It is easy to upload content into your Brightspace courses. As you are designing assignments you may be asking yourself “how much can I reasonably expect my students to accomplish outside of class?” How much is too much? In a recent Brightspace Community article, Catrina Ascenuik, provided some suggestions for creating a custom learning path to help prevent information overload for learners. Her suggestions are:
Use Release Conditions – Create a custom learning path through the materials in your course using Release Conditions. When a Release Condition is attached to an item, learners cannot see that item until they meet the associated condition. You can find more information in Brightspace Tip #237: Release Conditions.
Use Start Dates, Due Dates, and End Dates – Use availability dates to schedule lesson delivery. By doing so instructors can determine when certain content in their courses will become available to learners. You can find more information in Brightspace Tip #248: Drip-Feeding.
Other Resources Section – There just isn’t enough time to show learners everything. Distinguish between those items that are required and those items that are recommended. Create an extra resources section for recommended items that learners can look at in their own time. This could be added at the end of each module or at the end of the course.
Estimate Time for Course Content + Work – You should have a sense of how long it will take learners to go through the content and to complete the assignments. Here is the Wake Forest University: Workload Estimator that can help you gauge how long a module will take a learner to complete.
Have you found ways to customize a learning path or reduce information overload for your learners in your Brightspace courses? If so, we would like to hear about it. Feel free to leave a comment on this blog post.
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 I started working in CAT+FD, way back in 2015, faculty who were interested in attending one of our workshops would send an email saying they were interested in attending that workshop. It was not a particular efficient system, as someone had to regularly check the CAT Box (our name for that email account) and update the list of attendees. As many people know, I'm a big fan of automation: any system that can be set up to work on its own, should be set up to work on its own. It saves time and cuts down on mistakes. So, I started playing with Google Forms and Google Sheets, and by the end of that first year, I'd built a system that let people register and that created an always up-to-date list of attendees for each of our upcoming workshops without the need for anyone in the CAT+FD office to do anything.
That system has worked (I think) pretty well for the past five years. There have been a few hiccups along the way, as there usually are with an automated system, but those were few and far between. Since its launch, we've had over 2,000 registrations recorded through the system. (No, we don't keep any records of those registrations.) When, in March 2019, we had to rapidly pivot to fully online workshops, changing the system required only a few small changes.
This summer when we learned that Xavier faculty and staff would be migrated from G-Suite to Microsoft 365, we knew that was the end of our hombrewed system. Even though we've been told that all of the documents in our Google Drives will be converted for us to the corresponding Microsoft application, the system itself is heavily dependent upon functions that only work in Google. Transferring the system to Microsoft would require starting mostly from scratch.
Fortunately, our friends and colleagues in the Library have given us space on their LibCal account, which includes its own events management system. Although it works in much the same way, it does look different in many ways. And it also offers a few new features that we think will be very useful. If you take a look at the CAT+FD home page, you won't notice much of a difference: we're still listing the next few events with links to more information. Likewise, our full events page, which lists all of our upcoming events, doesn't look all that much differece. And again, our weekly email won't look all that different either. However, when you click on the link for any event from those sources to get more information or to register for the event, things will start to look different.
The pages for each of our events are where you will see the main difference with this system.
As you can see above, this screen is very different from what you might be used to, and this blog post is mostly just to prepare you for that change. In addition to the different visuals, please note that you can now print the information about an event, save an event to your calendar, or post about an event to social media (We'd love it if you did that! Be sure to tag us @xulacat if you do!). We've also been able to add categories to our workshops, which will help us keep things more organized and may help you identify workshops that interest you. For example, if you wanted to just see a list of our upcoming #LEX Advanced workshops, you can do that now.
Another change is how the registration process works and the format of our workshops, but I will save that for another blog post.
Xavier instructors, by completing the #LearnEverywhereXULA (#LEX) course, you honed your Brightspace skills and learned some of the better practices for remote and online teaching. Congratulations! You now have the opportunity to expand your horizons even more by becoming #LEX Advanced Certified. How do you achieve that? Keep reading.
You earn this certificate by participating in at least four #LEX Advanced workshops or completing four self-paced #LEX Advanced modules, or any combination of the two as long as you complete four. In these workshops/modules you will learn about using design and automation features available in Brightspace to apply better pedagogical practices within your courses by making them more user-friendly, accessible, and efficient.
Be on the lookout for #LEX Advanced workshops in CAT+FD’s events calendar or check out the #LEX Advanced course in your Brightspace account. Any questions? Contact us at cat@xula.edu.
"Drip-feeding" is a term you will likely hear in association with online and hybrid learning. While the term "drip-feeding" is new to many people, most are familiar with the concept.
Drip-feeding is "scheduled lesson delivery." Essentially, instructors can determine when they want certain content in their courses to become available. Instructors can configure their course content and then set-up the sequential delivery of that content. Once set-up, the Learning Management System (LMS) will auto-drip the content to students without any more work by the instructor.
Utilizing date/time restrictions allow instructors to create content at a time that is convenient to them and make it visible to students at the appropriate time. This can be very handy because instructors can set-up their course content well in advance of when they want it to be available to their students. For example, create all the course content at the beginning of the semester, set the date/time restrictions, and then let Brightspace auto-drip the content.
The availability dates in Brightspace control when items are available to students. There are three types of availability dates, they are:
Start dates: These dates specify when a student can see the item. Students will see that the item exists, but they cannot open it beforehand.
Due dates: These dates specify when a student should complete an item. The dates will appear in the course calendar and students will be able to see and submit their work after the date has passed.
End dates: These dates restrict access to the item. They remove all access once the date has passed.
Some instructors may be hesitant to set date/time restrictions for the entire semester because assignment dates/times may need to be adjusted as the semester progresses. This means, the instructors would have to go into the content items to adjust the dates/times when necessary. The Manage Dates tool can simplify this process. The Manage Dates tool allows instructors to easily change due dates and availability dates at one time (all on one page). The Manage Dates tool will save instructors some time as they will not have to edit each individual item to adjust the dates/times.
Drip-feeding works well for courses that contain complex material that students need time to digest and complete. In this case, drip-feeding content may help your students not to feel overwhelmed.
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.
I usually get a lot of questions from faculty related to setting up their Brightspace courses. In the spirit of starting the academic year with less stress, I offer the following infographic with course design suggestions to reduce your course setup and management stress:
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 prepare to teach this fall, now is a good time to get started setting up your Brightspace courses. Our Information Technology Center (ITC) has created the fall courses in Brightspace.
NOTE: You should see your fall courses in the My Courses widget. Last month's Continuous Delivery Updates implemented the updated My Courses Widget sort logic. If you do not see your fall 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.
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 fall 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 fall course.
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.
Each threat of heavy rains and street flooding in our area should be a reminder that course delivery is vulnerable to unplanned events. Potential interruptions to class activities include but are not limited to natural disasters, widespread illness, acts of violence, planned or unexpected construction-related closures, severe weather conditions, and medical emergencies.
Here are a few things you can do in Brightspace to help you prepare should the need arise.
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.
One of the changes implemented in our system with last week's July Continuous Delivery Updates was the end-of-life status for the old My Courses Widget sort logic. This means the old My Courses sort logic has been retired. With this change, the My Courses Widget now uses the Updated Sort Logic setting by default.
The Updated Sort Logic is intended to better organize the courses in the My Courses widget. The Updated Sort Logic presents both pinned and unpinned courses in the My Courses Widget, promoting the pinned courses to be displayed first in the widget.
The updated sorting logic in the My Courses Widget does not auto-pin courses, and allows the end-user to pin and rearrange courses in an order that makes sense to them. The updated sort logic tries to populate the widget with up-to 12 courses, starting with the user’s pinned courses, then pulling in unpinned courses by enrollment date until the widget contains 12 courses. The result is that most users get a sensible My Courses Widget with no intervention on their part, while pinning and customization is still available for the users who need it.
The Pinned tab appears in the My Courses widget when users pin courses
A new Pinned tab now appears in the My Courses widget. The “Pinned” tab displays only the courses that a user has pinned, similar to the old sort logic. The Pinned tab allows learners and instructors to create a curated view of their pinned courses. The Pinned tab appears in the widget only after a user pins a course in the Course Selector. The tab remains in view until all courses are unpinned. The My Courses widget remembers the last viewed tab and shows that same tab the next time the homepage is viewed. This makes it easy for instructors and learners who only wish to view pinned courses to see those courses upon login.
NOTE: The Pinned tab only appears when a user has one or more course pinned – tabs are not displayed to the user that contain 0 courses.
The View All Courses navigation drills down into the courses by showing manually pinned courses, followed by current enrollments, then future enrollments (if available and visible to the user), then past enrollments (if available or visible to the user) as the default sort. If the user changes the sort order, the filter does not separate pinned courses from other courses based on sort order, filters, and search terms.
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 a few updates in the July 2021/20.21.7 release that were added to our system this month:
1) Assignments – Add categories in the New Assignment Creation Experience
This feature builds on the Assignments – Brightspace Editor in the new Assignment Creation Experience | New feature that was released in April 2021/20.21.4.
The new assignment creation experience supports the alignment of assignments to categories. Instructors can add new or existing assignment categories when creating or editing a new assignment.
The new assignment creation experience with the ability to align assignments to categories
2) Brightspace Editor – Available in ePortfolio External Comments and Quiz Builder
External users adding comments in Brightspace ePortfolio can now use the new inline limited version of Brightspace Editor.
The Quiz Builder now supports the new inline Editor
The inline Editor in the Quiz Builder
The right-click menu is no longer available when creating tables.
3) My Courses Widget - Updated Sort Logic configuration variable
The d2l.Tools.MyCoursesWidget.UpdatedSortLogic configuration variable has now reached end-of-life status and no longer appears in the Config Variable Browser. With this change, the My Courses Widget now uses only the Updated Sort Logic setting by default.
Previously, the My Courses Widget sorting logic was set by the d2l.Tools.MyCoursesWidget.UpdatedSortLogic configuration variable. By default, this configuration variable has been set to ON since 2018, with the option to revert to the old sorting logic. The option to revert to the previous sorting logic in the My Courses Widget is no longer available with the removal of this configuration variable.
The Pinned tab appears in the My Courses widget when users pin courses
To reduce redundancy in the Quizzes tool, the Introduction field is being phased out. In this release, when an instructor creates and/or edits a quiz, the Introduction field is no longer available.
If any quiz previously had text in the Introduction field, on clicking Edit, the text is automatically appended to the Description field. A message appears indicating that these two fields have been merged. Instructors can review the modified quiz description prior to saving the quiz.
Note: In some interfaces, for example Classic content, the Instructions field is displayed. This Instructions field already maps to the quiz Description field. Hence, there is no change to this workflow.
The Edit Quiz page with the message that appears when you edit a quiz containing an introduction
Note: Check the visibility of the Description field prior to saving the quiz.
When importing a course using Import/Export/Copy Components, text in the quiz Introduction field automatically appends to the quiz Description field. The export and copy workflows remain unchanged.
When viewing a quiz topic in the Classic Content tool, the text in the Introduction field now appears under the Instructions header.
A view of a quiz in the Classic Content tool - text in the Introduction field will appear under the Instructors header
5) Quizzes – Relocation of the Reports Setup functionality
The Report Setup tab on the Edit Quiz page is now available on the context menu of a quiz and reads as Setup Reports.
The Reports option available on the quiz context menu is also updated and reads as View Reports.
The New Quiz page with the Reports Setup tab before the update
The Quiz context menu before the update
The updated quiz context menu with the Setup Reports and View Reports options
6) Quizzes - Set grace period time to 0 minutes
When setting an enforced time limit for a quiz, instructors can now set the grace period for a quiz to 0 minutes, in place of the default grace period setting of 5 minutes. Entering a 0 minute grace period flags the quiz attempt as exceeded immediately when the quiz time limit is reached by the learner. Quiz attempt logs display when the learner attempt exceeds the regular time limit, grace period time limit or any extended time limit. Grace period of 0 minutes can be set for quizzes with special access restrictions as well.
Note that setting a grace period can support learner accessibility requirements and other situations, such as slow internet connections when completing quizzes.
Enter 0 in the Grace Period field that appears with the Enforced Time Limit option for a quiz
7) Quizzes - Status and workflow changes for quizzes with ungraded questions
To support instructors who need to manually score questions within quizzes, the following quiz status and quiz grading workflow updates are available:
For quizzes that contain questions that need to be manually scored (such as Written Response questions) AND that have the "Allow attempt to be set as graded immediately upon completion" option disabled, a new Pending Evaluation status appears beside the quiz attempt on the Grade Quiz page.
While evaluating a quiz attempt with unevaluated questions, the instructor can now select Pending evaluations in the Question View drop-down menu to filter for only the questions that require manual evaluation.
Instructors can now filter the Users tab by status. The available filters are: Published, Saved as draft, Pending evaluation and an empty status. The empty status denotes a quiz with auto-scored questions, where all questions are evaluated and there is no question evaluation pending.
The updated quiz status filters appear on the Attempts tab
The new Pending Evaluation filter appears in the Question View drop-down menu to easily locate questions requiring manual evaluation by the instructor
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.
