Instructors Quick Start Tutorial
Additionally, if you are having difficulties using any of the course tools, you can get help from D2L. This help is available 24/7 via Email and Live Chat. You will find links for Email Support and Live Chat Support in the Help menu on the NavBar (inside of Brightspace). You must be logged into Brightspace to access the Email and Live Chat Support links.
Want more information?
View all the Brightspace training recaps
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.
Brightspace Tip #361: End-of-Semester Tasks
As we approach the end of the semester there are a few things you can do in Brightspace to wrap up for the semester.
Release final course grades
- Unlike other grade items and categories in the Grade Book, final grades are not available to students by default. Final grades must be released. If you did not choose to enable the automatic release of final grades when setting up your Grade Book, you will have to manually release final grades in order for students to see their final grade.
Export your Grade Book
- Student access to courses is removed two weeks after the end of a semester. This process of making the courses inactive allows student work and grades to be visible to instructors but students no longer have access to the course. Courses will remain on the Brightspace system for three semesters before they are removed. You should export (download) your Grade Book to your local computer after you submit your final grades.
NOTE: The export file that is created will NOT contain any student work or instructor feedback. Only the grades in your Grade Book will be exported.
Create a master copy of your course
- Courses remain on the Brightspace system for three semesters before they are removed. You can request a Master Course Shell that you can use to develop and maintain your course materials. Master Course Shells will not be removed from the Brightspace system.
Follow these steps to do it.
Instructions are available for releasing final course grades, exporting your Grade Book, and requesting Master Course Shells.
Want more information?
Release Final Grades
Export your Grade Book (video [2:03])
Master Copies of Courses
View all the Brightspace training recaps
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.
Photo Credit: "end" by jflorent is dedicated to the public domain under CCO and is a derivative of image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay
Brightspace Tip #360: Grade Book – Adjust Final Grades
Brightspace calculates final grades for each student based on the grading system and the students' grades that are entered into the Grade Book. If the instructor wants more control over the final grades, perhaps to adjust the final grade for a student that is on the cusp of a higher grade, then adjusted final grades can be used and released to students instead of the calculated final grade.
If the instructor decides to use adjusted final grades for one student in the course, adjusted final grades must be used for all students in the course. This does not imply, however, that final grades must be manually adjusted for all students.
Adjusting final grades are implemented by the instructor for only the student or students that are deemed to need an adjusted grade. The remaining students final grades would be the final grade as calculated in the Grade Book.
Note: The Grade Book must be configured to use adjusted final grades. If you plan to use adjusted final grades, you should make the adjustments before you release final grades.
Follow these steps to do it.
To adjust final grades for all students:
- Get into the course where you want to adjust final grades and click Grades in the NavBar.
- Click on the Enter Grades link.
- Scroll over to the Final Calculated Grade column and click on the arrow on the right of the column name and select Enter Grades.
- In the Final Adjusted Grade section for each student, enter the adjusted grades and then click Save.
- Once you have ensured that students' grades are accurate, you can release the final grades.
To adjust final grades for one or more specific students:
- Get into the course where you want to adjust final grades and click Grades in the NavBar.
- Click on the Enter Grades link.
- Scroll over to the Final Calculated Grade column and click on the arrow on the right of the column name and select Enter Grades.
- Click on the arrow on the right of the Final Grades and click Transfer All, then click Yes.
- In the Final Adjusted Grade section, enter adjusted scores where necessary and click Save.
- Once you have ensured that students' grades are accurate, you can release the final grades.
Want more information?
Understanding the Grades Tool (video)
Troubleshoot Final Grades (video)
Adjust Final Grades
Release Final Grades
Final Grades FAQs
Grades FAQs
Brightspace Tip #351: Grade Book
View all the Brightspace training recaps
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.
Brightspace Tip #359: Grade Book – Release Final Grades
Unlike other grade items and categories in the Grade Book, final grades are not available to students by default. Final grades must be released. When setting up the Grade Book, the instructor can choose to automatically release final grades so that the students can see their final grade throughout the semester. If you did not choose to enable the automatic release of final grades when setting up your Grade Book, you will have to manually release final grades in order for students to see their final grade.
Additionally, you can selectively release final grades for some students now and release the final grades for other students later. For example, you can release the final grades for graduating seniors on one date and release the final grades for everyone else on a later date.
Follow these steps to do it.
To manually release final grades:
- On the NavBar, click Grades.
- On the Enter Grades page, from the Final Calculated Grade or Final Adjusted Grade context menu, click Enter Grades.
- To release grades for all users, on the Final Grades page, from the Final Grades context menu, click Release All. To release final grades for a specific user, do one of the following:
- Select the check box by the user name and click the Release/Unrelease link.
- Select the check box in the Release Final Calculated Grade or Release Adjusted Final Grade column.
- Click Save.
OR watch this video for instructions on how to release final grades:
Want more information?
Troubleshoot Final Grades (video)
Adjust Final Grades
Release Final Grades
Final Grades FAQs
Grades FAQs
Brightspace Tip #351: Grade Book
View all the Brightspace training recaps
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: "final grades" by jflorent is dedicated to public domain under CC0 and is a derivative of grade by OpenClipart-Vectors on Pixabay
Brightspace Tip #358: November Continuous Delivery Updates
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 November 2022/20.22.11 release that were added to our system last month:
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.
If you are interested in getting more information about these and all the November Continuous Delivery updates, refer to the Brightspace Platform November 2022/20.22.11 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.
Brightspace Tip #357: Get Feedback From Your Students
Instructors can create surveys in Brightspace and use the statistics tools to monitor current course trends, seek opinions, and assess user satisfaction.
Surveys are an excellent way to solicit feedback from learners regarding any aspect of a course. You can gather anonymous or non-anonymous opinions and information from users. Unlike Quizzes, survey questions do not have to have right or wrong answers and Likert-style rating questions are possible.
Some examples of the types of uses for surveys are: seeking feedback on the effectiveness of active learning exercises, the need for clarification of course material, and/or seeking suggestions for course improvement.
ICYMI, read my New Twist on End-of-Semester Evaluations blog post.
Follow these steps to do it.
To create a survey:
- On the NavBar, click Activities, then click Surveys.
- On the Manage Surveys page, click New Survey.
- Enter a Name and select additional settings for your survey (e.g. choose the option to give instant feedback and/or make results anonymous).
- To add questions directly to the survey, click Add/Edit Questions. Alternatively, you can add questions from the Question Library.
- Click Done Editing Questions to return to the survey page.
- Click the Restrictions tab to modify the survey's availability.
- Uncheck the Hide from Users checkbox.
- Specify a date range for the survey, if appropriate.
- Set the attempts allowed for the survey.
- Click Save and Close.
To track survey progress and results:
Based on how you have set up the survey properties, you might see a list of all users or just the overall survey results with anonymous responses.
- On the NavBar, click Activities, then click Surveys.
- On the Manage Surveys page, click the context menu next to the name of your survey and click Statistics.
- In the Users tab, search for users and their listed attempt types. You can restrict your search of survey results by attempt in the Attempts tab.
- To view a specific user's results, click on an individual attempt. To view the number of attempts per question within a survey, click View Overall Results at the bottom of the page.
Want more information?
Setup a Survey (video)
Track Survey Progress and Results
Question Library Quick Reference Guide (pdf)
Benefits of Question Library (video)
Create a New Question (video)
Import Questions into Question Library (video)
View all the Brightspace training recaps
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: "Feedback" by Dennis Skley is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0
ICYMI: Facilitating Group Work in Your Brightspace Course
Facilitating Group Work in Your Brightspace Course [42:04]
Thanks to those of you who attended last week's Facilitating Group Work in Your Brightspace Course workshop. The workshop, the twelfth in our #LEX Advanced series, helps you to build on the skills you learned in the #LearnEverywhereXULA course. The focus of this workshop was to show you how you can use the Brightspace Groups tool for online group activities and build community in your courses.
In case you missed last week’s training session or if you attended the training session and want to recap what was covered, a copy of the workshop recording and resources referenced in the workshop are available. You can find the workshop recording and other resources in support of the workshop on the CAT+FD wiki.
Additionally, if you did not get the opportunity to earn a digital badge for participating in the workshop, it's not too late to earn that badge. We have a corresponding “Group Work” module in the #LearnEverywhereXULA (#LEX) course that you can complete to earn a digital badge for this topic. The badge will count towards your #LEX Advanced certification.
Brightspace Tip #356: October Continuous Delivery Updates
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 October 2022/20.22.10 release that were added to our system this month:
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.
If you are interested in getting more information about these and all the October Continuous Delivery updates, refer to the Brightspace Platform October 2022/20.22.10 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.
Brightspace Tip #355: Grade Book – Search
Have you ever met with a student and wanted to review that student’s grades with the student, but couldn’t because the Grade Book shows the grades of all the other students? This isn't a problem in Brightspace. You can use the Grade Book search to temporarily hide the grades of all the other students and only show the grades for a single student.
Follow these steps to do it.
To display one row in the Grade Book:
- On the NavBar, click Grades.
- On the Enter Grades page, enter the first and last name of the desired student in the Search For field and then click on search icon.
- When done, you should only see the selected student.
Note: If you have more than one student with the same name, you can enter the 900 # of the desired student in the Search For field. Ultimately, your search results should yield the row with the desired student's record.
To display all rows in the Grade Book:
- On the Enter Grades page, click on the Clear Search link.
Want more information?
Brightspace Tip #351: Grade Book
Understanding the Grades Tool
View all the Brightspace training recaps
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: "Search Key" by GotCredit licensed under CC BY 2.0
Brightspace Tip #354: Pronouns
Wednesday, October 19th, is International Pronouns Day. International Pronouns Day is celebrated on the third Wednesday of October and seeks to make respecting, sharing, and educating about personal pronouns commonplace. Referring to people by the pronouns they determine for themselves is basic to human dignity. Being referred to by the wrong pronouns particularly affects transgender and gender nonconforming people. For more information about International Pronouns Day visit pronounsday.org.
ICYMI, read Bart’s “Yes, you should totally tell your students your pronouns” blog post.
Did you know, users now have the option to indicate their pronouns in their Brightspace user profiles? Brightspace user profiles are visible to anyone who shares a course with a particular user, including students, instructors, administrators, etc.
Celebrate International Pronouns Day by entering your pronouns into Brightspace and invite your students to do the same.
If you are looking for a good pronoun primer on inclusive teaching, check out this Gender Diversity and Pronouns resource from the University of Michigan.
Also, check out name.pn if you or your students are looking for an easy way to share how you would like people to use your name. You can create a URL that links to information to help users get your preferred pronouns, title, and the pronunciation of your name correct.
Follow these steps to do it.
To enter your pronouns:
- From your Personal Menu click on Account Settings.
- Check the Allow others to see my pronouns box.
- Click on the Use different pronouns radio button and enter your pronouns.
- Click on Save and Close.
Want more information?
Navigate Brightspace Learning Environment - Account Settings – Learner (video)
View all the Brightspace training recaps
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: "Footwear" by Julie Falk is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0