Would you like to send your students email (e.g., welcome to the course, reminder about something important, congratulations for a job well done, give them a nudge when they might need to work harder) -- without having to do a lot of extra work to make it happen? The Brightspace Intelligent Agents tool can help automate this process for you.
Intelligent Agents allow instructors to delegate some of the course communication and notification tasks to the system, based on specific triggering activities in the course. Intelligent Agents can be used to both recognize student achievement and warn of potential problems. For example, you can use Intelligent Agents to:
Check for users that have not logged into the course
Check for users that have not logged in within a specific number of days
Notify users with grades below a certain level
Congratulate users with grades above a certain level
Check for users that view a specific content topic
The automatic notifications that are generated when specified course performance criteria are met can be sent to instructors, advisors, and/or students.
ICYMI: Updates were made to the Intelligent Agent Create Agent page to facilitate additional scheduling options and frequency options to allow for improved flexibility. Changes to the Create Agent page include:
Two new agent frequency options:
One-Time Run allows instructors to choose a single date and time to run.
Hourly allows instructors to choose a date and time to run between. If no dates are chosen, the Hourly agent runs every hour with the first time being "now" (that is once the agent is saved and enabled).
The existing Daily, Weekly, Monthly and Annually options all now have a Scheduled Time option that users complete to determine what time that the agent will run on the dates scheduled for the agent to run.
The Intelligent Agent (IA) scheduling page with the Hourly option and IA will run every 8 hours for a specified period.
Repetitive emails may lose their effectiveness, so use Intelligent Agents sparingly. Consider using Intelligent Agents when there isn't a better way of communicating. Ask yourself,
Would an announcement work better?
Would a personally crafted email work better?
Would a discussion board posting work better?
If the answer is no, then consider using an Intelligent Agent!
Follow these steps to do it.
To create an Intelligent Agent:
On a course NavBar, click Course Admin.
Click Intelligent Agents.
On the Agent List page, click New Agent.
On the New Agent page, enter a name.
Enter a description into the Description field.
If you want to assign a category to the agent, select an option from the Category drop-down menu or create a new category by clicking the Add Category link.
If you want the agent to be active, select the Agent is enabled check box.
Expand Scheduling, and under Frequency schedule how frequently agent criteria is evaluated. Choose a frequency option from the dropdown menu and complete the schedule dates and repetition options as needed.
Expand Criteria, and under Role in Classlist do one of the following:
If you want the Intelligent Agent to be applicable to all roles in the Classlist, select the All users visible in the Classlist check box.
If you want the Intelligent Agent to be applicable to select roles, select the Users with specific roles check box and select the respective roles.
Select your criteria (login activity, course activity, or attach Release Conditions).
Under Actions > Repetition, select how often you want the agent to take action.
If you want the agent to send an email when the set criteria are satisfied, expand Actions, and under Send an Email, select the Send an email when the criteria are satisfied check box and enter your email details and relevant attachments.
Click Save and Close.
NOTE: You can perform a practice run or a manual run of an Intelligent Agent at any time in a 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.
Image credit: Image by TheDigitalArtist 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 January 2025/20.25.01 release that were added to our system this month:
1) Brightspace's minimum for supported browser versions
Brightspace's minimum for supported browser versions increases every January and July. The January update increases the minimum supported browser versions to:
Chrome 129
Edge 129
Safari 18
Firefox 130
The minimum legacy browsers are now:
Chrome 94
Edge 94
Safari 15
Firefox 92
The following browsers are no longer supported:
Chrome 67
Edge 80
Safari 12
Firefox 67
D2L has also added support for Firefox ESR, versions 115 and above. For an optimal experience that offers better performance, accessibility, and security, D2L recommends using the latest version of a supported browser to access Brightspace. D2L is also updating the browser classification system with this release; browsers are either Supported, Legacy, Unsupported (Warning), or Unsupported (Blocked). For more information, refer to this updated Browser support topic.
2) Consistent Evaluation – Assignment and Discussion evaluations now synchronized with Grade Book
The individual scores and feedback from Assignment and Discussion grade items are now synchronized with the grade book using the Update button regardless of whether a change was made. The Update button in Assignments and Discussions evaluations is always available to update, even when no changes were made. This feature also enables instructors to verify that the information between the grade book and the Assignment or Discussion tool is properly synchronized.
Previously, In Brightspace, when an instructor evaluated an assignment, discussion, or quiz using a rubric and saved it as a draft, then added feedback directly in the grade book and saved, the feedback did not sync back to the evaluation page when the instructor clicked Update.
Note: Consistent Evaluation for quizzes is excluded from this update as Grades sync works seamlessly. Individual quiz question attempts are not sent to Grades upon saving, and publishing the quiz using the Completion Summary ensures no sync issues occur.
3) Rubrics – Streamline grading with minimum or maximum score for ungraded rubric criteria
This feature updates the instructor workflow of evaluating a rubric and providing feedback to learners. Now, instructors can quickly assess all ungraded Rubric criteria and then go back through to add feedback where necessary. To provide a more streamlined experience for instructors using analytical type rubrics for assessments in the Consistent Evaluation experience for assignments, discussions, and written response quiz questions, the instructor can automatically set ungraded levels to a minimum or maximum value.
From a drop-down beside the rubric name in each assessment pop-out, or from a context menu in Consistent Evaluation, there are two options:
Set Ungraded to [top rubric level name]: where all ungraded levels within this rubric are set to the maximum value using the top level of the rubric.
Set Ungraded to [lowest rubric level name]: where all ungraded levels within this rubric are set to the minimum value using the bottom level of the rubric.
When an instructor selects an option, a confirmation dialog appears to advise of the bulk action and provides an option to undo the update.
Previously, instructors were required to click individual criteria, which, for large rubrics was a time-consuming task involving many clicks to set the rubric score to 100%.
Note: The updated functionality does not appear as an option in the following scenarios:
If there is only one level in the rubric
If the rubric is holistic type. It is only available for analytical type rubrics
In Assignments and Discussions, click to open the context menu beside the rubric name to choose an option for all ungraded criteriaIn Consistent Evaluation, click the drop-down menu beside the rubric name to choose an option for all ungraded criteria
This feature implements the following PIE items:
D10306 (Tick all rubric options automatically/remove tick boxes)
D9336 (Include a Clear All for Rubric Evaluation)
D7630 (Auto-Populate Rubrics for Students with Perfect Score)
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.
Next week's forecast of wintry weather and a hard freeze 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.
Brightspace Pulse is a mobile app that can help learners stay connected and on track with their Brightspace courses. It provides one easy view of course calendars, readings, assignments, evaluations, grades, and announcement items. The app can help learners make better decisions about how to handle their workload, when to submit assignments, and when to prepare for tests. Real-time alerts can let learners know when classes are canceled, class is meeting in an alternate location, or new grades are available. The schedule view and weekly visualization enables learners to quickly at a glance view what is due today, this week, and upcoming across all their courses.
While the Brightspace Pulse app is designed for the learner, instructors can benefit too.
While the Brightspace Pulse app is designed for the learner, instructors can benefit too. When instructors enter due dates or end dates for assignments and activities the information is populated in the Pulse app enabling learners to stay connected and on track. Thus, instructors can spend less time reminding and more time teaching.
Instructors can make their courses Pulse friendly by including due dates or end dates for assignments and activities. When instructors do not enter due dates or end dates, no associated information is available in the Pulse app.
The Pulse app is great for helping students stay on track in face-to-face classes as well. Instructors can set up their face-to-face assignments and activities as events in the Brightspace course calendar. Students will get those date feeds in the Brightspace Pulse app.
Help keep students on track for success in all their courses by including a due date or end date for assignments and activities.
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.
Instructors can use the Manage Dates tool to view, edit in bulk, and bulk offset date availability from one central location. You can also set the calendar status of all content topics and modules, discussion topics and forums, assignment submissions folders, grades categories and items, announcement items, quizzes, checklists, and surveys in their course in the Manage Dates tool.
Course objects display in a grid that you can sort by any of the column headings. You can also use the Type column to sort the Manage Dates page based on the tool-specific order and use advanced filter options to work with smaller sets of objects. If you filter your course objects, any bulk changes you make apply only to the filtered results. This enables you to update multiple availability dates based on specific criteria.
In addition to managing dates, you can open each course object in a new window by clicking on its name. This launches the object's edit page where you can edit additional properties for that object without leaving the Manage Dates tool.
The Manage Dates tool can be very useful after a course copy. For example, if you copied content from one course into another course, you can use the Manage Dates tool to easily adjust dates after the course copy. Additionally, if you've entered dates on items in your course and later need to adjust dates in bulk, try using the Manage Dates tool.
Follow these steps to do it.
To edit dates in bulk:
Get into the course you want to change the dates of course objects.
On the NavBar (of the course you want to change dates in), click Course Admin.
Click Manage Dates.
Select the check box of the items for which you want to bulk edit dates.
Click Bulk Edit Dates.
In the Bulk Edit Dates dialog box, update the due dates and availability 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.
There are a some situations where you may want to copy components of a Brightspace course OR copy an entire Brightspace course into another one. For example,
You have a course from a previous semester and you would like to copy the course contents into your empty course shell for the current semester.
You have a Master Course Shell that you input content into and would like to copy the course contents into your empty course shell for the current semester.
You are teaching multiple sections of a course, you created all the content in one Brightspace course section and want to copy the content into the other sections.
You created content in one course (e.g. rubrics, discussions, quizzes, etc.) and would like to copy that specific content from one Brightspace course into another.
Copying an entire Brightspace course OR copying components of a Brightspace course into another Brightspace course is not hard. As long as you are the instructor for both courses, it is a simple process you can do.
Notes About Copying Between Courses
Here are some things to consider when copying a course or copying components of a course.
Overwriting and Duplicating Items
In general, course components already in the destination course will not be affected by copying course components. The only course component that can be overwritten is a course file, i.e., HTML pages that have been created in the course site or files that have been uploaded to it. A course file is overwritten if one of the files being copied into the course has the same name as an existing file.
If copying components from the same source multiple times, be careful not to copy the same items more than once, or this will create duplicates that may be visible to users in the course.
Student Data
Student data is not copied from one course to another; only the course structures are copied. For example, if a Discussion topic is copied, only the prompt and discussion settings are copied, not the individual student posts.
Links and Associations between Components
If copying linked or associated components, e.g., files attached to an Assignment Submission folder or the HTML files for pages that have been created, all of the related components must be copied at the same time. To do this, be sure to select the "Include Associated Content" checkbox when it appears. As long as that box is checked, all associated components are copied and the links between them are retained.
Copying VoiceThreads
We have integrated VoiceThread using LTI 1.3 with deep linking, that means that your VoiceThread activities will copy automatically when the course is copied in Brightspace. Review this VT Course Copying FAQ for some important things to know about how VoiceThread course copying works.
Respondus LockDown Browser (RLDB) Settings
Copied courses that have tests/exams with RLDB enabled require instructors to access the Respondus LockDown Browser Dashboard once after the copy to update the RLDB settings in the destination course. This has to be done before students will be able to take exams that require RLDB.
Turnitin-enabled Assignments
When you copy course components from one course to another, confirm that all settings are configured for the Turnitin-enabled assignments in the destination course.
Turnitin PeerMark Assignments
Our Turnitin integration does not support copying of PeerMark Assignments. You will have to recreate your PeerMark assignments in the destination course.
Follow these steps to do it.
If you want to copy an entire Brightspace course OR copy components from a Brightspace course into another course, you should:
Get into the course you want the content copied into (i.e., the target course).
In the NavBar (of the course you want the content copied to), click on "Course Admin".
Click on the "Import/Export/Copy Components" link.
Click on the "Copy Components from another Org Unit" radio button.
In the Course to Copy option, click the "Search for Offering" button.
Click on the magnifying glass in the "Search for" field OR enter the name of the course you want to copy from (i.e., the source course) in the search field.
Click on the radio button to the right of the course you want to copy content from and then click on "Add Selected".
Verify your selections are correct before proceeding.
At the bottom on the browser window you will click on either "Copy all Components" OR "Select Components" and follow the prompts.
Important:
Double-check to make sure that you are in the course you want the content copied into AND that you have selected the correct course you want to copy content from. There is no way to reverse the copy process once the wrong course is selected and the copy request is submitted.
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 OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay
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.
