Users can now set their pronouns through Account Settings.
Figure: The area under Account Settings, where you can set your pronouns.Figure: A user profile card with the pronouns displayed.
Instructors Only
Dropbox – Create select box grade items in the New Dropbox Creation Experience
This feature builds on the Add categories capability in the Dropbox Creation Experience feature released in July 2021.
With this release, the new Dropbox Creation Experience supports creating new select box grade items. Previously, only numeric grade items could be created from the new assignment creation experience.
In addition, this feature provides support for choosing a grade scheme when creating numeric or select box grade items. Grade categories now progressively display when creating a grade item. Previously, grade categories always displayed when available.
Also, to make interface text more clear, the following labels have been renamed in the new Dropbox Creation Experience:
Score out of is now Grade out of
In Grades is now In Gradebook
Choose in Grades is now Edit or Link to Existing
Remove from Grades is now Not in Gradebook
When creating a new assignment as an instructor, under Grade Out Of, click Ungraded.
Click In Gradebook, and then select Edit or Link to Existing.
From the Edit or Link to Existing dialog, the following options may display under Create a new grade item:
If the Grades tool has available grade categories, the Choose Grade Category option displays. Clicking this button displays available grade categories for association.
If the Grades tool has multiple grades schemes, the Change Grade Type & Scheme option displays. Clicking this button displays available grade types and schemes for association.
Click OK, and then Save.
Figure: In Gradebook options when creating a new assignment.
Dropbox – Restricting file extensions for submissions
Instructors can now specify the extensions of files that learners can upload as dropbox submissions. When an instructor is creating a file submission assignment, there is a drop down in the Submission and Completion section of the New Dropbox Creation Experience. In this drop-down list, instructors can choose the restrictions they want. Choices include:
Annotatable files, which include all file types that are supported by the Annotation tool in Dropbox. For more information, see File types supported by Annotations.
Note: When a .GIF file is converted to PDF, only the first frame of the .GIF displays.
.PDF only
Files that can be previewed without any conversion, such as .HTM, .HTML, .MHT, .MHTML, and .BMP
Images and videos
Custom filetypes
If an instructor choses Custom File Extensions, they can then enter file extensions that are allowed for file submissions. When this restriction is set, learners are presented with a list of acceptable file extensions for their assignments. When a learner attempts to upload a file submission for an assignment of an file extension type that the instructor has restricted, an error message appears.
Now when you export CourseLink course packages, you can export release conditions and any associations. As a result, you no longer need to re-create these release conditions when you import the course package.
Rubrics – Additional information on Grade tiles
When a rubric is collapsed, instructors can now see if the rubric is complete. If the rubric is complete, the collapsed rubric shows the overall level of the rubric, and if the rubric is not complete, the number of unscored criteria appears on the tile.
Previously, it was only possible to see the overall score of the rubric when the rubric was expanded.
Figure: New Experience collapsed tile for partially scored points-based rubric.Figure: New Experience collapsed tile for completed rubrics (points-based and text-only rubrics).
The Brightspace Editor toolbar now appears in the following locations:
Rubrics Creation and Edit experiences in the Description field
Rubrics Creation and Edit experiences in the Feedback field
Evaluation mode in the Feedback field.
The Insert Stuff and Insert Quicklink buttons now appear in the different views with additional formatting options.
Figure: The Brightspace Editor in the Rubrics Description field.
Rubrics – Copy and delete criteria groups
In response to client feedback about the New Dropbox Evaluation Experience, it is now possible to copy or delete a criteria group on a rubric. The delete option is only available if there is more than one criteria group. Note: When a rubric with attached assessment items has submissions evaluated against it, the rubric is locked and can no longer be edited or deleted.
After you click Copy Criteria Group, a new criteria group appears below the original criteria group.
If you are using keyboard-only navigation, these options are available in the tab order after the criteria group name. Once the criteria group is copied using keyboard navigation, the keyboard focus moves to the new group’s name.
Note: Aligned learning outcomes are not copied when you copy a criteria group. Specific details of the evaluation criterion should be updated and re-aligned with specific learning outcomes which apply to the new criterion elements in the criteria group.
Figure: The Copy and Delete options are available in the action menu on the Criteria Group header.
Contact
If you have any questions about the updates, please contact CourseLink Support at:
This feature updates the date picker component in Activity Feed. The new date picker has a more streamlined design and requires slight workflow changes: to clear a date/time, use the Clear option and to set the calendar to the current day, use the Set to Today option.
Figure: Updated date picker component in Activity Feed for due dates
Dropbox – Consistent evaluation experience
With this release, the legacy Dropbox evaluation experience is retired.
Dropbox – Icons in attachments toolbar
This release updates the attachments toolbar which appears in the evaluation panel on the right side of the new Dropbox Evaluation Experience.
Users can now add attachments to their feedback from QuickLinks, web links, Google Drive, and OneDrive using the new icons in the toolbar. Previously, users could only add attachments by uploading a file from their computer, recording an audio note, or recording a video note.
This change aligns the attachments toolbar in the new Dropbox Evaluation Experience with the attachments toolbar in the new Create and Edit Dropbox Experience.
Figure: New attachments toolbar containing icons for Upload File, QuickLink, Web Link, Google Drive, OneDrive, Record Audio, and Record Video.
Discussions – Consistent evaluation experience
This feature updates the user evaluation experience when assessing a topic or an individual learner, allowing instructors to better review and evaluate discussion contributions. The evaluation interface for Discussions has a similar layout as the Dropbox – Consistent evaluation experience.
This new experience involves a new page layout, with evaluation tools and the post being evaluated displaying side-by-side. Assessment workflows have not changed.
Figure: New evaluation experience for Discussions, with posts and evaluation tools displayed side-by-side.
Discussions – Improvements to visibility and posting restrictions
This is a workflow that makes it easier for instructors to set visibility and posting restrictions for discussion forums and topics. More specifically, this change simplifies date management for discussion activities, offering a more consistent, simplified, and consolidated experience for instructors.
The following changes are visible to instructors when creating or editing discussion forums and topics:
Note: These changes also affect the Content and Manage Dates tools.
From the Restrictions tab, the previous Locking Options are now consolidated with the Availability Start Date and End Date options and display as the following new options:
Visible with access restricted before/after start/end. The topic/forum is visible to learners before/after the start/end date, but they cannot access it. Previously, Classic Content was the only tool to make discussions visible without access.
Visible with submission restricted before/after start/end. The topic/forum is visible to learners before/after the start/end date and they can access it, but they cannot post new threads or replies. This effectively makes a discussion read-only. Previously, this was accomplished with the lock option or unlock dates.
Hidden before/after start/end. The topic/forum is hidden from learners until the start/end date. This is a new feature. Calendar events for Availability Starts and Availability Ends are hidden until the start/end date. Notifications are also not sent until the start/end date. Previously, the hidden status of a discussion topic was decided by the tool displaying the topic.
From the Restrictions tab, the Display in Calendar option is now consolidated with the Availability Start Date and End Date options, which adds the start date and end dates to the calendar. Previously, the tool decided which calendar event should be added to the calendar. With this change, calendar events for availability dates may change and additional events for Availability Start Dates may be added.
Calendar events for unlocked dates are now hidden from learners.
Where Discussions and User Progress may have previously hidden a topic or forum when outside of availability dates, those tools now may show them as visible, but inaccessible.
From Discussion Settings, instructors can now set the default visibility and access behavior for new discussion forums and topics.
Figure: The new consolidated options for visibility and posting restrictions in the Restrictions tab
To improve page performance for the Grade book Mastery View, the Evaluated and Aligned Activity counter has been removed. We recognize that this is important contextual information for instructors and evaluators when reviewing the overall level of achievement for a learner. We are re-evaluating ways in which to present this information while not impacting the performance of this page.
The information from the Evaluated and Aligned Activity data element will be reintroduced in a future release with additional context to help clients better analyze what the numbers represent in their learning environment.
Rubrics – Increased accessibility with labels on radio buttons
To provide a better experience to clients using screen readers, criterion levels now indicate the level name and point value of each radio button when it has the focus. Previously, screen readers only indicated “radio button X out of Y” or “radio button, not selected” depending on whether the focus is on a selected criterion.
In addition, the mobile view of Rubrics now has radio buttons implemented to describe the level name and point value of each criterion level, consistent with the view on a larger screen.
Note: Depending on the screen reader you use, the way of listing all the radio buttons on a page differs. For example, In NVDA, press INSERT+F7; in JAWS, press CTRL+INSERT+A. In general, D2L tests compatibility with the following screen readers: NVDA, JAWS, and Voiceover.
Figure: Criterion level rows behave as radio buttons for screen readers.
Rubrics – Inline grading improvements
There have been improvements to the ease of use of the inline grading experience, including changes to ensure grading experience parity for screen reader users. Previously, screen reader users were unable to grade or review tasks due to missing information. In addition, the updates now include the following:
The interaction of the arrow buttons at either end of the evaluation slider now indicate a hover state compared to a focus state. If there is no level under the hover pointer, the level area is empty.
Keyboard navigation of the slider evaluation levels identify the focus and indicate the criterion you are viewing. When the keyboard focus is on a level, you can press the arrow keys at the beginning and end of the slider or use the left and right arrow keys on the keyboard to move the focus within a scale. In grading mode, moving the focus to a level directly selects the level. You can also press Enter to select or unselect a level. In preview mode, the selected level does not change when you review other levels’ information.
Keyboard navigation of the slider evaluation levels more clearly identify the focus and level you have selected in grading mode. You can use the right or left arrow key at the beginning and end of the slider to move the focus within a scale. Press Enter or use the left and right arrow keys on the keyboard to select and deselect the level.
The level name and description of an evaluation level appear below the evaluation slider in the selected state, and the selection indicator appears on the slider at the chosen level.
When the rubric has been graded, the level information area displays the selected level’s information by default, unless other levels are in hover state in grading mode, or in hover or focus state in reviewing mode.
When you move the selection block to a different level, there is now an animation to smoothly transition to the new level.
Rubrics – Overall Score now appears in Mobile View and the New Assignment and Discussion Evaluation Experiences
When an instructor using the New Dropbox Evaluation Experience opens a rubric in a new window, the Overall Score displays for each rubric, and the instructor can override the level if necessary. Previously, if an instructor did not open a new window, rather, they viewed the rubrics inline in the New Dropbox Evaluation Experience tool, the Overall Score did not appear, and the instructor could not override the level. As a result, text-only rubrics could not be assessed because the Overall Score was not available.
Now, instructors using Mobile view can evaluate text-only rubrics for assignments (using the New Dropbox Evaluation Experience) and can evaluate text-only rubrics for discussions (using the New Discussions Evaluation Experience) as expected.
Figure: The Overall Score in Mobile and New Dropbox Evaluation Experience views
Students and Instructors
CourseLink – Supported Browsers
As an update to CourseLink, the warning banner for legacy Edge has been removed on Aug 1st and replaced with a “your browser is unsupported” page with a Your browser is looking a little retro… pop-up message.
CourseLink recommends using the system with an up-to-date browser that provides robust support for all features. If you are using CourseLink with a legacy browser, a pop-up message appears directing you to update your browser, change to a supported browser, or dismiss the message.
Currently, the browser version check displays a warning for versions previous to:
Chrome 90
Chrome OS Chrome 90
Mobile Chrome 90
Safari 14
Mobile Safari 14
Firefox 88
Chromium-based Microsoft Edge 90
Figure: The Your browser is looking a little retro… pop-up message.
The following message appears if you are using one of the following browsers (or older):
Chrome 67 (released March 2018)
macOS Safari 12 (released September 2018)
Firefox 67 (released May 2019)
Chrome OS Chrome 67 (released Mar 2018)
iOS Safari 11 (released September 2017)
Android Chrome 67 (released Mar 2018)
Figure: Legacy support tier/really prominent warning.
CourseLink – End of Life for Secondary Window Pop-Ups
This update brings End of Life status to the Show dialogs as pop-ups setting under Username > Account Settings. All secondary windows now open in Dialogs. Historically, this setting was used as an Accessibility accommodation as not all Screen Readers were able to handle dialogs. Modern screen readers provide better support for dialogs.
Figure: The Show secondary window as setting which has been removed.
Brightspace Pulse – Comment on Activity Feed posts
To encourage class engagement, learners can now comment on Activity Feed posts in Brightspace Pulse. Previously, learners could only read Activity Feed posts and comments in Brightspace Pulse.
In Brightspace Pulse, tap the Courses tab, and then tap a course with Activity Feed enabled.
From the Activity Feed tab, tap the post you want to comment on, and then tap Add Comment. A browser opens, displaying the Activity Feed for the course in CourseLink.
Tap the post you want to comment on, add your comment, and then tap Post. Your comment displays.
To close the browser and return to Brightspace Pulse, tap Done.
In Brightspace Pulse, refresh the page to display your comment.
Figure: The new Add Comment button in Brightspace Pulse’s Activity Feed
Brightspace Pulse – View all grades for a course
Learners can now view all grades for a course from a new Grades tab in the course. Previously, learners could only view course grades from notifications in Brightspace Pulse or by opening a browser and navigating to the Grades tool in CourseLink.
To view all grades for a course, tap the Courses tab. Next, tap a course, and then the Grades tab. All received grades for the course display, indicating if feedback is available. To open the Grades tool in a browser and view full grade breakdowns and calculations, tap View Grades in Browser.
To view feedback, tap a grade. The grade and text feedback display. To view details about the associated activity in CourseLink, tap View Activity.
Figure: The new Grades tab for a course in Brightspace Pulse
Learners can now view content module descriptions in Brightspace Pulse. Instructors use module descriptions to communicate vital information to learners about specific course content. Previously, module descriptions were only visible from CourseLink, which may have caused learners to miss important information when accessing courses from Brightspace Pulse.
Figure: A content module description in Brightspace Pulse
Contact
If you have any questions about the updates, please contact CourseLink Support at:
Dropbox – Add categories in the New Dropbox Creation Experience
The new Dropbox creation experience supports the alignment of assignments to categories. Instructors can add new or existing categories when creating or editing a new Dropbox folder.
Figure: The new Dropbox creation experience with the ability to align assignments to categories
Dropbox – Org Defined Id field in the User Profile card
When an instructor hovers over a learner’s profile in the new Dropbox Evaluation Experience, the User Profile card now displays the value of the Org Defined Id (student number) field, if enabled in the Profile Cards tool. By default, the new Org Defined Id field in the Profile Cards tool is enabled.
Figure: The new Org Defined Id field in the Profile Cards tool
CourseLink Platform – New External Resource icon
To differentiate from the similar generic download icon, the external resource icon is now changing to a building block icon. This new icon better represents the building block approach of external resource functionality.
The new icon now appears in External Learning Tools under the Add Existing options of the Content tool.
Figure: The new external resource functionality icon
Grades – Add categories for text, calculated, and formula grade items
This feature enables you to better organize your grade book by adding categories to text, calculated, and formula grade items. This improved organization does not impact the calculation of the category these grade items are in. The totals in these categories do not contribute to the final grade.
You can import, export, and copy category values for these grade item types.
Quizzes – Quiz Introduction field removed
To reduce redundancy in the Quizzes tool, the Introduction field is being phased out. In this release, when an instructor creates and/or edits a quiz, the Introduction field is no longer available.
If any quiz previously had text in the Introduction field, on clicking Edit, the text is automatically appended to the Description field. A message appears indicating that these two fields have been merged. Instructors can review the modified quiz description prior to saving the quiz.
Note: In some interfaces, for example Content, the Instructions field is displayed. This Instructions field already maps to the quiz Description field. Hence, there is no change to this workflow.
Figure: The Edit Quiz page with the message that appears when you edit a quiz containing an introduction
When importing a course using Import/Export/Copy Components, text in the quiz Introduction field automatically appends to the quiz Description field. The export and copy workflows remain unchanged.
Quizzes – Relocation of the Reports Setup functionality
The Report Setup tab on the Edit Quiz page is now available on the context menu of a quiz and reads as Setup Reports.
The Reports option available on the quiz context menu is also updated and reads as View Reports.
Figure: The updated quiz context menu with the Setup Reports and View Reports options
Quizzes – Set grace period time to 0 minutes
When setting an enforced time limit for a quiz, instructors can now set the grace period for a quiz to 0 minutes, in place of the default grace period setting of 5 minutes. Entering a 0 minute grace period flags the quiz attempt as exceeded immediately when the quiz time limit is reached by the learner. Quiz attempt logs display when the learner attempt exceeds the regular time limit, grace period time limit or any extended time limit. Grace period of 0 minutes can be set for quizzes with special access restrictions as well.
Note that setting a grace period can support learner accessibility requirements and other situations, such as slow internet connections when completing quizzes.
Quizzes – Status and workflow changes for quizzes with ungraded questions
To support instructors who need to manually score questions within quizzes, the following quiz status and quiz grading workflow updates are available:
For quizzes that contain questions that need to be manually scored (such as Written Response questions) AND that have the “Allow attempt to be set as graded immediately upon completion” option disabled, a new Pending Evaluation status appears beside the quiz attempt on the Grade Quiz page.
While evaluating a quiz attempt with unevaluated questions, the instructor can now select Pending evaluations in the Question View drop-down menu to filter for only the questions that require manual evaluation.
Instructors can now filter the Users tab by status. The available filters are: Published, Saved as draft, Pending evaluation and an empty status. The empty status denotes a quiz with auto-scored questions, where all questions are evaluated and there is no question evaluation pending.
Figure: The updated quiz status filters appear on the Attempts tab
Contact
If you have any questions about the updates, please contact CourseLink Support at:
When users send email messages, these sent messages are automatically saved in the Sent Mail folder. As a result, the User Account > Email Settings > Save a copy of each outgoing message to the Sent Mail folder check box is no longer available.
Instructors Only
New Accommodations Tool
Please note that this tool has been released for Guelph-Humber and Ridgetown instructors. Guelph campus instructors should continue to use the Automated Quiz Extension Tool.
This feature enables instructors to grant learners accommodations through the Classlist tool. Accommodation options currently available include: more time to complete quizzes at the course level and the ability to bypass right-click restrictions in quizzes. The right-click restriction in quizzes is the ability for learners to right-click in the quiz while taking the quiz and is important for accessibility tools like screen readers.
Figure: The new Edit Accommodations dialog box
Once granted, these accommodations apply to all quiz activities in a course for that learner. The additional time can be applied in terms of quiz time multipliers (for example, 1.5x quiz time) or +minutes (for example, an additional 30 minutes) on every quiz in a course.
Quiz-specific special access can overwrite an accommodation for any user on a quiz-by-quiz basis. When you overwrite an accommodation and then click Save, a warning describing the impact of overwriting an accommodation appears.
In the case where both the Accommodations tool and the Automated Quiz Extension Tool are used, the Automated Quiz Extension Tool will be the authoritative source and will ignore the Accommodations tool.
Insights – Navigation and metrics for Engagement Dashboard
A new Learner Engagement card is available on the Insights Portal. When you click the card, you can select a user from a list, and then view their Learner Engagement Dashboard. Previously, you would have to navigate through the Engagement Dashboard to access this page.
Figure: List of users with Learner Engagement Dashboards.
New Content View histogram on the Engagement Dashboard Summary View is now available. This metric tracks how many times course content objects, such as images, PDFs, or Word files, have been viewed to better understand content viewed offline.
Figure: Engagement Dashboard with the Content View chart highlighted.
Rubrics – Detach rubric warning for new Dropbox creation experience
When an attached rubric is deleted from an evaluated assignment, if evaluations of that rubric have been performed, the user now receives a detach rubric confirmation message for the assignment. This change applies to the New Dropbox Creation Experience.
Figure: The Rubric Detachment confirmation dialog.
Rubrics – Reorder criterion groups
In order to increase the value of rubric criterion groups, it is now possible to reorder those criterion groups in the New Rubric Creation Experience. If more than one criterion group appears in your rubric, direction arrows appear to the left of the criterion group header to reorder the criterion groups in the rubric. If only one criterion group appears in your rubric, the direction buttons do not appear.
Figure: Direction arrows located beside the criterion group header
This feature releases the new and improved Brightspace Editor.
The new Brightspace Editor permanently replaces the previous editor in the new Dropbox Evaluation Experience and the new Dropbox Creation Experience. The new Brightspace Editor will be the only editor available in all new experiences released from May 2021 onwards. The new Editor will be released in the following tools at a later date:
Quiz Builder
Activity Feed
New Rubrics
Figure: The new Brightspace Editor.
The new Brightspace Editor includes the following improvements to existing features:
Refreshed formatting options
The Lato font type
A refreshed color picker
A refreshed font size menu
A comprehensive and standard emoticon menu
A comprehensive and refreshed Symbols menu
An advanced source code editor
A refreshed Tables feature, including data sorting
A refreshed Accessibility Checker
The Check Accessibility, HTML Source Editor, Preview, and Toggle Full Screen functionalities have now been placed in the top bar
The Editor also includes the following new features:
Wordcount functionality that includes words, characters, and text selection.
Context menus while editing to enable quick access to text, link, and image editing options; including advanced image editing options. Note that image editing is not available in all context menus yet.
A new overflow menu with additional, less frequently used menu options.
Copy/paste and/or drag and drop images is now available when the consistent evaluation experience is on for Dropbox feedback.
Design improvements to enhance use of the Editor on mobile devices and improve general usability.
Accessibility improvements – Improved keyboard navigation for keyboard users and toolbar icons are spaced out more in accordance with WCAG standards.
The list below outlines what is not included in the Editor:
Spell check functionality. D2L recommends using your browser spell check functionality.
CourseLink – Maximum File Size Increase
The maximum per file upload size limit in CourseLink has increased from 1 GB to 2 GB. Any existing tool specific limits will continue to be respected and not overridden.
Instructors Only
Dropbox – Annotations available for TXT file-based assignments
Previously, annotations enabled instructors to use highlighting, free-hand drawing, shapes, and associated commenting to provide feedback to learner assignments of the following file types: DOC, DOCX, RTF, ODT, PPT, PPTX, PPSX, ODP, XLS, XLSX, JPG, JPEG, PNG, TIF, TIFF, and GIF. Now, instructors can provide feedback for TXT, in addition to the existing types.
Dropbox – Download file when using annotations in the New Dropbox Evaluation Experience
The New Dropbox Evaluation Experience now includes the Download drop-down menu in the Annotations viewer. When using annotations in an assignment, instructors can use this menu to download the original file without navigating to the submission list. Instructors can also download the annotated PDF file.
Figure: The Annotations viewer with the Download drop-down menu
Dropbox – Conversion Warning
A message now appears to users when viewing a file that has been converted to .pdf from a different file type in Dropbox. The message states “This file has been converted and may have inaccuracies.”
Rubrics – Copy rubric criterion
To improve the value of Rubrics and facilitate reusing rubric criteria that have already been created, an action menu next to the criterion name provides Copy and Delete options. When an instructor copies a criterion, the new criterion is added under the original with the criterion name Copy of [name of original criterion].
The Delete function was previously available as a trashcan icon at the end of the criterion row outside the table. The new location in the action menu improves the discoverability of the Delete and Copy options.
Figure: The action menu beside the criterion provides copy and delete options.
Rubrics – Print or export to PDF
To improve the user experience with Rubrics, instructors can now print or download a PDF of a preview or evaluated rubric. Learners can also print or download a PDF of a rubric from the desktop browser implementation of CourseLink. The Print button displays above the top-right corner of the rubric.
Widgets – Work To Do widget
The new Work To Do widget provides learners a summary of assigned learning activities from all their courses that are overdue or have an upcoming due date. The widget can be added to CourseLink homepages to aggregate data from all courses, and to course homepages to show only due and overdue learning activities from the course.
The Work To Do widget displays the following learning activities:
Dropbox
Checklists
Content
Courses
Discussions
Surveys
Quizzes
Learning activities only appear in the Work To Do widget when the activity has a defined due date or end date. By default, the widget displays activities due in the upcoming 2 weeks, and overdue work from the previous 12 weeks.
Figure: The Work To Do widget organizes course activities by overdue and upcoming due dates so learners can easily prioritize their work and stay on top of their tasks.
Contact
If you have any questions about the updates, please contact CourseLink Support at:
