Tag: december

Students and Instructors

Calendar – View quiz start and quiz end dates as separate events in Calendar

When an instructor adds a Start Date and End Date in Quizzes and then selects Add Availability Dates to Calendar, both dates are displayed in the Calendar tool as separate events. Previously, only one event displayed showing when the availability of that quiz ended.

Quizzes – Identify bonus questions in a quiz

Quizzes now clearly mark bonus questions with Bonus, improving learner understanding and addressing a previous lack of indication in Quizzes.

Instructors Only

Announcements – Copy announcements to other courses in published state

The ability to copy announcements to other courses was originally released for the Announcements tool in November 2023.

As of this release, users with proper role permissions can publish copied announcements in other courses using either the Announcements tool or widget. This is done by selecting the Copy to Other Courses option from the announcement’s context menu. In the Copy Announcement window, there is a new check box option labeled Publish Announcement on Copy. When this box is selected, the announcement is directly published in the destination course or courses, skipping the draft stage. If the check box is not selected, the announcement copies as a draft into the destination course or courses.

Previously, copied announcements appeared in draft form and required publishing in the destination course to complete the process.

Dropbox – Interface improvements for annotations

CourseLink is updating the Annotations tool in Dropbox to be a web component, as part of our internal technical maintenance work. As a result, the user interface for the annotations viewer is improved to include the following changes:

• Error state includes updated dialog language.
• Document conversion state now has in-page messaging and a loading icon. Previously, there was a dialog displaying the messaging.
• General loading state now has a loading icon. Previously, there was no loading icon.
• Note annotations and their print format show annotations instead of just the annotations icon.

Dropbox and Discussions – Feedback field limitations for evaluation experiences

The Dropbox and Discussions tools’ evaluation feedback field is changing from a 500,000 character limitation to a 300,000 character limitation, resulting in an updated dialog warning appearing when the user hits 300,000 characters.

The character limit update improves performance and security for evaluations. Previously, when a user would enter over 300,000 characters, the new information may not have been saved. This potential save failure resulted in the loss of anything entered between 300,000-500,000 characters.

Discussions – New Discussion Topic Editing Experience universally enabled

With this release, the New Discussion Topic Editing Experience, which was introduced in the December 2022 release.

The New Discussion Topic Editing Experience is set to on as the default with no option to opt out, and the Legacy Discussion Topic Editing Experience is no longer available after this release.

Rubrics – Grades tool now uses Consistent Evaluation interface for assessments

When an evaluator assesses a Dropbox submission or discussion in the Grades tool, the rubric now uses the Consistent Evaluation interface whether there is work submitted for evaluation. This is consistent with the assessment experience for Dropbox or Discussions in other areas of CourseLink.

Previously, evaluations for these types of activities used a pop-out Rubric grid when launching from the Grades tool. When users click the drop-down menu on the column header to enter grades, the rows with un-submitted work now use the Consistent Evaluation experience instead of the previous Rubric pop-out.

Reminder: Möbius – Upgrade CourseLink integration

On December 22, the current deprecated Möbius integration (LTI 1.1) will be removed. The new Möbius integration (LTI 1.3) has been made available. The new integration has been added to Content > Existing Activities > Möbius.

Please note: The integration will not automatically update. Instructors must select the new LTI 1.3 version from Content menu. The old version links will be removed.

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

Reminder: Macmillan – Upgrade CourseLink integration

On December 22, the current deprecated Macmillan integration (LTI 1.1) will be removed. The new Macmillan integration (LTI 1.3) has been made available.

The integration is available under two link options:

• Content > Existing Activities > Macmillan Learning Content (Deep Linking Quicklink)
• Content > Existing Activities > External Learning Tools > Macmillan Learning Course Tools (Basic Launch)

For more information about using the Macmillan CourseLink integration, please review the Macmillan (LTI 1.3) integration support materials.

Please note: The integration will not automatically update. Instructors must select the new LTI 1.3 version from Content menu. The old version links will be removed.

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

Reminder: Panopto – Upgrade Guelph-Humber CourseLink integration

On December 22, the current deprecated Panopto integration (LTI 1.1) will be removed. The new Panopto integration (LTI 1.3) will be made available.

The integration is available under three link options:

• GH Panopto Deep Linking Quicklink (any quicklink location)
• Content > Existing Activities > External Learning Tools > GH Panopto Launch (Basic Launch)
• GH Panopto Deep Linking (editor Insert Stuff video link)

Please note: The integration will not automatically update. Instructors must select one of the new LTI 1.3 links. The old version links will be removed.

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

Reminder: Cengage – Upgrade CourseLink integration

On December 22, the current deprecated Cengage integration (LTI 1.1) will be removed. The new Cengage integration (LTI 1.3) has been made available. The new integration has been added to Content > Existing Activities > Add Cengage Content.

Please note: The integration will not automatically update. Instructors must select the new LTI 1.3 version from Content menu. The old version links will be removed.

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

Contact

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

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

Instructors Only

Dropbox – Consolidate availability dates

This feature updates the assignment availability dates to be consistent with the new availability date model, which was previously added to Discussions. Instructors can now include availability dates in the Calendar and have greater control over the behavior of availability dates for their learners. As a result, instructors can:

• Stop late submissions.
• Let learners view assignment information and submissions after it ends.
• Schedule the visibility of an assignment.
• Allow learners to view an assignment while preventing them from attempting it.
• Post the start and end of an assignment to the Calendar.

Instructors can choose the default settings for availability dates for any new assignment. The settings are available on the Availability Date Defaults page, which can be found under Course Admin.

Intelligent Agents – Improved consistency with the removal of legacy scheduling options

Building on the Intelligent Agents – Create Agent page facilitates more flexible scheduling and frequency options feature released in April 2022, this feature cleans up the Intelligent Agent scheduling interface by removing the unused Scheduled Agents Run Time area from the Intelligent Agents Settings page.

If a client has a course export package containing Intelligent Agents that was created prior to the April release, those agents are now imported without a schedule. Previously, these agents’ schedules were supported based on the PreferredRunHour configuration.

Quicklinks – Easily find audio-video content with improved Quicklink filters

To help users more easily find Media Library content, users can now use improved CourseLink Editor Insert Quicklink filters to better locate content available in Media Library. These new filters include:

• Content Type: Filter by either audio or video content type.
• Source: Filter by where content was added from. Multiple filters can be selected:
  • Content: Filter by AV content uploaded from the Content tool and Lessons.
  • Media Library: Filter by AV content uploaded or created in Media Library.
  • Audio or Video Note: Filter by content created using Audio and Video Note.
  • Imported: Filter by content added from course imports.
  • Other: Filter by content added prior to the addition of source tracking.
• Date Modified: Filter by date modified. This changes to Date Deleted on the Recycle Bin screen.
• Date Created

Previously, the Insert Quicklink feature included in Editor did not provide the ability to filter Medial Library content.

Rubrics – Removal of legacy Rubric assessment type for learning objectives associated with quizzes

When you create a new quiz that has an associated learning objective, the Assessment Type drop-down menu no longer includes the Rubrics assessment type. Using the quiz assessment in this manner previously caused an error because it is not a supported workflow. This change ensures that users creating quiz assessments with learning objectives can no longer mistakenly use that worklflow. The Numeric assessment type continues to function normally.

Removal of Turnitin PeerMark LTI 1.1

With the introduction of the Turnitin PeerMark LTI 1.3 tool added in October 2022, the older version (1.1) will be removed. Instructors should create all PeerMark assignments using the new PeerMark option found under the Content tool Existing Activities dropdown.

Contact

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.  

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 

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.

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. 

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.   

Contact

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

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

Students and Instructors

Dropbox – File size information in submission receipt email

File size information now displays next to the file name in the submission receipt email sent to learners upon making a submission to a Dropbox submission folder.

Dropbox – Submission ID displays for Learners

A new column that displays Submission ID information is visible to learners on the View Feedback page in Dropbox. The ID can be useful when troubleshooting issues with Dropbox submissions.

Release Conditions – Learners are notified when a release condition triggers new content

In a course that uses release conditions to unlock additional content, learners previously were not informed when new content became available as a result of a release condition that was satisfied. Because there was no automatic notification or refresh of the table of contents, there was the potential for frustration when learners think they are done a module, and are later informed that there are steps left to be completed.

Now, when release conditions are satisfied, the learner is notified using a pop-up (“toast”) message that there are new items available in the course.

Instructors Only

Content – Sort HTML templates in alphanumeric filename order

To make it easier to find HTML templates when using Content, instructors can select the new Sort HTML Templates by name option from the Content Settings page in Content. Selecting this new option sorts templates in alphanumeric order based on filename. Previously, HTML templates were sorted alphanumerically based on directory structure.

Quick Eval – Display unevaluated submissions past course end date

Previously, unevaluated learner submissions were removed from Quick Eval when a course’s end date was reached. A new option has been set to display unevaluated learner submissions for 7 days beyond a course’s end date. This allows instructors to continue to use Quick Eval for courses past their end date for that specified amount of time.

Contact

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

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