Do you want your students to take a quiz or test online? Do you have a test that you normally administer on paper and you don’t want to retype all the questions into Brightspace. Learning and Teaching Services at Algonquin College developed a Test/Quiz Question Generator that provides an easy way of creating a collection of questions that can be imported into Brightspace.
Quiz questions have to be in a special format in order to be imported into Brightspace. The Test/Quiz Question Generator allows you to reformat your questions and it will create a CSV file that can be imported into Brightspace. Refer to this question types and formatting guide for information on how to format your questions.
If you want to save time creating tests and quizzes by not having to retype test questions into Brightspace, try the Test/Quiz Question Generator.
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 number of questions about quiz availability and time restrictions have come up recently. In particular, I’ve been asked to clarify the quiz availability and timing options. I’m writing this blog post to provide some clarification on this.
The availability settings are used by Brightspace to determine when to make the link to the quiz available for the students to click on to start the exam. The timing options are used to determine how much time the student will have to take the exam. Availability and timing work independently of each other. If the availability date/time is set for a two hour exam window, then the student will be able to start the exam anytime during that two hour window and the timing will determine how long they have to take the exam. Brightspace IS NOT going to subtract the time the student started the exam and then limit the testing period to the remainder of the time. A student will have the entire time to take the exam regardless of when they started it.
Example of availability dates for an exam
The way in which the availability and timing options work may be more of a concern for faculty who are teaching a remote class and their students are expected to take their exams on a given day at a given time. For example, you have a course that is being taught remotely and your students are expected to take their final exam within the two hour window that is published in the final exam schedule. You want the students to be able to take their exams during this two hour exam window. You can restrict the time students have to start the exam. You will have to decide how long students would have to start the exam. Let’s assume your exam is scheduled for Dec 2nd from 8 am - 10 am and you are okay with the students starting their exam during the first 15 minutes of the testing period. The start date/time for this example would be Dec 2nd at 8 am. The end date/time would be set to Dec 2nd at 8:15 am. This means the students would have this 15 minute window to start their exam.
Example of an enforced time limit for an exam
Your timing options would be set to give the students 120 minutes to complete the exam once they start it. A student who starts the exam at 8:10 am would have until 10:10 am to complete it.
A student who tries to start the exam after 8:15 am will NOT be able to start the exam because the link will no longer be available. Likewise, a student who has an internet connectivity issue while taking the exam will not be able to get back into the exam after 8:15 am (to pick up where they left off) because the link will no longer be available. In those cases, you would have to use the “Add Users to Special Access” option to grant the student access to the exam. The Add Users to Special Access option would allow you to change the length of time the student has to take the test and/or to open the exam back up for a student who had connectivity issues.
Continuing with our example, you have a student who notifies you at 8:30 am that they are late and want to be able to take the exam. You would edit the exam, click on the Add Users to Special Access button (on the Restrictions tab), and change the timing to allow the student the remaining 90 minutes to complete the exam. You would also have to change the end date/time for that particular student's special access in order for the link to the exam to be available to that student.
NOTE: The type of access would NOT be changed when allowing the student to take the exam. The “Type of Access” would still be “Allow selected users special access to this quiz”.
Example of special access for an exam
Finally, I think it is a good idea to explain the availability and timing options that you decide to set for your exams to your students. This could eliminate confusion about the testing options and what to expect when taking the exam.
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.
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”.
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.
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 2020/20.20.10 release that were added to our system this month:
1) Brightspace Learning Environment - File types added to restricted upload list
For security reasons, D2L restricts the uploading of certain file types to Brightspace Learning Environment. This feature adds the following file types to the restricted list:
Quick Eval is now listed in the Course Admin page under the Assessment category.
3) Quiz Builder - Question import improvements
This feature updates question importing options in Quiz Builder. When importing questions from Question Library, users can now use the default end of quiz location for the questions, or choose to import the questions into a section. Previously, all questions imported from the Question Library were placed at the end of the Quiz by default, with no ability to select a specific quiz section.
The Import drop-down menu now shows the Import to Section option on the Browse Question Library screen
4) Quizzes - Editing quizzes with previous attempts
Points for all past quiz attempts are no longer modified when edits are made that affect the overall points and/or the grading calculations for a quiz. In the previous release, this update extended only to quizzes with attempts started after the June 2020/20.20.6 release. Now, all previous quizzes with attempts started before Brightspace Learning Environment version 20.20.6 will display the quiz and grading calculations that appeared to the learner at the exact time they made the attempt.
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.
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 September 2020/20.20.9 release that were added to our system this month:
1) Assignments – Additional functionality in the new assignment creation experience
Building on the functionality added to the new create and edit assignment experience in the August 2020/20.20.8 release, you can now do the following:
Add special access conditions to assignments
The new assignment creation experience with the Special Access functionality
Receive a notification email when assignments are submitted
The new assignment creation experience with the Notification Email functionality
2) Brightspace Pulse for iOS – View Activity Feed posts and comments
To keep up to date on course activity, learners can now read Activity Feed posts and comments in Brightspace Pulse for iOS. Learners can also receive Activity Feed notifications. For example, in courses with Activity Feed enabled, instructors can use Activity Feed to post reminders about upcoming assignments and links to course materials. Learners then receive notifications about those posts in Brightspace Pulse, allowing them to view post details from the course homepages. Future releases will allow learners to post or reply to posts, if they have the appropriate permissions.
From the Courses tab, tapping a course displays the course homepage. The latest post and any associated comments display in the Activity Feed.
From the Notifications tab, tapping an Activity Feed notification displays the associated post or comment in the Activity Feed.
An Activity Feed post and comment for a course in Brightspace Pulse for iOS
3) Class/User Progress – Include Pulse activity in usage data
Learner activity data is now captured more accurately through the addition of a new system usage metric. Previously, Pulse usage was not tracked, and learners who accessed their courses through the app were misrepresented as having low engagement and could not access conditionally released content.
These changes affect the following areas of Brightspace:
Class Progress has a new System Access performance indicator, which displays the number of times each course participant has accessed the system through the Learning Environment or Pulse in the last 30 days. Instructors can add System Access to the Class Progress dashboard by clicking Settings.
User Progress has a new System Access History section, which displays the number of times the user has accessed the system through the Learning Environment or Pulse in the last 30 days. Instructors can select System Access History to display in the User Progress report by clicking Settings.
Class Progress dashboard showing System Access indicator
4) Discussions - Visual word count for discussion posts
A visual word count is now visible in the HTML Editor for discussion posts. All words in a discussion post are counted and include filler words such as “the,” “if,” and “to.”
The word count is dynamically displayed to learners while they type in the HTML Editor and it also appears next to posts they have created in the Discussions Reading View and Grid View. Learners can view the word count for their posts only.
For instructors, the word count appears on the Assessment page during the discussions assessment process and it also appears inline with the post details in the Discussions Reading View and Grid View. Instructors can view the word count for all user posts.
New word count indicator in a discussion topicA discussion post with the dynamically displayed word count
5) Question Library – Attach files in arithmetic and significant figures questions
Building on the attach files in written response questions functionality released in the August 2020/20.20.8 release, when creating arithmetic and significant figures questions, instructors can now allow learners to include external files with their responses and record audio or video responses when answering these question types. This feature is only available in the new Quiz Builder Experience.
When grading a quiz, similar to the behavior in the Discussions tool, instructors can view a list of attachments, download them, or open them in another tab. When reviewing their submission in Submission View, the learner can see their uploaded attachment if allowed to see their responses.
To support attachment responses, Quizzes data sets and quiz reporting enhancements will be released in the November 2020/20.20.11 release.
The updated New Arithmetic Question screenThe updated New Significant Figures screen
6) Question Library – Search for and select questions in Question Library sections
This feature enables instructors to search for sections in Question Library by section title, as well as the ability to select and import the section in its entirety from the search results list. Previously, you could only search for questions by question text and you could not select sections in the search results.
The updated search and select capability in Question LibraryThe previous search and select questions capability in Question Library
7) Quiz Builder - Enhanced question reordering
To simplify the movement and reordering of questions in Quiz Builder, a new Move To option is visible when a question is selected. The Move To option allows questions to be moved to the Top of the Quiz, Bottom of the Quiz, or to a specific section within the quiz.
Previously, to move multiple questions into a section, instructors had to individually drag the questions into the desired section. Now, instructors can select multiple questions and move them all at once using the Move To menu. The drag and drop reordering of questions has not been affected by this feature and remains available.
The Move To option is visible once quiz questions are selected
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.
You spent part of your summer getting certified in the XULA-Flex training program. Hopefully you are starting to feel comfortable using Brightspace. If you are wondering what to do next, you should consider taking your course to the next level by adding images.
Images can be used to serve many different purposes. Images are powerful because they:
Can help tell a story
Can explain a technical process
Can convey course information in an alternate format
Can break up the monotony of “text-only” pages
Can increase student engagement
Students pay more attention to articles/readings with graphic content
Just make the course look better
Below are examples of a Brightspace course that has a module without images and the same module with images and details. Which one looks better? Which course would you rather interact with?
Example #1 - Course module without images or topic details
Example #2 - Course module with images and detailed information in the descriptions
The images used in example #2 are for decoration, but they do add color and continuity to the course. Also, the descriptions provide students with additional information and links to go to for help. Thus eliminating the need for the student to search around the course for help or to find details about the assignment.
Did you know the HTML Editor has image editing capabilities? You can edit images in place (including flipping, rotating, and adjusting brightness, sharpness, and color), edit the image description, and edit the size of the image.
Advanced image editing screen in the HTML Editor
NOTE: Image editing capabilities are exclusive to creating discussion posts, announcements, and content (excluding module descriptions).
You can insert an image anywhere you use the HTML Editor in Brightspace. With a few clicks of your mouse, your Brightspace course can go from boring text only to visually engaging pages of text and images that convey meaning to students in different ways!
Are you looking for images to use in your courses? Here are a few helpful resources:
In the HTML Editor, place your cursor where you want to insert the image and then click the Insert Image button.
Follow the prompts.
NOTE: Images that enhance information or contribute to the understanding of text content need alternative text (Alt Text) to be accessible. Images that are purely decorative and add no content value should be identified as decorative.
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.
The new Assignment creation experience was one of the changes that we saw beginning with our June 2020 Continuous Delivery update. While this new experience simplifies the creation of assignments, it currently does not have all the options that are available in the old experience. You can toggle between the new assignment creation experience and the old experience by clicking on the down arrow in the upper right corner of the New Assignment or Edit Assignment pages. Here are some screenshots:
Turn off the new assignment creation experienceSwitch from old experience to the new assignment creation experience
D2L is building on the functionality of the new assignment creation experience. Expect additional functionality to be added to the new assignment creation experience in the coming months. Any changes to the new assignment creation experience will be made as a part of our Continuous Delivery Updates.
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.
Instructors can make their courses Pulse friendly by including due dates or end dates for assignments and activities. When instructors do not enter due dates or end dates, no associated information is available in the Pulse app.
The Pulse app is great for helping students stay on track in face-to-face classes as well. Instructors can set up their face-to-face assignments and activities as events in the Brightspace course calendar. Students will get those date feeds in the Brightspace Pulse app.
Help keep students on track for success in all their courses by including a due date or end date for assignments and activities.
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.
"Drip-feeding" is a term you will likely hear in association with online and hybrid learning. While the term "drip-feeding" is new to many people, most are familiar with the concept.
Drip-feeding is "scheduled lesson delivery." Essentially, instructors can determine when they want certain content in their courses to become available. Instructors can configure their course content and then set-up the sequential delivery of that content. Once set-up, the Learning Management System (LMS) will auto-drip the content to students without any more work by the instructor.
Utilizing date/time restrictions allow instructors to create content at a time that is convenient to them and make it visible to students at the appropriate time. This can be very handy because instructors can set-up their course content well in advance of when they want it to be available to their students. For example, create all the course content at the beginning of the semester, set the date/time restrictions, and then let Brightspace auto-drip the content.
The availability dates in Brightspace control when items are available to students. There are three types of availability dates, they are:
Start dates: These dates specify when a student can see the item. Students will see that the item exists, but they cannot open it beforehand.
Due dates: These dates specify when a student should complete an item. The dates will appear in the course calendar and students will be able to see and submit their work after the date has passed.
End dates: These dates restrict access to the item. They remove all access once the date has passed.
Some instructors may be hesitant to set date/time restrictions for the entire semester because assignment dates/times may need to be adjusted as the semester progresses. This means, the instructors would have to go into the content items to adjust the dates/times when necessary. The Manage Dates tool can simplify this process. The Manage Dates tool allows instructors to easily change due dates and availability dates at one time (all on one page). The Manage Dates tool will save instructors some time as they will not have to edit each individual item to adjust the dates/times.
Drip-feeding works well for courses that contain complex material that students need time to digest and complete. In this case, drip-feeding content may help your students not to feel overwhelmed.
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.
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 August 2020/20.20.8 release that were added to our system this month:
1) Assignments – Additional functionality in the new assignment creation experience
Building on the functionality added to the new create and edit assignment experience in the June 2020/20.20.6 release, you can now do the following:
Attach release conditions to an assignment
The create and edit Assignments page with the Release Conditions functionality
When multiple rubrics are attached to an assignment, select a default scoring rubric to be used when scoring an assignment / evaluating a learner
List of available rubrics and the option to select the rubric to be used by default when scoring
2) Assignments - Copy assignment option
This feature adds the ability to copy existing assignments. Instructors with the existing permission Add/Edit Assignment Submission Folders can select the Copy Assignment option in the drop-down menu for an existing assignment to quickly create new assignments. This feature copies all settings of an existing assignment except the associated grade item and Turnitin settings.
The Copy Assignment option appears in the drop-down menu for existing assignments
3) Checklists – Copy a checklist
Instructors can now perform copy actions for checklists. You can copy a whole checklist, a checklist category (including all items within it), or individual items in a checklist.
The copy option appears in the drop-down menu for a checklist
4) Email - Interface improvements
The Compose Email screen now includes a second Send button for enhanced usability.
5) Grades - Unrelease all final grades
Grades features a new workflow to quickly undo the release of final grades for a course. Instructors can easily select Unrelease All from the Final Grades drop-down menu.
The Unrelease All option appears in the drop-down menu for Final Grades
6) Question Library – Attach files in written response questions
When creating a written response question, instructors can now allow learners to upload files in their answers and include embedded images. Learners can also record audio or video responses when answering written response question types. Written response questions are available in surveys.
When grading a quiz, similar to the behavior in the Discussions tool, instructors can download and open these attachments in another tab.
When learners are reviewing their quiz submissions, if they are allowed to view their quiz responses, they can view their uploaded attachments.
The maximum file size for a single file or embedded image attached to a quiz response is set to 102400 KB (100MB). The maximum file size for all files attached or embedded in a single quiz question response is set to 102400 KB (100MB).
The updated Written Response question creation screen
7) Quizzes - User experience updates for editing quizzes with attempts
To improve the user experience for instructors who edit quizzes with previous attempts by learners, the following updates have been made:
Points for past quiz attempts are no longer modified when edits are made that affect the overall points and/or the grading calculations for a quiz. A learner's grade on previous quiz attempts must now be changed directly by the instructor using the Update All Attempts workflow. Previously, the points for all past quiz attempts were modified automatically, which could alter a learner's grade unexpectedly.
Warning messages now appear when editing a quiz question with previous attempts to clearly communicate to instructors that editing quiz questions does not affect the content or automatically change the score of learners' past attempts.
Important notes:
The changes in this feature only affect quiz attempts started after the June 2020/20.20.6 release. Quiz attempts started prior to 20.20.6 will retain previous functionality until September 2020/20.20.9.
Starting September 2020/20.20.9, this feature will extend to all quiz attempts started before June 2020/20.20.6.
Until November 2020/20.20.11, Data Sets will not accurately report the new quizzes attempts behavior introduced in this feature. Users may note a discrepancy between quiz attempts scores in the Quizzes interface (for quiz attempts started after June 2020/20.20.6) and quiz attempts scores in the Data Sets, which reflect previous functionality only for all previous quiz attempts.
A warning message appears when accessing the Add/Edit Questions workflow
8) Brightspace Assignment Grader – End-of-life
Effective August 15, 2020, the Assignment Grader mobile app is no longer available to new users. Existing users may continue to use the app if they have it installed, but no further updates or support will be made available by D2L and the app will be removed from app stores.
As an alternative mobile grading option, D2L recommends using the Quick Eval tool in Brightspace.
9) Brightspace ePortfolio mobile app – End-of-life
Effective August 30, 2020, the Brightspace ePortfolio mobile app is no longer available to new users. Existing users may continue to use the app if they have it installed, but no further updates or support will be made available by D2L and the app will be removed from the iOS App Store and the Google Play Apps store.
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.
