Brightspace Small Plates – Page 26

Brightspace Tip #219: Quizzes – Retake Incorrect Questions Only

Janice FlorentMarch 18, 2021Leave a comment

Instructors have the option to give learners multiple quiz attempts in order to improve their test scores. A new option for Quizzes Attempt settings that allows learners to only retake their incorrectly answered questions from previous quiz attempts is a new feature that was implemented in our November Continuous Delivery Update. Instructors can select this new option in the Assessment tab of a quiz. When the Retake Incorrect Questions Only check box is selected for subsequent quiz attempts, each learner only sees the questions they had previously answered incorrectly in the same order as the initial attempt (including quizzes with random sections and random questions).

When grading a Retake Incorrect Questions Only quiz attempt, the instructor can only provide a score for the questions answered on this attempt. If you are using Automatic grading, Written Response questions will be marked as 0 and included in future attempts until they are graded manually.

A learner's score for a Retake Incorrect Questions Only attempt remains at minimum, the score they had on the previous attempt. Correctly answered questions on the Retake Incorrect Questions Only attempt add to the learner's attempts score. The Quiz Overall Grade is calculated using the overall grade calculation option the instructor selects (i.e., Highest Attempt, Lowest Attempt, First Attempt, Last Attempt, or the Average of all Attempts).

The Retake Incorrect Questions Only option can be selected when setting Attempts Allowed

The "Average of all Attempts" can be used to give the student partial marks for questions that were not answered correctly on the first attempt. For example, you create a quiz worth 100 total points, allows 2 attempts, the Retake Incorrect Questions Only option is checked, and the “Average of all Attempts” is selected for the overall grade calculation. A learner takes the quiz and scores 75 out of 100 points on the first attempt. When the learner takes the second attempt, they will only be able to answer the questions that were answered incorrectly on the previous attempt. In this case, the learner will be able to answer the incorrect questions from the first attempt. Let’s assume the learner answered a few more questions correctly and earned a score of 85 out of 100 points on the second attempt. The overall grade for the quiz is 80%, which is the average of the two attempts (75 + 85 = 160 ÷ 200 = 80%). Assume the learner did not answer any of the first attempt's incorrectly answered questions correctly on the second attempt, their overall score would be 75%. When using the Retake Incorrect Questions Only attempt option the overall score will remain at a minimum, the score they had on the previous attempt.

The Users tab indicates the retaken attempts for the quiz

A learner view of a Retake Incorrect Questions Only quiz attempt

If this post has piqued your interest, you may be interested in these articles that provide information on the pros and cons of allowing learners to retake tests:

Want more information?

Understanding Quizzes in Brightspace
Brightspace Tip #215: Quizzes - Question Types and When to Use Them
Brightspace Tip #184: Test/Quiz Question Generator
Brightspace Tip #209: Quiz Availability and Timing
Brightspace Tip #214: Quizzes – Set Accommodations by Learner for All Quizzes
Brightspace Tip #207: Quizzes – Special Access

Best Practices: The Quiz Tool
Quizzes Tool for Instructors (video tutorials)

Back to Basics: Tests and Quizzes (workshop recording)
Beyond the Basics: Complex Tests in Brightspace (workshop recording)

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: "try again sign" by jflorent is dedicated to the public domain under CC0 and is a derivative of directory by geralt from Pixabay

Brightspace Tip #218: Turnitin – Quick Submit

Janice FlorentMarch 17, 2021Leave a comment

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.

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:

Log in to your Turnitin account natively through www.turnitin.com.
Activate Quick Submit by clicking on User Info from the top of the instructor homepage.
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.
To start the upload process, click on the Submit button in the Quick Submit inbox and follow the instructions.

Want more information?

Turnitin Quick Submit (pdf)
Assignments and Turnitin
Create an Assignment and Enable Turnitin
TurnItIn - Assess an Assignment using TurnItIn - Instructor (video)
Interpreting the Similarity Report

Brightspace Tip #142: Simplify Assignment Collection
Brightspace Tip #121: Turnitin Feedback Studio
Brightspace Tip #122: Getting the Best out of Turnitin Feedback Studio

About PeerMark Assignments

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 #217: Brightspace Virtual PIE

Janice FlorentMarch 15, 2021March 15, 2021Leave a comment

apple pie with a Pi symbol baked into the crust

Pi (π) Day is celebrated on March 14th (3.14). Did you know the Brightspace Community has a PIE? Yes, there is a PIE (Product Idea Exchange) in the Brightspace Community. The PIE is a system that allows users of Brightspace to share their suggestions on how to make Brightspace better. I invite you to celebrate Pi (π) Day by taking a few minutes to explore the Brightspace Product Idea Exchange (PIE).

We’ve put together this collection of PIE ideas you can consider upvoting so that we can add our voice to the community to make the Brightspace experience better. You can also search the PIE for ideas to upvote or submit your own idea to the PIE. Let us know if you submit your own idea to the PIE so that we can upvote it. Here is a resource on navigating the PIE, just in case you need it.

Also, here’s a Slice of Something Nice for Pi (π) Day 2021 from the Brightspace Community.

Want more information?

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: Apple pie with cinnamon by Matman from Lublin licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

Brightspace Tip #216: Use Submission Views to Show Quiz Results

Janice FlorentMarch 11, 2021Leave a comment

Submission views can be created to allow students to go back and review a submitted quiz. Customizing the submission view allows instructors to choose what information the student sees upon completing the quiz, as well as what they can see when they go back to review a quiz. The default submission view shows the overall score to the student (when they submit their quiz) and nothing else. To release more information to students (i.e. feedback, their submitted answers, the answers to each question, class averages and statistics, etc.) you need to either edit the default submission view or set up an additional submission view.

The Default View is what students see immediately upon submitting their quiz. The Default View typically does not allow students to see answers to a quiz, but does allow them to view their score on auto-graded items. If you adjust the Default View to allow students to see the answers to a quiz, keep in mind the Default View is what students see as soon as they submit their quiz. Thus, showing answers in the Default View while the quiz is still in progress would reveal answers to the quiz before ALL students have submitted the quiz.

Additional Views can be created with a specified release date and time that allows instructors to release information, or answers, after a certain time. For example, an Additional View could be created for after all students have submitted the quiz (i.e., after the quiz is closed) to allow students to view which questions they answered correctly and/or incorrectly, as well as answers to questions. Another Additional View could also be created to allow students to see the class statistics and could be set to release at the end of the semester. If a quiz has multiple attempts, you can also specify a score required on an attempt in order to release the submission view.

I recommend you create an Additional View and name it “Shutdown View”. For the Shutdown View you would select "No" for the Show Questions option (in the View Details section) and enter the date/time you would like the first additional view to close to your students (in the View Restrictions section). This additional view will “shutdown” the first additional view as only the most recent submission view is the active one. This will ensure that your quiz questions and answers are not available past the time you plan to have it available. You may decide that you want the submission view to be available to your students through the end of the semester. In this case, I suggest creating a “Shutdown View” with an end of semester date/time. Creating a “Shutdown View” with an end of the semester date/time is good practice if you are planning to copy a course with quizzes that have submission views into another course. This ensures that a quiz with a Shutdown View will force you to update the settings in the course you are copying to. Thus reducing the possibility that you have a submission view enabled before you want it to be.

Important Notes:

Submission Views DO NOT take effect until the quiz scores have been published. The “Allow attempt to be set as graded immediately upon completion” option must be checked. This option is found in the Assessment tab.
The Limited Duration option allows students to only be able to access the submission view for a short period immediately after completing the quiz. This option SHOULD NOT be used if you want students to review at a future date/time. In this case you should set up an additional view for the date/time you want the view to start AND set up a “Shutdown View”.
You should provide students with instructions on how to view a completed test submission.

Want more information?

Setting a Submission View
Customize Submission Views (video)
How to view a completed test submission (pdf)

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 #215: Quizzes – Question Types and When to Use Them

Janice FlorentMarch 10, 2021March 10, 2021Leave a comment

The Quizzes tool enables you to create and manage points-measured assessments. As part of your quantifiable assessment procedures, you can use quizzes to help evaluate students’ learning progress and learning outcomes.

Quizzes are often thought to only be useful for quick knowledge checks. However, the Quizzes tool has eleven question types that allow you to test different levels of knowledge. The question types available in the Quizzes tool are:

True or False (T/F)
Multiple Choice (MC)
Multi-Select (M-S)
Written Response (WR)
Short Answer (SA)
Multi-Short Answer (MSA)
Fill in the Blanks (FIB)
Matching (MAT)
Ordering (ORD)
Arithmetic (2+2)
Significant Figures (x10)

What Question Type Should You Use?

Bloom’s Taxonomy is a model that is used to classify different levels of comprehension, starting with the lower levels such as remembering and understanding, and then moving upwards to create/evaluate. You should select question types according to what level of understanding you want to practice.

Information Technology Services at Algonquin College developed a resource that goes through in detail, matching question types to the levels of Bloom's Taxonomy they practice. The table below shows the question types they suggest for the level of Bloom's Taxonomy you want to practice:

TABLE 1: Mapping Bloom's Taxonomy to Brightspace Question Types
Bloom's Taxonomy	Question Types
Create	WR
Evaluate	M-S, WR, MAT, and ORD
Analyze	MC, M-S, and WR
Apply	MC, WR, FIB, MAT, ORD, 2+2, and x10
Understand	MC, M-S, SA, FIB, 2+2, and x10
Remember	T/F, MC, M-S, SA, and FIB

If this has piqued your interest, you can find more information on mapping your questions to the best quiz question type for your assessment in this Question Types & When to Use Them resource from Algonquin College.

Additionally, the Centre for Innovation in Teaching and Learning at Memorial University of Newfoundland created a Question Types in Brightspace resource that explains the question types, highlights their strengths and challenges, provide some tips to consider when choosing to use a question type, including the average time to allot for each question item type.

Some question types have grading options associated with them. It may be helpful to review this Understanding Grading Options for Question Types article from the Brightspace Community if you plan to use the Quizzes tool for your tests/exams.

ICYMI, follow these links to watch a recording of our Back to Basics: Tests and Quizzes and Beyond the Basics: Complex Tests in Brightspace training sessions.

Want more information?

Understanding Quizzes in Brightspace
Question Types & When to Use Them
Question Types in Brightspace
Understanding Grading Options for Question Types
Brightspace Tip #184: Test/Quiz Question Generator
Best Practices: The Quiz Tool
Quizzes Tool for Instructors (video tutorials)
Back to Basics: Tests and Quizzes (workshop recording)
Beyond the Basics: Complex Tests in Brightspace (workshop recording)

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 #214: Quizzes – Set Accommodations by Learner for All Quizzes

Janice FlorentFebruary 28, 2021Leave a comment

Our February 2021 Continuous Delivery Update included a new feature that enables instructors to grant quiz accommodations to learners through the Classlist tool. Instructors can assign accommodations to specific learners that apply across all quizzes instead of applying them on a quiz by quiz basis.

The new Edit Accommodations option in the Classlist

Accommodation options currently available include: more time to complete quizzes at the course level and the ability to bypass right-click restrictions in quizzes. The right-click restriction in quizzes is the ability for learners to right-click in the quiz while taking the quiz.

Once granted, these accommodations apply to all quiz activities in a course for that learner. The additional time can be applied in terms of quiz time multipliers (for example, 1.5x quiz time) or +minutes (for example, an additional 30 minutes) on every quiz in a course.

Quiz-specific Special Access can overwrite an accommodation for any user on a quiz-by-quiz basis. You will see the learner's accommodation when you view the Special Access for the quiz.

Accommodations indicator in Special Access — An example of how Accommodations set for a learner in Classlist will show up in the Special Access for a quiz

When you overwrite an accommodation (through Special Access) and then click Save, a warning describing the impact of overwriting an accommodation appears.

D2L has announced that further accommodation options and enhancements are planned for this year.

Want more information?

Set Up Brightspace Accommodations by Learner for All Quizzes
Brightspace Tip #207: Quizzes – Special Access
Resources for the Quizzes Tool

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 #213: Grade Book – Preview Learner Grades

Janice FlorentFebruary 27, 2021February 28, 2021Leave a comment

The instructor’s view of grades is not the same as the learner's view of grades. Did you know you can get a preview of what a learner sees when they view their grades in your course?

To verify what a learner sees when they view their grades, an instructor can Preview the learner's grades.

Follow these steps to do it.

To Preview a learner's grades you should:

On the NavBar, click Grades.
On the Enter Grades page, select "Preview" from the contextual menu associated with a learner name from the table. The Grades will appear in a new pop-up window.

NOTE: If you are meeting with a student and want to hide the grades of the other students, you should use the Grade Book Search to do so.

Want more information?

Preview Learner Grades
Brightspace Tip #109: Grade Book
Brightspace Tip #211: Grade Book – Search
Understanding the Grades Tool

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: "preview key" by jflorent is licensed under CC BY 4.0 and is a derivative of "Education Keyboard Button" by GotCredit used under CC BY 2.0

Brightspace Tip #212: February Continuous Delivery Updates

Janice FlorentFebruary 25, 2021October 10, 2021Leave a comment

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 February 2021/20.21.2 release that were added to our system this month:

1) Accommodations – Quiz accommodations

This new feature enables instructors to grant quiz accommodations to learners through the Classlist tool. Instructors can assign accommodations to specific students that apply across all quizzes instead of applying them on a quiz by quiz basis.

Quiz-specific Special Access can overwrite an accommodation for any user on a quiz-by-quiz basis. When you overwrite an accommodation and then click Save, a warning describing the impact of overwriting an accommodation appears.

Further accommodation options and enhancements are planned for this year.

2) Assignments - Save progress and visual enhancements

This feature builds on the Assignments – The new assignment creation experience | Updated feature that was released in the January 2021/20.21.1 release.

Now, the Save button in the new assignment creation experience enables an instructor to save their progress while creating or editing an assignment. Previously, Save and Close was the only option.

The Save button in the new assignment creation experience

The scrollbars on the main and right-hand panels now appear thinner and less noticeable, providing more vertical space when creating or editing an assignment.
The name of the assignment appears in the immersive navbar along the top of the page.

The name of the assignment on the immersive NavBar and the less obtrusive scrollbar in the new assignment creation experience

3) Quick Eval - Homepage widget

Quick Eval can now be added to organization and course homepages as a widget to allow instructors to view and access any submissions awaiting evaluation. The Quick Eval widget displays a list of up to six activities with submissions to evaluate. The activities are sorted by due date, with the earliest date first. The icon indicator in the widget shows the type of activity (assignment, discussion, or quiz), and the number of unevaluated submissions for each activity. The due date and course information are also visible below the title of each activity. Course information is only shown if the widget is accessed from the organization homepage.

Activities dismissed in the Quick Eval tool are not displayed by the Quick Eval widget.

The Quick Eval widget on course homepage displaying no submissions needing evaluation

The Quick Eval widget on the Organization homepage displaying unevaluated activities from multiple courses

NOTE: Are you interested in Customizing your Course Homepage with widgets? You can find information explaining how in this blog post.

4) Rubrics - Warning dialog for partial evaluations

Previously, if an instructor attempted to publish a partially completed rubric evaluation, the partial evaluation dialog appeared. If the instructor tapped Enter on their keyboard, the partial evaluation was published.

Now, the default button behavior has changed so that tapping Enter on the page returns the user to the rubric to complete the evaluation. This change adds a verification layer to reconsider their action and ensure that instructors are not mistakenly publishing incomplete evaluations.

The partial evaluation warning dialog appears the same, but has updated default behavior.

If you are interested in getting more information about these and all the February Continuous Delivery updates, refer to the Brightspace Platform February 2021/20.21.2 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.

Image credit: image by geralt from Pixabay

Brightspace Tip #211: Grade Book – Search

Janice FlorentFebruary 22, 2021Leave a comment

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 #109: Grade Book
Understanding the Grades Tool

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 #210: Grade Book – Bonus Points

Janice FlorentFebruary 10, 2021Leave a comment

There are two ways to give extra credit in Brightspace. The first is to allow the grade item to exceed the maximum number of points for the assignment. The other option is to indicate the grade item is a “Bonus” item.

The differences between the two options are explained here:

Can Exceed means in grading an item you are able to add extra credit to the assignment, quiz, or any item in the Grade Book. You indicate this by checking the Can Exceed box.
- The Can Exceed option can boost student’s score on activity making it feasible to earn more than 100%. For example, on a grade item where the maximum points is 10 and the Can Exceed option is selected, a grade of 12/10 is a perfect score with 2 extra credit points added.
- When you choose Can Exceed for a grade item in the Grade Book, you should also select Can Exceed for the Category in which the grade item resides.
Bonus refers to optional activities. Students are NOT penalized for skipping the activity. Points earned for Bonus activities will improve the student’s grade. Checking the Bonus option means that any points earned will be added onto the Final Calculated Grade.
- Bonus items appear in the Grade Book with a Star next to them.
- Bonus grade items are not included in the maximum points for a category or final grade. They are added on top of the calculated grade. Bonus grade items cannot make users' grades exceed the maximum points specified, unless the Can Exceed option is selected.

The Can Exceed and Bonus options can both be selected for a grade item.

Want more information?

About Bonus Grade Items
Bonus Marks FAQs
Extra Credit
Create a Grade Item (video)
Brightspace Tip #109: Grade Book

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 vivs4e from Pixabay

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1) Accommodations – Quiz accommodations

2) Assignments - Save progress and visual enhancements

3) Quick Eval - Homepage widget

4) Rubrics - Warning dialog for partial evaluations

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To display one row in the Grade Book:

To display all rows in the Grade Book:

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