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update

D2L (the company that owns Brightspace) uses Continuous Delivery to update our Brightspace system. The Continuous Delivery model gives us regular monthly updates allowing for incremental and easily integrated changes with no downtime required for our Brightspace system.

Our Continuous Delivery update occurs on the 4th Thursday of each month. D2L provides release notes to help users stay up-to-date with the changes.

Here are a few updates in the September 2023/20.23.9 release that were added to our system this month:

1) Quizzes – Quiz Timing Improvements featuring Synchronous Quiz

This release updates the Quiz Creation experience for instructors and learners by adding a new synchronous quiz option.

With this release, instructors can facilitate quizzes where learners take their attempts simultaneously, which is convenient for in-class sessions. The new addition of synchronous quizzes enables instructors to set up a quiz where the quiz timer starts on the start date for all learners rather than when the learner launches the quiz (asynchronous). The quiz timer then ends for all learners at the same time.

To set up a synchronous quiz:

  1. From a quiz page, expand the Availability Dates & Conditions accordion.
  2. Set start date and time.
  3. Expand the Timing & Display accordion.
  4. Click Timer Settings.
  5. In the Timing dialog, under Quiz Start, select Synchronous: Timer starts on the start date.
  6. Click OK.
Set up a synchronous quiz
Set up a synchronous quiz

Note: If no start date and time is set for the synchronous quiz, the No Start date set alert appears under the selected option, and you cannot save the quiz. The Due Date option is disabled for synchronous quizzes because students do not choose the time frame of when to take the synchronous quiz, therefore there is no need to set a due date.

To ensure that learners are aware of upcoming synchronous quizzes, instructors should create instructional or manual solutions. For example:

  • Make a synchronous quiz visible in the calendar:
    • Instructors can select Add availability dates to Calendar or set up an event showing the whole time.
    • Instructors should use the Start Date parameter when setting up a synchronous quiz and leave the End Date field empty.
  • Create an announcement with information about the synchronous quiz.
  • Set up an event and give a link to the quiz to provide more context.

Note: Instructors must modify or review quizzes one-by-one to avoid accidentally modifying quiz availability dates for synchronous quizzes.

A synchronous quiz starts at the Start Date and ends when the time limit has lapsed, regardless of any action taken by the learner. For example, if a learner clicks Start Quiz! 15 minutes after the start date on a 1-hour quiz, they only have 45 minutes left to complete it. To indicate when a quiz becomes available, learners have a countdown timer on the Quiz Information and Start Quiz pages. The Start Quiz! button becomes available when the start date and time is reached.

A countdown timer on the Start Quiz page
A countdown timer on the Start Quiz page

Instructors should provide learners with information about a synchronous quiz before it starts. Learners can also access information about synchronous quizzes in the Quiz Information page.

This feature implements the following PIE items: D1552, D2135, D2914, D4450, D4481, D6373, D6812, D8816, D8924, D9257, D9656.

If you are interested in getting more information about this and all the September Continuous Delivery updates, refer to the Brightspace Platform September 2023/20.23.9 Release Notes.

Additionally, refer to the Brightspace Release Notes for Continuous Delivery Releases, for details about current, past, and to preview upcoming continuous delivery updates.

Want more information?

View current, past, and preview upcoming Continuous Delivery release notes
Instructors Quick Start Tutorial
Brightspace Known Issues
Request a sandbox course
Sign-up for Brightspace training sessions
You can find Brightspace help at D2L's website.
Join the Brightspace Community.
Try these Brightspace How-To documents.
Visit our Brightspace FAQs for additional Brightspace information
or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.

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 geralt from Pixabay

update

D2L (the company that owns Brightspace) uses Continuous Delivery to update our Brightspace system. The Continuous Delivery model gives us regular monthly updates allowing for incremental and easily integrated changes with no downtime required for our Brightspace system.

Our Continuous Delivery update occurs on the 4th Thursday of each month. D2L provides release notes to help users stay up-to-date with the changes.

Here are a few updates in the August 2023/20.23.8 release that were added to our system this month:

1) Announcements – Pin announcements to top of Announcement widget

With this release, instructors can now pin announcements and global announcements to the top of the Announcement Widget, allowing important information to remain visible to learners. Announcements so pinned are indicated to learners as such with the use of a new pinned icon that appears on the announcement. Global announcements appear at the top of the Announcements widget before any announcements pinned within a course offering.

Pin announcement to the top.
Select Pin to top to pin an announcement to the top of the Announcement Widget.

This feature implements the following PIE item:

  • D7111 (Ability to Pin Announcement to the Top)

2) Rubrics – Improve your evaluation experience with the new collapsible panel for Assignments and Discussions in mobile view

When evaluating assignments or discussions in a mobile browser, instructors can now collapse the containers for Rubrics, Grades & Feedback, Outcomes, and Competencies. The new collapsible container appears in the right-hand panel and reduces unnecessary scrolling, giving instructors more control over which fields are displayed to them. Each component is open by default when the instructor accesses the item. Instructors can open and close each collapsible component by selecting the triangle beside the name of the container.

Note: This change applies to the mobile view only.

The Rubrics tool was updated in the July 2023/20.23.7 release to include collapsible panels as part of interface improvements.

The previous mobile view for evaluation components.
The previous mobile view for evaluation components.
New mobile view with collapsible panel.
The new mobile view that includes the collapsible evaluation components. Instructors can open and close each collapsible component by selecting the triangle beside the name of the container.

3) Rubrics – Pop-out details provide increased evaluator awareness

To provide a more complete context for learner evaluation, rubric pop-outs now provide activity details including activity title, course name, learner name, and evaluator name. The evaluator name only appears if it is explicitly assigned; implicit evaluators' names do not appear with the additional details. These additional details are critical for new multi-evaluation workflows, where evaluators can have access to view and edit multiple rubrics concurrently. However, having the additional activity details in the single-evaluation experience also provides consistency across all evaluator experiences.

Note: Multi-evaluation workflows are currently only available as part of a development pilot program.

An example rubric showing the activity title, course name, learner name, and graded by.
An example rubric pop-out showing the activity title, course name, learner name, and graded by.

Previously, the activity title, course name, learner name, and evaluator name were not visible in the rubric pop-outs.

Note: Learner name information respects user information privacy policies and displays Anonymous if evaluating with the Anonymous role or marking in Anonymous Mode.

4) User Progress – Class Progress displays absent periods more clearly

This feature updates Class Progress to better align the login date and the absent period. When viewing data for Course Access, Login History, and System Access History, the absent period now correlates to the login date on the same line.

Previously, the login date and absent period were misaligned, which caused confusion to users viewing the data.

Progress summary showing absent period for course access, login history, and system access.
The absent period now correlates to the login date on the same line.

This feature addresses the following accessibility criteria:

  • WCAG 2.1 Success Criterion 1.4.8 Visual Presentation

If you are interested in getting more information about these and all the August Continuous Delivery updates, refer to the Brightspace Platform August 2023/20.23.8 Release Notes.

Additionally, refer to the Brightspace Release Notes for Continuous Delivery Releases, for details about current, past, and to preview upcoming continuous delivery updates.

Want more information?

View current, past, and preview upcoming Continuous Delivery release notes
Instructors Quick Start Tutorial
Brightspace Known Issues
Request a sandbox course
Sign-up for Brightspace training sessions
You can find Brightspace help at D2L's website.
Join the Brightspace Community.
Try these Brightspace How-To documents.
Visit our Brightspace FAQs for additional Brightspace information
or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.

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 geralt from Pixabay

update

D2L (the company that owns Brightspace) uses Continuous Delivery to update our Brightspace system. The Continuous Delivery model gives us regular monthly updates allowing for incremental and easily integrated changes with no downtime required for our Brightspace system.

Our Continuous Delivery update occurs on the 4th Thursday of each month. D2L provides release notes to help users stay up-to-date with the changes.

Here are a few updates in the July 2023/20.23.7 release that were added to our system this month:

1) Brightspace Editor – Edited images are saved with their original names to improve ease of location

With this release, images edited within Brightspace Editor are saved with their original names followed by a date-time string, which helps instructors find changed images easily in Manage Files. Changes to an image using Edit image in the floating toolbar are saved as a copy of the image with the name format "OriginalFileName_yyyyMMddHHmmss.jpg."

Edit image option in HTML Editor
Click the Edit image option in HTML Editor to make changes to the image.

This update resolves the Brightspace Editor - Crop function for images does not function as expected issue. For more information about which defects have been resolved by this update, refer to the Known issues and Fixed issues lists on Brightspace Community.

Previously images that were edited were given a different, random filename on saving.

2) Discussions – Consistent settings and interface of availability dates across Brightspace

This feature updates the settings and format of availability dates and states in Discussions, to align with other activity tools and create a unified content experience for both instructors and learners. This update is a continuation of the changes introduced to the Assignment list tab in June 2023 Continuous Delivery Updates.

Availability dates in the Discussions list are now displayed as a simple date range below the titles of discussion topics. Hovering over the date range text displays a tooltip that includes the information about start and end dates. Tooltips also include applied settings to explain how the discussion topic appears to learners before and after these dates.

The previous format of the availability dates in a discussion topic. The availability information appears beneath the topic title.
The previous format of the availability dates in a discussion topic. The availability information appears beneath the topic title.

Previously, the availability dates in the Discussions topics did not include a hover tooltip.

The updated format of the availability dates in a discussion topic. Availability details now appear in a hover tooltip.
The updated format of the availability dates in a discussion topic. Availability details now appear in a hover tooltip.

The corresponding update for Quizzes is planned for a future release.

3) Quizzes – Quiz Timing Improvements Featuring Auto-Submission

This release updates the Quiz Creation experience for instructors by simplifying the quiz timing setup workflow, adding useful new features, including the ability to auto-submit, and removing obsolete quiz timing options.

With this release, learners can show or hide the timer, receive time warning messages, and access more information about their quizzes.

Note: All Quiz Timer settings behavior and User Interface changes will immediately be applied to existing and in-progress quizzes with the Continuous Delivery Update.

Instructors Workflow Changes

The following workflow changes and advanced Quiz Timing options are now available for instructors.

  • Simplified and redesigned Quiz Timing & Display settings
    • The updated settings allow instructors to choose if they want to set a time limit by selecting the Set time limit checkbox, which is cleared by default. If Set time limit is selected, instructors can add a Time Limit and edit the Timer Settings.
    • The previous Prevent the student from making further changes option has been changed to Automatically submit the quiz attempt. Quiz auto-submission automatically hands in quizzes on enforced time limit quizzes at the end of the set time, improving quiz integrity. This behavior is changed on all existing and in-progress quizzes with the update.
      Note: The Automatically submit the quiz attempt option is now the default setting for all newly created quizzes with a time limit and is used automatically if the instructor does not edit the quiz timing settings. The previous default setting was Allow the student to continue working.
    • The previous Allow the student to continue working option has been changed to Flag the attempt as exceeded time limit and allow the learner to continue working. This behavior is changed on all existing and in-progress quizzes with the update.
    • The Grace Period and Allow student to continue working but automatically score zero options are removed to further streamline the process of quiz creation. With this update, any existing and in-progress quizzes that include these settings are changed to the following new behavior:
      • A quiz that previously had a grace period now uses the time limit set on the quiz.
      • A quiz previously set to Allow student to continue working but automatically score zero now sets the quiz to Automatically submit the quiz attempt.
  • The Timing menu before this update.
    The Timing menu before this update.
    The Timing menu after this update.
    The Timing menu after this update.
  • The Timing & Display section displays comprehensive summary information in either collapsed or expanded view, helping instructors to find errors and to understand which settings they could change.
  • The collapsed view of a quiz with an enforced time limit in the Timing & Display section shows instructors a summary of their settings.
    The collapsed view of a quiz with an enforced time limit in the Timing & Display section shows instructors a summary of their settings.
  • The Special Access settings are updated to simplify setup and incorporate the updated settings.
  • The Timing settings in the Edit Special Access menu before this update.
    The Timing settings in the Edit Special Access menu before this update.
    The Timing settings in the Edit Special Access menu after this update.
    The Timing settings in the Edit Special Access menu after this update.

Improvements for Learners

The following improved Quiz Timing options are now available for learners:

  • Option to show or hide the timer to reduce anxiety during quiz taking.
    Note: Once a learner sets their preference, the setting preserves across all quizzes.
  • Click the Hide Timer button beside the quiz timer to hide the timer from the view.
    Click the Hide Timer button beside the quiz timer to hide the timer from the view.
  • Warnings displayed at certain times to support awareness of time left. The following warnings are applied:
    • 1 minute remaining on the quiz
    • 5 minutes remaining (only on quizzes with 10 minutes or longer quiz time limit)
    • Half of the elapsed time (only on quizzes with 20 minutes or longer quiz time limit)
  • The Timer Warning dialog indicates how much longer a learner has in a quiz.
    The Timer Warning dialog indicates how much longer a learner has in a quiz.
  • The simplified Quiz Results page appears when a learner completes a quiz attempt or returns later to view their quiz results (previously known as Submission View). The page now displays the text ‘Your work has been saved and submitted’ to all learners. This text is no longer editable by instructors. The existing text field allows adding a custom message to be displayed within the Quiz Results page under the new default message.
  • The Quiz Results page shows learners the status of their quiz and their score.
    The Quiz Results page shows learners the status of their quiz and their score.
  • Option to review quiz instructions and details without leaving the quiz.
  • Click the Quiz Information option on the quiz page to view instructions and other information. This does not leave the quiz.
    Click the Quiz Information option on the quiz page to view instructions and other information. This does not leave the quiz.

If a learner is taking a quiz at the time of the update, they will notice the user interface changes and new quiz timer setting behaviors immediately following the Continuous Delivery update. For more information about the impact to existing and in-progress quizzes, refer to the Quiz Timing Improvements – Pilot Summary blog post.

4) Quizzes – The New Quiz Creation Experience is now universally enabled

In this release, the New Quiz Creation Experience reaches the end of the adoption phase of feature development and becomes the only editing experience for all customers. The New Quiz Creation Experience is now set to on as the default with no option to opt out.

If you are interested in getting more information about these and all the July Continuous Delivery updates, refer to the Brightspace Platform July 2023/20.23.7 Release Notes.

Additionally, refer to the Brightspace Release Notes for Continuous Delivery Releases, for details about current, past, and to preview upcoming continuous delivery updates.

Want more information?

View current, past, and preview upcoming Continuous Delivery release notes
View all the Brightspace training recaps
Instructors Quick Start Tutorial
Brightspace Known Issues
Request a sandbox course
Sign-up for Brightspace training sessions
You can find Brightspace help at D2L's website.
Join the Brightspace Community.
Try these Brightspace How-To documents.
Visit our Brightspace FAQs for additional Brightspace information
or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.

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 geralt from Pixabay

update

D2L (the company that owns Brightspace) uses Continuous Delivery to update our Brightspace system. The Continuous Delivery model gives us regular monthly updates allowing for incremental and easily integrated changes with no downtime required for our Brightspace system.

Our Continuous Delivery update occurs on the 4th Thursday of each month. D2L provides release notes to help users stay up-to-date with the changes.

Here are a few updates in the June 2023/20.23.6 release that were added to our system this month:

1) Assignments – Accessible Rubric Confirmation dialog box in Consistent Evaluation experience

To improve accessibility and clarity for screen reader devices, the Rubrics Confirmation dialog box that appears when users navigate away from scoring an assignment or discussion post using a rubric now features the following changes:

  • Screen reader-legible heading, text and buttons now appear in the dialog box.
  • The dialog box heading now says Unscored Rubric Criteria in place of Confirmation, to improve the workflow clarity for all users, including those using screen readers.

Previously, the text in the dialog box was not accessible to screen readers.

The confirmation dialog box appears with the previous heading Confirmation. This dialog text was not accessible to screen readers.
The confirmation dialog box appears with the previous heading Confirmation. This dialog text was not accessible to screen readers.
The confirmation dialog box now appears with the updated heading Unscored Rubric Criteria. The text in this dialog is fully accessible to screen readers.
The confirmation dialog box now appears with the updated heading Unscored Rubric Criteria. The text in this dialog is fully accessible to screen readers.

2) Assignments – Consistent settings and interface of availability dates across Brightspace

To improve consistency in activity tools, this feature updates settings and the format of availability dates and states across Brightspace for both instructors and learners.

With this release, the Assignments List tab displays availability dates and states closely aligned with other activity tools to make a unified content experience. Availability dates are displayed below the titles of assignments and the hover tooltip includes the information about start and end dates with settings to explain how the assignment appears to learners before and after these dates.

Previously, the availability dates in the Assignments List tab did not include a hover tooltip.

The format of availability dates and states in the Assignments tool before this update.
The format of availability dates and states in the Assignments tool before this update.
The format of availability dates and states in the Assignments tool after this update.
The format of availability dates and states in the Assignments tool after this update.

The corresponding updates for Discussions and Quizzes are planned for future releases.

3) Quizzes – Improved workflows for large quizzes

This feature updates instructors' workflows for large quizzes in two ways.

Instructors can now use the Load More button on the initial page load if a quiz has more than 200 questions, sections, and question pools.

If the Load More button is shown, list operations such as moving to the bottom or adding new questions continue functioning as expected. However, to see their changes, instructors must click the Load More button to reveal the updated list.

The Load More button.
The Load More button.

Also, instructors can now select multiple items and use drag and drop to rearrange the question list.

Multiple items selected for movement using drag and drop.
Multiple items selected for movement using drag and drop.

This feature implements PIE item D10368 (New Quiz Experience: Drag & Drop - Moving multiple questions at once).

Previously, quiz questions, sections, and question pools rendered slowly. Creating and editing quizzes with many items could take significant time. Moving multiple items was only possible using the Move To action menu.

If you are interested in getting more information about these and all the June Continuous Delivery updates, refer to the Brightspace Platform June 2023/20.23.6 Release Notes.

Additionally, refer to the Brightspace Release Notes for Continuous Delivery Releases, for details about current, past, and to preview upcoming continuous delivery updates.

Want more information?

View current, past, and preview upcoming Continuous Delivery release notes
View all the Brightspace training recaps
Instructors Quick Start Tutorial
Brightspace Known Issues
Request a sandbox course
Sign-up for Brightspace training sessions
You can find Brightspace help at D2L's website.
Join the Brightspace Community.
Try these Brightspace How-To documents.
Visit our Brightspace FAQs for additional Brightspace information
or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.

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 geralt from Pixabay

update

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 is an update in the May 2023/20.23.5 release that was added to our system this month:

1) Awards – Add criteria to awards in compliance with the latest Open Badges standard

Instructors can now specify what a learner must do to achieve a particular award.

This feature complements the use of evidence for awards by adding the new required Criteria field to the Awards tool.

The new required Criteria field on the New Award page
The new required Criteria field on the New Award page.

Availability of Criteria and Evidence fields meets the latest Open Badges 2.0 standard from 1EdTech (formerly known as IMS Global):

  • When instructors manually grant awards, they can now check the award's criteria and enter evidence describing what the learner did to meet the criteria and earn the award.
  • When the award is automatically issued, the release conditions determine if learners meet the criteria.
  • If learners share their award via a public link, both the Criteria and Evidence fields now appear on the Public Award page.
The new Criteria field on the Public Award page
The new Criteria field on the Public Award page.

This feature implements PIE item D6128 (Incorporate Open Badge 2.0 Standards).

For existing awards that do not have explicitly stated criteria, Brightspace treats the Criteria and Evidence fields as the same.

Previously, there was no criteria field available in the Awards tool. When learners shared their awards to Badgr, the same field values were used for both Evidence and Criteria fields.

If you are interested in getting more information about this and all the May Continuous Delivery updates, refer to the Brightspace Platform May 2023/20.23.5 Release Notes.

Additionally, refer to the Brightspace Release Notes for Continuous Delivery Releases, for details about current, past, and to preview upcoming continuous delivery updates.

Want more information?

View current, past, and preview upcoming Continuous Delivery release notes
View all the Brightspace training recaps
Instructors Quick Start Tutorial
Brightspace Known Issues
Request a sandbox course
Sign-up for Brightspace training sessions
You can find Brightspace help at D2L's website.
Join the Brightspace Community.
Try these Brightspace How-To documents.
Visit our Brightspace FAQs for additional Brightspace information
or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.

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 geralt from Pixabay

update

D2L (the company that owns Brightspace) uses Continuous Delivery to update our Brightspace system. The Continuous Delivery model gives us regular monthly updates allowing for incremental and easily integrated changes with no downtime required for our Brightspace system.

Our Continuous Delivery update occurs on the 4th Thursday of each month. D2L provides release notes to help users stay up-to-date with the changes.

Here are a few updates in the April 2023/20.23.4 release that were added to our system this month:

1) Discussions – Introducing the new creation and editing experience

The new discussion creation experience brings create and edit consistency changes from Assignments and Quizzes to Discussions, making it familiar and easy to learn. This first release is at full parity with classic discussions and brings refreshed workflows and improvements to restricting group topics and threads, associating topics to forums, and wording changes to a few settings that you may be familiar with.

The new Discussions creation and editing experience
The new Discussions creation and editing experience

The primary panel on the left contains the same frequently-used fields as Assignments and Quizzes. These fields are most relevant to learners and are core to discussion topic creation. The right-hand panel provides advanced options such as start and end dates and release conditions. These options follow the same logical groupings as found in Assignments and Quizzes. Other topic-specific settings can be found in the right-hand panel.

Refer to the Introducing the New Discussion Creation Experience knowledge article for an in-depth look at all the feature and capability changes with this update.

2) Quizzes – Confirmation dialog for learners exiting a quiz

This feature introduces a confirmation dialog to learners closing in-progress quizzes. The dialog is context-based, providing additional information about the impact of exiting the quiz (such as whether a learner will be able to return to their quiz after exiting).

An example of a confirmation dialog displayed to learners closing in-progress quizzes
An example of a confirmation dialog displayed to learners closing in-progress quizzes

Previously there was no dialog or warning to learners who exited a quiz accidentally or on purpose.

Note: The dialog only appears when the learner selects the X [Close this Quiz] for the quiz. Closing the browser window or tab does not display the confirmation dialog.

This feature implements the PIE item D7289 (Close/Exit Quiz errors correction).

The X (Close this Quiz) button appears to a learner attempting a quiz
The X (Close this Quiz) button appears to a learner attempting a quiz

The message shown when a student tries to exit a quiz depends on the time limit and end date settings for the quiz. In every scenario after exiting a quiz, learners are directed back to the Quiz Details page.

The Exit Quiz confirmation dialog for quizzes with no time limit, no end date, or a time limit that expires before the end date
The Exit Quiz confirmation dialog for quizzes with no time limit, no end date, or a time limit that expires before the end date
The Exit Quiz confirmation dialog for quizzes with a time limit and no end date
The Exit Quiz confirmation dialog for quizzes with a time limit and no end date
The Exit Quiz confirmation dialog for quizzes with an end date, no time limit, or an end date that will arrive before the time limit expires
The Exit Quiz confirmation dialog for quizzes with an end date, no time limit, or an end date that will arrive before the time limit expires
The Exit Quiz confirmation dialog for quizzes that have an end date in the past
The Exit Quiz confirmation dialog for quizzes that have an end date in the past

If you are interested in getting more information about these and all the April Continuous Delivery updates, refer to the Brightspace Platform April 2023/20.23.4 Release Notes.

Additionally, refer to the Brightspace Release Notes for Continuous Delivery Releases, for details about current, past, and to preview upcoming continuous delivery updates.

Want more information?

View current, past, and preview upcoming Continuous Delivery release notes
View all the Brightspace training recaps
Instructors Quick Start Tutorial
Brightspace Known Issues
Request a sandbox course
Sign-up for Brightspace training sessions
You can find Brightspace help at D2L's website.
Join the Brightspace Community.
Try these Brightspace How-To documents.
Visit our Brightspace FAQs for additional Brightspace information
or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.

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 geralt from Pixabay

update

D2L (the company that owns Brightspace) uses Continuous Delivery to update our Brightspace system. The Continuous Delivery model gives us regular monthly updates allowing for incremental and easily integrated changes with no downtime required for our Brightspace system.

Our Continuous Delivery update occurs on the 4th Thursday of each month. D2L provides release notes to help users stay up-to-date with the changes.

Here are a few updates in the March 2023/20.23.3 release that were added to our system this month:

1) Awards – Share achievements to LinkedIn profiles

Learners can now share achievements from the Awards tool directly to their LinkedIn profiles.

This feature simplifies showcasing awards in LinkedIn profiles. Awards can now be shared directly from Brightspace without using a third-party tool or creating a link to the award first.

To share an award to their LinkedIn profiles, learners can navigate to the My Awards page, select the desired award, click Share, and then click the new Share to LinkedIn button.

Shared awards appear in the Licenses & Certifications section of learners' LinkedIn profiles.

Options to allow users to share awards
Allow users to share awards
Option to share award to LinkedIn
Share award to LinkedIn

Previously, awards could be shared to LinkedIn by first sharing the award to Badgr or creating a public link to the award (available as of November 2022) and then copying the link to LinkedIn.

This feature implements PIE item D8491 (Share Badges Directly to LinkedIn).

2) Calendar – Prevent duplicate calendar events on copy/import to reduce performance issues

With this release, calendar events are checked to see if they are duplicates when performing a course copy or import. When either action is performed, Brightspace only copies the following:

  • Calendar events that have an association, such as to an activity that is being copied into the course offering.
  • A single unique Calendar event that is manually created.

When a user manually creates multiple calendar items, Brightspace compares the following fields when checking for duplicates:

  • Title
  • Description
  • Start Date (or Start Day for All Day Events)
  • End Date (or End Day for All Day Events)
  • If its an All Day Event
  • Repeat Every (e.g.: every day, every second month)
  • Repeat On (day of week, only valid for Weekly events)
  • Repeat Until Date
  • Repeat Type (None, Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Annually)
  • Event Visibility
  • Location
  • Group associations

This feature only applies when performing a copy into a course offering and when importing course packages. It does not check if existing events are duplicates.

Previously, manually created or imported calendar events were not checked for duplication, creating duplicate calendar items.

3) Media Library – Adapt the player to match available space or video resolution while using ISF Plugin

The ISF player insert is now responsive and adapts to match screen size. When using Insert Stuff in Brightspace Editor to insert a video, the video preview screen is updated to show a responsive player and will now scale to the available maximum width. Height and aspect ratio are still respected. Previously, the player was too small, especially for users with smaller devices. In addition, users had to specify a size to embed the player via ISF.

The layout slider will be removed as the responsive nature of this update makes it redundant. Existing videos that were added to Brightspace Editor before the 20.23.3 release will remain statically sized.

For customers using the sample HTML v3.0 Templates, the Video Lecture page, or who are managing any Learning Creative Services or third-party HTML templates and styles: please be aware that after the 20.23.03 update, videos hosted in the Brightspace Media Library are responsive automatically without having to insert videos into the video wrapper sections. Customers can now insert Brightspace Media Library videos where needed into any template as there is no longer a need to insert into a video wrapper section to make the video responsive. Customers wishing to continue using the video wrapper section with Brightspace Media Library videos can explore how to update their versions of the Sample HTML v3.0 CSS by visiting HTML Template (Version 3.0) - Brightspace.

4) User Management and Settings – Easily change language preferences using the User Menu

A new language selector is available in the user menu to easily change the language setting to the user’s preferred language. Previously, a user had to navigate to Account Settings or use a custom installed widget with a complex workflow. Users can continue to access language and locale within the Account Settings page; this update provides an option that you can more easily access.

Note: Only languages that are enabled by your organization are available for selection.

This feature implements the following PIE items:

  • D8920 (Language toggle feature)
  • D7508 (Preferred Language Selector)
The User Settings menu with the current language highlighted.
The User Settings menu with the current language highlighted.

If you are interested in getting more information about these and all the March Continuous Delivery updates, refer to the Brightspace Platform March 2023/20.23.3 Release Notes.

Additionally, refer to the Brightspace Release Notes for Continuous Delivery Releases, for details about current, past, and to preview upcoming continuous delivery updates.

Want more information?

View current, past, and preview upcoming Continuous Delivery release notes
View all the Brightspace training recaps
Instructors Quick Start Tutorial
Brightspace Known Issues
Request a sandbox course
Sign-up for Brightspace training sessions
You can find Brightspace help at D2L's website.
Join the Brightspace Community.
Try these Brightspace How-To documents.
Visit our Brightspace FAQs for additional Brightspace information
or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.

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 geralt from Pixabay

update

D2L (the company that owns Brightspace) uses Continuous Delivery to update our Brightspace system. The Continuous Delivery model gives us regular monthly updates allowing for incremental and easily integrated changes with no downtime required for our Brightspace system.

Our Continuous Delivery update occurs on the 4th Thursday of each month. D2L provides release notes to help users stay up-to-date with the changes.

Here are a few updates in the February 2023/20.23.2 release that were added to our system this month:

1) Intelligent Agents – Support for copying One-Time Run agents

This feature allows users to copy, export, and import One-Time Run agents and their schedules. This allows users who utilize course shells which are copied to multiple courses to schedule One-Time Run agents to run as needed in all destination courses.

Note: This functionality only applies to agents that have yet to be run. If the agent has been run, no schedule exists to copy.

Previously, agents that were configured with scheduling frequency One-Time Run would copy without a scheduling frequency.

This feature implements the following PIE item:

  • D9467 (Copy One-Time Run agents with their schedules)

2) Media Library – Support added for Bulk Actions

To improve the audio-video content management experience, this release adds the ability to perform bulk actions in Media Library.

Instructors can perform the following bulk actions:

  • Delete files
  • Restore files in Media Library > Recycle Bin
Bulk Delete action in the Media Library
The bulk Delete action in Media Library.

Previously, instructors could only perform these tasks individually.

3) Quizzes – Add quiz availability dates to your Calendar

Instructors can now add quiz availability dates to the Calendar tool in the Availability Dates & Conditions menu in the new quiz creation experience. Instructors can select the Add availability dates to Calendar checkbox when creating a quiz to add quiz availability dates to their Calendar. This feature provides instructors with more control over where Start Dates and End Dates appear to learners. Previously, only the Due Date was automatically added in the new quiz creation experience; and control over adding availability dates was limited to the Manage Dates tool. Instructors previously had to revert back to the legacy quiz creation experience to add quiz availability dates to their Calendar.

The following is a reminder of how Calendar events are generated when using either the legacy or new quiz creation experience:

  • If the Start Date and End Date are set, an End Date event is created.
  • If the Start Date is set, a Start Date event is created.
  • If the End Date is set, an End Date event is created.
Availability Dates & Conditions menu displaying the Add availability dates to Calendar checkbox.
The Availability Dates & Conditions menu displaying the Add availability dates to Calendar checkbox.

4) Quizzes – Additional paging options

Two new paging options are available in the Timing & Display menu in the new quiz creation experience. Instructors can choose to display 5 questions per page or 10 questions per page. The change optimizes instructors' options when building quizzes with page breaks.

This feature partially implements PIE item D9327: Manually add page breaks in the New Quiz design.

The new paging options in the Timing & Display menu in the new quiz creation experience.
The new paging options in the Timing & Display menu in the new quiz creation experience.

5) Rubrics – Keep track of changes to assessed rubrics with enhanced visual cues

To maintain the integrity of assessments, any rubric that has been used to assess a grade item is locked. However, there may be incidences where it is necessary to add or update the text on a rubric without changing any points, or without adding or deleting any criteria or criteria levels. The text on the rubric, including criteria names and descriptions, level names, and default feedback, can continue to be updated after the rubric has been locked. To increase the value of the Rubrics – Clarify grading criteria by editing text fields in assessed rubrics | New feature released in November 2022, you can now use enhanced visual cues to keep track of the changes you have made.

Note: It is not possible to edit the name of the rubric using this feature.

When an instructor makes a change to a previously assessed rubric, it is updated with a blue highlight and the text Edited in the lower right corner. When the user saves and closes the rubric, the edit indications no longer appear.

Note: It is only possible to make changes to assessed rubrics that are created in the current course or are copied from another course. Shared rubrics remain locked.

This feature addresses the following accessibility criteria:

  • WCAG 2.1 Success Criterion 1.3.3 Sensory Characteristics
  • WCAG 2.1 Success Criterion 1.4.1 Use of Color
The Edit Rubric window with changes highlighted and indicated with the word Edited.
The Edit Rubric window with changes highlighted and indicated with the word Edited.

If you are interested in getting more information about these and all the February Continuous Delivery updates, refer to the Brightspace Platform February 2023/20.23.2 Release Notes.

Additionally, refer to the Brightspace Release Notes for Continuous Delivery Releases, for details about current, past, and to preview upcoming continuous delivery updates.

Want more information?

View current, past, and preview upcoming Continuous Delivery release notes
View all the Brightspace training recaps
Instructors Quick Start Tutorial
Brightspace Known Issues
Request a sandbox course
Sign-up for Brightspace training sessions
You can find Brightspace help at D2L's website.
Join the Brightspace Community.
Try these Brightspace How-To documents.
Visit our Brightspace FAQs for additional Brightspace information
or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.

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 geralt from Pixabay

update

D2L (the company that owns Brightspace) uses Continuous Delivery to update our Brightspace system. The Continuous Delivery model gives us regular monthly updates allowing for incremental and easily integrated changes with no downtime required for our Brightspace system.

Our Continuous Delivery update occurs on the 4th Thursday of each month. D2L provides release notes to help users stay up-to-date with the changes.

Here are a few updates in the January 2023/20.23.1 release that were added to our system this month:

1) Brightspace – Supported Browsers

This release updates the list of retro or legacy browsers (specific older versions of supported browsers). If you are using a browser below the latest updates, the "Your browser is looking a little retro" warning message appears. The browsers include:

  • Chrome 107+ (released October 2022)
  • Android Chrome 107+ (released October 2022)
  • macOS Safari 16+ (released September 2022)
  • iOS Safari 16+ (released September 2022)
  • Firefox 106+ (released October 2022)

Previously this message would only show for browsers under Chrome/Edge 100, Safari 15, and Firefox 99. There are no changes to legacy browser requirements that remain at versions below Chrome/Edge 74, Safari 13, and Firefox 67.

2) Brightspace Editor – Equations render consistently for all users

To improve consistency in Brightspace Editor, this release updates the Editor so that it renders all equations during editing or creation in the same MathJax format as when published. This helps with correct formatting and spacing of equations, which makes it easier to review work prior to publishing.

Previously there were layout and styling differences during creation and editing; the former used WIRIS format rendering and the latter MathJax.

Note: There are no changes to the Equation Editor used to create an equation to insert into the editor.

The Equation Editor showing the rendering of an equation during creation after the January 2023/20.23.1 Release.
The Equation Editor showing the rendering of an equation during creation after the January 2023/20.23.1 Release.
The Equation Editor showing the rendering of an equation during creation prior to the January 2023/20.23.1 Release.
The Equation Editor showing the rendering of an equation during creation prior to the January 2023/20.23.1 Release.

3) Pulse - View topic descriptions

Building upon the Brightspace Pulse – Access links and images in module descriptions when you’re on-the-go feature originally released in October 2022/20.22.10. This feature improves the experience of learners using Pulse to review course topics by making full HTML topic descriptions available.

Previously, learners could access Content in Pulse, but could not see information included in topic descriptions that were visible in the Brightspace web application.

The View Description option for a topic in Pulse.
The View Description option for a topic in Pulse.

4) Release Conditions – Additional Replies Only release condition for Discussions

This release alters the existing release conditions for Discussions by adding a new Replies Only option to the Posts authored in topic and No post authored in topic condition types drop-down menus. This helps instructors release material, or not release material, based solely on replies.

Previously the only options were New Threads Only and Threads and Replies.

The Create a Release Condition dialog with the new Replies Only option selected from the Type drop-down menu.
The Create a Release Condition dialog with the new Replies Only option selected from the Type drop-down menu.

5) Rubrics – Discard incomplete evaluations

The Rubric evaluation workflow provides an autosave feature to streamline the evaluation process; however, if an instructor exited the partial evaluation, the automatically saved parts of the assessment were committed to the rubric and visible to the learner. To provide a better experience in Consistent Evaluation (inline and pop-out views), the instructor has the option to Publish the current evaluation, or to Save as Draft. If the instructor chooses to Save as Draft, the working copy of an evaluation is saved to a temporary file until the instructor clicks Publish, and then commits the assessment to the Rubric. If an instructor clicks the new Cancel button, the working copy is deleted. If an instructor edits a previously published evaluation and then decides to cancel before updating, all the changes in the evaluation, including the rubric evaluation changes, are discarded.

Note: Portfolio and Grade book pop out windows and the Rubric Create and Edit windows currently only support the auto-save functionality.

The Discard button on an in-process evaluation. The Saving and Saved indicators no longer appear at the top of the evaluation window.
The Discard button on an in-process evaluation. The Saving and Saved indicators no longer appear at the top of the evaluation window.

6) Rubrics – Statistics icon moved to allow more space to grade tasks

The Rubrics Statistics icon is available when the rubric tile is collapsed and expanded. When the rubric tile is collapsed, the icon appears at the bottom of the rubric tile. When the rubric is expanded, the icon now appears inside the grading task. This change provides expanded horizontal space for evaluators to complete the grading tasks.

Previously, when the icon appeared outside the expanded rubric tile, the space available to grade tasks was limited by the space used by the icon.

This change provides parity between the legacy evaluation experience and the new Consistent Evaluation experience.

Image showing how the Rubrics Statistics icon appeared before update
Previously, the Rubrics Statistics icon appeared outside the collapsed Rubrics tile.
Image showing how statistics icon appears at the bottom of the collapsed Rubrics tile
Now, the Rubrics Statistic icon appears at the bottom of the collapsed Rubrics tile.
Image shows how statistics icon appears inside the expanded Rubrics tile
The Rubrics Statistics icon also appears inside the expanded Rubrics tile.

If you are interested in getting more information about these and all the January Continuous Delivery updates, refer to the Brightspace Platform January 2023/20.23.1 Release Notes.

Additionally, refer to the Brightspace Release Notes for Continuous Delivery Releases, for details about current, past, and to preview upcoming continuous delivery updates.

Want more information?

View current, past, and preview upcoming Continuous Delivery release notes
View all the Brightspace training recaps
Instructors Quick Start Tutorial
Brightspace Known Issues
Request a sandbox course
Sign-up for Brightspace training sessions
You can find Brightspace help at D2L's website.
Join the Brightspace Community.
Try these Brightspace How-To documents.
Visit our Brightspace FAQs for additional Brightspace information
or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.

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 geralt from Pixabay

update

D2L (the company that owns Brightspace) uses Continuous Delivery to update our Brightspace system. The Continuous Delivery model gives us regular monthly updates allowing for incremental and easily integrated changes with no downtime required for our Brightspace system.

Our Continuous Delivery update occurs on the 4th Thursday of each month. D2L provides release notes to help users stay up-to-date with the changes.

Here are a few updates in the December 2022/20.22.12 release that were added to our system this month:

1) Assignments – Consolidate availability dates

This feature updates the assignment availability dates to be consistent with the new availability date model, which was previously added to Discussions. Instructors can now include availability dates in the Calendar and have greater control over the behavior of availability dates for their learners. As a result, instructors can:

  • Stop late submissions.
  • Let learners view assignment information and submissions after it ends.
  • Schedule the visibility of an assignment.
  • Allow learners to view an assignment while preventing them from attempting it.
  • Post the start and end of an assignment to the Calendar.

The Assignment list page for both instructors and learners now contain all activity dates and date settings, including:

  • Access restricted
  • Submission restricted
  • Hidden
The Availability Date Defaults page, the Assignment page with activity dates and date settings.
The Availability Date Defaults page, the Assignment page with activity dates and date settings

Previously, most Brightspace tools restricted access to assignments outside of availability dates with a manually managed visibility toggle (except the New Content Experiences, which will continue to hide both access restricted and hidden assignments).

Instructors can choose the default settings for availability dates for any new assignment. The settings are available on the Availability Date Defaults page, which can be found under Course Admin.

The Availability Dates Defaults page displaying the different options for Start and End Dates in Assignments and Discussions.
The Availability Dates Defaults page displaying the different options for Start and End Dates in Assignments and Discussions.

Important: Making a change on this page will not affect the availability dates of any previously-created assignment or discussion, but it will affect the date properties of special access dates.

NOTE: For more details about changes to Assignments, refer to: New Assignments Date Feature - Updated Date Availability, Visibility, and Access Options.

This feature implements the following PIE items: D6797, D8173, D8004 (partial), D7195, D4958, D7273, D4900, D4217, D3670, D3153, D2536, D1746, D1672 (partial), D1396, D3398.

2) Quicklinks – Easily find audio-video content with improved Quicklink filters

To help users more easily find Media Library content, users can now use improved Brightspace Editor Insert Quicklink filters to better locate content available in Media Library. These new filters include:

  • Ownership: Filter by the owner of the audio-video (AV) content (administrator only).
  • Note: The owner of AV content is the person who initially uploaded or added the content.

  • Content Type: Filter by either audio or video content type.
  • Source: Filter by where content was added from. Multiple filters can be selected:
    • Content: Filter by AV content uploaded from the Content tool and Lessons.
    • Media Library: Filter by AV content uploaded or created in Media Library.
    • Audio or Video Note: Filter by content created using Audio and Video Note.
    • Imported: Filter by content added from course imports.
    • Other: Filter by content added prior to the addition of source tracking.
  • Date Modified: Filter by date modified. This changes to Date Deleted on the Recycle Bin screen.
  • Date Created

Previously, the Insert Quicklink feature included in Brightspace Editor did not provide the ability to filter Medial Library content.

The new filter options included with the Insert Quicklink feature of Brightspace Editor.
The new filter options included with the Insert Quicklink feature of Brightspace Editor

3) Intelligent Agents – Improved consistency with the removal of legacy scheduling options

Building on the Intelligent Agents – Create Agent page facilitates more flexible scheduling and frequency options | Updated feature released in April 2022 / Version 20.22.4, this feature cleans up the Intelligent Agent scheduling interface by removing the unused Scheduled Agents Run Time area from the Intelligent Agents Settings page. This also entails the removal of the unused d2l.Tools.IntelligentAgents.PreferredRunHour configuration variable.

Clients with a course export package containing Intelligent Agents created prior to the 20.22.4 release, those agents are now imported without a schedule. Previously, these agents' schedules were supported based on the PreferredRunHour configuration.

If you are interested in getting more information about these and all the December Continuous Delivery updates, refer to the Brightspace Platform December 2022/20.22.12 Release Notes.

Additionally, refer to the Brightspace Release Notes for Continuous Delivery Releases, for details about current, past, and to preview upcoming continuous delivery updates.

Want more information?

View current, past, and preview upcoming Continuous Delivery release notes
View all the Brightspace training recaps
Instructors Quick Start Tutorial
Brightspace Known Issues
Request a sandbox course
Sign-up for Brightspace training sessions
You can find Brightspace help at D2L's website.
Join the Brightspace Community.
Try these Brightspace How-To documents.
Visit our Brightspace FAQs for additional Brightspace information
or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.

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 geralt from Pixabay