If you are teaching a face-to-face class, you may be thinking about how can you put some of your course materials online in a hurry in case of an unplanned event. The Center for Teaching at Vanderbilt University developed a resource with suggestions on how you can go about putting some of your course content online when you are in a hurry. The resource includes some Brightspace specific examples to give you ideas on how to move some of your course components online.
We have a series of Brightspace workshops planned over the next few weeks. Visit our events page to sign up for an upcoming Brightspace workshop.
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 provide feedback directly in submitted assignments using the Annotations tool. Previously the only option for annotating assignments was by using the Assignment Grader app on your mobile device.
Features available in the Annotations Toolbar are:
Text Highlighting
Freehand Drawing
Text Annotation
Note Annotation
The ability to annotate on assignment submissions will assist instructors in providing valuable feedback to students.
Instructors will see the Annotations toolbar within the Assignments Evaluation Submission screen.
Example of an assignment with annotationsAnnotations Toolbar
NOTE: The following file types are supported by the Annotations tool:
.doc
.docx
.rtf
.odt
.ppt
.pps
.pptx
.ppsx
.odp
.xls
.xlsx
.txt
.jpg
.jpeg
.png
.tif
.tiff
.gif (once converted to a PDF, only the first frame of the .gif displays)
.pdf
Students have to submit their assignments in one of the supported file types in order for the instructor to use the built-in Annotations 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.
Use the Assignments tool to help you set and manage deadlines, unclutter your inbox, and save trees.
The Assignments tool is an efficient way to manage and collect your student's individual and group assignments digitally. Brightspace's Assignments Tool allows instructors to create a secure location for students to submit class assignments.
The Assignments tool allows instructors to set up a place for students to submit their assignments digitally, with the ability to:
Control the window for submission
Facilitate individual submissions or group submissions (provided the groups have been set up using the Groups tool first)
Collect and assess submissions (with a connection to the Grades tool, if needed)
Enable plagiarism detection through Turnitin
Follow these steps to do it.
To create an assignment submission folder using the old assignment creation experience:
On the NavBar (of the course you want to create a submission folder), click Activities and then choose Assignments from the drop-down menu.
Click New Submission Folder.
Enter a Name for your submission folder.
Select a Folder Type.
Do any of the following:
Select a Category or click New Category to organize your assignment submission folders.
Select a Grade Item, or click New Grade Item.
To assign a score, enter a value in the Out Of field.
To associate a rubric to the folder, click Add Rubric, or Create Rubric in New Window.
Enter instructions in the Instructions field.
Add attachments in the Attached Files area.
Expand Show Submission Options and select the appropriate settings.
Enter your email address in the Notification Email field to receive an email message when a new submission is uploaded to this folder.
Choose the option to hide student names during assessment, if appropriate.
Note: You can add the Turnitin plagiarism detection feature to the assignment submission folder using the options in the Turnitin tab. Follow these instructions to enable Turnitin for the assignment submission folder.
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 #1 Brightspace complaint we hear from students is that faculty don't post their grades online. When students don’t receive meaningful and timely feedback about their coursework, they are unable to make the necessary adjustments to improve their performance.
Last semester's "Grade Book and College Readiness" training session focused on 1) why using the Grade Book to provide students with their standing in the course is important and 2) how to setup and enter grades in the Grade Book.
In case you missed the training session or if you attended the training session and want to recap what was covered, you can review these resources:
Homework that was to be completed before the workshop
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 February 2020/20.20.2 release that were added to our system this month:
1) Assignments - Streamlined access to inline feedback
To streamline access to assignment feedback, learners can now immediately access inline feedback from User Progress, Grades, and Assignments. From these tools, the View Inline Feedback link takes the learner directly to the annotations view (or Turnitin viewer, if that is the tool used to provide feedback). The inline feedback also includes a link to the file for the assignment, so learners know which document contains the feedback. Previously, the View Inline Feedback link took the learner to the Assignment feedback summary page, where they had to click a second link to view the feedback.
Class Progress view for instructors and learners displaying the View Inline Feedback link, which now opens directly in the annotation viewGrades view for learners displaying the View Inline Feedback link, which now opens directly in the annotation view
Assignments view for learners displaying the View Inline Feedback link, which now opens directly in the annotation view
2) EXIF data warning appears when uploading images
In some instances, when users upload .jpg files in any file upload area across Brightspace Learning Environment, an EXIF (exchangeable image file) data warning appears informing the user that the file may contain geolocation data.
3) Course Administration - Course Reset
Course Reset is a new tool that enables a course administrator to reset a course back to an empty shell. Course Reset permanently deletes course content, activities, associated files, user grades, user progress records, and interaction data from the course in a single bulk process. Users can optionally choose to include course groups, and/or course widgets, navbars, and homepages as part of the course reset process, or leave them in the course.
The Course Reset process does not affect user enrollments, sections and section enrollment, course associations, course paths associated to the course, user progress in linked SCORM objects, LOR objectsin Brightspace Learning Repository, portfolio objects saved to a users' Portfolio or ePortfolio, ePortfolio sharing groups or forms, email/instant messages sent to or from users in the course, LTI tool provider information, and Activity Feed posts.
Course Reset permanently deletes the course data and it will not appear in any reporting or data sets after the course reset process is complete. After performing a course reset, an Audit Log maintains a record of the course reset action, including the date and time of the course reset, the data that was selected for deletion, the user who performed the course reset, and any errors that occur during the course reset process.
4) Grades – Tab delimited import into Gradebook
Users can now import tab separated value (.tsv) files into Gradebook. Previously, users could only import comma delimited files into Gradebook, which created a usability issue in some international regions.
5) Quick Eval - Course level filtering
When opening Quick Eval within a course, only the list of activities and submissions related to that course display. This helps instructors easily view and evaluate submissions on a course-by-course basis. If an instructor wants to view all submissions across all their courses, they can still use the More Options menu to see the Multi-Course Quick Eval, or open Quick Eval from outside of a course.
6) Quick Eval - Dismiss activities until next submission
Instructors can now remove items from their Quick Eval list until a new submission is received for the activity. The removed activity appears on the Dismissed Activities list and can be restored at any time. Once a new submission arrives to the Quick Eval list, the previously dismissed activity reappears there.
Previously, instructors could only select a specific date or forever when dismissing an activity. This new option provides instructors with an additional option to manage the submissions on their Quick Eval list.
7) Video Note – Automatic Closed Captioning
To improve accessibility, video notes now provide automatic closed captioning for newly created videos and the ability to manually add or update closed captioning for all previously recorded videos. After video processing, users can view closed captions using video player controls.
In addition, users can now download a transcript and the closed caption file associated with a video independent of Video Notes.
Localized closed captioning is available for the following languages:
US English (en-US)
British English (en-GB)
Canadian French (fr-CA)
German (de-DE)
Brazilian Portuguese (pt-BR)
Korean (ko-KR)
Italian (it-IT)
Spanish (es-US)
Modern Standard Arabic (ar-SA)
Russian (ru-RU)
Japanese (ja-JP)
Turkish (tr-TR)
Dutch (nl-NL)
Chinese Mandarin (zh-CN)
Notes:
Canadian English is not available for closed captioning and defaults to en-US.
Chinese Traditional (zh-TW) closed captions are not currently available and defaults to zh-CN.
Mexican Spanish (es-MX) closed captions may not be available and defaults to US Spanish (es-US)
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 January 2020/20.20.1 release that were added to our system this month:
1) Support for Internet Explorer | Removed
As of January 1st, Brightspace has ended support for Internet Explorer. All versions of Internet Explorer will no longer be able to access Brightspace.
2) Brightspace Pulse – Additional languages supported
To provide consistent language support with the Brightspace platform, Brightspace Pulse is now available in the following additional languages:
Arabic (Saudi Arabia)
Chinese (Simplified)
Chinese (Traditional)
Danish
French (France)
German (Germany)
Japanese
Korean
Swedish
Turkish
Previously, Brightspace Pulse was only available in: English (U.S.), Spanish (Latin America), French (Canada), Portuguese (Brazil), and Dutch.
3) Classlist – Total number of users field and floating buttons
To improve ease of use, the total number of users for their selection (whole class, section, group) now appears in a field at the bottom of the Classlist page for at-a-glance viewing to help instructors keep track of the total number of learners, which may extend beyond the users visible on the page. On the Print Classlist and Email Classlist pages, the clickable Print and Email buttons now float consistently on screen, to ensure easy access to these actions without excessive scrolling.
4) Copy Course Components - Add validation logic to the copy process
Copy Course Components now contains a validation logic step to the course copy process, which can inform users if they performed a copy from the source previously, avoiding unnecessary duplication of copied course components.
5) Discussions – Assessment consistency changes
When assessing discussions, instructors have new multi-select options to Publish Feedback and Retract Feedback. In the Status column, the Draft / Published checkbox has been replaced by information on the date when feedback was saved as draft or published. These changes are visible on both the Users and Assessments tabs. The Save, Save and Close, and Cancel buttons have also been removed as their functionality has been replaced by the Publish Feedback and Retract Feedback options.
Previous view when assessing a discussion topic
Updated view when assessing a discussion topic
6) Grades – Export sorting options
This feature introduces the ability to sort exported gradebooks based on the following options: OrgDefinedID, Username, Last Name, and First name. The sort options available are based on the User Information Privacy permissions for the role.
7) Groups – Self-enrollment group capacity, start dates and descriptions
This feature includes three improvements to Groups:
Group members can now see the description of their group. For self-enrolled groups, group members will now see the group description at all times, including before and after enrollment. For other group types, instructors can now choose to display the description to members of the group. This visible group description setting is off by default for non-self-enrollment groups. Previously, all group descriptions were hidden from group members.
An instructor can now increase or decrease the capacity for self-enrollment groups after they have been created, and prior to the group sign-up expiry date. Decreasing a group size to an amount smaller than has already signed up for a group will not re-allocate users to other groups. Previously, self-enrollment groups were not editable after they were created.
Instructors can set Start dates for self-enrollment groups. This feature allows them to schedule self-enrollment groups availability, ensuring learners are prepared and have equal opportunity to self-enroll.
8) Quick Eval – Dismiss activities from list
To improve the ability to manage items on their Quick Eval list, instructors can now select items that appear in their Quick Eval list and remove them temporarily or permanently. Instructors can view their dismissed items in the Dismissed Activities List and restore them to the Quick Eval list at any time.
9) Quizzes – Synchronization with Grades
Quiz scores and feedback entered in Grades now synchronize automatically with Quizzes. To further streamline the workflow, the Overall Feedback fields in Grades and Quizzes are now consolidated, and the Grade Item Public Comments field has been removed from Grades. All comments entered in the Overall Feedback field in Grades synchronizes automatically with the Overall Feedback field in Quizzes. This update creates a more direct workflow and aligns Quizzes with the consistent feedback experience implemented in Assignments and Discussions. Refer to the blog post Improving Consistency Of Synchronization Between Grades And Quizzes Tool (20.20.01 – January Release) for more information.
Note: Synchronization only occurs for new grade entries. Existing grade data for quizzes will not be migrated due to the high impact to all past data and reports.
10) Rubrics – Share rubrics with other org units during creation
When creating new rubrics, users can now share the rubric created at the organization level with other org units (courses). The rubric creation process provides the capability to either share or, conversely, block rubrics from being shared with other org units (courses). Previously, this was only possible by using the legacy rubric editor.
The Add Org Units button enables users to make the rubric available to other org units
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.
Increase Efficiency - Rubrics are built into the grading workflow. Rubrics click-and-score simplicity saves time.
Provide Consistent and Quality Feedback - Rubrics enable instructors to provide consistent evaluation and contextual feedback to students.
Promote 21st Century Skills - Rubrics make it easier to assign essay questions, individual and group assignments, and discussion forums as assessment activities which foster critical thinking and collaboration.
Rubrics allow instructors to establish set criteria for grading assignments; instructors can attach rubrics to submission folders so that the criteria are available to students before they submit their assignment.
Weighted analytic rubric creation example
Rubrics contain criteria that list the attributes on which an assignment will be assessed and levels that list the standards each criterion must meet. A specific grade or score is usually assigned to each level. In Brightspace, you can use a rubric to calculate scores for multiple criteria to determine an overall score for an assignment.
Grade using a rubric example
Rubrics can be used to display the number of points students were awarded for each criterion after the assignment is graded and rubrics can also be used to provide customized feedback.
Instructors can choose to have the rubrics visible to students at any time, only after grading has been completed, or not shown to the students at all.
NOTE: The Brightspace Rubrics tool is different from Turnitin Rubrics.
Follow these steps to do it.
To create a rubric you should:
On the navbar, click Course Admin.
Click Rubrics.
On the Rubrics page, click New Rubric.
Enter a name for your rubric.
Change the status of your rubric, if necessary.
Choose the rubric Type and Scoring method.
Enter the criteria, levels, criteria/level details, and initial feedback for your rubric.
Enter details for the Overall Score feedback.
Click Options and choose the options for your rubric.
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.
Many instructors are using reflective journaling as a teaching strategy. Reflective journaling is used as a means of aiding reflection, deepening students' understanding and stimulating critical thinking.
Brightspace does not have a Journal tool. However, you can setup private discussion forums for journaling using the Groups and Discussions tools. A private discussion forum is the same as any other discussion forum, except that only the instructor and an individually assigned student have access to the posted threads and replies. A private discussion forum ensures that students cannot see each other’s posts, but instructors can still respond and assign grades to the discussion threads.
IMPORTANT: Each group in Brightspace has a maximum capacity of 200 participants and is restricted to 200 groups per category. You WILL NOT be able to set up private discussions for journaling if your enrollment is more than 200.
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.
Are you still sharing files via email? An article by Lauren Suggett suggests three reasons why you should stop sharing documents via email. Her reasons are:
Nothing is trackable
Accessibility is limited
Email inboxes can be black holes
As you may know, Xavier adopted G Suite (formerly Google Apps). This means everyone has an account that allows them to store files in their Google Drive. Instead of emailing files back and forth, you can share files in your Google Drive. For more information on Xavier’s adoption of G Suite and how to share files using Google Drive, read Bart Everson’s Drive Right In blog post.
Additionally, Google Apps can be integrated into Brightspace. ICYMI, read my Google Apps Integration blog post.
Image credit: image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay
A discussion forum is an excellent tool for student engagement. However, you don’t always have to use the question and answer format to engage students in a discussion forum.
In the Faculty Focus article, “Discussion Board Assignments: Alternatives to the Question-and-Answer Format,” professor Chris Laney gives his take on alternatives for Q&A discussions. Laney, who is professor of history and geography at Berkshire Community College, was having trouble engaging students in discussion forums in his online class and decided to rethink his use of online discussions. Professor Laney thinks of the discussion forum as a place to foster interaction between the students through a variety of means rather than just asking them questions. Specifically, he uses role-playing, debates, and WebQuest to foster interaction between his students.
Role-play
One example of how Professor Laney used role-play is a discussion forum activity that asks students to do some research on a person living in an urban Roman city in the first century CE. Each student creates a character and writes a diary entry or letter recording what he or she did in the course of a day or a series of days. To perform well in this activity the students need to research a few things about the professions and classes that would have existed during that time. The students end up talking back and forth in character and at no point does Professor Laney actually ask a question.
Debate
One example of how Professor Laney uses debates is he had students debate whether democracy in the Middle East would result in better or worse relations with nations in the region. It’s a pretty straightforward assignment; however, when having students debate it’s important to set clear ground rules to keep things cordial and to avoid simplistic arguments.
WebQuest
Professor Laney gives students a less intense discussion forum assignment in weeks when a major assignment is due. Rather than carrying on a discussion over the usual two-week period, he has students do a simple WebQuest and post their findings without having to respond to each other. For example, he may ask students to post an image, video, or music clip from the Romantic Period of art in the 19th century and write a brief description about why it’s considered an example of Romanticism.
Grading
In a class of 25 people there may be 75 messages in a week to grade. To keep the discussion forum assignments manageable, Professor Laney asks students to post their messages in a single thread. Having all the messages in a single thread makes it relatively easy to grade. When a discussion forum activity is over, Professor Laney can click on an individual student’s name and at a glance assign a grade.
Are you using an alternative to the Q&A format for discussion forums? If so, we would like to hear about it. Please leave a comment to share your alternative to the Q&A format.
