Learners sometimes have a hard time keeping track of everything they need to get done. They may have to jump in and out of multiple courses to figure out if there are upcoming assignments or projects with due dates in the near future (or in the past!). This can be frustrating for them, and it can also lead to missed deadlines.
The Work To Do Widget is a simple way you can help students stay on top of their work.
Example of the Work To Do widget
How the Work To Do Widget Works
The Work To Do widget is designed specifically for students and displays all their overdue and upcoming learning activities in one place. Overdue work appears at the top of the list, and upcoming items are listed below. This makes it incredibly easy for students to see what's most urgent.
All quizzes, assignments, checklists, and other activities with due or end dates automatically appear in the widget. Students can see the widget on their My Home page in Brightspace, as well as on their individual course homepages. This means they can get a quick overview of all their courses at once, or focus on just the tasks for your specific course.
Example of the Work To Do widget showing no activities due
Making It Visible for Your Students
To ensure your students can take advantage of this helpful tool, all you have to do is make sure the Work To Do widget is enabled on your course homepage. When you use the default course homepage in Brightspace, the widget is automatically included. If you’ve customized your homepage, you may need to add it. A few minutes of effort on your part can save your students a lot of stress and help them stay organized all semester long.
The Work To Do widget can be seen by users with the role of student. Instructors will see the Work To Do widget when they view the course as a student.
Note: Instructors who have opted to customize their course homepage and want their students to be able to see the Work To Do widget on their customized course homepage, will have to add the widget to the course homepage.
For additional information and frequently asked questions about the Work To Do widget, see the following article in the Brightspace Community: Introducing the Work To Do Widget.
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.
Use due dates in Brightspace to help students stay on track. Students will see due dates when they look at entries in the course calendar, Work To Do Widget, and in the Pulse App.
Due dates and availability dates are generally entered when the instructor creates assignments, assessments, discussion topics and forums, etc. The dates automatically populate into the course 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.
Follow these steps to do it.
To add availability and due dates in Content:
Get into the course you want to add availability and due dates to course objects.
On the NavBar (of the course you want to change dates in), click Content.
On the Table of Contents page, click Bulk Edit.
For any topic or module that you want to add availability or due dates to, click Add dates and restrictions.
Do any of the following:
Click Add start date. Enter your start date details.
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: “due today” by jflorent is dedicated to public domain under CC0 and is a derivative of calendar by tigerlily713 from Pixabay
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 August 2025/20.25.08 release that were added to our system this month:
1) Brightspace – New Window icon for all menu items
To help users better anticipate navigation behavior in Brightspace, a New Window icon now appears next to all menu items that open in a new tab or window. This change applies to all applicable menu items across the platform interface.
The icon design is also updated to better align with current styles used in Brightspace.
View an example of this change in the Print Thread menu in a discussion topic (see image).
The New Window icon appears beside a menu item.
From a course, navigate to a topic in Discussions, select the actions drop-down for a thread, then view the New Window icon appears beside Print Thread.
2) Groups – Enrollment limit increase
To support growing class sizes, the Groups tool now allows enrollment of up to 3000 users per group within a group category. Previously, the limit was 200 users per group.
This increased limit applies to all enrollment workflows, including:
Automatic enrollment during group creation
Automatic enrollment during Classlist enrollment, where automatic enrollment group types exist
Manual enrollment using the Enroll Users and Import options within the Groups tool
Groups enrollment via the Bulk User Management tool
Enrollment using Brightspace APIs
The 3000-user limit is now strictly enforced across all methods of group enrollment. Previous workarounds that bypassed the former enrollment limit will no longer function for any group that has reached the 3000-user limit.
Currently, the automatic enrollment overflow functionality enrolls users into other groups in the same category if the selected group is full. However, when the 3000-user limit is reached in all groups, further enrollment attempts will fail. To continue processing enrollments, you must add additional groups to the category.
In cases where enrollment fails due to the user limit, the following indications appear:
Brightspace APIs return an error
Bulk User Management and Group Import CSV display user-specific errors in the import results
IPSIS and Banner integrations report failures
In the Groups tool, additional users cannot be selected without deselecting users already enrolled in the group
D6942 (Allow for more than 200 people in a group/section)
D4750 (Remove 200 member cap on Self-enrolling Groups)
3) Quizzes – Print your quiz
In response to customer feedback, this update provides instructors with a simple way to print an offline quiz that supports all native Brightspace quiz question types, shuffling and randomization options, question pools, multiple versions, and an Answer Key.
From the Manage Quizzes page, click the drop-down beside the quiz name and select Print.From the Print Quiz page, select a version tab, configure formatting, and click Print [Version].
Options to support multiple quiz versions include:
Shuffle Quiz (under Timing & Display) to shuffle quiz sections and questions.
In the Timing & Display section of the quiz settings, select Shuffle Quiz to randomize the order of questions and sections within the quiz.
Shuffle questions in this section (when creating or editing a section).
When creating or editing a quiz section, select Shuffle questions in this section to randomize questions, sections, and pools within the section.
Randomize answer order when creating or editing a supported question type, for example, Multiple Choice.
When creating a multiple-choice question, select Randomize answer order to present answer choices in a different order for each learner.
To help instructors quickly and easily grade printed quizzes taken offline, an Answer Key is provided for each version. It includes the correct answers and, where applicable, the grading method.
To grade a quiz, instructors can select Show correct answers and print the required version of the quiz with an Answer Key.
This feature implements the following PIE items:
D362 (Print Quiz and Quiz Key)
D3718 (Quizzes - Generate PDF of the Quiz for Printing)
D5909 (Make all screens which have "forms" exportable to PDF)
D8049 (Printing Quiz)
D11794 (Quizzes: Print Test for Offline Completion)
4) PIE – Enhancement to the Product Idea Exchange (PIE)
This update enhances the Product Idea Exchange (PIE) based on customer feedback and introduces a new idea submission pipeline. D2L is refocusing on using PIE for new product ideas only. For bugs, support issues, or feedback on existing features, customers should use the Customer Support Portal or speak with your Customer Success representative. Updated guidelines for PIE are available in the Community.
This update makes it easier to:
Engage directly with the D2L Product Management team
Receive faster updates on submitted ideas with simplified statuses and streamlined process
Gain visibility into how ideas influence the product roadmap
D2L will provide feedback on submissions that do not follow the updated guidelines to provide an opportunity to update the submissions. Submitters receive a notification and have 90 days to enhance it.
D2L is also reviewing existing PIE submissions to inform migration plans. Customers are encouraged to revisit older submissions marked as Feedback Review Window and provide comments on those still relevant.
The current PIE interface remains open for commenting until August 31, after which it becomes read-only for six months to allow historical reference and migration.
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.
Notifications enable you to customize what methods you want to use to receive notifications, such as email, as well as what events will trigger notifications.
Students can control how they receive information about course activity through their notification preferences. They can customize which actions in Brightspace will trigger a notification.
The Notification tool allows users to:
Subscribe to a summary of activity for each course and receive a daily email.
Specify your preferred email address for instant notifications and announcements.
Receive instant notifications about course activity, such as edited content, new discussion posts, assignments, grades, course announcements and upcoming quizzes.
Instructors can help their students to keep up with their coursework by encouraging them to setup their notification preferences. Additionally, there is a Getting Started for Learners Video Playlist that students should watch to get familiar with Brightspace.
Follow these steps to do it.
To customize notification preferences, users should:
From your Personal Menu (located in the Minibar), select Notifications.
Select the email address to which notifications will be sent.
Select the course activities for which you would like to receive notifications.
Click the Save button at the bottom of the screen.
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.
Did you know, D2L rolled out a modern, upgraded, responsive, and accessible Brightspace Editor? The Brightspace Editor is the primary method of creating content in Brightspace. The Brightspace Editor allows users to enter text, pictures, or embed audio/video. Advanced users can even embed HTML code.
You can create course content using the Brightspace Editor. For example, the Brightspace Editor is available when you edit discussion topics, create custom instructions for assignment submission folders, create quizzes, create announcements, and create content topics.
Brightspace Editor
I find myself using emojis to help convey tone and emotion, which can be difficult to express through text alone. 🙂 You can easily insert an emoji using the "Other Insert Options" button in the Brightspace Editor's toolbar.
The Brightspace Editor has many icons that match those of common word processing software: bold, left justify, bullets, tables, and so on. It’s important to remember the Brightspace Editor is not a word processor. When you add pictures, links or embed videos, you are creating references to items that are stored internally (in Brightspace) or externally (another web site). If those items are changed or deleted, the reference will not display properly.
Brightspace Editor: A Breakdown of New Features
Redesigning the editor provided opportunities for D2L to provide a better experience. Some new features were added to the Editor, but there was also a focus on improvements in accessibility, responsiveness, and ease of use:
Improved accessibility – D2L ensured that toolbars met the new WCAG 3.0 standards for button spacing and that the keyboard navigation makes sense to users, especially those using screen reader technology. They also recreated their great color picker that highlights WCAG AA compliance to end users.
Enhanced responsiveness – The toolbar collapses intelligently based on the size of your screen, with different breakpoints. This means that formatting options collapse together, alignment options, and 'insert' options - creating a great experience on any device.
Ease of use – The editor now looks more like a standard web text editor - with all formatting options at the top. Contextual menus are inside the editing experience for quick access while typing. They included the advanced code editor that makes editing html code easier. They upgraded the tables feature and added: format painter, word count, and @mentions in Discussions. All areas clients suggested for improvement in the Product Idea Exchange (PIE).
Enhancements to the Editor
More and different formatting options.
An improved color picker with WCAG compliance checking.
A full set of emojis and special symbols
The move of footer options like 'preview' ' source' 'accessibility checking' and 'expand' to the main toolbar.
Updates to the font size menu
Removal of Spellchecker*
Removal of Cut/Copy buttons (which no longer worked on most browsers anymore in any case)
A refreshed Accessibility checker
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.
*NOTE: 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.
Additions to the Editor
Format painter that enables you to copy and apply text formatting.
New Advanced Tables that includes sorting options.
Contextual menus for editing text, links, and images (image editing is not available in all areas)
Word Count including character and selection word count
Advanced Source Code Editor that includes code suggestions and color coding for tags.
Lato font
@mentions support in Discussions
An 'Other Insert Options' menu for overflow items to improve responsiveness.
Limited text pattern support: * * for italics, ** ** for bold, ## for H2, ### for H3, etc until H6.
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 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.
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.
Additionally, using Quicklinks provides direct, easily clickable links to specific course content, assignments, announcements, and more, within Brightspace. This makes it significantly easier for students, especially when using the Pulse app, to quickly find the information or activity they need without having to manually search through modules and sub-modules. This enhances the overall navigation and accessibility of the course for all students, including those who may be using assistive technologies or have learning differences.
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 using Quicklinks and including a due date or end date for assignments and activities.
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.
A Quicklink is a way for instructors to insert a direct link to content that is inside or outside of their course.
Quicklinks are useful because they allow instructors to provide students with a direct link to content in the course. For example, instructors can create an announcement or email for students with links that take students directly to specific content files or assignments inside of the course. When creating content, instructors can create a quicklink to a rubric so that students can have easy access to it.
Instructors should take advantage of Quicklinks, they are useful for pointing students to specific content in the course!
Follow these steps to do it.
Watch this short video for instructions on inserting Quicklinks:
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.
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:
Get into the course you want to change the dates of course objects.
On the NavBar (of the course you want to change dates in), click Course Admin.
Click Manage Dates.
Select the check box of the items for which you want to bulk edit dates.
Click Bulk Edit Dates.
In the Bulk Edit Dates dialog box, update the due dates and availability dates.
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.
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:
Get into the course you want the content copied into (i.e., the target course).
In the NavBar (of the course you want the content copied to), click on "Course Admin".
Click on the "Import/Export/Copy Components" link.
Click on the "Copy Components from another Org Unit" radio button.
In the Course to Copy option, click the "Search for Offering" button.
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.
Click on the radio button to the right of the course you want to copy content from and then click on "Add Selected".
Verify your selections are correct before proceeding.
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.
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 OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay
I usually get a lot of questions from faculty related to setting up their Brightspace courses. In the spirit of starting the academic year with less stress, I offer the following course design suggestions to reduce your course setup and management stress:
Setup Grade Book First
Setting up your Grade Book before adding assignments and activities that will be graded simplifies your course creation workflow. Grade items are not automatically created in the Grade Book. Instructors have to setup their grading system and create grade items separately.
When you setup your Grade Book first, you can associate the assignment/activity with the corresponding grade item in the Grade Book at the time you are creating the assignment/activity. This eliminates going back and forth between creating assignments/activities and the Grade Book.
Use Due Dates
Use due dates in Brightspace to help students stay on track. Dates automatically populate into the course calendar. Students will see due dates when they look at entries in the course calendar.
Enter due dates and availability (start/end) dates when you create assignments, assessments, discussion topics and forums, etc. Keep dates aligned with the dates in your syllabus to prevent student confusion about when an assignment/activity is due.
Make Names Consistent
Avoid naming assignment/activities one thing in the syllabus and another in the course (and/or still another in the Grade Book). If your assignment is listed as "Week 5 Short Essay Paper" in the syllabus, but your assignment submission folder is labeled "Educational Technology", you can expect to field questions and/or excuses from students who can’t figure out what they’re supposed to do.
Make things easier for students by making sure an item is named consistently throughout the syllabus and course, and things will be easier for you as well.
Keep Information Consistent
Posting multiple copies of assignment instructions or supplemental material in multiple places in the course is an invitation to trouble because there isn’t necessarily a correlation between them—they can be completely different documents. When there’s a change to the assignment, you have to remember to make edits everywhere you might have posted the information, or risk giving students conflicting information.
Use Quicklinks instead of posting multiple copies of assignment instructions or instructional material. Quicklinks are useful because they allow instructors to provide students with a direct link to content in the course. Quicklinks are great for making sure information is consistent throughout the course. For example, instructors can create an announcement or email for students with links that take students directly to specific content files or assignments inside of the course. Because this is a direct link to information in the course, when you make a change to the information it will be updated everywhere in the course because it’s linked.
Copy Course or Copy Components
You do not have to start from scratch when creating content for your course. If you created content in one course you can copy that content or copy components from that course into another course. For example, if you are teaching multiple sections of a course, you can create all the content in one course section and then copy the content into the other sections. Likewise, if you created content in one course (e.g. rubrics, discussions, quizzes, etc.) you can copy that specific content into another course. Copying course content is particularly useful at the start of a semester as it allows you to copy content from a previous semester to a newly created empty course.
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.
