New Features

Used to tag monthly release of new Brightspace features.

Digital Learning Environment Weekly Update: New Name for Our Weekly Updates

New Name, Same Great Content

With the addition of a number of new tools that have been integrated with Brightspace in the last few months, our LMS Weekly Update has been renamed to Digital Learning Environment (DLE) Weekly Update, in order to accurately represent our support for you.

What’s New in Brightspace: September Release

Assignments – The new Assignment creation experience now has Special Access options

The June Brightspace release included a new assignment create and edit experience, that will eventually replace the current Assignment tool. As of today, the Special Access options are available to you, when using this new assignment view. You can use Special Access rules in a Assignment to provide students with alternate time restrictions, attempt limits, or different due dates.

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.

  • Class Progress has a new System Access performance indicator, which displays the number of times each student has accessed the system through the LMS website or Pulse in the last 30 days. You 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 student has accessed the system through the LMS website or Pulse in the last 30 days. You can select System Access History to display in the User Progress report by clicking Settings.

My Mediasite

As you already know, My Mediasite is a new tool in Brightspace, with a simple interface that allows you to create, record, share, and publish your presentations easily. Mediasite hosts these videos and also has a Brightspace integration that allows you to embed video content directly within your courses.

Whenever you or your students are prompted for the user name and password when you are asked to sign in to access Mediasite content, make sure you use your Algonquin College user name and NOT the full email address.

ZOOM Tips

  • Please remind your students that the Zoom calendar events in their courses (notifications automatically added in the courses’ calendars when you schedule Zoom meetings) are NOT necessarily supposed to match the schedule on their timetables.
  • When creating recurring Zoom meetings, before saving the meetings, make sure that there is only one day of the week checked off (assuming that you are giving a lecture only once a week). As the week day when you set up the meetings gets automatically checked off, there have been situations when two week days were checked off by mistake, and this creates confusion among students.

Multiple Ways to find Answers to your Questions:

  • Book Online Appointments with our Team. You will notice that, the booking form and the emails confirming the appointments, now have a different name : Digital Learning Environment (DLE) Support
  • Email our DLE Team at brightspace@algonquincollege.com. After emailing us, you will receive an automatic reply with your case number.
  • Access our Digital Learning Environment Knowledge Base (DLEKB).

LMS Weekly Update: The Discover self-enrollment tool and other system enhancements

The Discover self-enrollment tool

As a new school year begins, we are pleased to announce the deployment of the Discover self-enrollment tool in Brightspace. This tool allows our students to self-enroll in various offerings like courses, spaces and resources that will help make their journey at Algonquin College a success.

Starting today, you will see a new Discover link on the Brightspace homepage navigation menu.

My Mediasite available in Brightspace

My Mediasite is a new tool, replacing TechSmith Relay, with a simple interface that allows you to create, record, share, and publish your presentations easily. Mediasite will host these videos and also has a Brightspace integration that allows you to embed video content directly within your courses. View help guides, tips, tricks and advice on our new LTS webpage, and sign up for info sessions and training sessions.

August system release

This month’s system release brings a few enhancements to the system:

Assignments – Copy assignment option
You now have the option to select the Copy Assignment option, in the drop-down menu for an existing assignment, to quickly create new assignments within a course.

This feature copies all settings of an existing assignment, except the associated grade item and Turnitin settings.

Checklists – Copy a checklist
Now you 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.

Classlist – User experience changes
When adding users to a classlist (Tools/Classlist/Add Participants) search results now include users who are currently enrolled in the course. Previously, enrolled users were not displayed in these search results, suggesting that the user might not exist in the system. On the search results page, an icon displays beside an enrolled user’s name, indicating their enrollment status.

Grades – Unrelease all final grades
Grades features a new workflow to quickly undo the release of final grades for a course. You can easily select Unrelease All from the Final Grades drop-down menu.

Notifications – Deleted content links to message
Notifications for content that is subsequently hidden/deleted/conditionally released are now removed from the Brightspace notifications area on the minibar. Notifications that arrive via email or in Brightspace Pulse push notifications, now provide a link to the Course Table of Contents, with a message that states ‘Item not available’. Previously, clicking the link created a ‘404 Not Authorized error’.

Question Library – Attach files in “written response” type of questions
When creating a written response question, now you can 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.

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.

Online Faculty Brightspace Support (Monday to Friday, from 8 am to 5 pm)

When emailing us your requests, we would appreciate if you could ensure that all information relevant to your issue is provided. For example:

  • The complete course code, including semester and section number (20F_ABC1234_010).
  • The user’s first name and last name (ideally user name, too), when asking us to add users to courses.
  • For merged courses’ requests, specify if you need to keep the individual sections available or not.
  • When asking to have coordinator access to a program, include list of all courses (codes and section numbers).

Multiple Ways to find Answers to your Brightspace Questions:


 

LMS Weekly Update: Getting Ready for the Fall Semester

My Mediasite available in Brightspace on Tuesday, August 25th

My Mediasite is a new tool, replacing TechSmith Relay, with a simple interface that allows you to create, record, share, and publish your presentations easily. Mediasite will host these videos and also has a Brightspace integration that allows you to embed video content directly within your courses. Attend one of the information sessions offered by LTS, to learn about the main features of My Mediasite, what type of learning content you might create with it, and have a chance to ask questions about possible ways in which it could be used. Stay tuned for more details and documentation in the next week.

Course Copier vs Instructor

As our Support Team receives every week a large number of requests to add users to Brightspace courses, we would like to provide some help and avoid the need of sending back emails asking you to clarify the request.

Ask us to use the Course Copier role when adding faculty to previously taught courses (new instructors or faculty taking over a new course, with the purpose of familiarizing with the content or copying it).

Users with the course copier role in a course:

  • Have read-only access to all course content and NO access to students grades and assignments, protecting the integrity of the course and students’ privacy.
  • Can copy content over to their own courses, where they have instructor access.
  • Can export course components, with the purpose of importing them into their own courses.
  • Note: There are times when YOU need to add other teachers to your courses (without asking our help), with the intention of having them perform a course copy or export some content. Instead of adding them with the instructor role, please use the course copier role. Don’t forget to remove them from the course once the copy is completed.

Ask us to use the Instructor role:

  • When a Coordinator/Chair needs access to students’ grades or their assignments/quizzes.
  • When there is an urgent need to add a faculty to a course, with the purpose of teaching it (note that the instructor still needs to be scheduled in Genesis, even if the urgent access was given in Brightspace).
  • When a coordinator needs to load content for a new part time instructor, and requires the ability to add new content or modify existing one.
  • When, from any reason, an user needs to have access to the gradebook or students’ work (discussion boards, assignments files, etc).

Question of the Week – How do I transfer content in between courses?

Course Copy

  • Read the Course Copy article in our KB, for Step-by-step instructions describing how to copy the entire course content or only some components
  • Avoid copying the announcements, as you might end up having them sent as emails to students in the destination course, depending on the availability of the course. We recommend using the Select Components button, and uncheck the Announcements option.

Export/Import Course Components Process

  • Read the Export Course Components article, for step-by-step instructions on exporting content.
  • Read the Import Course Components article, for step-by-step instructions on importing content. This option can also be used when importing a zip file containing test banks from publishers.

Reminder: New Assignment Create and Edit Experience

The June Brightspace release introduced a new assignment create and edit experience, available across all your courses, on an opt-in/opt-out basis.

  • Access here the Knowledge Base article for instructions on how to turn it off or on.
  • Access here the Knowledge Base article for on overview of the benefits and limitations of the new assignment experience in its current state.

 

LMS Weekly Update: New Assignment Create and Edit Experience

New Assignment Create and Edit Experience

The June Brightspace release includes a new assignment create and edit experience. This will be available to faculty immediately across all courses, on an opt-in/opt-out basis, providing an early opportunity to test and provide feedback ahead of the summer vacation.

Eventually, D2L will make this new experience view as the default one for assignment creation, but for now it is OPTIONAL.

How to Turn OFF or ON the New Assignment Create and Edit Experience

TURN IT OFF: If you would prefer to continue using the old assignment creation view at this time, you can opt-out of the new experience with a single click. When you go to create a new assignment, you will see a welcome screen and some options. Simply select ‘Turn it off’, and this will be applied across all of your courses.

LEAVE IT ON: If you would like to look at the new view and test it out (by selecting Leave it on) before switching back to the old view, or if you clicked Leave it on by mistake and now want to turn it off, you can do so by clicking the chevron in the top right corner, and then selecting Turn it off.

  • Access here the Knowledge Base article for instructions on how to turn it off or on.
  • Access here the Knowledge Base article for on overview of the benefits and limitations of the new assignment experience in its current state.

Feedback on the New Assignment Create and Edit Experience

D2L will use the feedback that they receive to make improvements to this tool as they go. You will be prompted to provide this feedback to D2L when selecting “Turn it off” and we would also appreciate it if you could share any feedback with us at brightspace@algonquincollege.com.

Reminder: Turnitin Mappings to be reset on August 21, 2020

Please take a moment today to schedule a reminder for yourself to export the content you wish to keep before August 21st, 2020. If you have any questions or need assistance, please email brightspace@algonquincollege.com, with the subject line “Turnitin Export”.

Instructions on How to Export/Import your QuickMarks and Rubrics:

More H5P sessions offered by LTS

H5p is a new tool, now integrated within Brightspace, that allows you to create interactive, graded or non-graded digital learning activites, to help students master content, or build interactive videos and other rich-media elements in your Brightspace course. Sign up here for PD sessions on H5P offered by LTS and go to their website for information on how to use H5P.

LMS Weekly Update: December new features for Brightspace and common solutions

As the Brightspace Support team encounters common technical questions, they will now be posted within a new Common Solutions section of the Brightspace Support website.

Refer to this page as well as the FAQ section regularly to see if your questions or concerns are already listed here.

https://www.algonquincollege.com/brightspace/common-solutions/

https://www.algonquincollege.com/brightspace/faqs/

 

Summary of new features — December release

As part of D2L’s continuous improvement model, Brightspace implements incremental enhancements each month to the Learning Management System.

By Dec. 21, you will notice the following changes within Brightspace:

Assignments

Changeable assignment and submission type

  • Modify existing assignments by changing assignment or submission types, without having to create a new one, if it has no learner submissions.

 

Learner name links directly to Evaluate Submission page

  • Access Evaluate Submissions by clicking on learner’s name on Submissions
  • Previously, clicking on learner’s name launched sending student an email; sending email to students still possible by clicking on box beside student name and clicking Email

 

Improved Grading Experience

  • You can click on submission’s file name to download
  • Markup Document button is now called Launch Turnitin
  • Publish and Save Draft buttons are more conveniently located; there is also an extra Next Student link

Discussions
Improved rubrics grading experience

  • Rubrics assessments and feedback automatically save as draft while updates are in progress
  • In draft state, rubrics will not be visible to learners until instructor clicks on Save & Publish
  • Feedback can be bulk published to all or select users
  • Published feedback for changes to the Total Score can be removed through a new feature called Retract Feedback. (Overall Score and Overall Feedback can be edited without retraction)
  • New grading pop-up window for easier grading contains all rubrics for the discussion, a list of all posts made by the student, and a place to enter Overall Feedback

Rubrics

Improved Creation Experience

  • Auto-save during creation and editing
  • Change rubric type and scoring method during creation
  • Re-order criterion via drag and drop (or keyboard)
  • Improved logic for points-based rubrics where new levels automatically follow existing point scoring sequences
  • Individual criterion cells in custom point rubrics dynamically scale when editing its out of value
  • Overall Score is visibly separated from rubric and displayed in its own section

Quizzes

Enhanced Written Response question type

  • Instructors can add initial text to Written Response questions

 

LMS Weekly Update: Brightspace enhancements for November

Every month, you will discover new features and fixes in Brightspace as your Learning Management System team and Brightspace creator D2L work to streamline your LMS experience.

Help us in our continuing efforts to tailor Brightspace to the needs of Algonquin College by filling out the recent faculty survey here. The survey closes Sunday at midnight.

Here are the changes to Brightspace for November.

QUIZZES: Quiz-taking will go full screen

Additional screen space for the quiz due to removal of unnecessary navigation.

ASSIGNMENTS: Anonymous marking

This was enabled in October. This month, enhancements include:

  1. a) Icon appears when features used on assignments
  2. b) Student names revealed after feedback is published
  3. c) Improved confirmation message with prompt to grade ungraded items or still publish all

ASSIGNMENTS: Evaluate submissions page displays in full screen

Additional screen space due to removal of navigational bar links.

ASSIGNMENTS: New submission types can be selected from Existing Activities

In October, On Paper and Observed assignment submission types were added.

VIDEO NOTES: Close captioning

Users can add files containing closed captions to their video notes. The captioned text displays when viewing the video note.

MY COURSES WIDGET: Visual update

Includes status badge to show inactive and closed states for courses. Also, hovering over notification items gives tooltip information.

QUIZ COPY — Sorting Error

  • Previously, copied quizzes were sorted in the destination course by their creation time. This caused quizzes that had been reorganized to not appear in the destination course correctly.
  • Now, copied quizzes in the destination course are organized as they were in the source course, as expected.

COURSE IMPORT — Start and End Date Errors

  • Previously, upon course import, start and end dates for grade items may not have imported properly.
  • Now, upon course import, the start and end dates for grade items import, as expected.

HOLISTIC RUBRICS — Rubric Visibility Setting Now Available

  • Previously, when creating a holistic rubric, the Rubric Visibility setting was unavailable.
  • Now, setting is available, as expected.

FYI: YouSeeU is rebranded as Bongo as of Oct. 23

 

 

 

New Features: October Brightspace Release

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.