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Brightspace Tip #283: End-of-Semester Tasks

Janice FlorentDecember 6, 2021Leave a comment

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.

Follow these steps to do it.

Instructions are available for releasing final course grades, exporting your Grade Book, and requesting Master Course Shells.

Want more information?

Release Final Grades
Export your Grade Book (video [2:03])
Master Copies of Courses

View all the Brightspace training recaps
Instructors Quick Start Tutorial
Continuous Delivery release notes
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.

Photo Credit: "end" by jflorent is dedicated to the public domain under CCO and is a derivative of image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

Brightspace Tip #282: Grade Book – Adjust Final Grades

Janice FlorentDecember 2, 2021Leave a comment

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.

Want more information?

Understanding the Grades Tool (video)
Adjust Final Grades
Release Final Grades
Final Grades FAQs
Grades FAQs
Brightspace Tip #109: Grade Book

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 moritz320 from Pixabay

Brightspace Tip #281: Grade Book – Release Final Grades

Janice FlorentDecember 1, 2021December 14, 2021Leave a comment

Unlike other grade items and categories in the Grade Book, final grades are not available to students by default. Final grades must be released. When setting up the Grade Book, the instructor can choose to automatically release final grades so that the students can see their final grade throughout the semester. 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.

Additionally, you can selectively release final grades for some students now and release the final grades for other students later. For example, you can release the final grades for graduating seniors on one date and release the final grades for everyone else on a later date.

Follow these steps to do it.

To manually release final grades:

On the NavBar, click Grades.
On the Enter Grades page, from the Final Calculated Grade or Final Adjusted Grade context menu, click Grade All.
To release grades for all users, on the Final Grades page, from the Final Grades context menu, click Release All. To release final grades for a specific user, do one of the following:
- Select the check box by the user name and click the Release/Unrelease link.
- Select the check box in the Release Final Calculated Grade or Release Adjusted Final Grade column.
Click Save.

OR watch this video for instructions on how to release final grades:

Grades - Release Final Grades - Instructor [1:32]

NOTE: There is a slight change in the video instructions. The "Enter Grades" option should be used anywhere in the video where "Grade All" is referenced.

Want more information?

Adjust Final Grades
Release Final Grades
Final Grades FAQs
Grades FAQs
Brightspace Tip #109: Grade Book

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: "final grades" by jflorent is dedicated to public domain under CC0 and is a derivative of grade by OpenClipart-Vectors on Pixabay

Goodbye, Google! Part 2 1

Jason S. ToddNovember 30, 2021November 23, 20211 Comment

On Dec. 17, Xavier faculty and staff accounts will be migrated from Google to Microsoft.

Last week, I wrote about my experiments with Google's Takeout service (get it?) to move some (but not all) of the documents on my XULA Google Drive to my personal Google Drive. As I noted, Takeout works best, in my opinion, for very targetted exports and migrations. This week, I want to talk about a related but also separate concern: YouTube videos.

As you probably already know, Google owns YouTube. Xavier's switch to Google came not long after I embraced inverted teaching, often called flipping the classroom. I've been posting videos of lectures (20 minutes or more), mini-lectures (usually between 10 and 15 minutes), and micro-lectures (less than 10 minutes [ideally less than five minutes {according to Bart}]) for several years now and have over 100 on my YouTube channel. (Those definitions are my own, by the way.) So when I learned about our planned migration from Google to Microsoft, I worried about what would happen to my YouTube videos. My understanding is that our videos will not be removed from YouTube. Anything we have uploaded to our Xavier-based YouTube accounts will remain where it is, meaning it will be accessible and, if set as publicly accessible, included in any relevant search results. However, since my Xavier-based Google account will no longer be active, I won't be able to access those videos as the channel owner, meaning I won't be able to edit them or delete them. They will be frozen in cyberspace.

I'm not going to focus here on how I might continue posting videos for my students. Maybe that's a topic for another blog post (although I seem to be running out of time for all these blog post ideas). Instead, I will focus simply on how I plan on maintaining full control over the videos I have previously created and posted to YouTube. Once again, please remember: What follows are a few things I've tried out of personal concern and curiosity, things that I thought I would share with my colleagues, in case they have similar concerns. Just to be clear, CAT+FD is not involved in the Google to Microsoft migration, and we are not advising any actions by faculty and staff.

Brightspace Tip #280: November Continuous Delivery Updates

Janice FlorentNovember 27, 2021Leave a comment

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 November 2021/20.21.11 release that were added to our system this month:

1) Brightspace Editor – Additional support for drag/drop and copy/paste images

Expanding further on the Brightspace Editor – Drag/drop and copy/paste images | Updated feature released in October 2021 / 20.21.10 and Brightspace Editor – Improvements | Updated feature released in May 2021 / 20.21.5, additional tools and editors now support the drag/drop and copy/paste functionality, including:

Quizzes > Feedback
Grades > Feedback
Grades > Comments
Discussions > Feedback

This functionality is now available in user-specific areas that may contain images with learner-sensitive information. As a result, these images are stored in the database rather than the Manage Files area of a course offering. In addition, the Course Copy function does not include these images.

2) Content – PDF inline viewer menu improvements

This feature updates the PDF Inline viewer used when showing all converted documents (e.g. Word documents) as PDFs within Brightspace Classic Content. As a result the PDF inline viewer menu has moved to the top of the PDF document, along with PDF navigation and actions and an overall refreshed button design.

The new PDF in-line viewer with the menu bar at the top of the PDF viewer when viewing an original PDF.

3) Email – Increased Limits for To and CC Fields

This feature increases the number of email addresses that can be added to the To and CC fields in a single email to 200. This is a result of increased limits on the size of headers in Brightspace SMTP servers.

Previously, the limit was 50 email addresses.

4) Manage Files – Users receive warning message when uploading a file blocked due to security

This feature provides the user with a warning message if they attempt to upload a file with an extension that is either not allowed by the Assignment or is on the security restricted list. This message appears as "This file extension is not allowed." for Assignments; and as "This file extension is not allowed for security reasons. Please see our Restricted File Extensions article in the D2L Community for more detailed information." for security restricted file extensions.

The security restricted file extensions list can be found here.

The warning message displayed when attempting to upload a security-restricted file extension.

The warning message displayed when attempting to upload an assignment with a restricted file extension.

If you are interested in getting more information about these and all the November Continuous Delivery updates, refer to the Brightspace Platform November 2021/20.21.11 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
View all the Brightspace training recaps
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 geralt from Pixabay

Conversation #107: Mark Quinn on a Sales Course with a Purpose

Goodbye, Google! Part I

Jason S. ToddNovember 17, 2021November 17, 2021Leave a comment

Google Inc., Public domain,
via Wikimedia Commons

I started using Google's applications (often called G-Suite) back when Google's motto was still "Don't be evil," so when Xavier switched us all over to Google in 2015, I was pretty pleased. Over the years, I've amassed a massive amount of data on my Xavier-based Google Drive and YouTube account, and I've pretty much stopped using my personal Google account. When we learned this past summer that Xavier would be migrating all of our accounts from Google to Microsoft, I panicked. Not only do I greatly dislike Microsoft's products, but I also have a ton of work that I was worried about. We've been told that all of the files on our Google Drives will be moved and translated to Microsoft's Office 360 system, and that only Google Forms will not survive the process. However, we've also been told that although our YouTube accounts will not disappear, we will not be able to manage them any more. Apparently, those videos will just sit on YouTube's servers with no one having any editorial control over them.

Brightspace Tip #279: Get Feedback from your Students

Janice FlorentNovember 14, 2021Leave a comment

Instructors can create surveys in Brightspace and use the statistics tools to monitor current course trends, seek opinions, and assess user satisfaction.

Surveys are an excellent way to solicit feedback from learners regarding any aspect of a course. You can gather anonymous or non-anonymous opinions and information from users. Unlike Quizzes, survey questions do not have to have right or wrong answers and Likert-style rating questions are possible.

Some examples of the types of uses for surveys are: seeking feedback on the effectiveness of active learning exercises, the need for clarification of course material, and/or seeking suggestions for course improvement.

ICYMI, read my New Twist on End-of-Semester Evaluations blog post.

Follow these steps to do it.

To create a survey:

On the NavBar, click Activities, then click Surveys.
On the Manage Surveys page, click New Survey.
Enter a Name and select additional settings for your survey (e.g. choose the option to give instant feedback and/or make results anonymous).
To add questions directly to the survey, click Add/Edit Questions. Alternatively, you can add questions from the Question Library.
Click Done Editing Questions to return to the survey page.
Click the Restrictions tab to modify the survey's availability.
Uncheck the Hide from Users checkbox.
Specify a date range for the survey, if appropriate.
Set the attempts allowed for the survey.
Click Save and Close.

To track survey progress and results:

Based on how you have set up the survey properties, you might see a list of all users or just the overall survey results with anonymous responses.

On the NavBar, click Activities, then click Surveys.
On the Manage Surveys page, click the context menu next to the name of your survey and click Statistics.
In the Users tab, search for users and their listed attempt types. You can restrict your search of survey results by attempt in the Attempts tab.
To view a specific user's results, click on an individual attempt. To view the number of attempts per question within a survey, click View Overall Results at the bottom of the page.

Want more information?

Setup a Survey (video)
Ensure anonymous survey participation
Track Survey Progress and Results
Monitor Course Trends and Assess Satisfaction

Question Library Quick Reference Guide (pdf)
Benefits of Question Library (video)
Create a New Question (video)
Import Questions into Question Library (video)

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 | Pixabay License

Brightspace Tip #278: Discussions – @mentions

Janice FlorentNovember 10, 2021Leave a comment

The Discussions tool has a new @mentions feature. Within the Discussion tool, users can now tag other users within the same course using @mentions. Tagged users are notified by alerts in the Minibar directing them to the thread in which they were tagged. Additionally, users can edit their notification settings and opt to receive email notifications when they are tagged in discussions.

Brightspace Editor with @mentions identifying users who match the criteria — The @mentions will identify users who match the criteria

You may be wondering how @mentions could enhance your class discussions. Here are a couple of examples:

Example 1:

: @Mentions can help thread together concepts from multiple people in a discussion. For example, student A may be reading through discussion posts and sees that fellow classmates (Jayne and Francis) are making similar points in their posts but they are coming from completely different starting points. Student A wants to draw Jayne and Francis into a conversation with each other. Student A could post something like, "Hey @Jayne, did you see that @Francis agrees with you on x and y, but starts with presupposition b instead of a? What do you think about his presupposition?" Both Jayne and Francis would receive notification that they have been tagged in the discussion. Likewise, you as the instructor, could use the @mentions to tag students to draw them into a conversation.

Example 2:

: You have a student that wants to draw you, as the instructor, into the conversation for clarification. The student could use the @mentions to tag you. You would receive notification alerting you that you have been tagged and you could prioritize responding to that thread before reading through all the others.

Do you have other examples of how @mentions could be useful in discussions? If so, please leave a comment on this post.

Notifications in the minibar showing @mentions the user is tagged in — Tagged users receive notification in the minibar

Follow these steps to do it.

To use @mentions in a discussion:

Navigate to the forum topic or thread where you want to use @mentions.
Post as normal by selecting Reply to Thread or Start a New Thread.
To tag a user, type @ and begin typing their first or last name.
The user will appear on a list under the text. Select the user to tag them.
The @mention will display the user's first and last name.
Select Post when you are done.

Want more information?

Plan and Facilitate Quality Online Discussions
Tips to Improve Online Discussions
How-to Resources for Discussion Forums
Brightspace Tip #201: Notifications

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 Tip #277: Turnitin – Quick Submit

Janice FlorentNovember 9, 2021April 11, 2023Leave a comment

Turnitin is a plagiarism detection tool that is integrated into our Brightspace system. Turnitin checks student work for potential plagiarism and allows instructors to provide electronic feedback to students through markup, proofing, and rubrics tools.

Instructors typically create an Assignment submission folder with Turnitin enabled. When students submit their assignments they are checked for potential plagiarism. However, there may be situations where an instructor needs to submit a paper to be checked by Turnitin.

The Quick Submit feature allows instructors to submit papers and receive Similarity Reports without creating an Assignment in their course. This is ideal for instructors who would like to use Turnitin to spot check submissions and have these papers in electronic format. Quick Submit SHOULD NOT be used if the instructor desires to have students submit their own papers or plans on using PeerMark (peer review assignment tool) or GradeMark (make comments on and assess student papers). Instructors should create an Assignment and enable Turnitin for the assignment instead.

Follow these steps to do it.

To use Quick Submit to submit a paper:

Log in to your Turnitin account natively through www.turnitin.com.
Activate Quick Submit by clicking on User Info from the top of the instructor homepage.
On the preferences page, select yes from the activate Quick Submit drop-down menu. The Quick Submit tab will appear on the instructor homepage, making the Quick Submit inbox available for use.
To start the upload process, click on the Submit button in the Quick Submit inbox and follow the instructions.

Want more information?

Turnitin Quick Submit (pdf)
Assignments and Turnitin
Create an Assignment and Enable Turnitin
TurnItIn - Assess an Assignment using TurnItIn - Instructor (video)
Interpreting the Similarity Report

Brightspace Tip #255: Simplify Assignment Collection
Brightspace Tip #276: Turnitin Feedback Studio
Brightspace Tip #122: Getting the Best out of Turnitin Feedback Studio

About PeerMark Assignments

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.

Release final course grades

Export your Grade Book

Create a master copy of your course

Follow these steps to do it.

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Follow these steps to do it.

To adjust final grades for all students:

To adjust final grades for one or more specific students:

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Follow these steps to do it.

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1) Brightspace Editor – Additional support for drag/drop and copy/paste images

2) Content – PDF inline viewer menu improvements

3) Email – Increased Limits for To and CC Fields

4) Manage Files – Users receive warning message when uploading a file blocked due to security

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Follow these steps to do it.

To create a survey:

To track survey progress and results:

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Follow these steps to do it.

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Follow these steps to do it.

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