Posted on Monday, November 23rd, 2020
Since using the Submission Views options in a Brightspace Quiz is the most common topic almost any time of the semester, we are sharing again the KB article on how to show the quiz results via Submission Views. In addition to the article that it’s been already appreciated by many of you, we NOW have for you a very informative video on this topic, created by our DLE Team.
When students complete quizzes, they will be eager to see their results AND feedback. The default quiz settings show only the overall grade, and nothing else. To release more information to students (i.e. questions, correct/incorrect answers, class averages, etc.) you need to either edit the default submission view or set up an additional submission view.
This KB article describes how to set up a submission view (Default View or Additional View) for a Brightspace quiz. The Quiz Submission Views video is included in this article.
Note: To check if it works the way you want it to, add the Test student account to your course.
Important: Make sure you select the correct role (teststudent) when adding this account to your course. If you use the learner role, you and the rest of the instructors won’t be able to impersonate it.
For more tips and documentation on Brightspace quizzes, please read these KB articles:
Posted on Friday, November 13th, 2020
Do you know that you could preview a Brightspace Assignment as a learner?
The Assignment Preview allows an instructor to submit and view their assignments as a learner, whenever there is the need to double check the assignments’ settings. You can simulate a student uploading a file to an assignment, grade it as the instructor, and also test your grading rubric, if you have linked one to the assignment.
Read the Assignment Preview in Brightspace KB Article for detailed information on how to use it.
Note: If you are interested in learning how to preview a quiz as a learner, read the View Content as a Learner: Preview a Quiz article.
Want to know more about the Assignments tool in Brightspace?
Posted on Friday, November 6th, 2020
Zoom recordings of sessions that are scheduled through Brightspace via Tools > Zoom Classroom, and saved to the cloud, will no longer be automatically shared with the students in your Brightspace course.
To find out more about this Zoom update and a few Brightspace tips, please read this article.
Posted on Friday, October 30th, 2020
Updated November 2nd, 2020
We are putting this process on hold for now. Deploying this new process had some unforeseen consequences that need to be addressed. Therefore, we reverted back to the old rollover process. This means that you will not see your Winter 2021 courses appear in Brightspace before the first week of December 2020 as per usual.
We will continue working on this much needed improvement, and we’re hoping to be able to have the process streamlined in time to deploy the Spring/Summer courses at the beginning of the Winter 2021 semester.
Stay tuned.
********************************************************************
This week a new Semester Rollover Process has been deployed, and Winter 2021 courses have been created in Brightspace. This new process works in two phases, this being the first phase, which allows us to create next semester’s courses one full semester in advance. The advantage is that you may start designing your courses earlier, using the actual course space, and therefore eliminating the need for you to request bridging spaces.
To find out more about this topic, please read the Better Semester Rollover Process article.
Posted on Friday, October 23rd, 2020
Possible Scenario: You noticed that you have a “bad” question in a quiz (wrong answer is set up as correct), but ONLY after all your students submitted the quiz. The first impulse is to delete the “bad” question, hoping that the quiz points will go down (e.g. from 30 points to 29 points), and that Brightspace will show the quiz score without the points for the deleted quiz question.
What You Need to Know:
- The deleted question is NOT actually removed from the quiz, as the delete happened after the students submitted the quiz. The change will apply ONLY to the future quiz attempts.
- The grade for the deleted question is still included into the attempt score for all students who submitted before the change.
- The maximum points for the quiz remain at 30 points, for ALL students’ quiz attempts, as the change applies only for attempts taken from this point forward.
- Having the grade book column adjusted from 30 to 29 points will not work, as Brightspace will only try to keep the same weight for the attempt and not actually reflecting the new grade out of 29 points.
Options You Have:
- Regrade all students’ quiz attempts for the bad question and give to all attempts zero points. Note that the students who already got that question right will end up with a lower grade than the other ones.
- Regrade all student’s attempts and give to all students the maximum points for the bad question.
This KB Article on Regrading a quiz has instructions on how to regrade the quiz, by going to Activities/Quizzes and then Grade (click on the chevron of that quiz).
Recommendations:
We recommend giving the points for the bad question to all students’ attempts, while keeping the points possible for that gradebook column as 30. In this way:
- you will avoid having grades with decimals in the gradebook, in the case that you change the points to 29
- you will avoid having a lower percentage for the students who already have right now a higher grade, as they got that question 19 right
- you would avoid having different grades in the quiz and the gradebook column that will be less confusing.
More articles on Quizzes:
Posted on Friday, October 16th, 2020
How to Show Quiz Results via Submission Views
When students complete quizzes, they will be eager to see their results AND feedback. The default quiz settings show only the overall grade, and nothing else. To release more information to students (i.e. questions, correct/incorrect answers, class averages, etc.) you need to either edit the default submission view or set up an additional submission view.
This KB article describes how to set up a submission view (Default View or Additional View) for a Brightspace quiz. To check if it works the way you want it to, add the Test student account to your course.
Important: Make sure you select the correct role (teststudent) when adding this account to your course. If you use the learner role, you and the rest of the instructors won’t be able to impersonate it.
For more tips and documentation on Brightspace quizzes, please read these KB articles:
Posted on Friday, October 2nd, 2020
Brightspace Tips – Answers to Common Questions this past Week
- Q: I would like to create an assignment that allows students to offer feedback to each other’s work. Can I do this in Brightspace?
A: This article describes how to create and set up a PeerMark Assignment in Brightspace.
- Q: I am trying to upload a new ZOOM recording to Brightspace and it looks like the existing Zoom recording gets replaced by the new one. What am I doing wrong?
A: We recommend that ZOOM recordings be stored in the cloud. If for some reason you need to save the recordings to your computer before uploading them to Brightspace, you must rename the videos on your computer prior to uploading. If you don’t, as by default all videos have the same name (Zoom_0), each new video will overwrite the previous one you loaded to your course. There will be nothing that can be done to restore previous videos.
- Q: I am using breakout room in ZOOM when delivering my class lecture, but I would like to allow my students to choose the room they want to be in. Is there a ZOOM option to allow me to do this?
A: The “Let participants choose room” option is NOW available to select during a ZOOM meeting, ONLY for the versions 5.3 or newer. Update your software from your Zoom app or from your profile under the Algonquin College Zoom portal.
- Q: Some of my students can not access their group assignment. Is there any easy way to view the groups’ enrollment at once?
A: On the “Manage Group” page, from the contextual menu for the group category, choose “Enroll Users”. The next screen will display all your students on one page, and the groups they belong to. This view will help you quickly identify students who are not part of any group. Click here for more tips on Groups. Make sure you use Replace Strings in the announcement for a personalized message.
- Q: Can I post an announcement visible ONLY to the students who have not submitted yet to an assignment?
A: When creating your course announcement, under “Additional Release Conditions”, click on the “Create and Attach” button. Select the “No submission to folder” menu option, and then choose the assignment. The announcement will be visible ONLY to the students who have not submitted and it will also be sent as an email ONLY to those students.
- Q: How can I add closed captions to My Mediasite presentations?
A: Closed captions are provided by a third party and you have to request closed captions by using the steps described in the My Mediasite FAQ page, on the LTS website.
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. Eventually, this new assignment version will automatically be turned on for all of you.
- Access here the Knowledge Base article for instructions on how to turn it off or on.
- Read this article if you need to create an assignment in your course and you are not clear about all the assignment options.
So You Think You Can Brightspace
Are you doing something exciting or engaging with Brightspace (or other integrated technologies)? Are you willing to share your ideas with other faculty members? If so, please consider participating in the AC Expo: Rockin’ the Remote Classroom during the midterm break week, October 26th – 28th.
Posted on Friday, September 25th, 2020
Brightspace Tips – Answers to Common Questions this past Week
How do I share My Mediasite presentations in my Brightspace courses? You created a presentation and you have it available in My Mediasite, but how do you insert it in Brightspace and make it available to your learners? This article describes the steps you need to know. You will need to use the Insert Stuff tool available under Content (Create a file option), and also available when you create/edit an Announcement.
How to I copy a quiz/exam/assignment between two courses? Use the Course Copy process and, rather then copying everything, use the Select Course Components and choose the Brightspace activity you need to copy over.
Is there any way to start a Zoom classroom with pre-assigned break out rooms? Yes, but ONLY if students have Zoom accounts (through https://zoom.us), and they are logged into their account in order to be assigned to the breakout rooms correctly. Follow this instructions on pre-assigning participants to breakout rooms.
Note: Students must use their Algonquin email address when they create the Zoom Basic accounts.
Here are some recommendations to get your students in the habit of signing into Zoom:
- Inform students that they will need to create a Zoom account and log into Zoom to access future meetings.
- Edit upcoming meetings so that Only authenticated users can access them (it’s a checkbox when editing the meeting).
- Give students an extra 5-10 minutes to get into your next meeting – they will inevitably run into difficulties and some may not have created an account.
- The main thing is the communication piece. We’d recommend something like this: “To join this session, please see the Getting Started section of this Library guide, to create a free Zoom Basic account using your college email address. Accounts will be used to make group work easier in each session. You will not be able to access future class meetings without a Zoom account.
How do I allow one student an alternate time restriction for a quiz? Use the special access options when you need to provide students with alternate time restrictions, alternate attempt limits, or alternate due dates.
Important! Extending the availability of a quiz, by changing the quiz start/end dates, does not give the student more time. If you have students who need a longer time to complete a quiz, when using one of the Special Access options, make sure you change the amount of time your students are allowed to take (the Recommended Time Limit or the Enforced Time Limit).
Did you know?
Did you know that Brightspace has a Chat tool that allows you and your learners to have a real-time discussion? You can use the Chat tool to brainstorm ideas, hold a question and answer period, have a debate or discussion, or organize a remote study group. As opposed to other collaboration tools, such as Discussions, Chat conversations occur in real-time.
There are two types of chats:
- Personal chats – visible only to users who you have added to the chat’s participants list. Great for when you need to schedule private conversations.
- General (course) chats – visible to everyone enrolled in your course. Use one during an online exam, when students need a quick way to ask you questions. As the general chat is visible to the entire class, it may be beneficial in case that the answer needs to be visible to all your students.
Notes:
- The Chat Tool is available to you from Tools/Course Admin/Chat. Once you create a chat, you link to it from a Content area, by going to Existing Activities/Chat option.
- A personal chat will be visible to all students, but accessible only to students added as members.
- If you need to avoid having the link to the personal chat visible in your course, go to Tools/Course Admin/Chat and click on the name of a personal chat. From the browser’s address bar, copy the URL and send it to your student by email, along with the date and time set up for the appointment.
Brightspace Support for Students
Do your students have any issues with their Brightspace courses? Please refer them to the ITS Support Team (5555@algonquincollege.com).
Posted on Friday, September 18th, 2020
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).
Posted on Friday, September 11th, 2020
Brightspace Tips – Answers to Common Questions this past Week
- How do I link the Glossary into a content area? Go to Tools/Course Admin/Glossary and copy the URL that you see in the browser’s address bar. Then, navigate to the Content module where you would like to link the Glossary, click on Upload/Create button and choose Create a link from the drop down menu. Enter a title and paste the link to the Glossary.
- When I am scheduling Zoom meetings in my combined/merged courses, the events show up in ALL students’ calendars. How do I restrict a Zoom calendar event to a specific course section? Go to your course calendar and find the Zoom occurrence you just created. Left click on it and select Edit. Scroll down to Attendees and change the drop down selection to the desired course section. Note that ALL students will still be able to join the meetings, by going to Tools/Zoom Classroom, but not having the notifications in their calendar, will make it easier for them to manage the upcoming events.
- I am working with a combined course and I really need to make sure students are not seeing ALL Zoom meetings scheduled, by going to Tools/Zoom Classroom. How do I make sure only students from one particular course section view ONLY their own Zoom meeting link?
- Set up a Zoom meeting outside Brightspace by going to the Algonquin Zoom Portal
- Copy the link and password for the invitation to that Zoom meeting
- Create a restricted announcement in your combined/merged course (that will be seen only by that particular section, and be sent as an email only to the students from the section)
- OR create restricted course modules and upload an item that will contain only the Zoom link that you will be using for one particular section (for instance, you will create one module called Zoom 011, and include a link to their Zoom session, then Zoom 012, and include their own link, etc.
- How can I offer my students extra help?
- Remind your learners, who have accommodations, to let you know so that you can set up special access for them in quizzes, giving them extra time as required. Students can connect with CAL if they think they might be entitled to accommodations.
- For your students who need help learning how to use Brightspace, please direct them to the Student Learning Centre – they are offering workshops next week.
- Encourage your students to self-enroll in Success in Digital Environments. The link to this course is available to them on their Brightspace homepage.
- Is there any way to start a Zoom classroom with pre-assigned break out rooms? Yes, but ONLY if students have Zoom accounts (through https://zoom.us), and they are logged into their account in order to be assigned to the breakout rooms correctly. Follow this instructions on pre-assigning participants to breakout rooms.
Note: Students must use their Algonquin email address when they create the Zoom Basic accounts.
Here are some recommendations to get your students in the habit of signing into Zoom:
- Inform students that they will need to create a Zoom account and log into Zoom to access future meetings.
- Edit upcoming meetings so that Only authenticated users can access them (it’s a checkbox when editing the meeting).
- Give students an extra 5-10 minutes to get into your next meeting – they will inevitably run into difficulties and some may not have created an account.
- The main thing is the communication piece. We’d recommend something like this: “To join this session, please see the Getting Started section of this Library guide, to create a free Zoom Basic account using your college email address. Accounts will be used to make group work easier in each session. You will not be able to access future class meetings without a Zoom account.
Faculty PD Sessions
For help setting up and/or grading quizzes, or grading any other learner activities in Brightspace, sign up for the PD sessions offered by LTS.
Important: Combined/Merged Courses in Brightspace
When asking for combined courses, please take a few minutes to understand the options you have.
We Need your Help
When emailing us your requests, we would appreciate if you could ensure that all information relevant to your issue is provided. Please take a moment to read our How to get assistance page for the Dos and Don’ts of opening a case with us.
- Please do not reply to closed cases. If you have a follow-up question, or if we have not completely answered this question, send a new email to brightspace@algonquincollege.com.
- Do NOT CC Brightspace on emails sent to multiple people, as every reply creates a new case.
- If you have already sent an email to us, please know that you are in the queue. We ask that you please don’t send a follow up email, as this generates another ticket in the queue.