Faculty can request to have two or more of their courses combined into a single course. Combining courses can be useful when you are teaching multiple sections of the same course or when you are teaching a course that is cross-listed. Merging courses allows you to have all the students in a single Brightspace course which can be useful for collaborative work. Merging courses reduces the number of courses an instructor has to manage within Brightspace, especially when each section has identical content.
Once your courses are merged, you can upload your course content and assignments into the merged course; communicate with the students in the merged course; setup collaborative course work; and have one Grade Book for the merged course. You can create groups within your merged course that correspond to the original course sections. This way you can target a particular course section (group) of students for specific things (e.g. send email to a specific group, make content available to specific group, enter/view Grade Book entries for a specific group, etc.)
NOTE: Merging of courses is typically done at the start of the semester before content is added and before students submit course work. You should wait to request your courses be merged if there is a possibility that there will be last minute changes to instructor course section assignments. You can request a Master Course Shell to build your course and then transfer the content into your merged course.
You should carefully consider whether merging courses is right for you. Some things to consider are:
There are Simple Syllabus considerations for merged courses:
If there is one instructor for the merged courses, no additional action is necessary.
If there are multiple instructors for the merged courses, the Brightspace Administrator will have to add all the instructors to the merged course. Doing so will give them edit access to the Simple Syllabus for the merged course.
Course enrollments for the merged courses will be combined which can make grading student work a challenge. If you create groups for the different sections, you will be able to view your Grade Book by groups to make grading easier.
Only one due date and start/end date can be assigned to an assignment, discussion, quiz, etc. Therefore you will not be able to assign different due dates and start/end dates to the activity (e.g., assignment, quiz, discussion, etc.).
If you decide you want to unmerge courses after students have submitted course work, student work and grades will be lost. Only student enrollments are retained when courses are unmerged.
Follow these steps to do it.
A system administrator will have to merge your courses. Send an email to Karen Nichols (knichola@xula.edu) if you want to merge courses. You should include the course ID (including CRN) for all the courses you want merged together.
NOTE: When courses are merged, one of the existing courses will serve as the "merged" course. If all the course sections are empty, it won't matter which one is used as the "merged" course. If you have already created content in a course, you should request that the course with the content be the "merged" course. This will reduce the need to copy content.
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: "why merge" by jflorent is dedicated to the public domain under CC0 and is a derivative of merging by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay
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.
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.
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 Enter Grades.
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:
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.
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
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 November 2024/20.24.11 release that were added to our system this month:
1) Brightspace Community – Increased usability with Community enhancements
The Brightspace Community now provides increased usability with the following enhancements:
Suggested Results in question workflows (English only): Quickly get answers with automatic searches across the Community as you type your questions.
On the Ask a Question page, type your question to view Suggested Results on the right side.
Community announcement banners (English only): Keep up to date with essential news via announcements on specific category pages and within knowledge bases.
ASC Homepage Known Issues automated search (English only): Search directly from the ASC homepage using the new ASC global search bar. Immediately find Known and Fixed Issues that may provide a workaround or a new workflow, speeding up your return to teaching and learning. Note that Known Issues and Fixed Issues can not currently link to cases.
Learning Center course filters in Community search using course tags (English only): Use simple tag filters to find the course that meets your needs.
Quicker search loading times: Search results now load faster with this update.
Event tags for Group or Community-wide Events (English only): Identify group-specific or community-wide events with ease using the new tags in your search experience.
Quicker access to the Best Answers (English only): Look for the Accepted tag on question results to quickly find the most reliable answers to your Brightspace inquiries. Comments on questions also appear in search results.
Persistent saved filters: Maintain your selected search filters on the Search Results page even when switching content sources (for example, from articles to discussions), ensuring your filters stay intact.
Specific documentation article feedback (English only): Use the new feedback feature to vote and provide detailed feedback on Community articles.
At the bottom of a topic page, respond to the Was this article helpful? question. When the feedback prompt appears, type your feedback and click Submit Feedback.
2) Groups – Restore groups and categories
A new Recycle Bin option is available in the Groups tool, enabling you to restore individual group units or entire categories within a course offering. When you restore groups, existing enrollments and lockers are also reinstated (if present). Any activities linked to the restored groups, such as discussions or assignments, can then be individually restored through their respective restore pages.
Click Recycle Bin to view the deleted groups and group categories.Select the check box for a group or group category and click Restore.
Note: Groups and categories deleted before this feature was introduced in this November 2024/20.24.11 CD update do not appear in the Groups Recycle Bin. To restore these previously deleted items, contact D2L Support for assistance.
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 the semester winds down, many faculty find themselves knee-deep in grading. Entering grades into Brightspace may be a tedious time-consuming task, especially when you need to assign the same grade to multiple students. Whether it's a pass/fail assignment, a standardized in-class activity, or a participation grade, manually entering the same score repeatedly can be cumbersome and time-consuming.
In my last blog post, I explained how instructors should input grades and feedback in the Grade Book. Today, I'll share a helpful tip: using the "Set Grades" feature to quickly assign the same grade to multiple students.
Follow these steps to do it.
Give Multiple Students the Same Grade at the Same Time:
From the NavBar, click on Grades.
Click on the arrow on the right of the Grade Item name.
Select Enter Grades.
Select the checkboxes next to the names of the students OR select all of the students at once by clicking on the checkbox above the list of students.
Select Set Grades.
Enter a value in the Grade textbox.
Select Save.
Select Save and Close.
Give Multiple Students the Same Feedback at the Same Time:
From the NavBar, click on Grades.
Click on the arrow on the right of the Grade Item name.
Select Enter Grades.
Select the checkboxes next to the names of the students OR select all of the students at once by clicking on the checkbox above the list of students.
Select Add Feedback.
Enter feedback in the textbox.
Select Save.
Select Save and Close.
NOTE: Giving multiple students the same feedback at the same time as described in this blog post is helpful for giving multiple students, like group members, the same feedback on an assignment/activity. I do not recommend using the Add Feedback functionality in this way if you want or need to provide more personalized details to each student. In that case, you should enter the personalized feedback for each student individually.
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.
