Stephen Laster (D2L), Janice Florent, and John Baker (D2L)
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.
The Challenge: Advancing Faculty Expertise Through Instructional Continuity
We were faced with the challenge of preparing faculty for effective online instruction amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly because D2L Brightspace was new to us.
Our Solution: #LearnEverywhereXULA (LEX) and #LEX Advanced
To address this challenge, CAT+FD developed two innovative programs:
#LearnEverywhereXULA (LEX): This self-paced online course helps faculty members develop high-quality, well-designed courses in Brightspace. It is based on the eight General Standards for Higher Education set forth by Quality Matters. By completing the course, faculty gain the skills and knowledge they need to create effective online learning experiences for XULA students.
#LEX Advanced: This program goes beyond the basics, helping instructors explore advanced features in Brightspace. These features allow faculty to increase their presence in their courses, streamline workflows, and improve overall efficiency. Ultimately, this leads to more user-friendly, accessible, and effective online courses.
The Results: Increased Proficiency and Improved Courses
Thanks to #LEX and #LEX Advanced, XULA faculty have become more proficient in using Brightspace to deliver high-quality online instruction. This has led to increased use of the platform's tools and better alignment with Quality Matters standards.
A Note of Thanks
The CAT+FD team is grateful to D2L for recognizing our work and awarding us with the 2024 D2L Excellence Award. We would also like to acknowledge Drs. Elizabeth Yost Hammer and Tiera S. Coston for their contributions and help in developing #LEX and #LEX Advanced.
For More Information
Xavier faculty who are interested can use this enrollment request form to request enrollment in the #LearnEverywhereXULA course.
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 disadvantages to merging courses are:
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
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. 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. You can find more information about the updated My Courses Widget sort logic at this link.
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.
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: 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 July 2024/20.24.7 release that were added to our system this month:
1) Grades – Automatic Zero for Missing Submissions
The Automatic Zero feature allows a score of zero (0) to be automatically applied to unsubmitted learner activities after the due date passes. Applying the Automatic Zero feature eliminates the need for instructors to manually set missing submissions to zero. Additionally, learners receive a more accurate view of their grade calculations for individual activities and for the overall course.
Supported submissions include file and text-based assignments, quizzes, and LTI tools. All activities must have grade associations.
Instructors can select between system-added and manually-entered zero scores. Automatic Zero applies to both individual and group assignments and respects any exemptions and release conditions set for an activity. Automatic Zero is triggered within one minute of the due date and is based on local time zones for both instructors and learners. The feature follows the same rules as existing due dates.
NOTE: There are no changes to Grades data sets, as methods for identifying system-entered grades already exist.
This feature implements the following PIE item:
D3202 (Automatically assign zero after a due date has passed).
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.
NOTE: The automatic zero for missing submissions is unchecked by default. Changes to the setting only take effect on assessments with future due dates.
Instructors see an automatic zero applied to a missing submission with an explanatory tooltip.
2) SMS Notifications – End of Life
As of this release, SMS Notifications are permanently removed from Brightspace. Short Message Service (SMS) Notifications allowed users to subscribe to select notifications to be forwarded to their mobile phone number. Stored phone numbers are deleted following this release and are no longer needed to send notifications. The Mobile Carrier Management page is removed from Admin Tools; and the Notification Number seen when viewing a user in the Users tool is also removed.
Email-based notifications remain, and users can still receive email notifications if they subscribe. Alternatively, users can use the Brightspace Pulse app to receive the same mobile push notifications that were available with SMS Notifications.
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 #413: Brightspace Virtual Assistant 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 the Brightspace Virtual Assistant. You must be logged into Brightspace to access the Brightspace Virtual Assistant.
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 June 2024/20.24.6 release that were added to our system this month:
1) Assignments – Annotations update from Version 2023.4.0 to 2024.3.0
This release updates the Assignment Annotations tool from PSPDFKit Version 2023.4.0 to Version 2024.3.0 This update fixes several defects; in addition, the icons used in the following areas have received minor updates:
Main toolbar
Line tools
Ink tools
Page Layout tools
Sidebar tools
Drawing sub-toolbar
Highlighter sub-toolbar
Text Highlighter sub-toolbar
Eraser sub-toolbar
Note sub-toolbar
Textbox sub-toolbar
Line and Arrow sub-toolbar
Rectangle sub-toolbar
This feature updates the appearance of the icons in the main toolbar (above) to the new style (below).This feature updates the appearance of the icons for the line tools (left) to the new style (right).This feature updates the appearance of the icons for the ink tools (left) to the new style (right).This feature updates the appearance of the icons for the page layout tools (left) to the new style (right).This feature updates the appearance of the icons for the sidebar tools (left) to the new style (right).This feature updates the appearance of the icons in the highlighter and drawing sub-toolbars (above) to the new style (below).
NOTE: Safari browsers using versions older than version 15.4 are legacy browsers and are no longer supported for the Annotations software. For more information, refer to Browser support.
2) Assignments – Google and Microsoft 365 options available in File Upload
The option to directly upload a file from Google Drive™ and Microsoft OneDrive® is now available when editing and evaluating an assignment. Users can upload a file by clicking File Upload, and then clicking Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive in the Add a File window.
Previously, Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive files could only be added as link attachments. These links connected users to the file within its location, but the file was not uploaded to the assignment. Now, files stored in Google and Microsoft storage accounts are directly added to the assignment, eliminating the need for instructors to provide sharing permissions to users.
Select Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive in Add a File to upload files when editing an assignment.
3) Brightspace – In-Product Feedback
This release introduces in-product feedback into Brightspace as a new way to allow users to provide their feedback. Administrators, instructors, and learners in higher education or corporate organizations may receive a small survey prompt in Brightspace. The in-product feedback asks users for ratings on one to two questions; these questions ask about users’ experience with Brightspace as a whole, their experience meeting goals in Brightspace, or their experience in a particular workflow.
Users can provide feedback by rating your experience with tools and processes in Brightspace.
4) Brightspace Editor – Updated storage location for feedback attachments in Assignments, Discussions, and Quizzes
With this release, when instructors access Assignments, Discussions, or Quizzes, and use the Insert Stuff file picker to attach feedback, those files are now stored in the Feedback Files location. This location is designated for the learner feedback area.
Learners can review their feedback files from the Grades page, just like files attached from Feedback Files.
Note: Only feedback added from the Overall Feedback field and the Completion Summary page in Quizzes appears in Grades for learners.
Similar to the feedback files, once feedback is deleted, it cannot be restored.
Previously, when an instructor attached feedback files through the Insert Stuff file picker, the files were stored in Manage Files.
This feature implements the following PIE item:
D2629 (Student view of Grades tool - easy access to ALL Grades and feedback regardless of assessment tool)
5) Manage Dates – Bulk edit and offset dates for recurring Intelligent Agents
With this release, users can edit and offset multiple intelligent agents that have already been set up with a recurring schedule (for example, daily or weekly). In addition to editing an intelligent agent in the Intelligent Agents tool, users can now use Bulk Edit Dates to add or remove a new start date or end date, or use Bulk Offset Dates to offset the start date or end date from the Manage Dates tool.
Click Bulk Offset Dates to adjust the start or end date of multiple agents.Users can offset the Due Date, Start Date, and End Date either forward or backward.
Previously, intelligent agents had to be manually edited or offset in the Intelligent Agents tool.
As of this release, intelligent agents with a one-time run schedule do not appear in Manage Dates and must be updated in the Intelligent Agents tool. Editing intelligent agents with a one-time run schedule in Manage Dates is under consideration for a future enhancement.
This feature implements the following PIE items:
D3475 (Intelligent Agents start dates and end dates visible on the list page)
D4843 (Edit dates on multiple Intelligent Agents at once)
D6643 and D7321 (Include Intelligent Agents in Manage Dates)
D9154 and D9899 (Bulk Offset Intelligent Agent run dates with Manage 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.
Instructors who want to build their course before the normal course creation schedule can request a Brightspace Master Course Shell that can be used to develop and maintain their course materials.
A Master Course Shell:
Is a course environment an instructor uses to develop and maintain course materials that are used from semester to semester.
Is not tied to Banner. Therefore, no students or other users are enrolled into this Shell.
Can be used as a "master" where one keeps permanent changes to a course.
Faculty may copy content from a Master Course Shell into a Brightspace Course shell as long as they are enrolled as an instructor in both shells.
Master Course Shells are not deleted except upon the request of the instructor or when the instructor is no longer employed at Xavier.
A Time-Saving Tool for Instructors
Master Course Shells can be a timesaving tool for instructors. Using a Master Course Shell gives instructors time to build their courses the way they want, when they want, and update it as needed. Think of a Master Course Shell as a template course instructors can build once and use repeatedly. Here's how instructors typically use Master Course Shells:
Build Master Course: Develop a course (e.g., lectures, assignments, instructional materials, assessments) in the Master Shell. This becomes your baseline course structure.
Copy to Current Course: When ITC has created your course for the new semester, copy the Master Course Shell contents into your new empty course that ITC created.
Adapt for the Semester (Optional): Instructors can customize the copied course content to fit their needs for the current semester. This might involve adding new material, removing outdated content, or adjusting deadlines.
Keeping the Master Course Shell Up-to-Date: If you make significant changes to the active course during the semester, the Master Course Shell becomes outdated. To update the Master Course Shell with these changes, you can request a Course Reset for your Master Course Shell. A course reset permanently deletes course content, activities, and associated files. After the reset, you would copy the contents from the active course into your Master Course Shell. So, now your Master Course Shell has the latest course materials and information.
NOTE: To request a course reset for a Master Course Shell, send an email to jflorent@xula.edu and include the exact name of the Master Course Shell that you would like reset.
Follow these steps to do it.
If you want to build your course from scratch before your Brightspace course shell for the upcoming semester is made available, you should:
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 has a variety of formative and summative assessment tools available for instructors to use in their courses. You may be wondering which tool you should use. This blog post explains the difference between the Quizzes, Surveys, and Self-Assessments (SA) tools to help you determine which of the tools is the best tool to meet your needs.
A Quiz provides students with a score. Quizzes can be linked to the Grade Book to affect the final grade, but are not required to be linked to the Grade Book. This tool is commonly used for summative assessments (i.e., quizzes, tests, exams).
Surveys are not graded or scored, but do provide results to the instructor. Survey results can be viewed and downloaded as needed. Surveys can be anonymous.
Self-Assessments is a formative assessment tool that enables instructors to provide learners with a series of questions and give immediate feedback to their responses. A Self-Assessment is solely for the purpose of the learner to assess their understanding of the content. Instructors CANNOT view the results of a Self-Assessment, but they are able to see who has taken the Self-Assessment and the time spent on it. The omission of numeric evaluation enables learners to make reflective learning and course material comprehension their main priorities during a Self-Assessment.
The following table compares the feedback and reporting for each tool:
Quizzes
Surveys
Self-Assessments
Feedback for learner
Feedback is released based on the options set by instructor. Feedback can be setup to be instant (upon submission) or delayed.
Feedback is released after completion in the form of a report.
Feedback is provided immediately after answering question.
Reporting for instructor
Reporting for Instructors – yes, instructors can see summative feedback on scores and individual questions.
Reporting for Instructors – yes, reports are generated, and can be done so anonymously.
Reporting for Instructors – yes, but limited to who has taken SA and the time spent; instructors CANNOT view results of the SA.
This table provides some use cases for Quizzes, Surveys, and Self-Assessments:
Tool
Use Case
Quizzes
Measuring knowledge acquisition: Assess factual recall, comprehension, and application of learned concepts. Assess skills for the purpose of determining whether instruction has been effective.
Evaluating critical thinking: Open ended questions requiring analysis, synthesis, or evaluation can assess higher-order thinking skills.
Standardized test: Deliver high-stakes tests with secure features like time limits, question randomization, paging, and integration with lockdown browsers.
Formative assessment: Create low-stakes quizzes for students to practice and receive immediate feedback. Assess skills for the purpose of identifying areas needing improvement.
Surveys
Gauging student understanding: Use anonymous surveys to assess student comprehension of course material before, during, or after a lesson.
Gathering opinions on teaching methods: Evaluate the success of specific teaching approaches or gather suggestions for improvement.
Course satisfaction surveys: Collect feedback on student experience with the course content, delivery, and overall effectiveness.
Self-Assessments
Promoting metacognition: Encourage students to reflect on their learning progress, strengths, and weaknesses through self-evaluation activities.
Identifying learning gaps: Allow students to assess their own understanding of key concepts before moving on to new material.
Personalized learning: Use self-assessment results to tailor learning experiences or provide targeted resources based on individual needs.
By understanding the strengths of each tool, instructors can select the most effective tool for the job.
A Note About the Question Library
The Question Library is a central repository that stores and archives questions which you can reuse within a course. You can create multiple sections within the Question Library to organize your questions by type and topic, making it easier for you to find, use, and reuse questions in your quizzes, surveys, and self-assessments.
As a better practice for storage, organization, and easy access, I recommend that you create all your questions using the Question Library. You can also consolidate questions created within the Quizzes, Surveys, and Self-Assessments tools by importing them back into the Question Library.
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 StockSnap from Pixabay (image cropped)
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 May 2024/20.24.5 release that were added to our system this month:
1) Awards – Certificate ID for an issued award
To improve security when issuing certificates, instructors can now use a new replacement string field when creating their certificate templates to add an automatically-generated numeric ID. This ID uniquely identifies the issued award, which can be verified using the new Brightspace API.
The feature introduces a new replacement string {CertificateID} that instructors can add to their PDF templates. A unique ID is generated and populated into the replacement string {CertificateID} on an ongoing basis when released.
The unique generated ID is 12 numeric characters long and is stored in the Brightspace database as CertificateID, along with other data for the issued award.
Note: The {CertificateID} replacement string follows existing rules of other current replacement strings and is marked read-only.
To support this change, the new Awards Brightspace API has been introduced, which allows the verification of issued certificates:
The feature is only available on certificates issued with this release when the Certificate ID replacement string is added to the certificate template. The Certificate ID does not have to be added to a certificate template to be auto-generated, but the ID has to be added to be visible to the learner.
Previously, the {CertificateID} replacement string was not available.
2) Grades – Feedback files are now available in Grades for Assignments, Quizzes, and Discussions
This feature allows instructors to ensure that learners can easily review feedback from the Grades tool.
Instructor feedback added in Assignments, Quizzes, and Discussions is now visible to learners under Grades.
Learners can review feedback from the Grades page.
Previously, feedback files were only available to the learner by accessing the activity.
3) Manage Files – Receive notification when zipping and unzipping files
As of this release, whenever users add (zip) or extract (unzip) one or more files to a ZIP archive in Manage Files, a new dialog confirms that files are being zipped or unzipped in the background. Once the process is complete, a notification appears in Update alerts (the bell icon).
Previously, adding files to a ZIP archive was not a background process and thus there was no notification after zipping. In addition, the notification for unzipping files appeared in the Subscription alerts area.
A notification dialog appears when zipping or unzipping files. Click Close to resume work.Once files are successfully zipped or unzipped, a notification appears under Update alerts.
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.
The Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Faculty Development (CAT+FD) at Xavier University of Louisiana (XULA) is proud to announce that we have 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.
The Challenge: Advancing Faculty Expertise Through Instructional Continuity
We were faced with the challenge of preparing faculty for effective online instruction amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly because D2L Brightspace was new to us.
Our Solution: #LearnEverywhereXULA (LEX) and #LEX Advanced
To address this challenge, CAT+FD developed two innovative programs:
#LearnEverywhereXULA (LEX): This self-paced online course helps faculty members develop high-quality, well-designed courses in Brightspace. It is based on the eight General Standards for Higher Education set forth by Quality Matters. By completing the course, faculty gain the skills and knowledge they need to create effective online learning experiences for XULA students.
#LEX Advanced: This program goes beyond the basics, helping instructors explore advanced features in Brightspace. These features allow faculty to increase their presence in their courses, streamline workflows, and improve overall efficiency. Ultimately, this leads to more user-friendly, accessible, and effective online courses.
The Results: Increased Proficiency and Improved Courses
Thanks to #LEX and #LEX Advanced, XULA faculty have become more proficient in using Brightspace to deliver high-quality online instruction. This has led to increased use of the platform's tools and better alignment with Quality Matters standards.
A Note of Thanks
The CAT+FD team is grateful to D2L for recognizing our work and awarding us with the 2024 D2L Excellence Award. We would also like to acknowledge Drs. Jason S. Todd and Tiera S. Coston for their contributions and help in developing #LEX and #LEX Advanced.
For More Information
Xavier faculty who are interested can use this enrollment request form to request enrollment in the #LearnEverywhereXULA course.
