The 'Observed in Person' assignment submission type is for situations where a learner needs to present something or demonstrate something and an instructor needs to confirm that it was completed. This submission type allows instructors to create assignments for a wide variety of activities and provide evaluation and feedback for these assignments in Brightspace.
The ‘Observed in Person’ submission type is meant for scoring and evaluation of a learning activity such as demonstration, presentation, lab test, etc.
There are four submission types to choose from when creating an Assignment in Brightspace. The submission types are:
File submission: learners upload and submit a file to the assignment.
Text submission: learners post text, image, or a link to their work in a text box within the assignment.
On paper submission: learners submit a physical copy of their assignment directly to their instructor. No file upload is required to complete the assignment.
Observed in person: allows instructors to observe learners as they perform tasks, such as in-class presentations, and evaluate the observation. No file upload is required to complete the assignment.
There are three options to mark an ‘Observed in Person’ assignment as completed:
Automatically on due date – Brightspace marks the assignment as completed on a pre-set date.
Automatically on evaluation – Brightspace automatically marks the assignment as complete when the instructor evaluates the assignment using any of the assessment methods in Brightspace.
Manually by Learner – The student will mark the assignment as complete.
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.
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.
Before this update, instructors could click Bookmarks to add bookmarks to pages of a PDF. However, these bookmarks were not saved.After this update, Bookmarks is removed.
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.
When creating new or editing existing written response questions, instructors can now click Add Rubric to attach a new or existing rubric.
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.
The instructor can click Pop Out to view the response submission in a separate window, or open the rubric below the submission in the same window.The rubric appears in the quiz window for the written response question.
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.
Instructors can click the down arrow on the top right of the page to expand the dialog used to turn on or turn off the new quiz evaluation experience.The dialog indicates if the experience is on or off and provides buttons to turn it on or off.
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 new quiz evaluation experience, instructors can use the right and left arrows to select the learner and then select the quiz attempt they want to evaluate from the drop-down list.
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:
The message indicates that the question type is not supported and provides a link to switch to the Classic quiz evaluation experience.
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.
The Filters drop-down enables evaluators to see questions that are Pending evaluation, or Retaken questions only.
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.
Instructors can update the Attempt Grade, add Attempt Feedback, or use the Evaluation Options menu to Edit Quiz, Preview Quiz, Reset Evaluation, or view the Quizzes Event Log.
This feature implements the following PIE item:
D10157 (Add the ability to attach a rubric to Written Response Questions for grading)
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.
When you met with a student, have you ever wanted to go over their grades with them but you were unable to do so because the Grade Book displays all of the other students' grades? This isn't a problem in Brightspace. You can use the Grade Book search to temporarily hide the grades of all the other students and only show the grades for a single student.
Follow these steps to do it.
To display one row in the Grade Book:
On the NavBar, click Grades.
On the Enter Grades page, enter the first and last name of the desired student in the Search For field and then click on search icon.
When done, you should only see the selected student.
Note: If you have more than one student with the same name, you can enter the 900 # of the desired student in the Search For field. Ultimately, your search results should yield the row with the desired student's record.
To display all rows in the Grade Book:
On the Enter Grades page, click on the Clear Search link.
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 Wilbert Maximus from Pixabay
So many pretty pictures on the internet, all just a click away! When is it OK to use those images in your presentations and projects? What, you mean there are rules?
Thanks to those of you who attended our workshop, "Copyright, Copyleft," earlier this semester. We gave a quick rundown on digital media and intellectual property rights. We talked about common pitfalls to be avoided and showed how to find images you can use with impunity.
In case you missed the session, or if you were there and want a refresher, we have an excellent video for you. You can find the workshop recording and other resources in support of the workshop on the CAT Base wiki.
Thanks to those of you who attended last week's "Course Analytics: Insights to Empower Your Teaching and Improve Student Learning" workshop. The workshop, the nineteenth in our #LEX Advanced series, helps you to build on the skills you learned in the #LearnEverywhereXULA course and is designed for faculty who are interested in using Brightspace Course Analytics to empower their teaching and improve student learning.
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 “Course Analytics” 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.
Updates to the Assignment tool give instructors greater control over the behavior of availability dates for their learners. As a result, instructors can:
Stop late submissions.
Let learners view assignment information and submissions after it ends.
Schedule the visibility of an assignment.
Allow learners to view an assignment while preventing them from attempting it.
Post the start and end of an assignment to the Calendar.
The Assignment list page for both instructors and learners now contain all activity dates and date settings, including:
Access restricted
Submission restricted
Hidden
The Availability Date Defaults page, the Assignment page with activity dates and date settings
The availability date settings will let instructors setup assignments to achieve a few different workflows for students:
To stop late submissions, set an end date that is submission-restricted. Learners will be able to see the assignment information after the end date, but will not be able to submit.
To let learners access their submissions after the assignment has ended, set an end date that is submission-restricted.
To prevent learners from attempting an assignment but still allow them to view details like instructions and attachments, set a start date that is submission-restricted.
To schedule the visibility of an assignment you want students to see at a specific time, set a start date that is hidden to completely hide it from students; or set a start date that is access-restricted to let students see the name and dates of the assignment but no other details.
To show the start and end of an assignment in the Calendar, include start and end availability dates on the assignment and select Add availability dates to Calendar.
Instructors can choose the default settings for availability dates for any new assignment. The settings are available on the Availability Date Defaults page, which can be found under Course Admin.
The Availability Dates Defaults page displaying the different options for Start and End Dates in Assignments and Discussions.
Important: Making a change on the Availability Date Defaults page will not affect the availability dates of any previously-created assignment or discussion, but it will affect the date properties of special access dates.
New Properties of Availability Dates for Assignments
The availability dates for Assignments have new properties as described below. These new properties align and behave the same way as the same properties available to Discussions topics and forums.
The Availability Start and End Dates will each have a set of three options. Instructors will be able to select one option for each date. By choosing an option, you are deciding whether learners can see the assignment and access it. The options are:
Visible with access-restricted (before start/after end)
The assignment will be visible to learners before the Start Date or after the End Date, but they cannot click or open it.
This behavior is consistent with how Classic Content, Assignments, and User Progress treat assignments outside of availability dates currently.
With this setting, learners can see the name, dates, and restrictions. Learners cannot see the assignment description or attachments.
Visible with submission-restricted (before start/after end)
The assignment will be visible to learners before the Start Date or after the End Date and they can click or open it, but they cannot submit or mark it as complete.
With this setting, learners can see all details about the assignment including description, attachments, and rubrics, but they cannot upload files, enter comments, or mark the assignment as complete (for observed in person/on paper submission).
Hidden (before start/after end)
The assignment is hidden to learners until the start date is reached or after the end date passes.
Learners will not see the assignment anywhere across Brightspace, including corresponding Calendar events and Notifications.
The Assignment List page contains all activity dates and date settings. The hover tooltip includes the information about start and end dates with settings to explain how the assignment appears to learners before and after these dates.
The Assignment List page with activity dates and date settings.
Assignment Special Access
The special access screens for Assignments remains unchanged when the new dates feature is enabled. However, special access dates inherit the date properties as follows:
When the parent assignment has an availability date set, its date property is inherited by the corresponding special access date. For example, if the assignment is hidden before a start date, then the special access start date is also treated as hidden.
When the parent assignment does not have an availability date, the special access date inherits its date property from the course default. For example, if the assignment does not have an end date, then a special access end date is set for a learner. This also occurs if the course default for assignment end dates is submission-restricted, making the special access end date be treated as submission-restricted.
Note: Whenever the availability date settings are changed from the Availability Date Defaults page, those changes will immediately impact the date properties of special access dates.
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.
ICYMI, the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Faculty Development (CAT+FD) at Xavier University of Louisiana (XULA) is proud to announce that we received the 2024 D2L Excellence Award for our work on #LearnEverywhereXULA (LEX) and #LEX Advanced. The D2L Excellence Award recognizes leaders, educators, and trainers who have used D2L Brightspace to help further the innovation, progress, and betterment of learning experiences in their organizations.
#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 five 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. Complete twenty modules to earn the #LEX Advanced Level 5 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.
#LEX Advanced Certifications
Congratulations to those faculty who have earned #LEX Advanced Certification!
Established in 1994, CAT+FD is one of the older centers for teaching and learning (CTL) in the country. This is perhaps not surprising considering Xavier's commitment to excellence in teaching. Over the coming year, we will be posting a variety of reflections about the evolution of CAT+FD on this blog.
A special logo for our trigintennial! Original by Jim Rose. Adapted by Bart Everson.
By now, everyone at Xavier knows that the university will be celebrating its centennial in 2025. Not everyone may realize that CAT+FD is currently celebrating its 30th anniversary. (I think it's a shame we've let a word like trigintennial fall out of common use.) Since this is my first year as director, I thought I'd use this space to reflect on how things have changed over the past 30 years.
Established in 1994, CAT+FD is one of the older centers for teaching and learning (CTL) in the country. This is perhaps not surprising considering Xavier's commitment to excellence in teaching. Over the coming year, we will be posting a variety of reflections about the evolution of CAT+FD on this blog. If you're interested in a deep dive into the history and evolution of CTLs in general, pick up a copy of Mary C. Wright's excellent Centers for Teaching and Learning: The New Landscape in Higher Education (2023, Johns Hopkins University Press).
The first edition of the CAT News Report. Click the image for a PDF of the newsletter.
CTLs came about, in part, through the recognition that while graduate programs were doing excellent work developing their students into expert scholars in their disciplines, they were not always doing a good job of developing their students into expert teachers. However, because of the timing, the earliest CTLs placed a lot of emphasis on what would eventually become know and educational technology, or EdTech. In the inaugural issue of the Center for the Advancement of Teaching News Report, Dr. Ann Barron, then interim director, explained that the the new Center was committed "to advancing the art of teaching — at ALL levels — in a technological age," an interesting and significant distinction. That issue includes an article about the first Kellogg Mini-grant awards, which supported faculty interested in revising one of their classes, and an article about using Apple's HyperCard to create "multimedia courseware".
The link between CTLs and technology should not be surprising. Consider the year CAT+FD began (for newer readers, CAT+FD was originally just CAT). 1994 was a particularly significant year in terms of publicly available technology. That year, Netscape Communications released Netscape Navigator, which would become the first widely used web browser; Sony released the PlayStation, which, now in its fifth generation, is still one of the most widely used gaming consoles; Sun Microsystems introduced the Java programming language, one of the most influential programming languages; and Kodak released its DC40 camera, one of the first consumer-level digital cameras. The world changed that year, and CTLs like CAT+FD stepped up to help faculty adapt to those changes.
ICYMI, an Automatic Zero Grading for Missing Submissions feature was introduced with our July Continuous Delivery updates. The automatic zero grading feature automatically assigns a score of zero (0) to unsubmitted learner activities once the due date passes. This automation eliminates the need for instructors to manually assign zeros to missing submissions, simplifying the process of identifying learners who have not submitted their course work. Additionally, learners benefit by receiving a more accurate view of their grade calculations for individual activities and the overall course.
Automatic zero grading is an optional feature that must be enabled by the instructor. It is enabled on a course-by-course basis. You will see the option to enable Automatic Zero for Missing Submissions in the Setup Wizard and in Grade Book settings.
For instructors, the Automatic Zero for Missing Submissions check box appears in the Grade Calculations area of Grade Settings when the Automatic Zero function is turned on.
The Automatic Zero for Missing Submissions grading option comprises two main features:
Automatically assigning a grade of zero for unreceived submissions past due date: This feature ensures that any assignment not submitted by the due date is automatically given a zero.
Automatically tagging the assigned zero grade: This indicator shows the grade was automatically assigned, not manually graded by the instructor.
You can differentiate between system-added zero grades and manually entered zero grades in the Grade Book.
On the Enter Grades tab in the Grade Book, instructors see a dashed underline applied to automatic zeros (0) along with a tooltip, that appears when you hover over it, to indicate that the system automatically applied the zero (0).
Dashed underline applied to automatic zeros(0) along with a tooltip indicating the system automatically applied the zero (0) grade.
On the View Grades page, learners see a zero (0) grade appear, along with a default text message stating: This activity is overdue, and you haven’t completed it. Complete it now to update your grade. This default text is dynamic: learners can only see the message until the end date for the activity, at which time the feedback disappears. Instructors cannot edit this dynamic message text. Instructors must manually enter their own feedback comments if they want the learner feedback to persist.
NOTE: The default text is not grade feedback. The message text disappears when the grade item is regraded, hidden, or past the end date. Additionally, the default text does not appear in grades notifications, data sets, or user progress. Therefore, instructors must manually enter a comment if they want to provide feedback on the zero grade.
Learners see a zero (0) grade along with the default text message stating: This activity is overdue, and you haven’t completed it. Complete it now to update your grade.
Timing and Availability for Automatic Zero Grading
Timing
The Automatic Zero feature is most effective when implemented at the start of a course. Once automatic zero grading is turned on, only activities with due dates in the future will be able to trigger automatic zero grading.
Automatic zero will not affect grades retroactively. Manually grading missed submissions is still required in this situation.
There is no retroactive automatic zero grading applied for new users enrolled after the due date has passed for activities. Courses with frequent additions of new users should consider this limitation.
This feature is based on local time zones for both instructors and learners. It follows the same rules as existing due dates.
Automatic zero grading is triggered within minutes of a due date passing. Note that it may take up to 15 minutes for zero grades to appear in the Grade Book.
Availability
Automatic zero grading only applies to course activities with grade associations and a future due date. Editing an activity to change its past due date to a future due date also applies the automatic zero grading feature.
Automatic zero grading only applies to visible and available activities. If an assessment has Release Conditions and due date, a learner will only receive an Automatic Zero if they meet the release conditions when the due date passes.
Automatic zero grading is course-wide setting. It cannot be selectively enabled or disabled at the activity or grade item level.
Automatic zero grading applies to individual and group assignments.
Automatic zero grades apply to special access due dates. In the event special access is added after the original due date, the original 0 grade remains in place until the activity is evaluated manually.
Learners can submit a course activity after the due date after they have received an automatic zero (if the activity remains available). Instructors can manually grade and override the zero. In this case, the corresponding overdue indicators will be cleared in the gradebook and learner view of grades.
Automatic zero functionality publishes grade items with zero to learners automatically in the Grades view.
Like other grade settings, automatic zero setting is respected and copied over when copying a course. Note the setting does not persist when importing or exporting a course or 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.
Do you want your students to take a quiz or test online? Do you have a test that you normally administer on paper and you don’t want to retype all the questions into Brightspace? Learning and Teaching Services at Algonquin College developed a Test/Quiz Question Generator that provides an easy way of creating a collection of questions that can be imported into Brightspace.
Quiz questions have to be in a special format in order to be imported into Brightspace. The Test/Quiz Question Generator allows you to reformat your questions and it will create a CSV file that can be imported into Brightspace.
Additionally, the Brightspace Community developed a Quiz Question Converter that you can use to add a bank of questions to the Quiz Question Library. One benefit of using the Quiz Question Converter is that you can add feedback and hints to the quiz questions you are importing into Brightspace. Therefore saving you time in importing quiz questions with feedback and hints into Brightspace.
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.
