2021 – CourseLink Continuous Delivery Update

Continuous Delivery Updates for December 2021

Students and Instructors

CourseLink – Support for surname prefixes during sort function

In some countries, including the Netherlands, Belgium and Sri Lanka, surnames have one or more prefixes (known in Dutch as Tussenvoegsel) that are part of the formal last name. For example, van der Speigle or Van Gogh. In some cases, the sortable last name should not include those prefixes.

It is now possible to indicate if a user’s Last Name differs from the Sortable Last Name. If users provide a Sortable Last Name, CourseLink uses the Sortable Last Name when alphabetizing user lists.

The following tools currently support the Sortable Last Name:

Classlist
Grades
Quizzes
Dropbox
Discussions
Manage Exemptions
Content – Completion Summary

Additional tools will be added to this list in future releases.

Users can reach out to CourseLink Support to update their Sortable Last Name.

Figure: The Sortable Last Name field on the User Information screen

Content – Updated count and overdue badges

In the Content tool for instructors and learners, the count and overdue badges in the Table of Contents now reflect an updated appearance that is consistent with other CourseLink tools. The new count badge is circular (for single digits) or a capsule (for double-digits), with a grey background, and with higher contrast text. In addition, the overdue badge is now circular (for single digits) or a capsule (for double-digits). Previously, the count badge was rectangular, with a white background, and grey text/outline. The overdue badge was rectangular and red.

This feature addresses the following accessibility criteria:

WCAG 2.1 Success Criterion 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum)

Instructors Only

Dropbox – New creation experience universally enabled

This feature sets the new Dropbox creation experience to ON by default. This will mean that the classic experience will no longer be available.

Please see the details of the New creation experience; the differences between classic to new creation experiences can also be reviewed.

Insights – New version of the Assessment Quality Dashboard

To increase the value of the Assessment Quality Dashboard, originally released in May 2019, this release updates and adds the following features:

Filtering, which allows filtering of data across different levels.
Exporting data to CSV.
Settings page, where users can define their own settings to better control and surface the relevant data.
Interactive cards and visualizations that apply different views to the data.
Accessibility features: visual cues like filter tags and toast messages, support for screen readers, and keyboard navigation.
Pagination, which enables users to define the number of results per view and easily sequence the results.
Updated wording:
- “Top Lure” is now “Popular Incorrect Answer”
- “Top Lure Response Rate” is now “Popular Incorrect Answer Response Rate”
Question Analysis View, which displays a preview of the question, the question grading, comments, and hints.

Discussions – Consistent evaluation experience

This release removes the ability to opt-out of the new Discussions evaluation experience.

For more detail about the improvements in this new experience, visit the Welcome to Our New Discussion Evaluation Experience post on D2L Brightspace Community.

Discussions – Consolidated dates ON by default

This feature builds on the default setting progression for visibility and posting restrictions in discussion forums and topics. The workflow in December 2021 sets the discussion date consolidation ON by default for all clients, and cannot be turned off.

Note: All date overrides are cleared when the default changes to ON.
For more information, see the Changes To Availability And Locking Dates For A Consolidated Dates Workflow blog post.

Once the new workflow is enabled, 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

Quizzes – Improved language terms

To offer more intuitive and consistent terminology to instructors and learners when using Quizzes, many interface labels and dialogs now use more descriptive language. For example, Automatic Grade is now Automatically Publish Evaluation. Previously, many interface labels and dialogs used short terms that did not provide clear meaning for some users.

For a detailed list of all language term updates in Quizzes, see the Quiz Language Updates blog post.

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 2021

Students and Instructors

Editor – Additional support for drag/drop and copy/paste images

Expanding further on the feature released in October 2021, additional tools and editors now support the drag/drop and copy/paste functionality, including:

Quizzes > Feedback
Grades > Feedback
Grades > Comments
Discussions > Feedback

This functionality is now available in user-specific areas that may contain images with learner-sensitive information. As a result, these images are stored in the database rather than the Manage Files area of a course offering. In addition, the Course Copy function does not include these images.

Content – PDF inline viewer menu improvements

This feature updates the PDF Inline viewer used when showing all converted documents (e.g. Word documents) as PDFs within Content. As a result the PDF inline viewer menu has moved to the top of the PDF document, along with PDF navigation and actions and an overall refreshed button design.

The inline viewer forces all original PDFs to also use the same viewer as converted documents. This has the benefit of consistent PDF viewer within the Content interface.

Figure: The new PDF in-line viewer with the menu bar at the top of the PDF viewer when viewing an original PDF.

Manage Files – Users receive warning message when uploading a file blocked due to security

This feature provides the user with a warning message if they attempt to upload a file with an extension that is either not allowed by the Dropbox or is on the security restricted list. This message appears as “This file extension is not allowed.” for a Dropbox; and as “This file extension is not allowed for security reasons. Please see our Restricted File Extensions article in the D2L Community for more detailed information.” for security restricted file extensions.

Figure: The warning message displayed when attempting to upload a security-restricted file extension.

Restricted Upload Extensions

ASP	ASHX	JSL	VB
ASPX	ASMX	LICX	VBPROJ
EXE	AXD	REM	VJSPROJ
BAT	CDX	RESOURCES	VSDISCO
DLL	CER	RESX	WEBINFO
COM	CONFIG	SHTM	INI
ASA	IDC	SHTML
ASAX	CS	SOAP
ASCX	CSPROJ	STM

Instructors Only

Email – Increased Limits for To and CC Fields

This feature increases the number of email addresses that can be added to the To and CC fields in a single email to 200. This is a result of increased limits on the size of headers in SMTP servers.

Previously, the limit was 50 email addresses.

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 2021

Students and Instructors

Editor – Drag/drop and copy/paste images

The drag/drop and copy/paste functionality of images is now available in the following areas that contain no user-specific data.

Content Module/Topic Descriptions
Quiz/Survey/Self-Assessment – Description, Header. Footer
Grades – Description
Content Course Overview descriptions
Discussion Forum/Topic descriptions

Note: Similar to current functionality, image files added to these areas are saved in the root of the Manage Files area of the course the user is currently in.

Editor – Email notifications for users tagged in discussion posts and threads

This feature adds the ability for users tagged in discussion posts and threads to receive email notifications.

The new Discussions – mentioned in a discussion post or thread option appears in the Notifications page.

When a user is tagged, their profile is linked to their tagged name. At this time, a user can @mention any active user.

Brightspace Pulse – Operating system support

The latest version of Brightspace Pulse is supported on devices with iOS® 12+ or Android^TM 6.0+ (2015 release). Older versions of Brightspace Pulse will continue to work on devices with iOS 11 or Android 5.0, but will not receive any app updates.

Content – Add Print Button to PDF file types

This feature adds the option to print PDF file types.

The Print button is visible when viewing a PDF topic or the Course Outline as a PDF.

No option to print PDFs was previously available.

PDF view in Content - highlighting the location of the Print button. — Figure: PDF view in Content – highlighting the location of the **Print** button.

Instructors Only

Dropbox – Preview Activity in Evaluation mode

Previously, users who did not have edit permissions for the Dropbox could not preview assignments. As a result, not all evaluator types could see folder information such as assignment instructions, start date, or due dates.

Now, in Evaluation mode, there is a Preview Activity option in the folder context menu to see a preview of the assignment.

Figure: The Preview Activity option appears on the context menu for the Dropbox folder.

Course Import – View Course Import history

Users can now view the history of course import attempts for courses. From the Import/Export/Copy tool on Course Admin, users can view the Course Import History page, which includes the following information for each course import attempt:

the original package name
status of the import
user who created the import job
the timestamp for the import attempt

The content is sorted by Start Time (Descending) by default. After users have viewed the page, they can return to the Import/Export/Copy Components landing page in the Course Administration or click View Import Log to see a more detailed log. The log opens at the last line for the conversion you are viewing.

The View Import History link is available from the Import/Export/Copy Components tool in the Course Administration area of their course. — Figure: The **View Import History** link is available from the Import/Export/Copy Components tool in the Course Administration area of their course.

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 2021

Students and Instructors

CourseLink – Set and view user pronouns

Users can now set their pronouns through Account Settings.

The area under Account Settings, where you can set your pronouns. — 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.

Import / Export / Copy Components – Export release conditions in course packages

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).

Rubrics – Brightspace Editor Additional Functionality

This update includes the following:

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:

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

Continuous Delivery Updates for August 2021

Instructors Only

Activity Feed – Date picker change

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.

Outcomes – Grades (Mastery View) – Evaluated and Aligned Activity Counter

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.

The new Add Comment button in Brightspace Pulse's Activity Feed — 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

Brightspace Pulse – View content module descriptions

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:

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