Uncategorized – Page 12 – CourseLink Continuous Delivery Update

Continuous Delivery Updates for November 2019

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Instructors Only

Dropbox – Improvements to Dropbox

The Dropbox page shows a count of new submissions and resubmissions in the New column, which you can opt-in /opt-out of displaying.

Dropbox page with the New column — Figure: Dropbox page with the **New** column

Intelligent Agents – Email images

This feature includes the following change to Intelligent Agents (IA):

Users can now insert images directly into the body of intelligent agent emails using the Add Image button in the HTML editor. The images are attached to the email and shown in place when viewed in the recipient’s external mail client.

Learning Outcomes | New

CourseLink has released a new tool called Learning Outcomes. The new outcomes tool can be used to track and assess learning outcomes at a program and/or course level.

You can find the tool under the Course Admin options.

Figure: The Learning Outcomes tool under Course Admin

Once outcomes have been added to a course, they can be linked to Rubric criteria, Dropbox folders, and Discussions.

Note: Linking to Grade items and Quiz questions will be coming in a future release.

Any new programs or achievement scales can be set up by contacting CourseLink Support.

The official release video, below, can be viewed on D2L’s YouTube channel.

For more information about Learning Outcomes (also known as Standards), please see the Brightspace documentation website.

Competencies Tool – Language restored

With the release of the new Learning Outcomes tool, all language related to outcomes will be removed from the Competencies tool.

Updated terminology:

LOA Framework will be restored to Competency
Learning Outcome will be restored to Objective

Learning Outcomes – View assessment details on the Outcomes Progress Details page

To increase the value of the Outcomes Progress Details page, instructors and other instructor-type roles can now view feedback and submissions for dropbox and discussion topics for individual learners.

The page links to a summary of the activity, the learner’s submission or demonstration of the activity, the assessment that an instructor has provided. The feedback page displays the following information:

Activity description
Learner submission
Rubric assessment
Score achieved by the learner
Start, due, and end dates
Outcomes and levels achieved
General feedback provided by the instructor or evaluator

Quick Eval – Improve consistency across supported tools

To improve consistency across tools in Quick Eval, the following updates are being released:

When feedback on a quiz submission is saved as draft, a draft icon displays next to the quiz submissions in Quick Eval.
In Activities view, the Publish All option is available for Quizzes.

Quizzes – Restore quiz attempts in the Quiz Attempt log | Update

When an instructor restores a learner’s deleted quiz attempt, note the following workflow changes:

A deleted quiz attempt can only be restored if the learner does not have another quiz attempt in progress.
The Restore button only appears for the latest deleted quiz attempt.

Quizzes – Save feedback as draft

Instructors can now clearly see when feedback is saved as a draft, or published, while evaluating quiz submissions. On the quiz evaluation page, the Graded (G) checkbox and Save button have been replaced by the Publish and Save Draft buttons.

The Publish and Save Draft buttons allow instructors to quickly save drafts of feedback left on quiz submissions — Figure: The **Publish** and **Save Draft** buttons allow instructors to quickly save drafts of feedback left on quiz submissions

Quizzes – Set quiz options in Quiz Builder

The new Quiz Builder experience now allows instructors to set additional quiz options when creating quizzes. A More Actions button is visible when users select the checkbox for one or more questions; allowing instructors to set questions as mandatory or bonus directly from Quiz Builder, and change the number points assigned to a question or set of questions. There is no change in how the bonus, mandatory, or points features work.

Video Note – Removal of Flash

The Video Note tool has removed all Flash-based recording options.

Video Note – Record Video workflow update

Instructors are now able to attach pre-existing Video Notes in the Record Video workflow.

Contact

If you have any questions about the updates, please contact CourseLink Support at:

courselink@uoguelph.ca
519-824-4120 ext. 56939

Continuous Delivery Updates for October 2019

Students and Instructors

Accessibility – Compliance with WCAG 2.1 level AA | Updated

As part of D2L’s ongoing commitment to design and develop against WC3 accessibility best practices, CourseLink now aligns to the updated WCAG 2.1 level AA standards in both compliance reporting and all new development work. It is D2L’s intention to be an industry leader in inclusive design, and these changes improve support for individuals with alternative fine motor, cognition, and low vision needs. There are no major changes to workflows with these improvements; however, we have updated our shared components, such as fonts, buttons, menus, and input fields to better support WCAG 2.1 level AA requirements and recommendations. These changes include:

Adding input type and auto-complete to appropriate fields to facilitate a user’s ability to complete forms.
Adding escape key commands where appropriate to components that appear on hover or focus.
Updating components that activate on down event to ensure that a user can cancel actions.
Improving color contrast on additional components in CourseLink.

Supported browsers | Updated

As previously announced in the August release, Microsoft Internet Explorer is approaching End of Life (EOL) status as a supported browser. Starting January 2020, CourseLink will no longer support Internet Explorer. To provide more visibility about this upcoming change, when an existing user logs in to CourseLink using Internet Explorer, a banner now informs the user about the approaching EOL date. The banner also includes a recommendation to upgrade their browser and a link to the EOL communication on the Brightspace Community. After logging in, the user can dismiss the banner for that session. For each subsequent session, the banner displays; however, the user can dismiss it.

Figure: The Internet Explorer End of Life banner in CourseLink.

Brightspace Pulse – iOS support | Updated

The latest version of Brightspace Pulse is supported on Apple devices with iOS 11 or higher. Older versions of Brightspace Pulse will continue to work on Apple devices with iOS 10, but will not receive any app updates. For an optimal experience, D2L recommends installing the latest version of Brightspace Pulse on Apple devices with iOS 11 or higher.

Instructors Only

Dropbox, Quizzes, Discussions – Change to immersive navigation bar

When evaluating a assignment submission, quiz, or discussion, the user interface has been updated slightly. The Next Student and Previous Student buttons above the submission and learner information have been replaced by forward and back chevrons that display in the immersive navigation bar. Previously, these buttons were displayed across the entire width of the page. The information on which user you are evaluating (e.g. 1 of 12) displays between the back and forward chevrons.

Figure: Evaluating an assignment with the new immersive navigation bar.

CourseLink – Improvements to consistency

To provide a more consistent experience, there have been changes to update the language, interface controls, and workflows throughout CourseLink.

The language and methods by which instructors make activities hidden or visible to learners across different tools is now consistent.

The visibility control now uses a checkbox with the consistent terminology Hide from users in all instances. This change affects the Dropbox, Discussions, Quizzes, Surveys, and Grades (grade item and grade category) tools.
In Discussions, the Visibility, Availability Dates, and Locking options move from the Properties tab to the Restrictions tab.
The Hide from users checkbox appears under the title field of all activity creation pages in the Content tool.
There is now only one Special Access icon in Quizzes (previously there were two, one for each type of Special Access). The Special Access icon also now appears in Dropbox where it previously did not.
In the Grade book, on the context menu for a grade item, the Grade All option is now Enter Grades.
In the Grade Item and Grade Category event log, the End Date Restriction and Start Date Restriction properties are now Availability End Date and Availability Start Date.

Intelligent Agents – Email Attachments

You can now add attachments to automated email messages when creating and editing intelligent agents. The intelligent agent email template contains an Attachments area that enables you to upload local files, select from available course files, or record audio.

Links – Improved link validation

The Links tool has been updated to improve the link validation process. Pre-existing links are not impacted; however, any new links or updates to pre-existing links must be formatted to follow the new validation rules. (Valid formats include: URLs that begin with http/https, ftp/sftp/ftps, file, mailto, feed, itpc, mms, rtsp, or relative paths beginning with /).

Quick Eval – Accessibility improvements to Activities view

To increase the accessibility of the Activities view in Quick Eval, the feature is now compatible with screen reader technology.

Quizzes – Enter as User permission

Instructors can now use the Enter In-Progress Quiz as User permission. With this change, users marking quizzes can impersonate students to submit the quiz on behalf of the student. Administrators can be sure that there are no privacy infringement issues, and instructors will not accidentally infringe on a learner’s privacy.

Contact

If you have any questions about the updates, please contact CourseLink Support at:

courselink@uoguelph.ca
519-824-4120 ext. 56939

Continuous Delivery Updates for September 2019

Students and Instructors

Dropbox – Grades entered in Dropbox and Grades are synchronized

When an instructor enters a grade for a Dropbox submission in the standard or spreadsheet view of Grade Book, the grade also appears with the submission in Dropbox. Previously, grades entered in the Dropbox tool were passed on to Grade Book; however, grades for Dropbox submissions entered in Grade Book were not passed to the Dropbox tool. This change ensures data consistency between Dropbox and Grade Book. Currently, Dropbox grades are not synchronized when the Grade Book is exported and imported.

Discussions – Grades entered in Discussions and Grades are synchronized

When an instructor enters a grade for a discussion in the standard or spreadsheet view of Grade Book, the grade also appears with the discussion post in Discussions. Previously, grades entered in the Discussion were passed on to Grade Book; however, grades for discussions entered in Grade Book were not passed to the Discussions tool. This change ensures data consistency between Discussions and Grade Book. Currently, Discussion grades are not synchronized when the Grade Book is exported and imported.

Instructors Only

Assessment Quality Dashboard Support for Question Pools

This feature includes the following updates:

The addition of quizzes with question pools.
The inclusion of a new column in the question statistics table that indicates whether the question is part of a question pool. Question Pool data will take two weeks to migrate following this update and then quizzes with question pools will be included.

Quick Eval – Activities View

In Quick Eval, select Activities to display a list of the assessable activities that have items awaiting evaluation in all your courses. An activity shows up in Quick Eval’s Activities view when there is an unevaluated learner submission, or when all students have not submitted to the activity. This view makes it easy to complete all assessments for one assignment, discussion, or quiz, before moving on to the next task. This feature helps evaluators who prefer to evaluate submissions in the context of an activity. Activities view displays indicators to show the progress on submissions, progress on evaluations, and progress on publishing feedback to learners. It also includes links to the evaluation page, submission page, and a publish all action.

Release Conditions – Release condition for topic completion

The Completed content topic is a new release condition that is met when a user completes a content topic. The method of completing the topic depends on the type, such as viewing a file or submitting an assignment. Similar to the currently available Visited content topic release condition, optional topics can also trigger this release condition.

This release condition ignores exemptions, meaning that if the learner completes the activity, the release condition can be met, regardless of the activity being required, optional, or exempt.

Figure: The Completed content topic release condition is now available from the Condition Type drop-down list.

Article – Anonymous Marking

The Teaching and Learning Technologies group at OpenEd has released a new article on Anonymous Marking and how it can be used in CourseLink to the benefit of instructors and students.

Contact

If you have any questions about the updates, please contact CourseLink Support at:

courselink@uoguelph.ca
519-824-4120 ext. 56939

Continuous Delivery Updates for August 2019

Students and Instructors

Improvements to course notifications

To improve the delivery of course notifications in CourseLink, the Notifications option, available from the username on the minibar, includes the following changes:

Added a Summary of Activity option for receiving email notifications about the summary of activity for each course. Options include: Never, Daily, or Weekly (default).
Removed the following Customize Notifications options: Allow past courses to send me notifications and Allow inactive courses to send me notifications. Learners can now only receive daily email digests for current and future courses.
Removed the following SMS notifications for Instant Notifications: Content – content item created, Content – content item updated, and Content – content overview updated.

If any of the removed notification options are currently selected, learners will no longer receive these notifications after the monthly update. To receive content-related instant notifications, CourseLink recommends using the Brightspace Pulse mobile app or select the Email option for the instant notification type on the Notifications page. Email content notifications remain unaffected.

Supported browsers | Updated

New clients can no longer access the CourseLink Learning Environment using Microsoft Internet Explorer. If users attempt to access CourseLink using Internet Explorer, an unsupported page appears. The unsupported page contains links to download supported browsers and a link to the Community End of Life communication. The text of the unsupported page is customizable using the Language Management tool. Users cannot log in to CourseLink using any version of Internet Explorer.

When a user tries to access CourseLink using any version of Internet Explorer, a retro pop-up dialog box appears. The text in the retro pop-up dialog box has been updated to include the January 2020 end of life date information. Users who had previously dismissed the pop-up will see it again following the August update if CourseLink is accessed using any version of Internet Explorer. The pop-up can be dismissed again and will not reappear with subsequent updates.

OpenDyslexic font setting | Removed

The OpenDyslexic font is intended to increase readability of text for users with dyslexia. D2L introduced this font into CourseLink as a measure of support for users with dyslexia, based on interest from clients and initially positive media reports. However, to date, there is no empirical evidence that it improves readability or comprehension for users with dyslexia. To ensure that D2L offers true accessibility solutions and that we align our design system and development practices with the W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1 Level AA Criteria), the OpenDyslexic font is removed in the August 2019 release.

Email – Add images to messages | Updated

When composing email messages, users can select Insert Image to add pictures from their computer, a URL, or Manage Files. Images are inserted in place, attached to the email, and display in place for the recipient. The Insert Stuff button is no longer shown in Email, as it has several workflows that are incompatible with the external email experience.

Instructors Only

Dropbox – Spell check for annotation notes | Updated

When assessing submissions with the built-in annotation tools in Dropbox, text within the comment annotation is now checked for spelling mistakes.

Intelligent Agents – Release Condition Re-evaluations

Intelligent Agents now re-evaluate the status of release conditions at the moment of triggering to determine whether a user has completed a particular release condition or not. Previously, Intelligent Agents retained release condition information from users, even if users no longer triggered the retained release condition.

Quizzes – General availability of Quiz Builder

Quiz Builder is a new work flow for adding, editing, reordering, and deleting quiz content in the Quizzes tool.

Quiz Builder saves instructors time by streamlining the screens and work flows for building and arranging quiz content. Instructors can add questions, sections and question pools, or import from the Question library. From a single interface, they can edit, delete and reorder questions. They can also review critical information such as question points and total points in the quiz; mandatory and bonus status and shuffling behavior.

You can use the new Quiz Builder experience by clicking Add/Edit Questions on the quiz Properties tab. The updated Add/Edit Questions screen provides the option to add, edit, reorder, delete, and move between sections using keyboard interaction in the new experience. The experience is accessible when using assistive technologies.

Quizzes – Restore quiz attempts in the Quiz Attempt log | New

Instructors can now restore deleted quiz attempts for learners from within a quiz using the new Quiz Attempt log. The New Quiz Attempt log tracks quiz attempt submissions per user, in both an overview and detailed set of logs.

The following actions are captured in the Overview:

Attempt Started
Attempt Submitted
Attempt Deleted
Attempt Restored

The Overview tab on the Attempt Logs page — Figure: The overview tab on the Attempt Logs page

Video Assignments – Auto Analysis ™ tool | New

Auto Analysis™ is a tool for the Video Assignments integration. It automatically transcribes all uploaded Individual Project assignments and measures the speaking rate, speech clarity, and use of filler words. The transcribed data is compiled into a report with a score that instructors can use as a data point when assessing the assignment. Instructors can configure an Individual Project to show or hide overall delivery scores.

The Auto Analysis™ tool interface appears in all languages supported by Video Assignments. Note that Auto Analysis™ is designed for English-speaking video assignments only – it cannot transcribe or analyze non-English audio.

This automated reporting feature provides learners greater insight into their performance and opportunity to reflect, practice and improve their assignment before submission.

Figure: The report view by Auto Analysis™ provides feedback on the Clarity, Fillers, Speaking Rate and Overall Delivery score on Individual project assignments

Contact

If you have any questions about the updates, please contact CourseLink Support at:

courselink@uoguelph.ca
519-824-4120 ext. 56939

Continuous Delivery Updates for July 2019

Students and Instructors

Accessibility – Compliance with WCAG 2.1

As part of D2L’s ongoing commitment to design and develop against WC3 accessibility best practices, there are updates to our shared web components, such as fonts, buttons, menus, and input fields, to ensure they align with WCAG 2.1 standards. These changes include:

Text color change from #56A5C to #494C4E for our standard font styles, which is WCAG Level AAA compliant.
Resetting clients to “Normal” for their Org default size to ensure that default configurations have appropriate legibility. In addition, the configuration option for setting a font override at the Org level has been removed. Users can still change their personal font preferences using Account Settings and existing individual user overrides are retained.
Changes to the color, borders, hover and focus styles of other web components such as buttons, menus and input fields to ensure they comply with WCAG 2.1 color contrast requirements for non-text components.

These changes will improve readability and provide better ability to meet contrast compliance with non-text elements. It is D2L’s intention to be an industry leader in inclusive design, and these changes improve support for individuals with alternative fine motor, cognition, and low vision needs. These compliance changes contain no changes to workflows; all changes are look and feel only.

Widgets – Updates to language terms for Updates Widget and My Courses Widget

There are changes to lang term values to increase the clarity of the fields in the Updates Widget, the My Courses Widget, and Dropbox (displayed in Grades) to more clearly describe the capability of the feature.

In the Updates widget:

Show the number of new assignment submissions is now Show the number of unread submission files
New Assignment Submissions for {subject} is now New Assignment Submission Files for {subject}

In the My Courses Widget:

Unread Assignment Submission is now Unread Assignment Submission File
New Assignment Submissions is now New Assignment Submission Files
{number} Unread Assignment Submission is now {number} Unread Assignment Submission Files.

In Dropbox (displayed in Grades):

New submission – View {subject}’s submissions in a new window is now Unread submission file – View {subject}’s submissions in a new window

Navbar – Display user initials when there is no user profile image

If a user does not upload a user profile image in CourseLink, the navbar now displays the user’s initials in the user-profile badge. This change occurs for all roles and displays in the CourseLink navbar. Previously, if a profile image was not uploaded, a blank user image displayed.

Figure: User initials now display in the navbar

Surveys – Improvements to the learner experience

To improve the learner experience when taking a survey, the following updates are now available:

The primary button when completing a Survey has been updated from Save Responses to read as Submit Survey. Learners will continue to be prompted to confirm their submission when they submit the survey
Learners can still save survey answers manually. The Save button now reads as Save Responses
A new Back to Questions button is displayed when attempting to submit a survey with unanswered questions
While learners are taking an anonymous survey, an alert appears at the top of the survey indicating that the survey is anonymous and their user information will not be tied to their responses

Instructors Only

Dropbox – Edit category improvements

An Edit Categories option is now available in Dropbox to allow users to edit all categories from one page. You can add, modify, delete, and sort categories, as well as manage unused categories. If a category with folders is deleted, those folders are added to the No Category area.

Figure: Select Edit Categories from the Dropbox page

Figure: Manage all categories from one page

Dropbox – Eraser added to Annotations

An eraser has been added to the Annotations tool bar to allow evaluators to remove ink annotations made when evaluating Dropbox submissions.

Quick Eval – Improvements to Quick Eval

To improve the Quick Eval experience, the following updates are now available:

The Back to Quick Eval button directs users to the Quick Eval tool at the course level or My Home level, depending on where you launched it from
Different date formats are supported in the Submission Date column

Brightspace Insights – Assessment Quality Dashboard available in Insights Portal | New

There is a new embedded Assessment Quality Dashboard available in the Insights Portal. The goal of the Assessment Quality dashboard is to understand the quality of assessments using quiz and question statistics such as reliability, average grade, and correlation for all quiz and question types (except question pools). This dashboard includes a visualization that displays data for:

Question details
Question statistics data points
Quiz details
Quiz reliability data points
Quiz summary statistics data points

Figure: Assessment Quality card in CourseLink

Contact

If you have any questions about the updates, please contact CourseLink Support at:

courselink@uoguelph.ca
519-824-4120 ext. 56939