Brightspace Small Plates – Page 7

Brightspace Tip #389: May Continuous Delivery Updates

Janice FlorentMay 26, 2023Leave 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 is an update in the May 2023/20.23.5 release that was added to our system this month:

1) Awards – Add criteria to awards in compliance with the latest Open Badges standard

Instructors can now specify what a learner must do to achieve a particular award.

This feature complements the use of evidence for awards by adding the new required Criteria field to the Awards tool.

The new required Criteria field on the New Award page — The new required **Criteria** field on the **New Award** page.

Availability of Criteria and Evidence fields meets the latest Open Badges 2.0 standard from 1EdTech (formerly known as IMS Global):

When instructors manually grant awards, they can now check the award's criteria and enter evidence describing what the learner did to meet the criteria and earn the award.
When the award is automatically issued, the release conditions determine if learners meet the criteria.
If learners share their award via a public link, both the Criteria and Evidence fields now appear on the Public Award page.

The new Criteria field on the Public Award page — The new **Criteria** field on the **Public Award** page.

This feature implements PIE item D6128 (Incorporate Open Badge 2.0 Standards).

For existing awards that do not have explicitly stated criteria, Brightspace treats the Criteria and Evidence fields as the same.

Previously, there was no criteria field available in the Awards tool. When learners shared their awards to Badgr, the same field values were used for both Evidence and Criteria fields.

If you are interested in getting more information about this and all the May Continuous Delivery updates, refer to the Brightspace Platform May 2023/20.23.5 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 #388: Accessibility Checker

Janice FlorentMay 16, 2023Leave a comment

celebrate GAAD heading with disability icons

Thursday, May 18th, is Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD). GAAD aims to get you talking, thinking, and learning about digital access/inclusion and people with different abilities and talents.

Accessibility is about everyone. It is extremely important for students with disabilities to have access to accessible course content.

The Brightspace Editor has a built-in accessibility checker that makes it easy to check for issues or offer suggestions to fix identified accessibility issues.

Follow these steps to do it.

To check for accessibility issues:

After you add content to the Brightspace Editor, click the accessibility checker icon.

Brightspace Editor accessibility checker icon

The checker indicates if the content is free of accessibility issues, or offers suggestions to fix them.

Want more information?

Brightspace Accessibility Checker
Improve Your Course with Brightspace Accessibility Checker
Brightspace Accessibility Lab

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: "celebrate GAAD" by jflorent is dedicated to the public domain under CC0 and is adaption of "disability symbols" by National Park Service in the public domain

Brightspace Tip #387: End-of-Semester Tasks

Janice FlorentMay 11, 2023Leave a comment

As we approach the end of the semester there are a few things you can do in Brightspace to wrap up for the semester.

Release final course grades

: Unlike other grade items and categories in the Grade Book, final grades are not available to students by default. Final grades must be released. If you did not choose to enable the automatic release of final grades when setting up your Grade Book, you will have to manually release final grades in order for students to see their final grade.

Export your Grade Book

Student access to courses is removed two weeks after the end of a semester. This process of making the courses inactive allows student work and grades to be visible to instructors but students no longer have access to the course. Courses will remain on the Brightspace system for three semesters before they are removed. You should export (download) your Grade Book to your local computer after you submit your final grades.

NOTE: The export file that is created will NOT contain any student work or instructor feedback. Only the grades in your Grade Book will be exported.

Create a master copy of your course

: Courses remain on the Brightspace system for three semesters before they are removed. You can request a Master Course Shell that you can use to develop and maintain your course materials. Master Course Shells will not be removed from the Brightspace system.

Follow these steps to do it.

Instructions are available for releasing final course grades, exporting your Grade Book, and requesting Master Course Shells.

Want more information?

Release Final Grades
Export your Grade Book (video [2:03])
Master Copies of Courses

Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.

Photo Credit: "end" by jflorent is dedicated to the public domain under CCO and is a derivative of image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

Brightspace Tip #386: Grade Book – Adjust Final Grades

Janice FlorentMay 8, 2023Leave a comment

Brightspace calculates final grades for each student based on the grading system and the students' grades that are entered into the Grade Book. If the instructor wants more control over the final grades, perhaps to adjust the final grade for a student that is on the cusp of a higher grade, then adjusted final grades can be used and released to students instead of the calculated final grade.

If the instructor decides to use adjusted final grades for one student in the course, adjusted final grades must be used for all students in the course. This does not imply, however, that final grades must be manually adjusted for all students.

Adjusting final grades are implemented by the instructor for only the student or students that are deemed to need an adjusted grade. The remaining students final grades would be the final grade as calculated in the Grade Book.

Note: The Grade Book must be configured to use adjusted final grades. If you plan to use adjusted final grades, you should make the adjustments before you release final grades.

Follow these steps to do it.

To adjust final grades for all students:

Get into the course where you want to adjust final grades and click Grades in the NavBar.
Click on the Enter Grades link.
Scroll over to the Final Calculated Grade column and click on the arrow on the right of the column name and select Enter Grades.
In the Final Adjusted Grade section for each student, enter the adjusted grades and then click Save.
Once you have ensured that students' grades are accurate, you can release the final grades.

To adjust final grades for one or more specific students:

Get into the course where you want to adjust final grades and click Grades in the NavBar.
Click on the Enter Grades link.
Scroll over to the Final Calculated Grade column and click on the arrow on the right of the column name and select Enter Grades.
Click on the arrow on the right of the Final Grades and click Transfer All, then click Yes.
In the Final Adjusted Grade section, enter adjusted scores where necessary and click Save.
Once you have ensured that students' grades are accurate, you can release the final grades.

Want more information?

Understanding the Grades Tool (video)
Troubleshoot Final Grades (video)
Adjust Final Grades
Release Final Grades
Final Grades FAQs
Grades FAQs
Brightspace Tip #351: Grade Book

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 webandi from Pixabay

Brightspace Tip #385: Grade Book – Release Final Grades

Janice FlorentMay 7, 2023May 10, 2023Leave a comment

Unlike other grade items and categories in the Grade Book, final grades are not available to students by default. Final grades must be released. When setting up the Grade Book, the instructor can choose to automatically release final grades so that the students can see their final grade throughout the semester. If you did not choose to enable the automatic release of final grades when setting up your Grade Book, you will have to manually release final grades in order for students to see their final grade.

Additionally, you can selectively release final grades for some students now and release the final grades for other students later. For example, you can release the final grades for graduating seniors on one date and release the final grades for everyone else on a later date.

Follow these steps to do it.

To manually release final grades:

On the NavBar, click Grades.
On the Enter Grades page, from the Final Calculated Grade or Final Adjusted Grade context menu, click Enter Grades.
To release grades for all users, on the Final Grades page, from the Final Grades context menu, click Release All. To release final grades for a specific user, do one of the following:
- Select the check box by the user name and click the Release/Unrelease link.
- Select the check box in the Release Final Calculated Grade or Release Adjusted Final Grade column.
Click Save.

OR watch this video for instructions on how to release final grades:

Grades - Release Final Grades - Instructor [1:32]

NOTE: There is a slight change in the video instructions. The "Enter Grades" option should be used anywhere in the video where "Grade All" is referenced.

Want more information?

Troubleshoot Final Grades (video)
Adjust Final Grades
Release Final Grades
Final Grades FAQs
Grades FAQs
Brightspace Tip #351: 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: "final grades" by jflorent is dedicated to public domain under CC0 and is a derivative of grade by OpenClipart-Vectors on Pixabay

Brightspace Tip #384: New Discussion Creation Experience

Janice FlorentMay 1, 2023Leave a comment

The new Discussion creation experience was one of the changes implemented with our April 2023 Continuous Delivery update. The new Discussion creation experience brings create and edit consistency changes from Assignments and Quizzes to Discussions.

D2L’s goal with the redesign is to simplify common tasks for first-time or infrequent users, while giving easy access to the advanced features that experienced power-users love. This first release is at full parity with classic discussions and brings refreshed workflows and improvements to restricting group topics and threads, associating topics to forums, and wording changes to a few settings that you may be familiar with.

The new discussion creation and editing experience

The primary panel on the left contains the same frequently-used fields as Assignments and Quizzes. These fields are most relevant to learners and are core to discussion topic creation. The right-hand panel provides advanced options such as start and end dates and release conditions. These options follow the same logical groupings as found in Assignments and Quizzes. Other topic-specific settings can be found in the right-hand panel.

Availability Dates and Conditions Accordion

While the right-hand groupings are collapsed, the summary text provides details about which settings are active so you can see which settings are applied at a glance.

Other Notable Changes

Beyond the restructuring of the topic creation page for consistency, the new experience also includes updates and wording changes to a few settings that you may be familiar with. These changes are designed to simplify workflows and to align more closely with the Daylight patterns. Here's a list of the notable changes:

Automatically create a new forum with same name and visibility as a new topic
Checkboxes now radio buttons for Allow anonymous posts and Users must start a thread
Topic type selector replaced by Manage Restrictions workflow
Restricting topic and separate threads
Restricting topic using groups and section restrictions
Availability Dates consistency

Refer to the Introducing the New Discussion Creation Experience knowledge article for an in-depth look at all the feature and capability changes with this update.

Switch Between New and Old Experience

If you’ve tried the new discussion creation experience, but aren’t quite ready to commit to it, then switch back. Switching back is simple. You can switch between the new discussion creation experience and the old experience by clicking on the arrow in the upper right corner of the create/edit discussion page.

Switch between the new discussion creation experience and the old experience

Want More Information?

Introducing the New Discussion Creation Experience
Using the Brightspace Discussions 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 #383: April Continuous Delivery Updates

Janice FlorentApril 29, 2023Leave a comment

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 April 2023/20.23.4 release that were added to our system this month:

1) Discussions – Introducing the new creation and editing experience

The new discussion creation experience brings create and edit consistency changes from Assignments and Quizzes to Discussions, making it familiar and easy to learn. This first release is at full parity with classic discussions and brings refreshed workflows and improvements to restricting group topics and threads, associating topics to forums, and wording changes to a few settings that you may be familiar with.

The new Discussions creation and editing experience

Refer to the Introducing the New Discussion Creation Experience knowledge article for an in-depth look at all the feature and capability changes with this update.

2) Quizzes – Confirmation dialog for learners exiting a quiz

This feature introduces a confirmation dialog to learners closing in-progress quizzes. The dialog is context-based, providing additional information about the impact of exiting the quiz (such as whether a learner will be able to return to their quiz after exiting).

An example of a confirmation dialog displayed to learners closing in-progress quizzes

Previously there was no dialog or warning to learners who exited a quiz accidentally or on purpose.

Note: The dialog only appears when the learner selects the X [Close this Quiz] for the quiz. Closing the browser window or tab does not display the confirmation dialog.

This feature implements the PIE item D7289 (Close/Exit Quiz errors correction).

The X (Close this Quiz) button appears to a learner attempting a quiz — The **X (Close this Quiz)** button appears to a learner attempting a quiz

The message shown when a student tries to exit a quiz depends on the time limit and end date settings for the quiz. In every scenario after exiting a quiz, learners are directed back to the Quiz Details page.

The Exit Quiz confirmation dialog for quizzes with no time limit, no end date, or a time limit that expires before the end date — The **Exit Quiz** confirmation dialog for quizzes with no time limit, no end date, or a time limit that expires before the end date

The Exit Quiz confirmation dialog for quizzes with a time limit and no end date — The **Exit Quiz** confirmation dialog for quizzes with a time limit and no end date

The Exit Quiz confirmation dialog for quizzes with an end date, no time limit, or an end date that will arrive before the time limit expires — The **Exit Quiz** confirmation dialog for quizzes with an end date, no time limit, or an end date that will arrive before the time limit expires

The Exit Quiz confirmation dialog for quizzes that have an end date in the past — The **Exit Quiz** confirmation dialog for quizzes that have an end date in the past

If you are interested in getting more information about these and all the April Continuous Delivery updates, refer to the Brightspace Platform April 2023/20.23.4 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?

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 #382: Escaping Grading Jail

Janice FlorentApril 16, 2023April 16, 2023Leave a comment

In a recent Chronicle of Higher Education article, Kevin Gannon wrote about what he describes as grading jail. He found that he would enter his grading jail around the 13th week of the term. After a career of repeat offenses against efficient and timely grading of student work, he saw that he could only blame himself. He described himself as a hopeless recidivist.

The hard time he served was enough to rehabilitate him, and turn him into a productive member of the grading society. He shared what he learned, hoping to save others from the same fate. He acknowledges that providing students with prompt feedback is a better practice. But too often this does not happen.

Kevin’s three strategies to better manage grading workflow are:

: Pre-semester calendaring. Before classes start lay out a calendar for every month of the term. Then using different colors for each course, plot out the due dates for every assignment that you will give throughout the term. A cluster of different colors in a three-day span is a quick visual cue that you should reconsider some due dates.

: Rubrics — done well — are your friend. A well-constructed rubric involves a significant investment of time on the front end, but once designed, using it to assess student work will cut grading time. The time saved allows you to concentrate on providing more meaningful individual feedback. Having specific criteria and clearly defined benchmarks provides consistency in grading.

: Speech-to-text and voice comments. Using speech-to-text to transcribe comments in real time is one way to provide substantial feedback on a large amount of student work without getting writer's cramp. However, it is even more meaningful to record comments and then share them with individual students via an audio file they can listen to on any device.

Kevin says these three strategies are the academic equivalent of your “get out of jail free” card.

If this has piqued your interest, you can read more in Kevin's “How to Escape Grading Jail” article.

Want more information?

Brightspace Tip #346: Simplify Grading and Giving Feedback
Brightspace Tip #329: Simplify Assignment Collection
Brightspace Tip #349: Assignments
Brightspace Tip #204: Interactive Rubrics
Formative Assessments and Fitness Bands
Dictate Your Documents in Word
How To Speech-to-Text in Google Docs
Tip: Audio Notes in Brightspace
Brightspace Tip #299: Video Notes
Brightspace Tip #320: Video Notes – Closed Captions

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 Credits:
Image by patrick489 from Pixabay
"Get_Out_of_Jail_Free_Card" by Mark Strozier is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Brightspace Tip #381: Turnitin – AI Writing Detector

Janice FlorentApril 12, 2023April 12, 2023Leave a comment

If you have been following the news lately, you have heard a lot about generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) programs like ChatGPT. The advancements in AI writing technology have created a sense of unease among educators, who fear that students may use AI writing tools to plagiarize their work.

Last week Turnitin announced the launch of AI writing detection capabilities in Turnitin Feedback Studio. Turnitin stated that their technology is capable of identifying both AI-generated and AI-assisted writing, including ChatGPT.

An AI writing indicator has been added to Turnitin Feedback Studio. This indicator shows possible AI-generated content. Students will not be able to see the AI writing detection indicator.

If you intend to use the Turnitin AI Writing Detector, it is important that you understand the results may NOT be reliable.

A Washington Post article, by Geoffrey A. Fowler, reported that Turnitin’s ChatGPT detector flagged an innocent student.

Tools that use artificial intelligence are developing rapidly. False positives are not just a possibility, but an inevitability. Consequently, Turnitin’s AI Writing Detector tool cannot be fairly used as a way to assess whether a student’s work may have been written by an AI tool. We strongly recommend that you use this functionality as a guideline, not a grading metric. The results should not be used as the sole basis for adverse actions against a student. Treat any flags the tool may raise as a reason to review the student’s work further.

Bart Everson and Elizabeth Yost Hammer led an "AI²: Artificial Intelligence and Academic Integrity" workshop recently. ICYMI, you can find the workshop recording and resources referenced in the workshop on our wiki.

Want more information?

Brightspace Tip #276: Turnitin Feedback Studio
Turnitin AI Writing Detection
Turnitin AI Writing Detection FAQs
Guide for Approaching AI-generated text in the classroom
AI Misuse Rubric
AI Misuse Checklist
Brightspace Tip #277: Turnitin - Quick Submit

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 Alexandra_Koch from Pixabay

Brightspace Tip #380: Demystifying Bonus Items in a Weighted Grade Book

Janice FlorentMarch 29, 2023Leave a comment

I am writing this blog post as a follow up to my Brightspace Tip #277: Grade Book - Bonus Points blog post. I've received a few questions about bonus items in a weighted grading system. This blog post addresses how bonus items work in a weighted Grade Book.

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. The Can Exceed option must be selected in order for users' grades to exceed the maximum points specified.

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

If you allow an item to exceed 100% or include Bonus items, but do not check the box "Can Exceed" in the category and/or “Final Calculated Grade” settings, then extra credit will count but it will be limited to no more than 100% for the category or “Final Calculated Grade.”

If you create a “Bonus” item with no category, limit its weight to the most you wish to add to the final course percentage. For example, if you do not want to add more than 3% to any given final grade, limit the Bonus item’s weight to 3%. The bonus points can be any number of points because the weight makes the difference in the overall calculation.

Refer to this Demystifying Bonus Items in a Weighted Grade Book document for example of weighted grading system with bonus item and an explanation of the final grade calculation.

Want more information?

Demystifying Bonus Items in a Weighted Grade Book
Brightspace Tip #277: Grade Book - Bonus Points
About Bonus Grade Items
Bonus Marks FAQs
Extra Credit
Create a Grade Item (video)
Brightspace Tip #351: 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 credits: extra png from pngtree.com and image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

1) Awards – Add criteria to awards in compliance with the latest Open Badges standard

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Release final course grades

Export your Grade Book

Create a master copy of your course

Follow these steps to do it.

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Follow these steps to do it.

To adjust final grades for all students:

To adjust final grades for one or more specific students:

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Follow these steps to do it.

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Other Notable Changes

Switch Between New and Old Experience

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1) Discussions – Introducing the new creation and editing experience

2) Quizzes – Confirmation dialog for learners exiting a quiz

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