Tag: 2023

Continuous Delivery Updates for July 2023

Students and Instructors

Quizzes – Quiz Timing Improvements for Learners

The following improved Quiz Timing options are now available for learners:

  • Option to show or hide the timer to reduce anxiety during quiz taking.
    Note: Once a learner sets their preference, the setting preserves across all quizzes.
Students click the Hide Timer button beside the quiz timer to hide the timer from the view.
Figure: Click the Hide Timer button beside the quiz timer to hide the timer from the view.

Warnings displayed at certain times to support awareness of time left. The following warnings are applied:

  • 1 minute remaining on the quiz
  • 5 minutes remaining (only on quizzes with 10 minutes or longer quiz time limit)
  • Half of the elapsed time (only on quizzes with 20 minutes or longer quiz time limit)
The Timer Warning dialog indicates how much longer a learner has in a quiz. In this example, the message Your work will be submitted in 1 minute is displayed.
Figure: The Timer Warning dialog indicates how much longer a learner has in a quiz.

The simplified Quiz Results page appears when a learner completes a quiz attempt or returns later to view their quiz results (previously known as Submission View). The page now displays the text ‘Your work has been saved and submitted’ to all learners. This text is no longer editable by instructors. The existing text field allows adding a custom message to be displayed within the Quiz Results page under the new default message.

The Quiz Results page shows learners the status of their quiz and their score. Your work has been saved and submitted is displayed.
Figure: The Quiz Results page shows learners the status of their quiz and their score.

Discussions – Consistent settings and interface of availability dates across CourseLink

This feature updates the settings and format of availability dates and states in Discussions, to align with other activity tools and create a unified content experience for both instructors and learners.

Availability dates in the Discussions list are now displayed as a simple date range below the titles of discussion topics. Hovering over the date range text displays a tooltip that includes the information about start and end dates. Tooltips also include applied settings to explain how the discussion topic appears to learners before and after these dates.

Previously, the availability dates in the Discussions topics did not include a hover tooltip.

The updated format of the availability dates in a discussion topic. Availability details now appear in a hover tooltip.
Figure: The updated format of the availability dates in a discussion topic. Availability details now appear in a hover tooltip.

The corresponding update for Quizzes is planned for a future release.

Instructors Only

Quizzes – The New Quiz Creation Experience is now universally enabled

In this release, the New Quiz Creation Experience reaches the end of the adoption phase of feature development and becomes the only editing experience for all users. The New Quiz Creation Experience is now set to on as the default with no option to opt out.

Quizzes – Synchronous Quizzes

Instructors need a way to set up quizzes that start and end at the same time for all learners, rather than when the learner launches the quiz. This facilitates quizzes where the instructor requires all learners to take the quiz at the same time similar to in classroom learning and supporting medium-high stakes quizzing.

CourseLink quizzes currently provide the flexibility for learners to take a quiz in their own time (asynchronous), providing a more relaxed experience that accommodates the learner’s schedule. With synchronous quizzes, an instructor can set up quizzes with real-time windows where the quiz timer begins on the start date and stops at the end of the quiz time limit for all learners.

The new quiz settings showing the Synchronous option highlighted.
Figure: The new quiz settings showing the Synchronous option.

Setting up a synchronous quiz in the New Quiz Experience

  1. On the Quiz Creation screen, click to expand Timing & Display.
  2. Check Set time limit, then enter a Time Limit in minutes.
  3. Click Edit Timer Settings.
  4. In the Timing dialog, under Quiz Start, select Synchronous: Timer starts on the start date.
    Note: If there is no Start time and date set for the synchronous quiz, a No start date set alert appears under the radio button option and you are not able to save the quiz. Due date is disabled for synchronous quizzes.

Countdown timer until Synchronous Quiz starts

For a learner taking a synchronous quiz, the Start Quiz button is disabled until the start date and time arrives. A countdown timer appears on the Quiz Start page to indicate the time remaining before the quiz becomes available.

The student quiz countdown timer for synchronous quizzes showing 4 minutes 49 seconds until the quiz starts.
Figure: The student quiz countdown timer for synchronous quizzes.

Quizzes – Quiz Timing Improvements Featuring Auto-Submission

This release updates the Quiz Creation experience for instructors by simplifying the quiz timing setup workflow, adding useful new features, including the ability to auto-submit, and removing obsolete quiz timing options.

With this release, learners can show or hide the timer, receive time warning messages, and access more information about their quizzes.

  • The updated settings allow instructors to choose if they want to set a time limit by selecting the Set time limit checkbox, which is cleared by default. If Set time limit is selected, instructors can add a Time Limit and edit the Timer Settings.
  • The previous Prevent the student from making further changes option has been changed to Automatically submit the quiz attempt. Quiz auto-submission automatically hands in quizzes on enforced time limit quizzes at the end of the set time, improving quiz integrity. This behavior is changed on all existing and in-progress quizzes with the update.
    Note: The Automatically submit the quiz attempt option is now the default setting for all newly created quizzes with a time limit and is used automatically if the instructor does not edit the quiz timing settings. The previous default setting was Allow the student to continue working.
  • The previous Allow the student to continue working option has been changed to Flag the attempt as exceeded time limit and allow the learner to continue working. This behavior is changed on all existing and in-progress quizzes with the update.
  • The Grace Period and Allow student to continue working but automatically score zero options are removed to further streamline the process of quiz creation. With this update, any existing and in-progress quizzes that include these settings are changed to the following new behavior:
    • A quiz that previously had a grace period now uses the time limit set on the quiz.
    • A quiz previously set to Allow student to continue working but automatically score zero now sets the quiz to Automatically submit the quiz attempt.
The Timing menu after this update showing the user adding a time limit of 50 minutes and selecting the Automatically submit the quiz attempt option.
Figure: The Timing menu after this update.
The collapsed view of a quiz with an enforced time limit in the Timing & Display section shows instructors a summary of their settings. The image shows 50 minute time limit, auto-submit when time is up, and paging applied.
Figure: The collapsed view of a quiz with an enforced time limit in the Timing & Display section shows instructors a summary of their settings.

Dropbox – Download a file with an empty filename

This feature allows instructors to download a submitted file from a user who uploaded it with no filename.

The default value will be set as ‘no–filename’, which administrators may modify, if needed.

This update resolves the Instructor can’t open assignment submission with no characters before the extension issue.

Previously, instructors could only check files with existing filenames in the evaluation screen and/or download them.

Editor – Edited images are saved with their original names to improve ease of location

With this release, images edited within the CourseLink Editor are saved with their original names followed by a date-time string, which helps instructors find changed images easily in Manage Files. Changes to an image using Edit image in the floating toolbar are saved as a copy of the image with the name format ‘OriginalFileName_yyyyMMddHHmmss.jpg. ‘

Zoom – Upgrade CourseLink Integration

During the week of August 29, the current deprecated Zoom integration (LTI 1.1) will be removed. The new Zoom integration (LTI 1.3) has been made available. The new integration has been labelled as LTI 1.3 to identify it in the list of available tools.

Please note: The integration will not automatically update. Instructors must remove the old integration and replace it with the new Zoom LTI 1.3 version.

The new Zoom LTI 1.3 integration link in Content showing the description as Zoom LTI 1.3.
Figure: The new Zoom LTI 1.3 integration link in Content.

Please contact CourseLink Support if you need assistance with adding the new Zoom LTI 1.3 integration.

New Features

The Zoom LTI 1.3 integration comes with a couple of new features.

Office Hours – easily scheduling

Set up office hours or bookable meetings using the Appointments tab and the ‘+ Create Schedule’ button.

The bookable schedule option under the Appointments tab showing the form with Select at least on day and Enter a name for your event highlighted in red text.
Figure: The bookable schedule option under the Appointments tab.
Pre-assign Breakout Rooms with Roster Sync

Meeting hosts can pre-assign participants from the CourseLink Classlist into breakout rooms when scheduling meetings.

Please note: Users removed from the Classlist won’t be automatically removed from pre-assigned breakout rooms.

The breakout room assignment screen showing students from the Classlist in the dropdown box.
Figure: The breakout room assignment page showing students from the Classlist.

Meeting hosts must have the setting ‘Assign participants to breakout rooms when scheduling’ enabled on their account.

The Assign participants to breakout rooms with scheduling permission enabled in the Zoom settings.
Figure: The Assign participants to breakout rooms when scheduling permission enabled.

Access Pearson – Upgrade CourseLink Integration

During the week of August 29, all deprecated (LTI 1.1) integrations for Pearson will be removed, including Pearson widgets. The new Access Pearson LTI 1.3 integration has been made available.

The Access Pearson integration has the latest features, including assignment, course tool, or eText links, and other improvements. This also gives instructors the option to choose the product—MyLab and Mastering or Pearson Revel, eText, or Live Response.

Please contact CourseLink Support for assistance with upgrading to Access Pearson.

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 June 2023

Students and Instructors

Dropbox – Consistent settings and interface of availability dates across CourseLink

To improve consistency in activity tools, this feature updates settings and the format of availability dates and states across CourseLink for both instructors and learners.

With this release, the Dropbox List displays availability dates and states closely aligned with other activity tools to make a unified content experience. Availability dates are displayed below the titles of assignments and the hover tooltip includes the information about start and end dates with settings to explain how the assignment appears to learners before and after these dates.

Previously, the availability dates in the Assignments List tab did not include a hover tooltip.

The format of availability dates and states in the Assignments tool after this update with the tooltip displayed showing the folder is available Jan. 2, 2023 12:01 am with access restricted before availability starts and ends Jan. 25, 2023 8:00 pm with access restricted after availability ends.
Figure: The format of availability dates and states in the Assignments tool after this update.

Instructors Only

Dropbox – Accessible Rubric Confirmation dialog box in Consistent Evaluation experience

To improve accessibility and clarity for screen reader devices, the Rubrics Confirmation dialog box that appears when users navigate away from scoring an assignment or discussion post using a rubric now features the following changes:

  • Screen reader-legible heading, text and buttons now appear in the dialog box.
  • The dialog box heading now says Unscored Rubric Criteria in place of Confirmation, to improve the workflow clarity for all users, including those using screen readers.

Previously, the text in the dialog box was not accessible to screen readers.

The confirmation dialog box now appears with the updated heading Unscored Rubric Criteria. The text in this dialog is fully accessible to screen readers.
Figure: The confirmation dialog box now appears with the updated heading Unscored Rubric Criteria. The text in this dialog is fully accessible to screen readers.

Course Import – Course Groups added to Course Import and Export packages

This release adds Course Groups to the Brightspace Export Package and includes the handling of Groups on import. Exporting or Importing a Course Group does not include user information or membership in said Group.

Groups with automatic enrollments cannot be imported or exported at this time.

Course Import – Improve Import and Export of Gradebook settings

This feature adds consistency and addresses information gaps when exporting and importing a Gradebook using a Brightspace Package. The following items can now be imported and exported:

  • Calculation options (Grade System, Final Grade Released and Grade Calculations). Calculation options are only imported and overwritten if the gradebook is empty.
  • Grade scheme associated to a grade item if the grade scheme is shared from the org level. Grade schemes are set to match an existing org level scheme if the Name and ShortName match. If no match is found, or if duplicate matches are found, the course’s default scheme is selected instead.
  • Grade categories maintain their display settings, as well as the display in calendar setting and whether they are excluded from final grade calculation. This is already possible for grade items.
  • Gradebook display settings (Org Unit Display Options). These are only imported and overwritten if the gradebook is empty. This does not include the ePortfolio Artifacts options in Display Options.

Quizzes – Improved workflows for large quizzes

This feature updates instructors’ workflows for large quizzes in two ways.

Instructors can now use the Load More button on the initial page load if a quiz has more than 200 questions, sections, and question pools.

If the Load More button is shown, list operations such as moving to the bottom or adding new questions continue functioning as expected. However, to see their changes, instructors must click the Load More button to reveal the updated list.

The Load More button highlighted on the question list.
Figure: The Load More button.

Also, instructors can now select multiple items and use drag and drop to rearrange the question list.

Multiple items selected for movement using drag and drop.
Figure: Multiple items selected for movement using drag and drop.

Previously, quiz questions, sections, and question pools rendered slowly. Creating and editing quizzes with many items could take significant time. Moving multiple items was only possible using the Move To action menu.

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 May 2023

Students and Instructors

Blog – Comments on Blog entries limited to reduce page load times

This release introduces a limit to the number of comments that can be added to a Blog entry to improve performance and reduce page load times. This limits public comments to 100 public comments from unauthenticated users and up to 500 total comments (including public comments) on a single Blog entry.

If an existing blog entry already has more than 500 comments, only the first 500 comments will be visible.

Previously, there was no limit to the number of comments that could be added to a Blog entry, which occasionally resulted in performance issues.

Instructors Only

Awards – Add criteria to awards in compliance with the latest Open Badges standard

Instructors can now specify what a learner must do to achieve a particular award.

This feature complements the use of evidence for awards by adding the new required Criteria field to the Awards tool.

The new required Criteria field on the New Award page highlighted with a red outline box.
Figure: The new required Criteria field on the New Award page.

Availability of Criteria and Evidence fields meets the latest Open Badges 2.0 standard from 1EdTech (formerly known as IMS Global):

  • When instructors manually grant awards, they can now check the award’s criteria and enter evidence describing what the learner did to meet the criteria and earn the award.
  • When the award is automatically issued, the release conditions determine if learners meet the criteria.
  • If learners share their award via a public link, both the Criteria and Evidence fields now appear on the Public Award page.

Brightspace Help – Help link now points to Brightspace Community

In CourseLink, it is possible to have a link to Brightspace Help on your navbar. The link on the navbar previously pointed to the hosted Brightspace Help. The destination of that link now points to the new Brightspace Community, which contains all information previously available in hosted Brightspace Help site as well as the legacy Brightspace Community.

The Brightspace Help link appears on the More navigation bar menu.
Figure: The Brightspace Help link appears on the More menu.

Learning Outcomes – Select the appropriate achievement scales for a course

To evaluate learners’ achievements related to learning outcomes, this new feature introduces the selection of the appropriate achievement scales within a course offering.

Instructors can check the currently selected achievement scale information on the Outcomes in this Course page and use the Edit Settings button to choose an alternative achievement scale for the course if desired.

The new Edit Settings button on the Outcomes in this Course page. Edit Settings is highlighted with a red outline.
Figure: The new Edit Settings button on the Outcomes in this Course page.

Instructors can select an alternative achievement scale for a course until assessment evaluation begins. The selected achievement scale applies to all outcome evaluations completed in the course. It is used to determine the suggested level of achievement for both individual activity evaluations and the overall suggested level of achievement in the Mastery View tab of Grades.

The Edit Settings page showing the achievement scales that can be selected.
Figure: The Edit Settings page showing the achievement scales that can be selected.

Note: Please contact CourseLink Support if you would like additional achievement scales added to the list.

Learning Outcomes – The Mastery View table loads faster and includes the activity counter

With this release, the Mastery View tab in Grades is improved to provide better load times for courses with large numbers of learners and aligned learning outcomes. Now instructors can use an activity counter that provides a summary of the outcome information.

The aligned activity counter shows the number of evaluated assessments for each learner over the total number of assessments aligned to that outcome in the corner of each table cell.

The updated Mastery View page showing the activity counter.
Figure: The updated Mastery View page showing the activity counter.

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 April 2023

Students and Instructors

Quizzes – Confirmation dialog for learners exiting a quiz

This feature introduces a confirmation dialog to learners closing in-progress quizzes. The dialog is context-based, providing additional information about the impact of exiting the quiz (such as whether a learner will be able to return to their quiz after exiting).

The Exit Quiz confirmation dialog for quizzes with a time limit and no end date. The words "The quiz timer will not be paused" are displayed.
Figure: The Exit Quiz confirmation dialog for quizzes with a time limit and no end date.
The Exit Quiz confirmation dialog for quizzes with an end date, no time limit, or an end date that will arrive before the time limit expires. The words "You can return any time before March 21, 11:59 PM." are displayed.
Figure: The Exit Quiz confirmation dialog for quizzes with an end date, no time limit, or an end date that will arrive before the time limit expires.
The Exit Quiz confirmation dialog for quizzes that have an end date in the past. The words "You will not be able to return." are displayed.
Figure: The Exit Quiz confirmation dialog for quizzes that have an end date in the past.

Respondus LockDown Browser – End of Support for Windows 7

As of June 28, 2023, support for Respondus LockDown Browser on Windows 7 will end. Several technologies relied on are ending their support for Windows 7 on that date, which means LockDown Browser will also cease working on Windows 7 computers at that time.

Students using Windows 7 will need to upgrade to Windows 10/11 or find another device that is supported. LockDown Browser can be used with Windows 10+, Mac 10.13+, and iPads running iOS 11+ (if enabled by the instructor).

We remind students that OpenEd offers a laptop loan service on the Guelph campus. Please contact cts@uoguelph.ca for booking or more information.

Instructors Only

Discussions – Introducing the new creation and editing experience

The new discussion creation experience brings create and edit consistency changes from Dropbox and Quizzes to Discussions, making it familiar and easy to learn. This first release is at full parity with classic discussions and brings refreshed workflows and improvements to restricting group topics and threads, associating topics to forums, and wording changes to a few settings that you may be familiar with.

The new Discussions creation and editing experience screenshot.
Figure: The new Discussions creation and editing experience.

The primary panel on the left contains the same frequently-used fields as Dropbox and Quizzes. These fields are most relevant to learners and are core to discussion topic creation. The right-hand panel provides advanced options such as start and end dates and release conditions. These options follow the same logical groupings as found in Dropbox and Quizzes. Other topic-specific settings can be found in the right-hand panel.

Refer to the Introducing the New Discussion Creation Experience knowledge article for an in-depth look at all the feature and capability changes with this update.

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 March 2023

Students and Instructors

Awards – Share achievements to LinkedIn profiles

Learners can now share achievements from the Awards tool directly to their LinkedIn profiles.

This feature simplifies showcasing awards in LinkedIn profiles. Awards can now be shared directly from CourseLink without using a third-party tool or creating a link to the award first.

To share an award to their LinkedIn profiles, learners can navigate to the My Awards page, select the desired award, click Share, and then click the new Share to LinkedIn button.

Shared awards appear in the Licenses & Certifications section of learners’ LinkedIn profiles.

A gif of the new Share to LinkedIn option in Awards.
Figure: The new Share to LinkedIn option in Awards.

Media Library – Adapt the player to match available space or video resolution

When using Insert Stuff in the CourseLink Editor to insert a video, the video preview screen is updated to show a responsive player and will now scale to the available maximum width. Height and aspect ratio are still respected. Previously, the player was too small, especially for users with smaller devices. In addition, users had to specify a size to embed the player.

The layout slider will be removed as the responsive nature of this update makes it redundant. Existing videos that were added to Editor before the March release will remain statically sized.

User Management and Settings – Easily change language preferences using the User Menu

A new language selector is available in the user menu to easily change the language setting to the user’s preferred language. Previously, a user had to navigate to Account Settings or use a custom installed widget with a complex workflow. Users can continue to access language and locale within the Account Settings page; this update provides an option that you can more easily access.

The User Settings menu with the current language highlighted. Click the currently selected language to open the Language Selector. Select your preferred language and click Save.
Figure: The User Settings menu with the current language highlighted.

Instructors Only

Calendar – Prevent duplicate calendar events on copy/import to reduce performance issues

With this release, calendar events are checked to see if they are duplicates when performing a course copy or import. When either action is performed, CourseLink only copies the following:

  • Calendar events that have an association, such as to an activity that is being copied into the course offering.
  • A single unique Calendar event that is manually created.

When a user manually creates multiple calendar items, CourseLink compares the following fields when checking for duplicates:

  • Title
  • Description
  • Start Date (or Start Day for All Day Events)
  • End Date (or End Day for All Day Events)
  • If its an All Day Event
  • Repeat Every (e.g.: every day, every second month)
  • Repeat On (day of week, only valid for Weekly events)
  • Repeat Until Date
  • Repeat Type (None, Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Annually)
  • Event Visibility
  • Location
  • Group associations

This feature only applies when performing a copy into a course offering and when importing course packages. It does not check if existing events are duplicates.

Previously, manually created or imported calendar events were not checked for duplication, creating duplicate calendar items.

Rubrics – Easily assess merits for evaluated rubrics using institutional logos

Printed rubrics now include the logo from the organization that issued the rubric; specifically, the logo image that appears on the printed rubrics is the image displayed in the course navigation bar. The logo image provides clear organizational recognition for rubrics that were evaluated in courses in your organization and distinguishes rubrics within a learner’s Portfolio if they have taken classes from multiple institutions. Registrars can use the brand recognition of the logos to assess the merits for credit from other institutions.

The institutional logo (highlighted) appears at the top of the printed rubric.
Figure: The institutional logo (highlighted) appears at the top of the printed rubric.

Contact

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

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