CAT FooD

1) Brightspace Learning Environment - File types added to restricted upload list

For security reasons, D2L restricts the uploading of certain file types to Brightspace Learning Environment. This feature adds the following file types to the restricted list:

• .cgi
• .cmd
• .hta
• .jar
• .lib
• .pl
• .pm
• .ps1
• .sh
• .vbscript

For additional information on restricted file types, visit the Restricted MIME types in Brightspace Learning Environment help topic.

2) Quick Eval - User interface improvements

Quick Eval is now listed in the Course Admin page under the Assessment category.

3) Quiz Builder - Question import improvements

This feature updates question importing options in Quiz Builder. When importing questions from Question Library, users can now use the default end of quiz location for the questions, or choose to import the questions into a section. Previously, all questions imported from the Question Library were placed at the end of the Quiz by default, with no ability to select a specific quiz section.

4) Quizzes - Editing quizzes with previous attempts

This feature updates the Quizzes – User experience updates for editing quizzes with attempts feature released in August 2020/20.20.8.

Points for all past quiz attempts are no longer modified when edits are made that affect the overall points and/or the grading calculations for a quiz. In the previous release, this update extended only to quizzes with attempts started after the June 2020/20.20.6 release. Now, all previous quizzes with attempts started before Brightspace Learning Environment version 20.20.6 will display the quiz and grading calculations that appeared to the learner at the exact time they made the attempt.

1) Assignments – Additional functionality in the new assignment creation experience

Building on the functionality added to the new create and edit assignment experience in the August 2020/20.20.8 release, you can now do the following:

• Add special access conditions to assignments

• Receive a notification email when assignments are submitted

2) Brightspace Pulse for iOS – View Activity Feed posts and comments

To keep up to date on course activity, learners can now read Activity Feed posts and comments in Brightspace Pulse for iOS. Learners can also receive Activity Feed notifications. For example, in courses with Activity Feed enabled, instructors can use Activity Feed to post reminders about upcoming assignments and links to course materials. Learners then receive notifications about those posts in Brightspace Pulse, allowing them to view post details from the course homepages. Future releases will allow learners to post or reply to posts, if they have the appropriate permissions.

From the Courses tab, tapping a course displays the course homepage. The latest post and any associated comments display in the Activity Feed.

From the Notifications tab, tapping an Activity Feed notification displays the associated post or comment in the Activity Feed.

3) Class/User Progress – Include Pulse activity in usage data

Learner activity data is now captured more accurately through the addition of a new system usage metric. Previously, Pulse usage was not tracked, and learners who accessed their courses through the app were misrepresented as having low engagement and could not access conditionally released content.

These changes affect the following areas of Brightspace:

• Class Progress has a new System Access performance indicator, which displays the number of times each course participant has accessed the system through the Learning Environment or Pulse in the last 30 days. Instructors can add System Access to the Class Progress dashboard by clicking Settings.
• User Progress has a new System Access History section, which displays the number of times the user has accessed the system through the Learning Environment or Pulse in the last 30 days. Instructors can select System Access History to display in the User Progress report by clicking Settings.

4) Discussions - Visual word count for discussion posts

A visual word count is now visible in the HTML Editor for discussion posts. All words in a discussion post are counted and include filler words such as “the,” “if,” and “to.”

The word count is dynamically displayed to learners while they type in the HTML Editor and it also appears next to posts they have created in the Discussions Reading View and Grid View. Learners can view the word count for their posts only.

For instructors, the word count appears on the Assessment page during the discussions assessment process and it also appears inline with the post details in the Discussions Reading View and Grid View. Instructors can view the word count for all user posts.

5) Question Library – Attach files in arithmetic and significant figures questions

Building on the attach files in written response questions functionality released in the August 2020/20.20.8 release, when creating arithmetic and significant figures questions, instructors can now allow learners to include external files with their responses and record audio or video responses when answering these question types. This feature is only available in the new Quiz Builder Experience.

When grading a quiz, similar to the behavior in the Discussions tool, instructors can view a list of attachments, download them, or open them in another tab. When reviewing their submission in Submission View, the learner can see their uploaded attachment if allowed to see their responses.

To support attachment responses, Quizzes data sets and quiz reporting enhancements will be released in the November 2020/20.20.11 release.

6) Question Library – Search for and select questions in Question Library sections

This feature enables instructors to search for sections in Question Library by section title, as well as the ability to select and import the section in its entirety from the search results list. Previously, you could only search for questions by question text and you could not select sections in the search results.

7) Quiz Builder - Enhanced question reordering

To simplify the movement and reordering of questions in Quiz Builder, a new Move To option is visible when a question is selected. The Move To option allows questions to be moved to the Top of the Quiz, Bottom of the Quiz, or to a specific section within the quiz.

Previously, to move multiple questions into a section, instructors had to individually drag the questions into the desired section. Now, instructors can select multiple questions and move them all at once using the Move To menu. The drag and drop reordering of questions has not been affected by this feature and remains available.