2020 – CourseLink Continuous Delivery Update

Continuous Delivery Updates for December 2020

Instructors Only

Dropbox- Consistent evaluation experience

The consistent evaluation experience for Dropbox brings consistency to evaluating in Brightspace Learning Environment for all assessable tools . This feature provides an opt-in experience for users to familiarize themselves with the new experience when evaluating in Dropbox. In future releases this evaluation experience will become available in additional tools.

The default value for this configuration is On(Opt-In).

No changes have been made to page navigation. The user context bar now includes a menu to choose a learner, and another menu to choose a submission. On the user submission list, files are now grouped by submission without repeating comments to make it easier to distinguish between submissions. The evaluation pane divider is now draggable to suit a user’s preferences and screen size. Rubrics are now located at the top of the page, and assignment details are in the ellipsis menu. The overall grade remains as an icon that indicates if that grade is tied to the gradebook. Existing outcomes and competency web components are also visible. Publish, Save Draft, and Next Student options continue to function as before.

Instructors should wait to turn on the Consistent Evaluation experience in this release if they:

Use TurnItIn – No integration with Turnitin is available in this release of the consistent evaluation experience
Use Anonymous Marking/Grading – Learner name display does not respect the Anonymous Marking setting
May have multiple rubrics attached to assignments – Only one rubric displays in the consistent evaluation experience
Use large rubrics with many levels or criteria – Large rubrics may have a reduced usability due to the way in which the new experience displays rubrics. All levels and criteria display, though large rubrics may require more scrolling
Use Group assignments extensively – There is no access to view group members from within the consistent evaluation experience
Use the Edit a Copy function to annotate text or HTML submissions – This option is not available in the consistent evaluation experience
Require access to Student ID (or Class Progress) while evaluating – These options are not accessible from within the consistent evaluation experience

These items will be addressed in future updates to the Consistent Evaluation experience.

Figure: Instructor view when evaluating assignments in the consistent evaluation experience.

CourseLink – Updated video and audio player in Content

To improve accessibility and create a consistent user experience, a new audio and video media player has been added to Content.

The new media player offers the following features:

Consistent keyboard controls, and screen reader support.
Keyboard controls improvements and fixes to known issues. The previous media player had an issue where keyboard focus could become stuck in the caption language selection menu.
Screen reader improvements with the new media player include off-screen messages for screen readers to announce when a video has loaded or if there was an error loading the video.

Note: Download will not be turned on by default.

Figure: The new video player in Content showing the playback speed option.

Figure: The new audio player appears in Content

Grades – Mastery view in the Gradebook now available

The Mastery view of the Gradebook provides visibility into additional details of learner performance beyond what is available using traditional grades associated with an activity. Using outcomes associated with various types of assessments (such as quiz questions, rubric criterion rows, assignments or discussions), additional dimensions of performance can be recorded. The Mastery page provides instructors with information about the overall achievement for leaners in their course. The achievement is related to learning outcomes and standards associated to assessment activities and helps instructors to quickly identify learners who are potentially at risk. The page provides a quick holistic view of aggregated performance across all learners in the course for all outcomes assessed in the course. Instructors can click on individual table cells of the Mastery view to drill-down into individual learners’ performance and view evidence associated with each outcome. In that detailed view, instructors can use their professional judgement to manually override the calculated suggested level of overall achievement.

Note: This option is hidden if learning outcomes are not being used in the course.

The Mastery view table displays evaluated outcomes as the columns of the table and learners enrolled in the course as rows of the table. In the columns for each outcome, there is a color and text indication of the suggested overall level of achievement based on the currently selected calculation method. The color of each cell and the text label is based on the color and level name defined in the default Achievement Scale in the Learning Outcomes tool.

Figure: The Mastery view with three outcome columns of evaluated activities, and several unevaluated outcome columns for each learner.

Within each achievement cell, there are several indicators of the status of the learner’s progress toward the achievement, including:

Number of activities evaluated (out of the total aligned)
Suggested overall level achievement (or manually overridden level of achievement)
Manual override indicator in the form of an asterisk beside the overall achievement label.
Out of Date icon (if newer evaluations have been made since a manual override was recorded or a feedback is added)
Published/Not published icons to indicate the visibility status to the learner

Figure: Displays a single cell of the mastery view, the manual override asterisk, the Out of Date icon, and the Not Published icon

Insights – Additional cards on the New Engagement Dashboard

The new Engagement dashboard contains visualizations that provide insight into how users are engaging with their courses. Using this information, users can identify at-risk learners and intervene to get them back on track. To increase the value of the Engagement dashboard, originally released in March 2019, and updated in November 2020, this release updates and adds the following new features:

The Discussion Summary pie chart indicates the number of discussion threads created, replied to, and read. If you hover over a pie segment, a popup appears with a number and description of the segment. This is helpful for understanding the proportion of passive or active social engagement. If you click a segment, the rest of the Engagement dashboard automatically filters the returned data for the learners represented by the segment. This is also summarized in the results table.
The System Access summary card indicates the number of users who have not accessed the system in the previous 14 days. This can include access of Brightspace Pulse or Brightspace through their internet browser. This is also summarized in the results table.
The ability to take action from the dashboard by exporting the results table or emailing one or many users. Users require permission to see and send emails at the Org Level in order to take advantage of the email option.

Note: The default setting for this feature continues to be Opt-in.

Figure: The Engagement Dashboard with the Discussion Activity and System Access areas highlighted.

Quizzes – Improved workflow for creating multi-select questions

As part of the ongoing initiative to improve the quiz creation experience for instructors, this release streamlines the interface for creating multi-select questions, making the workflow simpler and more intuitive.

When instructors initially launch the Question Editor to create a multi-select question, the interface displays the two main components of a multi-select question: the question and potential answers. Selecting a field displays a pop-up toolbar for formatting the text and adding images, links, and graphical equations. As each field is completed, the preview pane displays how the question and answers appear to learners.

Next, instructors can choose to click Options to add the following optional information to the multi-select question: Add Feedback, Add Hint, Add Short Description, and Add Enumeration.

Instructors can then choose to randomize the order of answers, assign points, and determine how points are assigned to blanks.

For determining how points are assigned to blanks, a new grading type is available in the classic and new multi-select question experience: Correct Answers, Limited Selections. For this grading type, points are evenly distributed across correct answers only. The number of selections allowed is limited to the number of correct answers. Learners earn partial points for each correct answer selected.

Figure: Question text and answers in the new multi-select question experience

Quizzes – Improvements to the ability to retake incorrect questions in quizzes

Building on the previous Quizzes – Retake incorrect questions in subsequent attempts, there are several improvements to increase the value of the feature:

Instructors can now identify retaken attempts in the Attempt log.
Instructors can now identify a Retaken Attempt while grading a quiz in the Quizzes tool on the User tab and the Attempts tab.

Figure: The Attempt log indicates the retaken attempts for the quiz.

Figure: The Users tab indicates the retaken attempts for the quiz.

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 November 2020

Students and Instructors

Brightspace Pulse – Dark mode for Android

Brightspace Pulse for Android now displays in Dark mode when Dark mode is enabled on your Android device. Using this mode can reduce eye strain and conserve battery power on your device.

Figure: Dark mode in Brightspace Pulse for Android

Instructors Only

Dropbox – Date Picker Change

This feature updates the date picker component for the new Dropbox creation experience. The new date picker has a more streamlined design and requires a slight workflow change: to clear a date/time, the X alongside the time field has been replaced by a Clear option inside the calendar.

Figure: New date picker component on the Create and Edit Dropbox page.

Grades – Display total points in Manage Grades

To improve usability of the Grades tool and reduce calculation errors, Manage Grades now includes total points for grade categories and Final Calculated Grade. Previously, there was no indicator of the total points while users were managing their grade book, and instructors were required to manually add up the points from all grade items to check if the total matched their syllabus.

For weighted grade books, the total weight is displayed in addition to the total points. For formula grade books, the manually-entered max points is displayed instead of the total points. Totals do not include bonus grade items and do support grade item dropping.

Insights – New version of the Engagement Dashboard

To increase the value of the Engagement dashboard, originally released in March 2019, this release updates and adds the following new features:

The default setting for this feature is now Opt-in. Previously, the default setting was Off for the new Engagement Dashboard because clients had the previous version by default.
By default, the most recently accessed 10 courses appear on the report; users can dynamically add or remove courses while interacting with the dashboard. There is a pop-up that appears when a user accesses the Engagement Dashboard that summarizes what is being shown in the default view.
Grades appear as a bar chart. If you click on one or more bars, the dashboard filters the returned data for users and courses where the user has a grade in the selected range.
Course Access appears as a bar chart. If you click one or more bars, the dashboard filters the returned data for the users and courses where the user has accessed a course in that time range.
Time in Content appears as a scatterplot of the time in content compared to the current grade for each user in each course in view. If you click a quadrant, the dashboard filters on the users and their courses in that quadrant.
- Data points in the top left quadrant plot users that are getting an above average grade and spending below average time in the content.
- Data points in the top right quadrant plot users that are getting an above average grade and spending above average time in the content.
- Data points in the lower left quadrant plot users that are getting a below average grade and spending below average time in the content.
- Data points in the lower right quadrant plot users that are getting a below average grade and spending above average time in the content.
The User Table below the dashboard includes the learners included in the cards above and dynamically updates as the dashboard is used. For example, if you click to filter on a bar in the Grades chart, the learners represented by that bar appear in the user table. Table columns include Name, Courses, Average Grade, Average Time in Content (minutes).

Quiz Builder – Quiz preview

Instructors can now view a preview of their quiz from Quiz Builder. Clicking the new Preview button on the Add/Edit Questions view of the quiz opens a quiz preview attempt in a new tab for a complete view of how the quiz appears to learners.

Figure: The Preview button appears in Quiz Builder

Quizzes – Retake incorrect questions in subsequent attempts

This feature introduces a new option for Quizzes Attempt settings that allows students to only retake their incorrectly answered questions from previous quiz attempts. Instructors can select this new option in the Assessment tab of a quiz. When the Retake Incorrect Questions Only check box is selected for subsequent quiz attempts, each learner only sees the questions they had previously answered incorrectly in the same order as the initial attempt (including quizzes with random sections and random questions). When grading a Retake Incorrect Questions Only quiz attempt, the instructor can only provide a score for the questions answered on this attempt.

A learner’s score for a Retake Incorrect Questions Only attempt remains at minimum, the score they had on the previous attempt. Correctly answered questions on the Retake Incorrect Questions Only attempt add to the learner’s attempts score. The Quiz Overall Score is calculated using the existing Highest/Lowest/First/Last/Average aggregation functions. The “Average” aggregation function can be used to give the student partial marks for questions that were not answered correctly on the first attempt.

Figure: The Retake Incorrect Questions Only option can be selected when setting Attempts Allowed

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 2020

Instructor Only

Automated Quiz Extension Tool

OpenEd, in partnership with SAS, has developed an automated quiz extension tool that will automatically apply a quiz extension using Special Access in quizzes for students registered with SAS.

The tool is easy to use, simply add the word SAS to the quiz footer.

For more information, please see the Automated Quiz Extension Tool CourseLink Support documentation page.

Quick Eval – User Interface Improvements

Quick Eval is now listed in the Course Admin page under the Assessment category.

Quiz Builder – Question Import Improvements

This feature updates question importing options in Quiz Builder. When importing questions from Question Library, users can now use the default end of quiz location for the questions, or choose to import the questions into a section. Previously, all questions imported from the Question Library were placed at the end of the Quiz by default, with no ability to select a specific quiz section.

Figure: The Import drop-down menu now shows the Import to Section option on the Browse Question Library screen

Quizzes – Editing Quizzes with Previous Attempts

Points for all past quiz attempts are no longer modified when edits are made that affect the overall points and/or the grading calculations for a quiz. In the previous release, this update extended only to quizzes with attempts started after the June 2020 release. Now, all previous quizzes with attempts will display the quiz and grading calculations that appeared to the learner at the exact time they made the attempt.

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 2020

Instructors and Students

CourseLink Platform – Refreshed Components Visual Design and Accessibility Updates

To establish a modern and consistent visual design across products and tools in the Brightspace platform, this release refreshes the design of toggles.

Note: Due to the broad scope of the refreshed visual design, some user interface components were refreshed in the August 2020 release. As this work continues, you will see more user interface components refreshed in upcoming releases.

To improve accessibility in user interface components, screen readers now correctly identify switches in CourseLink as toggles. This helps more accurately identify the state of a toggle to users as “pressed” (on) or “not pressed” (off). Previously, switches were identified as radio buttons that were “On” or “Off,” which was not as accurate or helpful to users.

Note: Implementations of this update may differ slightly between types of screen readers.

For example, when a toggle is on, an NVDA screen reader now reads the information as:
Availability column 4 Accelerator toggle button pressed checked

And when a toggle is off, an NVDA screen reader now reads the information as:
Availability column 4 Accelerator toggle button not pressed

Figure: The previous visual design of a toggle

Figure: The new visual design of a toggle

Brightspace Pulse for iOS – View Activity Feed Posts and Comments

To keep up to date on course activity, learners can now read Activity Feed posts and comments, if used in the course, in Brightspace Pulse for iOS. Learners can also receive Activity Feed notifications. For example, in courses with Activity Feed enabled, instructors can use Activity Feed to post reminders about upcoming assignments and links to course materials. Learners then receive notifications about those posts in Brightspace Pulse, allowing them to view post details from the course homepages. Future releases will allow learners to post or reply to posts, if they have the appropriate permissions.

From the Courses tab, tapping a course displays the course homepage. The latest post and any associated comments display in the Activity Feed.

From the Notifications tab, tapping an Activity Feed notification displays the associated post or comment in the Activity Feed.

Discussions – Visual Word Count for Discussion Posts

A visual word count is now visible in the HTML Editor for discussion posts. All words in a discussion post are counted and include filler words such as “the,” “if,” and “to.”

The word count is dynamically displayed to learners while they type in the HTML Editor and it also appears next to posts they have created in the Discussions Reading View. Learners can view the word count for their posts only.

For instructors, the word count appears on the Assessment page during the discussions assessment process and it also appears inline with the post details in the Discussions Reading View. Instructors can view the word count for all user posts.

Figure: A discussion post with the dynamically displayed word count

Instructors Only

Classlist Linked Microsoft Security Group

Classlist Linked Microsoft Security Groups are the result of a project between CCS and OpenEd. These security groups create and maintain Microsoft Security Groups whose membership match a linked CourseLink Classlist. The security group memberships are updated daily, ensuring any new or dropped students are reflected within a 24-hour window throughout the semester. These security groups can then be can be used to grant and limit access to O365 resources such as Stream videos, OneDrive resources and Teams – Live Events.

Please see the step-by-step instructions on the OpenEd support website for this topic: Microsoft Security Group

Dropbox – Additional Functionality in the New Creation Experience

Building on the functionality added to the new create and edit assignment experience in the August 2020 release, you can now do the following:

Add special access conditions to assignments

Figure: The new Dropbox creation experience with Special Access functionality

Receive a notification email when assignments are submitted

Figure: The new Dropbox creation experience with Notification Email functionality

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.

These changes affect the following areas of Brightspace:

Class Progress has a new System Access performance indicator, which displays the number of times each course participant has accessed the system through the Learning Environment or Pulse in the last 30 days. Instructors 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 user has accessed the system through the Learning Environment or Pulse in the last 30 days. Instructors can select System Access History to display in the User Progress report by clicking Settings.

Figure: Class Progress dashboard showing System Access indicator

Question Library – Attach Files in Arithmetic and Significant Figures Questions

Building on the attach files in Written Response questions functionality released in the August 2020 release, when creating arithmetic and significant figures questions, instructors can now allow learners to include external files with their responses and record audio or video responses when answering these question types.

When grading a quiz, similar to the behavior in the Discussions tool, instructors can view a list of attachments, download them, or open them in another tab. When reviewing their submission in Submission View, the learner can see their uploaded attachment if allowed to see their responses.

To support attachment responses, Quizzes data sets and quiz reporting enhancements will be released in the November 2020 release.

Figure: The updated Arithmetic questions screen

Question Library – Search for and select Questions in Question Library Sections

This feature enables instructors to search for sections in Question Library by section title, as well as the ability to select and import the section in its entirety from the search results list. Previously, you could only search for questions by question text and you could not select sections in the search results.

Figure: The updated search and select capability in Question Library

Quiz Builder – Enhanced Question Reordering

To simplify the movement and reordering of questions in Quiz Builder, a new Move To option is visible when a question is selected. The Move To option allows questions to be moved to the Top of the Quiz, Bottom of the Quiz, or to a specific section within the quiz.

Previously, to move multiple questions into a section, instructors had to individually drag the questions into the desired section. Now, instructors can select multiple questions and move them all at once using the Move To menu. The drag and drop reordering of questions has not been affected by this feature and remains available.

Figure: The Move To option is visible once quiz questions are selected

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 2020

Instructors Only

Zoom Resources

Zoom has the following short videos to help teachers get up and running:

Also, check out the web conferencing comparison chart and resources on the OpenEd Remote Teaching and Learning website.

Quizzes – Question Library – Attach Files using Written Response Questions

When creating a written response question, instructors can now 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.

When grading a quiz, similar to the behavior in the Discussions tool, instructors can download and open these attachments in another tab. Bulk download is not available at this time.

When learners are reviewing their quiz submissions, if they are allowed to view their quiz responses, they can view their uploaded attachments.

The maximum file size for a single file or embedded image attached to a quiz response is set to 102400 KB (100 MB). The maximum file size for all files attached or embedded in a single quiz question response is set to 102400 KB (100 MB).

Figure: The updated Written Response question creation screen

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.

Figure: A warning message appears when accessing the Add/Edit Questions workflow

Dropbox – Additional Functionality – Release Conditions

Building on the functionality added to the new create and edit Dropbox experience in the July release, you can now do the following:

Attach release conditions to an assignment

Figure: The create and edit Dropbox page with the Release Conditions functionality

Dropbox – Copy Folder Option

This feature adds the ability to copy existing folders. Instructors can select the Copy Assignment option in the drop-down menu for an existing folder to quickly create new folders. This feature copies all settings of an existing folder except the associated grade item and Turnitin settings.

Figure: The Copy Assignment option appears in the drop-down menu for existing assignments

Brightspace Assignment Grader – End-of-life

Effective August 15, 2020, the Assignment Grader mobile app is no longer available to new users. Existing users may continue to use the app if they have it installed, but no further updates or support will be made available by D2L and the app will be removed from app stores. As an alternative mobile grading option, D2L recommends using the Quick Eval tool in CourseLink.

Brightspace ePortfolio mobile app – End-of-life

Effective August 30, 2020, the Brightspace ePortfolio mobile app is no longer available to new users. Existing users may continue to use the app if they have it installed, but no further updates or support will be made available by D2L and the app will be removed from the iOS App Store and the Google Play Apps store. Note that the Brightspace ePortfolio is still available for use – only the mobile app version is unavailable.

Checklists – Copy a checklist

Instructors 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 participants to a Classlist using the Add users interface, search results now include users who are currently enrolled in the course. Previously, enrolled users were not displayed in these search results. On the search results page an icon displays beside an enrolled user’s name to indicate their enrollment status. Instructors can also use the drop-down menu beside each username to update a user’s enrollment status, remove them from the class or change the role they were enrolled with.

Notifications – Deleted Content Links to Message

Notifications for content that is subsequently hidden/deleted/conditionally released are now removed from the CourseLink notifications area on the minibar. Notifications that arrive via email or text notifications, 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.

Outcomes Management – Competency Tool is Hidden when Learning Outcomes is Enabled

In CourseLink, it is only possible to use the Competency tool or the Learning Outcomes tool in a course. If you are using one, all instances of the other are now hidden from view. For a new, empty shell course, both the Competency tool and Learning Outcomes tool appear in the Course Administration page. However, as soon as you decide to use the Learning Outcomes tool or the Competency tool, then the link to the other tool is hidden.

The Competency tool is considered to be in use when at least one learning objective is aligned to activities in the course. When this is the case, the Learning Outcomes tool is hidden on the Course Administration page.

The Learning Outcomes tool is considered to be in use when an intent list is created by importing or creating at least one learning outcome in the course. When this is the case, the Competencies tool is hidden on the Course Administation page, and the Objectives Progress column in Class Progress is no longer visible.

Contact

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

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