Tag: updates

1) Intelligent Agents – Create Agent page facilitates more flexible scheduling and frequency options

Building on the Intelligent Agents – Agent List page changes | Updated feature released in February 2022/20.22.2, this feature changes the Intelligent Agents Create Agent page to facilitate additional scheduling options and frequency options to allow for improved flexibility.

The changes to the Create Agent page include:

• A modernized user interface. This is a visual upgrade and does not impact functionality.
• Scheduling options have been moved to the top of the page.
• The ability to expand/collapse each section on the agent creation page (Scheduling, Criteria, Actions) to improve usability.
• 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 Subject line of the agents' emails now supports up to 128 characters. This brings it inline with the Email tool. Previously, the character limit was 100 characters.

This feature implements PIE items D7457 (increase Intelligent Agent email character limit to 128); D5830 (Allow easier 'once off' intelligent agent scheduling); D5208 (Add "Time' Option to Restriction to Schedule of Intelligent Agent); and D7726 (Ability to Run Intelligent Agents Multiple Times Per Day).

2) Group/Section Management – Asynchronous Group Creation

This feature moves group creation and enrollment to background task, minimizing risk of timeouts when creating large numbers of groups requiring enrollments.

When instructors create and save a new group category, the Groups tool displays the category and prompts instructors that their group or groups are being created in the background; further, it indicates that the instructor will be notified once the groups are created. The instructor who created the group receives a subscription alert in the minibar that indicates that the groups for their courses have been created.

While this is in process, the Brightspace UI indicates that "Group creation is in progress". While processing, users are unable to make changes to groups or enrollments.

To facilitate these changes, and the potential for allowing clients to make much larger numbers of groups in a category, this feature introduces pagination to the Groups tool, that limits each page to a maximum of 200 groups. In addition, the header row for the category has been moved to above the grid and the Delete and Email options are added to the Category dropdown menu.

1) Announcements — Create new announcements quickly with new Copy option

This feature adds a new Copy option in the context menu of an announcement in both the Announcements tool and the Announcements widget. The Copy option is applicable to both course level and global announcements. This only appears when you are in the org unit where the announcement was created.

Users click Copy, which opens a new edit announcement page in draft mode with the details of the original announcement copied over. The following details are copied:

• Headline, with "Copy of " appended to the front
• Content
• Display Author checkbox setting
• Show Start Date setting
• Attachments
• Release Conditions

Start dates and/or end dates are not copied over. No notifications are triggered by this action until the edit page is saved.

Previously, users had to manually select the content of an announcement and paste it into announcement creation.

This feature implements PIE item D4608 – Ability to Copy Announcements.

2) Content — Media Library added to Classic Content Experience

This feature adds the Media Library to the Classic Content Experience, which is accessible by navigating to Existing Activities > Media Library.

For more information about the Media Library functionality, refer to Evolving The Audio-Video Experience in Brightspace Community.

3) Content - Workflow improvements to creating media topics

When creating a new video or audio topic in Content, instructors no longer must wait for the uploaded media file to finish processing to continue creating the topic. While the media file remains unavailable during processing, instructors can navigate away from the upload page to work on other content creation tasks. If another user attempts to access the media file in the topic before processing is complete, a message prompts them to wait for the media file to become available. When processing is complete (or the uploaded media file is invalid or corrupted), a notification displays from Update alerts on the navbar, with a link to the organization home page. Previously, instructors had to wait for a media file to complete processing before they could continue creating the topic. Also, a lack of status information about the media file processing caused some instructors to upload media files multiple times, believing that the processing had completed or failed.

1) Content – Print and Download in fullscreen

The Print and Download buttons are now available when viewing a topic in fullscreen, using the classic Content experience.

Previously, the options to print and download a topic only appeared on the main Content view, and when users opened a topic in fullscreen by clicking View content in new window, those options were not available.

2) Intelligent Agents – Agent List page changes

This feature adds the following new functionality to the Agent List page, where users manage the Intelligent Agents they have created:

• The ability to create, assign, and manage categories; and
• A new Bulk Edit for some agent details: title, category, and active/inactive state.

This feature also updates the icons denoting the active/inactive state of each agent.

This feature implements PIE Item D7196.

This feature addresses the following accessibility criteria:

• WCAG 2.1 Success criterion 1.3.6 Identify Purpose

1) Brightspace Learning Environment – Improved editing features in Audio-Video Editor

This feature introduces new capabilities to the Audio-Video editor for files uploaded to the Content Service. Users can now edit video timelines, create chapters, and add captions to their videos. D2L recommends using the desktop experience when editing audio-video files.

Video files uploaded as topics in Classic Content (through the Upload/Create > Video or Audio workflow) can be edited from course content. Video Notes can be edited with the new Audio-Video Editor as well.

Editing timelines allows users to skip unwanted sections of a video recording.

Chapter titles can be used to create a Table of Contents for videos to allow quick navigation to specific sections.

Captions can be uploaded from a .vtt or .srt file or automatically generated to make videos accessible to all users.

NOTE: The editor features are available for all Video Notes AND for newly uploaded audio-video files. The editor features DO NOT apply to files that were uploaded prior to this feature being introduced. Audio/Video files that were uploaded prior to our January 2022 Continuous Delivery Updates and are located in Manage Files, will not see the Advanced Edit workflow. Migrating these videos is currently a manual process involving downloading and re-uploading your media files through the Upload/Create > Video or Audio workflow in Content.

This feature addresses the following accessibility criteria:

• WCAG 2.1 Success criterion WCAG 1.2.2 Captions (Prerecorded)

For additional information, including screenshots, of the updated Audio-Video player and editor visit the Evolving the Audio-Video Experience blog post in the Brightspace Community.

2) Brightspace Learning Environment – Improved viewing features in Audio-Video player

To improve the functionality of the Audio-Video player in Brightspace Learning Environment, multi-bitrate streaming, and search functionality are now available.

Multi-bitrate streaming allows high-definition videos to be played at standard definition to reduce the bandwidth necessary for users to watch videos.

The new search functionality allows users to locate key words in video captions and quickly navigate to those sections.

This feature addresses the following accessibility criteria:

• WCAG 2.1 Success criterion WCAG 1.2.2 Captions (Prerecorded)

For additional information, including screenshots, of the updated Audio-Video player and editor visit the Evolving the Audio-Video Experience blog post in the Brightspace Community.

3) Brightspace Learning Environment – Supported browsers

With this release, Brightspace Learning Environment's browser version check now displays warnings for browsers earlier than the following versions:

• Chrome 93 (released in August 2021)
• Safari 13 (released in September 2019)
• Firefox 91 (released in August 2021)
• Edge 93 (released in August 2021)

You can access Brightspace Learning Environment with older versions of the supported browsers; however, D2L does not test Brightspace Learning Environment against these older versions. This means you may encounter unexpected user interface behavior and appearance or broken and unsupported functionality. In most cases, D2L does not fix software defects experienced in unsupported browser versions. For an optimal experience that offers better performance, accessibility, and security, D2L strongly recommends that all users access Brightspace Learning Environment with the latest version of a supported browser.

4) Brightspace Pulse – Subscription notifications for Discussions

With this release, subscription notifications in Brightspace Pulse are now consistent with subscription notifications in Brightspace Learning Environment. From the Notifications > Subscriptions tab in Brightspace Pulse, learners now receive all replies to discussions they are subscribed to and @mentions in discussion threads. Previously, the subscription notifications that learners received in Brightspace Pulse were inconsistent with the subscription notifications that they received in Brightspace Learning Environment.

5) Calendar – Improvements to Date and Time Selection Web Components

Building upon the Calendar – Improvements To Date And Time Selection Web Components | Updated feature released in Brightspace Platform March 2021/20.21.3 Release Notes, this release updates the date and time picker in Brightspace Learning Environment to include the following usability changes:

• The Set to Today button is renamed to Today. The Today button continues to set the date and the time based on the context. For example, choosing Today for an End Date sets the current date and sets the time to 11:59 PM.
• Added a Now button that sets the current date and time. The Today and Now buttons only appear when a date and time are required. When only a date is required, only the Today button appears and functions the same as the Now button.
• The Today, Now, and Clear buttons are center-aligned in the date and time picker.

This feature addresses the following accessibility criteria:

• WCAG 2.1 Success criterion 2.1.1 Keyboard

6) Content Service – Uploaded media files use Content Service

To improve the functionality of audio-video files in Brightspace this feature ensures most audio-video files are handled by the Content Service. The new capabilities are documented in the Brightspace Learning Environment – Improved viewing features in Audio-Video player | New, and the Brightspace Learning Environment – Improved editing features in Audio-Video Editor | New features from this release. Newly uploaded audio-video files can now take advantage of all the features of the Content Service, and similar behavior is experienced in all locations where media files can be uploaded or edited. Audio-video files that were uploaded prior to this release do not have access to the features available to files hosted by the Content Service. All audio-video files uploaded to Content service are now automatically converted to mp4 files (or mp3 for audio) to ensure they are playable on all supported devices.

Note: Videos uploaded as Assignment submissions or uploaded to a course’s Manage Files area continue to use the legacy method for handling files.

7) Discussions – Scoring Rubric drop-down for evaluations

To make the Discussion evaluation consistent with the Assignments evaluation, this feature adds the Grading Rubric drop-down to the sidebar menu. This allows the instructor to choose a grading rubric when evaluating a discussion.

If a normal topic assessment with Points/Custom Points-based rubric is selected, this rubric is the one whose score transfers to the Overall Grade field. The score transfer does not occur if Allow assessment of individual posts or a Percentage rubric is selected.

1) Assignments – New assignment creation experience universally enabled

This feature sets the new assignment creation experience to ON by default. This will mean that the classic assignment experience will no longer be available. Details of the New assignment creation experience can be found at this link; the differences between classic to new assignment creation experiences can be found at this link.

2) Brightspace Editor – Hotkey shortcut to Brightspace Editor source editor

This feature adds a new hotkey shortcut in the Brightspace Editor to access the source editor. Previously, the source editor was unavailable by a hotkey shortcut.

The hotkey shortcut is:

• Windows: Ctrl+Shift+E
• Mac: Command+Shift+E

This feature addresses the following accessibility criteria:

• WCAG 2.1 Success criterion 2.1.4 Character Key Shortcuts

3) Brightspace Learning Environment – Alerts in the minibar persist for 90 days

With this release, when you click on the Message alerts, Subscription alerts, or Update alerts icons in the minibar, you can retrieve alerts from the last 90 days. Previously, all alerts disappeared after 7 days.

The way these alerts display to users has not changed: when you click one of the icons, the 5 most recent alerts appear in the dropdown. When you click Load More, 5 more alerts appear.

4) Content – Updated count and overdue badges

In the Classic Content tool for instructors and learners, the count and overdue badges in the Table of Contents now reflect an updated appearance that is consistent with the New Content Experience and other Brightspace tools. The new count badge is circular (for single digits) or a capsule (for double-digits), with a grey background, and with higher contrast text. In addition, the overdue badge is now circular (for single digits) or a capsule (for double-digits). Previously, the count badge was rectangular, with a white background, and grey text/outline. The overdue badge was rectangular and red.

This feature addresses the following accessibility criteria:

• WCAG 2.1 Success Criterion 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum)

5) Course Import/Export – Import and export intelligent agents

With this release, administrators and instructors can now include intelligent agents when importing or exporting courses. This allows administrators and instructors to share the dynamic notification interactions in imported/exported courses with other Brightspace instances. Previously, intelligent agents were not included when importing or exporting courses.

6) Email – Address Book changes to To/Cc/Bcc options

This feature changes the Email tool's workflow when selecting an email recipient in the To, CC, and/or Bcc fields. Each of these fields in the Compose window are now links that, when clicked, launch an Address Book dialog to select recipients from. Once a user or users are selected, they are added to the respective field.

Each of the three fields (To, CC, and Bcc) have their own separate links.

This feature also affects the Intelligent Agents tool; when users create a new Intelligent Agent, they can select the Send an Email option. Users then click the Address Book button next to each To, CC, and/or Bcc fields to choose the recipient(s). In effect, the changes made to email above are also reflected in the Intelligent Agents tool.

Under the previous workflow, users would have to select Address Book, select a recipient or recipients from the list by clicking the checkbox, and then selecting the Add Recipients button. The existing Address Book button remains unchanged; users can continue to use the old workflow.

7) Quizzes – Improved language terms

To offer more intuitive and consistent terminology to instructors and learners when using Quizzes, many interface labels and dialogs now use more descriptive language. For example, Automatic Grade is now Automatically Publish Evaluation. Previously, many interface labels and dialogs used short terms that did not provide clear meaning for some users.

For a detailed list of all language term updates in Quizzes, see the Quiz Language Updates blog post.

1) Brightspace Editor – Additional support for drag/drop and copy/paste images

Expanding further on the Brightspace Editor – Drag/drop and copy/paste images | Updated feature released in October 2021 / 20.21.10 and Brightspace Editor – Improvements | Updated feature released in May 2021 / 20.21.5, additional tools and editors now support the drag/drop and copy/paste functionality, including:

• Quizzes > Feedback
• Grades > Feedback
• Grades > Comments
• Discussions > Feedback

This functionality is now available in user-specific areas that may contain images with learner-sensitive information. As a result, these images are stored in the database rather than the Manage Files area of a course offering. In addition, the Course Copy function does not include these images.

2) Content – PDF inline viewer menu improvements

This feature updates the PDF Inline viewer used when showing all converted documents (e.g. Word documents) as PDFs within Brightspace Classic Content. As a result the PDF inline viewer menu has moved to the top of the PDF document, along with PDF navigation and actions and an overall refreshed button design.

3) Email – Increased Limits for To and CC Fields

This feature increases the number of email addresses that can be added to the To and CC fields in a single email to 200. This is a result of increased limits on the size of headers in Brightspace SMTP servers.

Previously, the limit was 50 email addresses.

4) Manage Files – Users receive warning message when uploading a file blocked due to security

This feature provides the user with a warning message if they attempt to upload a file with an extension that is either not allowed by the Assignment or is on the security restricted list. This message appears as "This file extension is not allowed." for Assignments; and as "This file extension is not allowed for security reasons. Please see our Restricted File Extensions article in the D2L Community for more detailed information." for security restricted file extensions.

The security restricted file extensions list can be found here.

1) Brightspace Editor – Drag/drop and copy/paste images

This feature complements the Brightspace Editor functionality as released in the Brightspace Editor – Improvements | Updated feature released in May 2021 / 20.21.5.

The drag/drop and copy/paste functionality of images is now available in the following areas that contain no user-specific data.

• Content Module/Topic Descriptions
• Quiz/Survey/Self-Assessment - Description, Header. Footer
• Grades - Description
• Content Course Overview descriptions
• Discussion Forum/Topic descriptions

Note: Similar to current functionality, image files added to these areas are saved in the root of the Manage Files area of the organization unit the user is currently in.

2) Brightspace Editor – Email notifications for users tagged in discussion posts and threads

This feature updates the Brightspace Editor – Additional functionality | Updated feature released in June 2021 / 20.21.6 and now adds the ability for users tagged in discussion posts and threads to receive email notifications.

3) Brightspace Pulse – Operating system support

The latest version of Brightspace Pulse is supported on devices with iOS® 12+ or AndroidTM 6.0+ (2015 release). Older versions of Brightspace Pulse will continue to work on devices with iOS 11 or Android 5.0, but will not receive any app updates. For an optimal experience, D2L recommends installing the latest version of Brightspace Pulse on devices with iOS 12+ or Android 6.0+.

4) Content - Add Print Button to PDF file types

This feature adds the option to print PDF file types to Classic Content.

The Print button is visible when viewing a PDF topic or the Course Overview as a PDF. This button will also only appear for users with Compile and Print Content permission.

No option to print PDFs was previously available.

1) Assignments – Create select box grade items in the New Assignment Creation Experience

This feature builds on the Add categories capability in the Assignment Creation Experience | New feature released in July 2021/20.21.7.

With this release, the new assignment creation experience supports creating new select box grade items. Previously, only numeric grade items could be created from the new assignment creation experience.

In addition, this feature provides support for choosing a grade scheme when creating numeric or select box grade items. Grade categories now progressively display when creating a grade item. Previously, grade categories always displayed when available.

Also, to make interface text more clear, the following labels have been renamed in the new assignment creation experience:

• Score out of is now Grade out of
• In Grades is now In Gradebook
• Choose in Grades is now Edit or Link to Existing
• Remove from Grades is now Not in Gradebook

When creating a new assignment as an instructor, under Grade Out Of, click Ungraded.

Click In Gradebook, and then select Edit or Link to Existing.

From the Edit or Link to Existing dialog, the following options may display under Create a new grade item:

• If the Grades tool has available grade categories, the Choose Grade Category option displays. Clicking this button displays available grade categories for association.
• If the Grades tool has multiple grades schemes, the Change Grade Type & Scheme option displays. Clicking this button displays available grade types and schemes for association.

Click OK, and then Save.

2) Assignments - Restricting file extensions for submissions

Instructors can now specify the extensions of files that learners can upload as assignment submissions. When an instructor is creating a file submission assignment, there is a drop down in the Submission and Completion section of the New Assignment Creation Experience. In this drop-down list, instructors can choose the restrictions they want. Choices include:

• Annotatable files, which include all file types supported by the Annotation tool in Assignments.
• .PDF only
• Files that can be previewed without any conversion, such as .HTM, .HTML, .MHT, .MHTML, and .BMP
• Images and Videos
• Custom File Types

Note:

• When a .GIF file is converted to PDF, only the first frame of the .GIF displays.
• If an instructor choses Custom File Extensions, they can then enter file extensions that are allowed for file submissions. When this restriction is set, learners are presented with a list of acceptable file extensions for their assignments. When a learner attempts to upload a file submission for an assignment of an file extension type that the instructor has restricted, an error message appears.

3) Brightspace Learning Environment - Set and view user pronouns

Users now have the option to indicate their preferred pronouns in their user profiles. Brightspace user profiles are visible to anyone who shares a course with a particular user, including students, instructors, administrators, etc.

NOTE: You can find the option to indicate your preferred pronouns in your Account Settings.

4) Discussions - New Discussion Evaluation Experience

This feature is a continuation of the Discussions - Consistent evaluation experience feature introduced in August 2021/20.21.8.

With this setting, the new evaluation experience for Discussions appears first for all users, but they have the ability to opt-out until the December 2021/20.21.12 release, at which time the new evaluation experience for Discussions will become the only option available.

For more detail about the improvements in this new experience, visit the Welcome to Our New Discussion Evaluation Experience post on Brightspace Community.

5) Import / Export / Copy Components – Export Release Conditions in course packages

Now when you export Brightspace Learning Environment course packages, you can export Release Conditions and any associations. As a result, you no longer need to re-create these Release Conditions when you import the course package.

6) Rubrics - Additional information on Grade tiles

When a rubric is collapsed, instructors can now see if the rubric is complete. If the rubric is complete, the collapsed rubric shows the overall level of the rubric, and if the rubric is not complete, the number of unscored criteria appears on the tile.

Previously, it was only possible to see the overall score of the rubric when the rubric was expanded.

7) Rubrics – Brightspace Editor Additional Functionality

This feature updates the Brightspace Editor – Additional Functionality | Updated released in June 2021/20.21.6 and updated in Brightspace Editor – Available in ePortfolio External Comments and Quiz Builder | Updated released in July 2021/20.21.7. This update includes the following:

• The Brightspace Editor toolbar now appears in the following locations:
  • Rubrics Creation and Edit experiences in the Description field
  • Rubrics Creation and Edit experiences in the Feedback field
  • Evaluation mode in the Feedback field.
• The Insert Stuff and Insert Quicklink buttons now appear in the different views with additional formatting options.

8) Rubrics - Copy and delete criteria groups

In response to client feedback about the New Assignment Evaluation Experience, it is now possible to copy or delete a criteria group on a rubric. The delete option is only available if there is more than one criteria group.

Note: When a rubric with attached assessment items has submissions evaluated against it, the rubric is locked and can no longer be edited or deleted.

After you click Copy Criteria Group, a new criteria group appears below the original criteria group.

If you are using keyboard-only navigation, these options are available in the tab order after the criteria group name. Once the criteria group is copied using keyboard navigation, the keyboard focus moves to the new group's name.

9) Discussions – Improvements to visibility and posting restrictions

There is a new workflow that makes it easier for instructors to set visibility and posting restrictions for discussion forums and topics. More specifically, this change simplifies date management for discussion activities, offering a more consistent, simplified, and consolidated experience for instructors.

The following changes are visible to instructors when creating or editing discussion forums and topics:

Note: These changes also affect the Classic Content and Manage Dates tools.

• From the Restrictions tab, the previous Locking Options are now consolidated with the Availability Start Date and End Date options and display as the following new options:
  • Visible with access restricted before/after start/end. The topic/forum is visible to learners before/after the start/end date, but they cannot access it. Previously, Classic Content was the only tool to make discussions visible without access.
  • Visible with submission restricted before/after start/end. The topic/forum is visible to learners before/after the start/end date and they can access it, but they cannot post new threads or replies. This effectively makes a discussion read-only. Previously, this was accomplished with the lock option or unlock dates.
  • Hidden before/after start/end. The topic/forum is hidden from learners until the start/end date. This is a new feature. Calendar events for Availability Starts and Availability Ends are hidden until the start/end date. Notifications are also not sent until the start/end date. Previously, the hidden status of a discussion topic was decided by the tool displaying the topic.
• From the Restrictions tab, the Display in Calendar option is now consolidated with the Availability Start Date and End Date options, which adds the start date and end dates to the calendar. Previously, the tool decided which calendar event should be added to the calendar. With this change, calendar events for availability dates may change and additional events for Availability Start Dates may be added.
• Calendar events for unlocked dates are now hidden from learners.
• Where Discussions and User Progress may have previously hidden a topic or forum when outside of availability dates, those tools now may show them as visible, but inaccessible.
• From Discussion Settings, instructors can now set the default visibility and access behavior for new discussion forums and topics. The defaults can be set at an organization level.

1) Activity Feed – Date picker change

This feature updates the date picker component in Activity Feed. The new date picker has a more streamlined design and requires slight workflow changes: to clear a date/time, use the Clear option and to set the calendar to the current day, use the Set to Today option.

Note: The Date field in the Post Later dialog box is a mandatory field. There remains to be no option to clear this field. You must set this date to a future date or click Cancel to exit this dialog box.

2) Assignments - Icons in attachments toolbar

This release updates the attachments toolbar which appears in the evaluation panel on the right side of the new Assignment Evaluation Experience.

Users can now add attachments to their feedback from QuickLinks, web links, Google Drive, and OneDrive using the new icons in the toolbar. Previously, users could only add attachments by uploading a file from their computer, recording an audio note, or recording a video note.

This change aligns the attachments toolbar in the new Assignment Evaluation Experience with the attachments toolbar in the new Create and Edit Assignment Experience.

3) Brightspace Editor – Available as the default editor

This feature updates the Brightspace Editor – Available in ePortfolio External Comments and Quiz Builder | Updated feature released in July 2021/20.21.7.

This release sets the new Brightspace Editor as the default editor across Brightspace Learning Environment.

As mentioned in the Brightspace Editor – Replaces The HTML Editor | New release note in April 2021, the Brightspace Editor does not have a built in spell checker. Your web browser’s built-in spell check functionality is available in the new Brightspace Editor and D2L recommends using it. However, the d2l.Tools.Quizzing.ShowSpellCheckInAttempts org unit configuration variable is still respected and marks text in Quizzes to be ignored by the browser spell checker. It can be turned off for all quizzes at the org unit level.

The inline limited version of Brightspace Editor is now available in Activity Feed as the default editor.

Brightspace Editor HTML options in Activity Feed include: Bold, Italic, Underline, Strike-through, Superscript, Subscript, Font Color, Bulleted Lists, Numbered Lists, Increase/Decrease Indentation, Insert Stuff, Insert Quicklink, and Emoji. Insert Stuff now includes various capabilities, including Video Note functionality.

The Account Settings > HTML Editor Settings option is no longer available as it is not applicable with the new Brightspace Editor. This setting was previously used to make the HTML Editor more accessible to screen readers by removing the RichText presentation layer. Improved accessibility workflows in the new Brightspace Editor make this setting redundant.

Additionally, the Brightspace Editor now remembers the open or closed state of the More Actions button, per user, in order to reduce clicks for users that frequently use options in the expanded editor.

The Brightspace Editor now uses pixels (px) in the font size menu in order to match the Content Settings menu for an org unit’s default font size.

4) Brightspace Pulse – Comment on Activity Feed posts

To encourage class engagement, learners can now comment on Activity Feed posts in Brightspace Pulse. Previously, learners could only read Activity Feed posts and comments in Brightspace Pulse.

In Brightspace Pulse, tap the Courses tab, and then tap a course with Activity Feed enabled.

From the Activity Feed tab, tap the post you want to comment on, and then tap Add Comment. A browser opens, displaying the Activity Feed for the course in Brightspace Learning Environment.

Tap the post you want to comment on, add your comment, and then tap Post. Your comment displays.

To close the browser and return to Brightspace Pulse, tap Done.

In Brightspace Pulse, refresh the page to display your comment.

5) Brightspace Pulse – View all grades for a course

Learners can now view all grades for a course from a new Grades tab in the course. Previously, learners could only view course grades from notifications in Brightspace Pulse or by opening a browser and navigating to the Grades tool in Brightspace Learning Environment.

To view all grades for a course, tap the Courses tab. Next, tap a course, and then the Grades tab. All received grades for the course display, indicating if feedback is available. To open the Grades tool in a browser and view full grade breakdowns and calculations, tap View Grades in Browser.

To view feedback, tap a grade. The grade and text feedback display. To view details about the associated activity in Brightspace Learning Environment, tap View Activity.

This implements Product Idea Exchange item D6422.

6) Brightspace Pulse – View content module descriptions

Learners can now view content module descriptions in Brightspace Pulse. Instructors use module descriptions to communicate vital information to learners about specific course content. Previously, module descriptions were only visible from Brightspace Learning Environment, which may have caused learners to miss important information when accessing courses from Brightspace Pulse.

This feature implements PIE items D4547 and D6460.

7) Rubrics – Increased accessibility with labels on radio buttons

To provide a better experience to clients using screen readers, criterion levels now indicate the level name and point value of each radio button when it has the focus. Previously, screen readers only indicated “radio button X out of Y” or “radio button, not selected” depending on whether the focus is on a selected criterion.

In addition, the mobile view of Rubrics now has radio buttons implemented to describe the level name and point value of each criterion level, consistent with the view on a larger screen.

Note: Depending on the screen reader you use, the way of listing all the radio buttons on a page differs. For example, In NVDA, press INSERT+F7; in JAWS, press CTRL+INSERT+A. In general, D2L tests compatibility with the following screen readers: NVDA, JAWS, and Voiceover.

8) Rubrics – Inline grading improvements

There have been improvements to the ease of use of the inline grading experience, including changes to ensure grading experience parity for screen reader users. Previously, screen reader users were unable to grade or review tasks due to missing information. In addition, the updates now include the following:

• The interaction of the arrow buttons at either end of the evaluation slider now indicate a hover state compared to a focus state. If there is no level under the hover pointer, the level area is empty.



• Keyboard navigation of the slider evaluation levels identify the focus and indicate the criterion you are viewing. When the keyboard focus is on a level, you can press the arrow keys at the beginning and end of the slider or use the left and right arrow keys on the keyboard to move the focus within a scale. In grading mode, moving the focus to a level directly selects the level. You can also press Enter to select or unselect a level. In preview mode, the selected level does not change when you review other levels’ information.



• Keyboard navigation of the slider evaluation levels more clearly identify the focus and level you have selected in grading mode. You can use the right or left arrow key at the beginning and end of the slider to move the focus within a scale. Press Enter or use the left and right arrow keys on the keyboard to select and deselect the level.



• The level name and description of an evaluation level appear below the evaluation slider in the selected state, and the selection indicator appears on the slider at the chosen level.



• When the rubric has been graded, the level information area displays the selected level’s information by default, unless other levels are in hover state in grading mode, or in hover or focus state in reviewing mode.



• When you move the selection block to a different level, there is now an animation to smoothly transition to the new level.

9) Rubrics - Overall Score now appears in Mobile View and the New Assignment and Discussion Evaluation Experiences

When an instructor using the New Assignment Evaluation Experience opens a rubric in a new window, the Overall Score displays for each rubric, and the instructor can override the level if necessary. Previously, if an instructor did not open a new window, rather, they viewed the rubrics inline in the New Assignment Evaluation Experience tool, the Overall Score did not appear, and the instructor could not override the level. As a result, text-only rubrics could not be assessed because the Overall Score was not available.

Now, instructors using Mobile view can evaluate text-only rubrics for assignments (using the New Assignment Evaluation Experience) and can evaluate text-only rubrics for discussions (using the New Discussions Assignments Evaluation Experience) as expected.

1) Assignments – Add categories in the New Assignment Creation Experience

This feature builds on the Assignments – Brightspace Editor in the new Assignment Creation Experience | New feature that was released in April 2021/20.21.4.

The new assignment creation experience supports the alignment of assignments to categories. Instructors can add new or existing assignment categories when creating or editing a new assignment.

2) Brightspace Editor – Available in ePortfolio External Comments and Quiz Builder

This feature updates the Brightspace Editor – Additional functionality | Updated feature released in June 2021/20.21.6 and includes the following items:

• External users adding comments in Brightspace ePortfolio can now use the new inline limited version of Brightspace Editor.
• The Quiz Builder now supports the new inline Editor



• The right-click menu is no longer available when creating tables.

3) My Courses Widget - Updated Sort Logic configuration variable

The d2l.Tools.MyCoursesWidget.UpdatedSortLogic configuration variable has now reached end-of-life status and no longer appears in the Config Variable Browser. With this change, the My Courses Widget now uses only the Updated Sort Logic setting by default.

Previously, the My Courses Widget sorting logic was set by the d2l.Tools.MyCoursesWidget.UpdatedSortLogic configuration variable. By default, this configuration variable has been set to ON since 2018, with the option to revert to the old sorting logic. The option to revert to the previous sorting logic in the My Courses Widget is no longer available with the removal of this configuration variable.

For additional details, refer to the Community blog post: Retirement Of The Old My Courses Widget Sort Logic.

4) Quizzes – Quiz Introduction field

To reduce redundancy in the Quizzes tool, the Introduction field is being phased out. In this release, when an instructor creates and/or edits a quiz, the Introduction field is no longer available.

If any quiz previously had text in the Introduction field, on clicking Edit, the text is automatically appended to the Description field. A message appears indicating that these two fields have been merged. Instructors can review the modified quiz description prior to saving the quiz.

Note: In some interfaces, for example Classic content, the Instructions field is displayed. This Instructions field already maps to the quiz Description field. Hence, there is no change to this workflow.

Note: Check the visibility of the Description field prior to saving the quiz.

When importing a course using Import/Export/Copy Components, text in the quiz Introduction field automatically appends to the quiz Description field. The export and copy workflows remain unchanged.

When viewing a quiz topic in the Classic Content tool, the text in the Introduction field now appears under the Instructions header.

5) Quizzes – Relocation of the Reports Setup functionality

The Report Setup tab on the Edit Quiz page is now available on the context menu of a quiz and reads as Setup Reports.

The Reports option available on the quiz context menu is also updated and reads as View Reports.

6) Quizzes - Set grace period time to 0 minutes

When setting an enforced time limit for a quiz, instructors can now set the grace period for a quiz to 0 minutes, in place of the default grace period setting of 5 minutes. Entering a 0 minute grace period flags the quiz attempt as exceeded immediately when the quiz time limit is reached by the learner. Quiz attempt logs display when the learner attempt exceeds the regular time limit, grace period time limit or any extended time limit. Grace period of 0 minutes can be set for quizzes with special access restrictions as well.

Note that setting a grace period can support learner accessibility requirements and other situations, such as slow internet connections when completing quizzes.

7) Quizzes - Status and workflow changes for quizzes with ungraded questions

To support instructors who need to manually score questions within quizzes, the following quiz status and quiz grading workflow updates are available:

• For quizzes that contain questions that need to be manually scored (such as Written Response questions) AND that have the "Allow attempt to be set as graded immediately upon completion" option disabled, a new Pending Evaluation status appears beside the quiz attempt on the Grade Quiz page.
• While evaluating a quiz attempt with unevaluated questions, the instructor can now select Pending evaluations in the Question View drop-down menu to filter for only the questions that require manual evaluation.
• Instructors can now filter the Users tab by status. The available filters are: Published, Saved as draft, Pending evaluation and an empty status. The empty status denotes a quiz with auto-scored questions, where all questions are evaluated and there is no question evaluation pending.