LMS Weekly Update: Brightspace November release

Posted on Friday, November 22nd, 2019

The November system update brings a few great improvements to the Assignments and Intelligent Agents tools.

Improvements to the Assignment Tool

  • New Column – The Assignments page now shows a count of new submissions and re-submissions in the New column. The number is a link that will take you right to those submissions when you are ready to evaluate them. For multiple submissions from different learners, you can move between them using the arrows in the top right corner. Once a submission is evaluated, it is removed from the overall count displayed in the NEW column.
  • Letter Grading NOW available – When creating a new assignment, now you can link it to a Selectbox Grade item, that will allow you to use letters when grading the assignment. Previously, only a numeric grade item could be associated with an assignment.

Improvement to Intelligent Agents

  • Now you will be able to insert images directly into the body of the Intelligent Agents emails using the Add Image button. Click here to learn more about Intelligent Agents in Brightspace.

Language changes

At the end of the current semester (2019 Fall), the English (United States) language pack will be deactivated from the system. As the default Language pack is already English (Canada), the impact will be minimal for courses and users who are currently using English (United States) as their language preference. Other than the spelling of certain words (for example: colour/color), the short date will now display with dashes instead of slashes. To check which Language you have set up, once you login to Brightspace, click on your name on the right hand side, up at the top, and then go to Account Settings.

Citations Used In Microsoft Word Documents Do Not Preview Properly

In the Microsoft Word documents uploaded under a course content module or added by your students to their course assignments, you might have noticed that the Citations used there don’t display properly when you preview them within Brightspace. As a workaround for the moment, for assignments where Citations are expected, it is advisable to ask students to submit PDF files rather than DOCX files.

LMS Support Team NOT available on Monday, Nov 25th, from 9:00 am to 11:30 am

The LMS support team will not available to support you on the phone or in person, on Monday, November 25th, from 9:00 am to 11:30 am. Please send an email to brightspace@algonquincollege.com and we will respond as soon as we are back at our desk.

So You Think You Can Brightspace

Last week we shared this video showcasing entries to this competition. We have a quick guide for how to recreate some of the features that you saw in that video and next week we’ll be enrolling you in some exemplar course templates, so that you can see these ideas up close and copy them to your own courses. Watch this space!


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