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Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #499: Turnitin – Quick Submit

Turnitin is a plagiarism detection tool that is integrated into our Brightspace system. Turnitin checks student work for potential plagiarism and allows instructors to provide electronic feedback to students through markup, proofing, and rubrics tools.

Instructors typically create an Assignment submission folder with Turnitin enabled. When students submit their assignments they are checked for potential plagiarism. However, there may be situations where an instructor needs to submit a paper to be checked by Turnitin.

Turnitin - Quick Submit

The Quick Submit feature allows instructors to submit papers and receive Similarity Reports without creating an Assignment in their course. This is ideal for instructors who would like to use Turnitin to spot check submissions and have these papers in electronic format. Quick Submit SHOULD NOT be used if the instructor desires to have students submit their own papers or plans on using PeerMark (peer review assignment tool) or GradeMark (make comments on and assess student papers). Instructors should create an Assignment and enable Turnitin for the assignment instead.

Follow these steps to do it.

To use Quick Submit to submit a paper:

  1. Log in to your Turnitin account natively through www.turnitin.com.
  2. Activate Quick Submit by clicking on User Info from the top of the instructor homepage.
  3. On the preferences page, select yes from the activate Quick Submit drop-down menu. The Quick Submit tab will appear on the instructor homepage, making the Quick Submit inbox available for use.
  4. To start the upload process, click on the Submit button in the Quick Submit inbox and follow the instructions.

Want more information?

Activating Quick Submit
Quick Submit
Assignments and Turnitin
Interpreting the Similarity Report

Brightspace Tip #464: Simplify Assignment Collection
Brightspace Tip #498: Turnitin Feedback Studio
Brightspace Tip #122: Getting the Best out of Turnitin Feedback Studio

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.

Published on Leave a comment on #LEX Advanced Certification

#LearnEverywhereXULA (#LEX) is our award winning Brightspace course that is organized around the eight General Standards for Higher Education set forth in the Quality Matters Higher Education Rubric Sixth Edition. The information, activities, and assignments in the #LEX course aids faculty in developing high quality, well-designed, objective-driven courses on Brightspace for Xavier University of Louisiana (XULA) students.

hot air ballons

When faculty complete the #LEX course, they have the opportunity to expand their horizons even more through #LEX Advanced certification. With the certification, faculty learn about using design and automation features available in Brightspace to apply better pedagogical practices within their courses by making them more user-friendly, accessible, and efficient.

#LEX Advanced takes a deeper dive into tools like Rubrics, Release Conditions, Intelligent Agents, HTML Templates, Awards & Badges, and more. #LEX Advanced certification also includes topics such as accessibility, academic integrity, rethinking assessment strategies in the age of AI, securing online testing environment, online discussions, group work, and video lectures.

A #LEX Advanced badge can be earned for participation in a #LEX Advanced workshop OR for completing its corresponding module in the #LEX course.

Our #LEX Advanced certification has five levels. Faculty can move up a certification level with every fourth #LEX Advanced badge they earn. Complete four modules to earn the #LEX Advanced Level 1 certification. Complete eight modules to earn the #LEX Advanced Level 2 certification. Complete twelve modules to earn the #LEX Advanced Level 3 certification. Complete sixteen modules to earn the #LEX Advanced Level 4 certification. Complete twenty modules to earn the #LEX Advanced Level 5 certification.

Faculty can view the badges they've earned by clicking on Activities in the NavBar and then click on Awards within the #LearnEverywhereXULA course.

Are you interested in becoming #LEX Advanced certified? Attend one of our upcoming #LEX Advanced workshops to start earning your badges. Alternatively, you can earn badges by completing modules in the #LearnEverywhereXULA course.

NOTE: Faculty who are not enrolled in the #LearnEverywhereXULA course can request enrollment using this enrollment request form.

#LEX Advanced Certifications

#LEX Advanced certificate

Congratulations to those faculty who have earned #LEX Advanced Certification!

#LEX Advanced Level 1 Certificate Awardees

  • Ayyad, Dr. Ahlam
  • Bailey-Wheeler, Dr. Janel
  • Bellone-Hite, Dr. Amy
  • DiMaggio, Dr. Stassi
  • Earls, Dr. Martha
  • Edwards, Dr. Andrea
  • Farudi, Dr. Giti
  • Gaudin, Dr. Wendy
  • Gstohl, Dr. Mark
  • Hammer, Dr. Elizabeth Yost
  • Helm, Dr. Amanda
  • Laborde, Dr. Katheryn
  • Ma, Dr. Timmy
  • Manley, Dr. Elizabeth
  • McFerrin, Dr. Harris
  • Nguyen, Dr. Nam
  • Plaisance-Meyers, Dr. Sierra
  • Ratnayaka, Dr. Harish
  • Rousselle, Dr. Elizabeth
  • Salm, Dr. Steven
  • Sirohi, Dr. Sunil
  • St. Julien, Dr. Danielle
  • Taylor, Dr. Ashley
  • Todd, Dr. Jason
  • Verma, Dr. Abha

#LEX Advanced Level 2 Certificate Awardees

  • Ayyad, Dr. Ahlam
  • Bailey-Wheeler, Dr. Janel
  • Earls, Dr. Martha
  • Edwards, Dr. Andrea
  • Gstohl, Dr. Mark
  • Hammer, Dr. Elizabeth Yost
  • Ma, Dr. Timmy
  • Ratnayaka, Dr. Harish
  • Rousselle, Dr. Elizabeth
  • Todd, Dr. Jason

#LEX Advanced Level 3 Certificate Awardees

  • Ayyad, Dr. Ahlam
  • Edwards, Dr. Andrea
  • Gstohl, Dr. Mark
  • Hammer, Dr. Elizabeth Yost
  • Ma, Dr. Timmy
  • Todd, Dr. Jason

#LEX Advanced Level 4 Certificate Awardees

  • Ayyad, Dr. Ahlam
  • Hammer, Dr. Elizabeth Yost
  • Todd, Dr. Jason

Image credits:
image by PDPhotos from Pixabay
"#LEX Advanced Certificate of Completion" by Bart | CC BY 4.0

Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #498: Turnitin Feedback Studio

Turnitin document viewer

Turnitin Feedback Studio is a program that checks student work for potential plagiarism and allows instructors to provide electronic feedback to students through markup, proofing, and rubrics tools.

Watch this short Turnitin Feedback Studio Walkthrough video from Turnitin.

Did you know that Turnitin is integrated into Brightspace? Instructors can choose to enable Turnitin when setting up Assignments in Brightspace.

Also, two Turnitin training sessions were conducted this semester:

If you missed these sessions or would like to review the material, please email cat@xula.edu to request the recording links.

Want more information?

Turnitin Feedback Studio Demo
Simplify assignment collection
Tips for Creating Assignments
Assignments and Turnitin
Turnitin Feedback Studio - Instructor
Quick Tips for Mastering Feedback Studio
AI Writing Detection in the New, Enhanced Similarity Report
Turnitin Quick Submit
Turnitin Feedback Studio - Student
Students - View your Turnitin assignment feedback

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.

Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #497: Assignments

Use the Assignments tool to help you set and manage deadlines, unclutter your inbox, and save trees!

The Assignments tool is an efficient way to manage and collect your student's individual and group assignments digitally. You can use the Assignments tool to create and edit assignments, see users’ submission times, view submissions on the Evaluate Submission page, associate assignments to rubrics, and return submissions to learners with their grades and your feedback.

For assignments that included file submissions, you can download the submissions to your computer for review offline.

essay paper with corrections in red with red pen laying on the paper

This blog post answers frequently asked questions about creating an assignment using the Assignments tool.

When you create an Assignment with the new Assignment Creation Experience, the default when you enter points in the “Grade Out Of” field is that the “In Grade Book” option will be automatically selected.

The “In Grade Book” option will automatically create a grade item (column) in the Grade Book. The grade item is created with the same name as the Assignment.

Example showing the “In Grade Book” option when points are entered.
Example showing the “In Grade Book” option when points are entered.

If you setup your Grade Book before creating the Assignment and you already have a grade item (column) for the Assignment in your Grade Book, you would associate the Assignment to the grade item by using the "Edit or Link to Existing" option and then navigate to the grade item in your Grade Book that you want to associate the Assignment with.

Example showing the “Edit or Link to Existing” option in the drop-down list.
Example showing the “Edit or Link to Existing” option in the drop-down list.
Example showing the option to “Link to an existing grade item” with the grade item selected.
Example showing the option to “Link to an existing grade item” with the grade item selected.

If you DO NOT want the system to create a column for the Assignment in your Grade Book, then you should select the "Not in Grade Book" option.

Example showing the “Not in Grade Book” option in the drop-down list.
Example showing the “Not in Grade Book” option in the drop-down list.

The drop-down menu also allows you to reset the Assignment to ungraded, if necessary.

NOTE: Even though the new Assignment Creation Experience can automatically create a grade item (column) in your Grade Book, we still suggest you setup your Grade Book first and when you create your Assignments then choose the option to “Edit or Link to Existing” grade item in your Grade Book and navigate to the grade item that you want to associate the Assignment with.

Choosing to automatically create grade items in your Grade Book may present a problem when viewing your Grade Book from the Enter Grades tab. If you find the extra wide column headings that are created because of a long assignment name to be problematic, then you can edit the grade items and enter a shorter name for them. You can edit the grade items one at a time or edit them in bulk.

Example showing a grade item being edited to enter a short name for it.
Example showing a grade item being edited to enter a short name for it.

You can edit grade items in bulk from the Manage Grades tab. First, select the grade items you want to edit and then click Bulk Edit.

Example showing grade items being selected for a bulk edit.
Example showing grade items being selected for a bulk edit.
Example showing short names entered for grade items on the bulk edit items and categories page.
Example showing short names entered for grade items on the bulk edit items and categories page.

You will see the short names when you view your Grade Book from the Enter Grades tab.

Want more information?

Brightspace Tip #464: Simplify Assignment Collection
About Assignments
Create an Assignment

View current, past, and preview upcoming Continuous Delivery release notes
Instructors Quick Start Tutorial
Brightspace Known Issues
Request a sandbox course
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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 | Pixabay

Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #496: Intelligent Agents

Would you like to send your students email (e.g., welcome to the course, reminder about something important, congratulations for a job well done, give them a nudge when they might need to work harder) -- without having to do a lot of extra work to make it happen? The Brightspace Intelligent Agents tool can help automate this process for you.

security camera

Intelligent Agents allow instructors to delegate some of the course communication and notification tasks to the system, based on specific triggering activities in the course. Intelligent Agents can be used to both recognize student achievement and warn of potential problems. For example, you can use Intelligent Agents to:

  • Check for users that have not logged into the course
  • Check for users that have not logged in within a specific number of days
  • Notify users with grades below a certain level
  • Congratulate users with grades above a certain level
  • Check for users that view a specific content topic

The automatic notifications that are generated when specified course performance criteria are met can be sent to instructors, advisors, and/or students.

ICYMI: Updates were made to the Intelligent Agent Create Agent page to facilitate additional scheduling options and frequency options to allow for improved flexibility. Changes to the Create Agent page include:

  • Two new agent frequency options:
    • One-Time Run allows instructors to choose a single date and time to run.
    • Hourly allows instructors to choose a date and time to run between. If no dates are chosen, the Hourly agent runs every hour with the first time being "now" (that is once the agent is saved and enabled).
  • The existing Daily, Weekly, Monthly and Annually options all now have a Scheduled Time option that users complete to determine what time that the agent will run on the dates scheduled for the agent to run.
The Intelligent Agent (IA) scheduling page with the Hourly option and IA will be run every 8 hours for a specified period.
The Intelligent Agent (IA) scheduling page with the Hourly option and IA will run every 8 hours for a specified period.

Repetitive emails may lose their effectiveness, so use Intelligent Agents sparingly. Consider using Intelligent Agents when there isn't a better way of communicating. Ask yourself,

  • Would an announcement work better?
  • Would a personally crafted email work better?
  • Would a discussion board posting work better?

If the answer is no, then consider using an Intelligent Agent!

Follow these steps to do it.

To create an Intelligent Agent:

  1. On a course NavBar, click Course Admin.
  2. Click Intelligent Agents.
  3. On the Agent List page, click New Agent.
  4. On the New Agent page, enter a name.
  5. Enter a description into the Description field.
  6. If you want to assign a category to the agent, select an option from the Category drop-down menu or create a new category by clicking the Add Category link.
  7. If you want the agent to be active, select the Agent is enabled check box.
  8. Expand Scheduling, and under Frequency schedule how frequently agent criteria is evaluated. Choose a frequency option from the dropdown menu and complete the schedule dates and repetition options as needed.
  9. Expand Criteria, and under Role in Classlist do one of the following:
    • If you want the Intelligent Agent to be applicable to all roles in the Classlist, select the All users visible in the Classlist check box.
    • If you want the Intelligent Agent to be applicable to select roles, select the Users with specific roles check box and select the respective roles.
  10. Select your criteria (login activity, course activity, or attach Release Conditions).
  11. Under Actions > Repetition, select how often you want the agent to take action.
  12. If you want the agent to send an email when the set criteria are satisfied, expand Actions, and under Send an Email, select the Send an email when the criteria are satisfied check box and enter your email details and relevant attachments.
  13. Click Save and Close.

NOTE: You can perform a practice run or a manual run of an Intelligent Agent at any time in a course.

Want more information?

Intelligent Uses of Intelligent Agents
Intelligent Agents Tool Quick Reference Guide (pdf)
How to Set Up an Intelligent Agent
Create an Intelligent Agent (video)
Delete and Restore Intelligent Agents (video)
Perform a Practice Run for an Intelligent Agent (video)
Manually Run an Intelligent Agent (video)
Brightspace Tip #237: Release Conditions

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 TheDigitalArtist from Pixabay

Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #495: January Continuous Delivery Updates

the word update written on a chalk board

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

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

Here are some of the updates in the January 2025/20.25.01 release that were added to our system this month:

1) Brightspace's minimum for supported browser versions

Brightspace's minimum for supported browser versions increases every January and July. The January update increases the minimum supported browser versions to:

  • Chrome 129
  • Edge 129
  • Safari 18
  • Firefox 130

The minimum legacy browsers are now:

  • Chrome 94
  • Edge 94
  • Safari 15
  • Firefox 92

The following browsers are no longer supported:

  • Chrome 67
  • Edge 80
  • Safari 12
  • Firefox 67

D2L has also added support for Firefox ESR, versions 115 and above. For an optimal experience that offers better performance, accessibility, and security, D2L recommends using the latest version of a supported browser to access Brightspace. D2L is also updating the browser classification system with this release; browsers are either Supported, Legacy, Unsupported (Warning), or Unsupported (Blocked). For more information, refer to this updated Browser support topic.

2) Consistent Evaluation – Assignment and Discussion evaluations now synchronized with Grade Book

The individual scores and feedback from Assignment and Discussion grade items are now synchronized with the grade book using the Update button regardless of whether a change was made. The Update button in Assignments and Discussions evaluations is always available to update, even when no changes were made. This feature also enables instructors to verify that the information between the grade book and the Assignment or Discussion tool is properly synchronized.

Previously, In Brightspace, when an instructor evaluated an assignment, discussion, or quiz using a rubric and saved it as a draft, then added feedback directly in the grade book and saved, the feedback did not sync back to the evaluation page when the instructor clicked Update.

Note: Consistent Evaluation for quizzes is excluded from this update as Grades sync works seamlessly. Individual quiz question attempts are not sent to Grades upon saving, and publishing the quiz using the Completion Summary ensures no sync issues occur.

3) Rubrics – Streamline grading with minimum or maximum score for ungraded rubric criteria

This feature updates the instructor workflow of evaluating a rubric and providing feedback to learners. Now, instructors can quickly assess all ungraded Rubric criteria and then go back through to add feedback where necessary. To provide a more streamlined experience for instructors using analytical type rubrics for assessments in the Consistent Evaluation experience for assignments, discussions, and written response quiz questions, the instructor can automatically set ungraded levels to a minimum or maximum value.

From a drop-down beside the rubric name in each assessment pop-out, or from a context menu in Consistent Evaluation, there are two options:

  • Set Ungraded to [top rubric level name]: where all ungraded levels within this rubric are set to the maximum value using the top level of the rubric.
  • Set Ungraded to [lowest rubric level name]: where all ungraded levels within this rubric are set to the minimum value using the bottom level of the rubric.

When an instructor selects an option, a confirmation dialog appears to advise of the bulk action and provides an option to undo the update.

Previously, instructors were required to click individual criteria, which, for large rubrics was a time-consuming task involving many clicks to set the rubric score to 100%.

Note: The updated functionality does not appear as an option in the following scenarios:

  • If there is only one level in the rubric
  • If the rubric is holistic type. It is only available for analytical type rubrics
Context menu to the right of the rubric name in the Evaluation and Feedback accordion where you can choose the option for all ungraded criteria
In Assignments and Discussions, click to open the context menu beside the rubric name to choose an option for all ungraded criteria
Pull down arrow to the right of the rubric name where you can choose the option for all ungraded criteria
In Consistent Evaluation, click the drop-down menu beside the rubric name to choose an option for all ungraded criteria

This feature implements the following PIE items:

  • D10306 (Tick all rubric options automatically/remove tick boxes)
  • D9336 (Include a Clear All for Rubric Evaluation)
  • D7630 (Auto-Populate Rubrics for Students with Perfect Score)
  • D7372 (Rubric Grading)
  • D6165 (Select All option for Rubric)

If you are interested in getting more information about these and all the January Continuous Delivery updates, refer to the Brightspace Platform January 2025/20.25.01 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

Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #494: Are You Ready?

image showing various disasters

Next week's forecast of wintry weather and a hard freeze in our area should be a reminder that course delivery is vulnerable to unplanned events. Potential interruptions to class activities include but are not limited to natural disasters, widespread illness, acts of violence, planned or unexpected construction-related closures, severe weather conditions, and medical emergencies.

Here are a few things you can do in Brightspace to help you prepare should the need arise.

For those who missed our "Preparing to Teach During an Interruption: Strategies for Maintaining Instructional Continuity" workshop and for those who want to learn more about instructional continuity, you will find a link to the workshop recording, PowerPoint slides, and resources discussed in the workshop here:

Want More Information?

Instructors Quick Start Tutorial
Continuous Delivery release notes
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: "The threat of disasters is real" by jflorent is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #493: Is Your Course Pulse Friendly?

Brightspace Pulse is a mobile app that can help learners stay connected and on track with their Brightspace courses. It provides one easy view of course calendars, readings, assignments, evaluations, grades, and announcement items. The app can help learners make better decisions about how to handle their workload, when to submit assignments, and when to prepare for tests. Real-time alerts can let learners know when classes are canceled, class is meeting in an alternate location, or new grades are available. The schedule view and weekly visualization enables learners to quickly at a glance view what is due today, this week, and upcoming across all their courses.

While the Brightspace Pulse app is designed for the learner, instructors can benefit too.

Brightspace Pulse App on iPhone

While the Brightspace Pulse app is designed for the learner, instructors can benefit too. When instructors enter due dates or end dates for assignments and activities the information is populated in the Pulse app enabling learners to stay connected and on track. Thus, instructors can spend less time reminding and more time teaching.

Instructors can make their courses Pulse friendly by including due dates or end dates for assignments and activities. When instructors do not enter due dates or end dates, no associated information is available in the Pulse app.

The Pulse app is great for helping students stay on track in face-to-face classes as well. Instructors can set up their face-to-face assignments and activities as events in the Brightspace course calendar. Students will get those date feeds in the Brightspace Pulse app.

Help keep students on track for success in all their courses by including a due date or end date for assignments and activities.

Want more information?

Brightspace Pulse App
Manage Your Course Workload with Brightspace Pulse - Learners
Brightspace Tip #404: Due Dates
Pulse Dates - Set Date Restrictions for Content (video)
Pulse Dates - Set Date Availability for a Calendar Event (video)
Brightspace Tip #492: Manage Dates
Brightspace Tip #248: Drip-Feeding

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.

Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #492: Manage Dates

calendar

Instructors can use the Manage Dates tool to view, edit in bulk, and bulk offset date availability from one central location. You can also set the calendar status of all content topics and modules, discussion topics and forums, assignment submissions folders, grades categories and items, announcement items, quizzes, checklists, and surveys in their course in the Manage Dates tool.

Course objects display in a grid that you can sort by any of the column headings. You can also use the Type column to sort the Manage Dates page based on the tool-specific order and use advanced filter options to work with smaller sets of objects. If you filter your course objects, any bulk changes you make apply only to the filtered results. This enables you to update multiple availability dates based on specific criteria.

In addition to managing dates, you can open each course object in a new window by clicking on its name. This launches the object's edit page where you can edit additional properties for that object without leaving the Manage Dates tool.

The Manage Dates tool can be very useful after a course copy. For example, if you copied content from one course into another course, you can use the Manage Dates tool to easily adjust dates after the course copy. Additionally, if you've entered dates on items in your course and later need to adjust dates in bulk, try using the Manage Dates tool.

Follow these steps to do it.

To edit dates in bulk:

  1. Get into the course you want to change the dates of course objects.
  2. On the NavBar (of the course you want to change dates in), click Course Admin.
  3. Click Manage Dates.
  4. Select the check box of the items for which you want to bulk edit dates.
  5. Click Bulk Edit Dates.
  6. In the Bulk Edit Dates dialog box, update the due dates and availability dates.
  7. Click Save.

Want More Information?

About Manage Dates
Bulk edit dates in Manage Dates
Manage Dates - Offset Dates (video)

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: calendar by tigerlily713 from Pixabay

Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #491: Copy Course or Copy Components

copy stamp

There are a some situations where you may want to copy components of a Brightspace course OR copy an entire Brightspace course into another one. For example,

  • You have a course from a previous semester and you would like to copy the course contents into your empty course shell for the current semester.
  • You have a Master Course Shell that you input content into and would like to copy the course contents into your empty course shell for the current semester.
  • You are teaching multiple sections of a course, you created all the content in one Brightspace course section and want to copy the content into the other sections.
  • You created content in one course (e.g. rubrics, discussions, quizzes, etc.) and would like to copy that specific content from one Brightspace course into another.

Copying an entire Brightspace course OR copying components of a Brightspace course into another Brightspace course is not hard. As long as you are the instructor for both courses, it is a simple process you can do.

Notes About Copying Between Courses

Here are some things to consider when copying a course or copying components of a course.

Overwriting and Duplicating Items

In general, course components already in the destination course will not be affected by copying course components. The only course component that can be overwritten is a course file, i.e., HTML pages that have been created in the course site or files that have been uploaded to it. A course file is overwritten if one of the files being copied into the course has the same name as an existing file.

If copying components from the same source multiple times, be careful not to copy the same items more than once, or this will create duplicates that may be visible to users in the course.

Student Data

Student data is not copied from one course to another; only the course structures are copied. For example, if a Discussion topic is copied, only the prompt and discussion settings are copied, not the individual student posts.

Links and Associations between Components

If copying linked or associated components, e.g., files attached to an Assignment Submission folder or the HTML files for pages that have been created, all of the related components must be copied at the same time. To do this, be sure to select the "Include Associated Content" checkbox when it appears. As long as that box is checked, all associated components are copied and the links between them are retained.

Copying VoiceThreads

We have integrated VoiceThread using LTI 1.3 with deep linking, that means that your VoiceThread activities will copy automatically when the course is copied in Brightspace. Review this VT Course Copying FAQ for some important things to know about how VoiceThread course copying works.

Respondus LockDown Browser (RLDB) Settings

Copied courses that have tests/exams with RLDB enabled require instructors to access the Respondus LockDown Browser Dashboard once after the copy to update the RLDB settings in the destination course. This has to be done before students will be able to take exams that require RLDB.

Turnitin-enabled Assignments

When you copy course components from one course to another, confirm that all settings are configured for the Turnitin-enabled assignments in the destination course.

Turnitin PeerMark Assignments

Our Turnitin integration does not support copying of PeerMark Assignments. You will have to recreate your PeerMark assignments in the destination course.

Follow these steps to do it.

If you want to copy an entire Brightspace course OR copy components from a Brightspace course into another course, you should:

  1. Get into the course you want the content copied into (i.e., the target course).
  2. In the NavBar (of the course you want the content copied to), click on "Course Admin".
  3. Click on the "Import/Export/Copy Components" link.
  4. Click on the "Copy Components from another Org Unit" radio button.
  5. In the Course to Copy option, click the "Search for Offering" button.
  6. Click on the magnifying glass in the "Search for" field OR enter the name of the course you want to copy from (i.e., the source course) in the search field.
  7. Click on the radio button to the right of the course you want to copy content from and then click on "Add Selected".
  8. Verify your selections are correct before proceeding.
  9. At the bottom on the browser window you will click on either "Copy all Components" OR "Select Components" and follow the prompts.

Important:

Double-check to make sure that you are in the course you want the content copied into AND that you have selected the correct course you want to copy content from. There is no way to reverse the copy process once the wrong course is selected and the copy request is submitted.

Want more information?

About Import/Export/Copy Components
Import/Export/Copy - Copy Components video [1:31]

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