Category: Brightspace Small Plates

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

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.

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.

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.

1) Awards – Share achievements with Public URL sharing for awards

Learners can now share their awards with a Public URL directly from the Awards tool using the new Awards Sharing option.

The new method simplifies sharing a badge or certificate to showcase achievements. The user can create a public URL for an award, which can then be shared on a digital resume or social media profile, for example, LinkedIn.

To share an award using a public URL, a learner can navigate to the My Awards page, select the desired award, click the Share link, and then click Create Link.

As a result, the public URL of the award is generated and appears. Learners can copy and share this link or delete it if needed.

Previously, there were no methods of directly sharing learners' awards with external resources without first sharing them with another tool.

This feature implements the following PIE item:

• D5202 (Make Awards/Badges External).

2) Media Library – Create content with webcam recordings

This update introduces a webcam feature as an option in Media Library. Users can create both video and audio-only recordings, which improves their ability to directly record content for their course within Media Library.

Note: The Video Note record bar is now changed to show the New Recording option and the Audio only toggle. To record a video, or video note, click New Recording. To record only audio, or an audio note, toggle the Audio only switch to ON.

3) Media Library – Easily search content with improved filter-sort options

Media Library now offers improved filter-sort functionality when searching for files. Audio-visual content is now easier to find and improves options for finding content in Media Library.

Users can search for specific pieces of content using the following old and new filters:

• (NEW)Content Type: Audio, Video, or Both
• (NEW)Source: Where content was added from. Multiple filters can be selected. Filters include:
  • Content - Uploaded from the Content tool
  • Media Library - Uploaded or created in Media Library
  • Audio or Video Note - Content created in Audio or Video Note
  • Capture App - Created and published via the Capture App
  • Imported - Added from course imports
  • Other - Content added prior to the addition of source tracking
• Date Modified
  • Note: Changes to Date Deleted on the Recycle Bin screen.
• Date Created

Note: Quicklinks are not available with this release, but will be available in a future release with the same options.

4) Media Library – Improve the content consumer experience by viewing and downloading audio-video transcripts

Users can now view and download transcripts from audio-video content in Media Library with the new Transcript View. This update consolidates and ensures that the media player experience is the same for all files uploaded to Media Library.

Transcript View allows users to pair playback of a video file with the captions scrolling as opposed to the standard bottom of the screen. This introduces a button in the media player that allows users to download the transcript in TXT format or the caption track in VTT format to their device. The ability to turn on Transcript View is an option in the media player's menu.

This feature fulfills the following PIE item:

• D9297 (Introduce transcripts for video captions).

Note: Transcript view and the download function will only appear if transcripts have been generated for the content.

5) Pulse – Personalize notifications for email and SMS

This feature builds upon the Personalize push notifications feature originally released in October 2022/20.22.10. With the release of this feature, you will be able to choose which email or SMS notifications you receive by accessing settings directly from the Pulse app. Previously, you could only personalize email notifications through Brightspace.

6) Improved population method for calculating standard deviation

With this release, in Quizzing statistics, the method of calculating standard deviation from the sample standard deviation is changed to the population standard deviation.

The population standard deviation (Excel STDEV.P) is a more appropriate method since sampling is not conducted when calculating statistics. This new method ensures that the values in Quizzing are consistent with the ones calculated in the Performance+ Assessment Quality Dashboard and are statistically more correct. The updated value appears in the Brightspace Quizzing tool after viewing Quiz Statistics or downloading reports.

7) Rubrics – Clarify grading criteria by editing text fields in assessed rubrics

Users with the new Edit Assessed Rubrics permission can now edit the text fields in rubrics that have already been used for evaluation. This feature is intended to let instructors correct spelling errors, clarify wording, and make other minor changes that do not impact the academic integrity of the rubric. Instructors still can't make structural changes (such as adding evaluation levels or criteria), edit points, or add outcome alignments to assessed rubrics.

Previously, after an instructor used a rubric for an evaluation, the rubric was locked and couldn't be edited. To make changes, instructors had to completely remove the rubric, make edits to a copy of the rubric, attach the copy of the rubric to the grade item, then redo all the assessments.

1) Brightspace Pulse – Access links and images in module descriptions when you’re on-the-go

To help improve the overall experience in Brightspace Pulse, users will be able to view module descriptions in a web view that displays images and preserves links. This presents a new user experience that is more aesthetically pleasing and functional.

Previously, users could only view module description text without any rich text elements or HTML. This meant that any links or images placed in a module description in Brightspace were not preserved or available in the module description while using Brightspace Pulse.

2) Brightspace Pulse – Personalize push notifications

To help improve the flexibility of push notifications in Brightspace Pulse, users will be able to choose which push notifications they receive. Previously, it was not possible to limit or control push notifications.

This feature implements PIE item D8239: Controlling Pulse Notifications from the Student’s Profile Notifications/Settings Page.

3) Grades – Removal of unused and duplicated grade schemes in Grades

Building on the Grades – Copy grade items only copies unique or in-use grade schemes | Updated feature released in the July 2022 / 20.22.7 release, this update performs a one-time deletion of all unused or duplicate grade schemes, leaving only unique grade schemes. This ensures increased performance during grade scheme copies and reduces errors when attempting to access grade schemes in existing org units where a large number of grade schemes exist.

Instructors may see their lists of grade schemes reduced as part of the release.