New Features: October Brightspace Release

Posted on Thursday, October 25th, 2018

Enhancements and Small Feature Changes – Brightspace Release for October

You may have noticed a few small changes to Brightspace, especially within the Assignments Tool. This is a result of the continuous release model in which D2L releases small changes each month as opposed to major system updates released periodically. Often these new features reflect ideas introduced and voted up in the Product Idea Exchange within the Brightspace Community. You can contribute to and “vote up” ideas by joining the community.

On Friday, Oct. 19, the following features and changes were introduced:

Auto-Save During Quiz Taking
Quiz responses are saved while students take their quiz.
New Assignment Types
In addition to the standard file submission, instructors can choose to have students submit text on paper, or through observed in-person submissions.
Anonymized Learner Names to Avoid Potential Grading Bias
Instructors can now create assignments in which student names are kept anonymous during the grading process.
Improvements to Rubrics

Grading with rubrics now offers an improved workflow and design that is optimized for use on mobile devices. These new features include:

  • Rubrics automatically save in a Draft state while instructor is making updates. While in a Draft state, the rubrics are not visible to students. Once published, students can see their feedback from Assignments, Content, Discussions, Grades, or Learner Progress.
  • Ability to assess rubrics individually or assess all rubrics in the same grading workflow
  • Separate rubric Total (e.g. what is automatically calculated and is populated in Grades) and Overall Score (e.g. is editable by the instructor) areas.

New Error Message for When an Activity Link is Broken
The message used to say: “Error: page not found”. Now, the message says: “Unavailable Quicklink”.

“Send to Binder”‘ Will Disappear as of November 1
Binder is an older application that D2L has been phasing out. As of November 1, the “Send to Binder” button will disappear.


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