said all that, there are a couple things you could do to make sure you continue to get the newsletter smoothly.
The new newsletter comes at you from CAT FooD <donotreply@wordpress.com>, so you could add that address to your contacts, in order to keep it from getting flagged as spam.
Speaking of which, if you didn't already get this post via email, that may have happened. Please check your spam filters and folders, and if you find the CAT FooD newsletter languishing there, please be sure to mark it as legitimate.
If you're using the "Focused Inbox" in Outlook, you may find the newsletter in your "Other" tab. And maybe that's just where you want it. I mean, that's entirely up to you. If you'd rather see our newsletter in your "Focused" tab, you can move it by selecting Move > Always move to Focused inbox, so that our future messages land in the Focused tab. Read more about this from Microsoft.
Again, those steps are optional. We envision a smooth transition. The only potentially confusing issue that we foresee might arise if you already subscribe to some other WordPress.com newsletters. That scenarios probably only applies to a handful of subscribers. We're happy to work with you to resolve anything that comes up on a case-by-case basis.
Our Information Technology Center (ITC) has created the spring courses in Brightspace.
NOTE: You should see your spring courses in the My Courses widget. If you do not see your spring courses in your My Courses widget, you should click on the link to "View All Courses" (located at the bottom of the My Courses widget). Verify that you are listed as the instructor for the course in Banner. You can find more information about the updated My Courses Widget sort logic at this link.
As you prepare to teach this spring, you can get started setting up your Brightspace courses. To get started, you can post your syllabus, course documents, announcements, and setup your Grade Book in your Brightspace courses. You can also customize your course homepage and/or course image/banner.
If you teach a course that is cross listed you will have a Brightspace course for each cross listing. You can combine the cross listed courses into one Brightspace course so that you can post course materials and grades to one combined Brightspace course. Combining courses may also work for you if you are teaching different sections of the same course and would like to have the different sections combined into one Brightspace course so that you can post course documents and grades in the one combined course. The beginning of the semester is the best time to submit a request to merge your Brightspace courses before you add course materials or grades to the courses.
Additionally, if the spring course you are teaching is the same as one of your previous courses you can copy the entire course (or copy components) into your "empty" Brightspace spring course.
About Inactive Courses:
When ITC creates the Brightspace courses, they are set to inactive by default. Instructors have access to inactive courses but students who are enrolled in an inactive course do not have access to it. Faculty have no control over the active/inactive status of courses. Brightspace will not send alerts or notifications from inactive courses.
ITC will make courses active after the first deregistration (dereg) of students who are not fiscally cleared. At that point students will be able to access to their courses. The dereg process usually occurs after registration. The registrar informs ITC of when the dereg process is complete.
NOTE: Even though a course is inactive, instructors can still email students. This can be done in several different ways. Instructors can send email within the course (even though it is inactive); the email will go out to the students. Instructors can send email to their students in Banner, and can also email the students through EAB.
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.
As you move forward with using Brightspace in your teaching and learning, you may have some Brightspace questions. Here is a list of Brightspace help resources you can use to get answers to your questions:
Also, did you know there is a virtual assistant that is integrated directly into Brightspace? If this is news to you, refer to Brightspace Tip #486: Lumi Chat to find out more about it.
Additionally, if you are having difficulties using any of the course tools, you can get help from D2L. This help is available 24/7 via Email and Live Chat. You will find options to request Email Support and Live Chat Support in Lumi Chat. You must be logged into Brightspace to access Lumi Chat.
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 PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay
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 December 2024/20.24.12 release that were added to our system this month:
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.
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.
With this update, instructors can refer to the applied grade scheme displayed under Learner View of Grade. This view updates in real time as the instructor enters a grade in the Overall Grade field.
The instructor can select Hide Learner View of Grade from the Evaluation Options menu (...). Instructors can select Show Learner View of Grade to make the learner view visible again.
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.
Click the star icon in the Lumi Chat window to provide feedback.
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.
Click more to display the complete text for the rubric description.
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)
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: 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.
Lumi Chat (formerly Brightspace Virtual Assistant) is an AI-based help tool that is integrated directly into Brightspace. Lumi Chat appears as a pop-up from the speech bubble button in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen.
Click the Lumi Chat icon to ask a question
The tool provides immediate access to help documentation so users do not have to do research in another browser tab or window. After typing in a question, the tool provides persona-specific documentation available in Brightspace Community.
Lumi Chat dialog box
Persona-specific information is derived from the user’s role in Brightspace, for example:
Instructors can find persona-specific step-by-step guides and video tutorials on how to set up a course and other activities.
Students/Learners can find help documentation related to their Brightspace how-to questions without having to leave the page.
Administrators can find resources to complete tasks with how-to instructions available directly in the right-hand corner of their page.
All users have the option for further assistance. Lumi Chat contains options to Ask the Community or to contact Support for further assistance by email or chatting with a live agent.
Lumi Chat is available in all four EUS-supported languages: English (CA), French (CA), Spanish, and Brazilian Portuguese. The user’s chosen Language and Locale settings in their profile determine the language of the Lumi Chat output messages, the language of the support articles provided, and the language of the support received by email, or chat.
Note: If a user’s chosen Language and Locale setting is not supported, the default language is English.
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 conversation with NotebookLM. Well, actually it's more of a conversation by NotebookLM, based on 52 previous episodes of this podcast. Well, you'll just have to listen. Facilitated by CAT+FD's Creative Generalist Bart Everson.
This semester marked the start year two of our program to support Xavier part-time instructors, the first beyond last year's pilot. The school was fortunate once again in assembling an incredible roster of part-time teaching talent, across all colleges, divisions, and departments. It was once again my pleasure to meet and work with such an engaged and interesting cohort.
Three individuals in particular, Marlana Fireman (English), Matthew Hanson (English), and Allison Morvant (History), showed amazing dedication to the cause, participating in CAT+FD efforts to promote the scholarship of teaching and learning, which in turn enhances their classes and student experiences as well. These teachers demonstrate the idea of serious reflection as crucial to academic endeavors on any level, and especially within Xavier's particular mission-driven framework.
Marlana Botnick Fireman (she/her) is a writer and editor in New Orleans, Louisiana. She completed her MFA in creative writing at the University of New Orleans and was awarded the Joanna Leake Prize for Fiction Thesis. They are a former Associate Fiction Editor for BayouMagazine.
Matthew Hanson was born and raised in Massachusetts and has lived in New Orleans for five years. He has taught at Xavier, Delgado Community College, and UMass-Boston. He is also a contributing editor at TheArtsFuse and AmericanPurpose, with his essays and criticism appearing in a variety of publications.
Allison Morvant earned a PhD in history from Louisiana State University and holds an MA in Political Science from LSU as well. In addition to Xavier, she has taught at LSU and South Louisiana Community College.
Any institution benefits from having teachers such as these in their ranks, and Xavier will be lucky to keep them in the future, as the market forces of part-time teaching, as well as as personal and professional goals, do their work. In fact, Matthew Hanson has recently accepted a senior lecturer position at Delgado Community College. We wish him all the best in his new role! Best wishes as well to Marlana and Allison, to all of Xavier's part-time teachers, and a very happy holiday break to everyone!
For at least 15 years, Xavier faculty have gotten timely updates from this blog delivered to their inboxes. We hope to continue that tradition for many years to come, but we're making a few changes. Well, just one change, actually, but it's kind of a big deal.
We're moving our "CAT FooD" newsletter to the JetPack platform, which should offer several advantages.
For one thing, it gives you more power to customize exactly how often you get your newsletter delivered. Also, it integrates more seamlessly with our blogging platform, WordPress.
What do you have to do? Nothing! If you are subscribed to the old newsletter, we'll add you directly to the new newsletter. We anticipate doing this during the winter break for minimal disruptions.
However, if you like, there are a few things you could do to make your transition even smoother.
The new newsletter will be coming at you from <donotreply@wordpress.com> so you could add that address to your contacts in order to keep it from getting flagged as spam.
You could even add yourself to the new JetPack newsletter now. (You will need to verify your subscription.) You might get a few duplicate issues, but that will resolve itself when we stop the old newsletter.
Again, those steps are optional. We envision a smooth transition. The only potentially confusing issue that we foresee might arise if you already subscribe to some other WordPress.com newsletters, but that is probably only a handful of you. We're happy to work with you to resolve anything that comes up on a case-by-case basis.
Yes, our inboxes are clogged these days, but email remains the best way to stay in touch for certain things. We hope timely info from CAT+FD is one of those things! We look forward to seeing you on the other side, in our brand-new shiny jet-powered future.
Some fun factual footnotes for those who read to the end: The origins of the CAT FooD newsletter are lost in the mists of time, but we believe it got started in 2009 using the Feedburner service. In October of 2016 we made the switch to MailChimp. We currently have 216 subscribers, a quarter of whom are not affiliated with Xavier.
As we approach the end of the semester there are a few things you can do in Brightspace to wrap up for the semester.
Release final course grades
Unlike other grade items and categories in the Grade Book, final grades are not available to students by default. Final grades must be released. If you did not choose to enable the automatic release of final grades when setting up your Grade Book, you will have to manually release final grades in order for students to see their final grade.
Export your Grade Book
Student access to courses is removed two weeks after the end of a semester. This process of making the courses inactive allows student work and grades to be visible to instructors but students no longer have access to the course. Courses will remain on the Brightspace system for three semesters before they are removed. You should export (download) your Grade Book to your local computer after you submit your final grades.
NOTE: The export file that is created will NOT contain any student work or instructor feedback. Only the grades in your Grade Book will be exported.
Create a master copy of your course
Courses remain on the Brightspace system for three semesters before they are removed. You can request a Master Course Shell that you can use to develop and maintain your course materials. Master Course Shells will not be removed from the Brightspace system.
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.
Brightspace calculates final grades for each student based on the grading system and the students' grades that are entered into the Grade Book. If the instructor wants more control over the final grades, perhaps to adjust the final grade for a student that is on the cusp of a higher grade, then adjusted final grades can be used and released to students instead of the calculated final grade.
If the instructor decides to use adjusted final grades for one student in the course, adjusted final grades must be used for all students in the course. This does not imply, however, that final grades must be manually adjusted for all students.
Adjusting final grades are implemented by the instructor for only the student or students that are deemed to need an adjusted grade. The remaining students final grades would be the final grade as calculated in the Grade Book.
Note: The Grade Book must be configured to use adjusted final grades. If you plan to use adjusted final grades, you should make the adjustments before you release final grades.
Follow these steps to do it.
To adjust final grades for all students:
Get into the course where you want to adjust final grades and click Grades in the NavBar.
Click on the Enter Grades link.
Scroll over to the Final Calculated Grade column and click on the arrow on the right of the column name and select Enter Grades.
In the Final Adjusted Grade section for each student, enter the adjusted grades and then click Save.
Once you have ensured that students' grades are accurate, you can release the final grades.
To adjust final grades for one or more specific students:
Get into the course where you want to adjust final grades and click Grades in the NavBar.
Click on the Enter Grades link.
Scroll over to the Final Calculated Grade column and click on the arrow on the right of the column name and select Enter Grades.
Click on the arrow on the right of the Final Grades and click Transfer All, then click Yes.
In the Final Adjusted Grade section, enter adjusted scores where necessary and click Save.
Once you have ensured that students' grades are accurate, you can release the final grades.
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.
