Continuous Delivery Updates for March 2024

Students and Instructors

User Profile – Twitter/X

With this release, the Twitter field in the User Profile tool now reflects the current name of X. This also updates the example shown on the page.

CourseLink Editor – Consistent link creation with the ability to choose link format

As of this release, inserting a link into CourseLink Editor opens the Add Link dialog which allows users to determine if their links open in a new window (set as the default) or in the current window. The text box in the Add Link dialog also allows users to add text to their link. This provides users with a consistent workflow and control over how links respond in their content.

The Add Link dialog with the link d2l.com and text D2L. Open in a new window is selected. Access it using the context menu, or with keyboard shortcuts.
Figure: You can access the new Add Link dialog using the context menu, or with keyboard shortcuts.

Additionally, the dialog includes a new Insert Quicklink option, allowing users to easily insert a quicklink. When using Insert Stuff > Insert Link or Insert Quicklink > Link, the same LinkText, and Open In options are displayed ensuring consistent link creation.

Finally, this feature updates the icons shown in Insert Quicklink to ensure all icons use the new style.

The Insert Quicklink menu with the updated icon style. All icons are black and white.
Figure: The Insert Quicklink menu with the updated icon style.

Instructors Only

Quizzes – Improved experience for generating quiz reports

This release introduces a better experience for instructors when running and exporting quiz reports with large amounts of data. To avoid time-out failures and screen freezing, the following report types now run asynchronously:

  • Attempt Details
  • Question Statistics
  • Question Details
  • User Statistics
  • User Attempts

When reports are ready for downloading, CourseLink generates a notification that instructors can access from the bell icon in the navbar.

Export to Excel Quiz button clicked. Quiz reports are generated asynchronously. Instructors are notified when they are ready for download via the bell notification icon in the navbar.
Figure: Quiz reports are generated asynchronously. Instructors are notified when they are ready for download via the bell notification icon in the navbar.

McGraw Hill Connect – Widget and LTI 1.1 integrations

Please note that the McGraw Hill integration widget and all MH LTI 1.1 integrations will be removed after April 29, 2024.

Instructors should work with McGraw Hill to migrate content to the McGraw Hill Connect LTI 1.3 integration in the Content tool.

OpenEd Toolbox – PDF Splitter

This new custom tool found in the OpenEd Toolbox enables users to split a provided PDF file into multiple smaller PDFs, ensuring that each resulting PDF contains a target specified number of pages.

The PDF Splitter tool can be used by instructors when uploading scanned PDF files into Gradescope or by an SFC when uploading scanned paper questionnaires (SFQs) as a PDF into ABBYY.

A screenshot of the new custom PDF Splitter tool found under Miscellaneous in the OpenEd Toolbox. The tool asks for a source PDF and the number of pages per PDF file.
Figure: The new custom PDF Splitter tool found under Miscellaneous in the OpenEd Toolbox.

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

Continuous Delivery Updates for March 2022

Instructors Only

Quizzes – Updated date/time language

To help instructors understand the date/time behaviour in Quizzes, the Has Due Date label has been updated with a message to make it clear that the quiz Due Date and End Date will not prevent a student from completing an in-progress quiz. The student will always have the full Enforced time limit once the quiz starts.

The new message on the Quiz Restrictions tab
Figure: The new message on the Quiz Restrictions tab

Announcements — Create new announcements quickly with new Copy option

This feature adds a new Copy option in the context menu of an announcement in both the Announcements tool and the Announcements widget. This only appears when you are in the course where the announcement was created. 

Users click Copy, which opens a new edit announcement page in draft mode with the details of the original announcement copied over. The following details are copied:

  • Headline, with “Copy of ” appended to the front
  • Content
  • Display Author checkbox setting
  • Show Start Date setting
  • Attachments
  • Release conditions

Start dates and/or end dates are not copied over. No notifications are triggered by this action until the edit page is saved.

Previously, users had to manually select the content of an announcement and paste it into announcement creation.

The new Copy option in the context menu.
Figure: The new Copy option in the context menu.

Insights Portal — Additional features added to the new Assessment Quality Dashboard

This release introduces several improvements to the Assessment Quality Dashboard:

  • New Flagged Question card added to the Summary area. When a user clicks this card, it filters the Quiz Details table and displays a “flagged questions” status indicator at the top of the page to indicate that this filter is in place. The Flagged Question card can be turned on and off in Settings. Flagged questions are those that are outside the set threshold for acceptable values in their statistics.
  • New Flagged Quiz Items column added to the Quiz Details table.
  • New “!” icon added next to quiz items that have one or more flagged questions.
  • New In Question Pool column added to the Quiz Item Analysis table to indicate if the item is part of a question pool.
  • Ability to link out to the Quiz edit page from the Quiz Item Analysis added to quickly take action.
Assessment Quality Dashboard with Flagged Question card.
Figure: Assessment Quality Dashboard with Flagged Question card.
Quiz Details table with Flagged Quiz Items column.
Figure: Quiz Details table with Flagged Quiz Items column.

CourseLink — Improved layout of show/hide interface

To improve consistency across the platform, this release features a stylistic upgrade to the layout of the show/hide interface. This does not affect usability or change interactions; in addition, all accessibility interactions remain unchanged.

The updated show/hide interface.
Figure: The updated show/hide interface.

Content — Media Library added to Content Experience

This feature adds the Media Library to the Content experience, which is accessible by navigating to Existing Activities > Media Library.

For more information about the Media Library functionality (Classic Content), refer to Evolving The Audio-Video Experience in Brightspace Community.

Note: Videos that are drag and dropped into the Content interface will go to Manage Files, and not the new Media Library.

The Media Library option in the Existing Activities dropdown menu of the Content experience.
Figure: The Media Library option in the Existing Activities dropdown menu of the Content experience.

Content – Workflow improvements to creating media topics

When creating a new video or audio topic in Content, instructors no longer must wait for the uploaded media file to finish processing to continue creating the topic.

While the media file remains unavailable during processing, instructors can navigate away from the upload page to work on other content creation tasks. If another user attempts to access the media file in the topic before processing is complete, a message prompts them to wait for the media file to become available. When processing is complete (or the uploaded media file is invalid or corrupted), a notification displays from Update alerts on the navbar, with a link to the course home page.

Note: new video files are now published as visible by default. As a workaround, instructors can set the topic containing the processing video as hidden. When the processing is complete, instructors can set the topic to visible.

Video file processing messages from Update alerts on the navbar
Figure: Video file processing messages from Update alerts on the navbar

SCORM — Easier object import with optional custom review/retake process

This feature allows instructors using the new SCORM/xAPI in Content to disable CourseLink’s built in SCORM review/retake functionality. Disabling CourseLink’s review/retake functionality will prevent learners from experiencing issues when the package has a native built review/retake logic. Disabling the custom review/retake functionality can only occur during upload of a SCORM/xAPI object. 

To view this new option in Content, navigate to Add Existing > SCORM/xAPI . 

In the publishing workflow, navigate to Edit Properties and expand the Advanced Settings area. Under the new subheading Course Package Review/Retake Options, select one of the following:

  • Add review/retake options. My package does not have built in review/retake functionality. (Default); or 
  • Do not add review/retake options. My package does have built in review/retake functionality.

If a currently uploaded file needs to have this setting changed, users must reupload and replace the original file.

The Review/Retake subheading in the Advanced Settings area.
Figure: The Review/Retake subheading in the Advanced Settings area.

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 2021

Students and Instructors

CourseLink – Support alert banner for older browsers

In order to be consistent with the Microsoft End of Support for Legacy Edge in March 2021, CourseLink is also ending browser support for Legacy Edge. To encourage clients to use CourseLink with a browser that provides robust support for all features, a warning banner appears in CourseLink if the client is using Legacy Edge.

Instructors Only

Dropbox – Learner profile card in New Evaluation Experience

When hovering over a learner’s name or profile picture in the new evaluation experience, the learner’s user profile card appears. The card displays the user’s online/offline status as well as links to: 

  • Email
  • Instant Message
  • User progress
  • User profile

Clicking any of the links in the profile card opens a new window.

Hovering over the name of profile image of a learner opens a profile card with links to Email and Instant Message the learner, plus User Progress and the learner’s User Profile.
Figure: Hovering over the name of profile image of a learner opens a profile card with links to Email and Instant Message the learner, plus User Progress and the learner’s User Profile.

Dropbox – Turnitin® support in New Evaluation Experience

The New Evaluation experience now supports Turnitin® Similarity and Turnitin® Grademark® in Dropbox. The existing Turnitin® workflows and functionality appear on the User Submissions page in the new experience. The Turnitin® workflows are also supported in the mobile experience.

Turnitin® Similarity and Turnitin® Grademark® feedback appears on the User Submissions page.
Figure: Turnitin® Similarity and Turnitin® Grademark® feedback appears on the User Submissions page.

Awards – Password-protected certificates

To prevent plagiarism and protect an organization’s intellectual and branding copyrights, all earned certificates downloaded from the Awards tool are now password-protected from editing. Each certificate is generated with a random password that is not displayed to users, preventing anyone from editing the certificate in Adobe® Acrobat® or Adobe Reader®. Previously, if an administrator or instructor uploaded a password protected certificate, any learner that downloaded the earned certificate could edit it in Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Reader. 

A password-protected certificate downloaded from the Awards tool
Figure: A password-protected certificate downloaded from the Awards tool

Insights – Additional cards and paging on the new Engagement Dashboard

  • There are three new cards on the user drill down page of the Engagement summary view, which provide the ability to see how key engagement metrics change over time for a single learner: 
    • The Grade over time trend chart displays the learner’s current grade for each week as a line graph, with a color-coded line for each course. Grades may be adjusted or calculated.
    • The Content view over time trend chart displays the number of content topic views for the learner for each week as a line graph, with a color-coded line for each course. 
    • The Access over time trend chart displays the number of course accesses for the learner for each week as a stacked area chart, with a color-coded area for each course.
  • The Active Courses table now includes paging on the user drill down page.
Summary view of the Learner Engagement Dashboard, with three new trend charts: Grade over time, Content view over time, and Access over time.
Figure: Summary view of the Learner Engagement Dashboard, with three new trend charts: Grade over time, Content view over time, and Access over time.

Calendar – Improvements to date and time selection web components

To improve the ease of use for clients using the date and time picker in CourseLink, there have been updates to the web components related to date and time selection. These changes are intended to provide better usability for keyboard users and better integration with assistive technology. Changes include:

  • Ability to use arrow keys rather than the Tab key to improve keyboard navigation and accessibility.
  • Aesthetic changes to hide unused elements until they are active.
  • New selectable values of 12:01 AM and 11:59PM in the time picker
  • New default values for Start, Due, and End dates.
  • The new Set to Today button inside the date picker replaces the Now button outside the date picker.

Note: There may be some instances of the older date picker remaining in CourseLink. These instances will be changed to the new date picker in a future release. 

When the date picker is open, the field to which it applies is highlighted and the picker dialog points to the field.
Figure: When the date picker is open, the field to which it applies is highlighted and the picker dialog points to the field.

Navigation and Themes – Create language specific custom links

instructors can create and display language specific custom links on the Navbar when designing courses. This feature provides learners a more complete translation experience.

Quizzes – Copy quiz workflow

Previously, to copy and continue editing a quiz, you had to navigate to the Manage Quizzes page, click the More Actions > Copy functionality, and then select the quiz you wanted to copy, rename it, and click Edit quiz after copy completes

This feature updates the copy quiz workflow to better align with Dropbox. Now, the copy functionality is available on the individual quiz drop-down menu. When you copy a quiz, the copied quiz is set to inactive (as per the original copy quiz workflow) and you are directed to the Edit Quiz screen to continue editing it. Now, the copy quiz workflow also copies over Special Access settings and aligned Learning Objectives.

Updated copy quiz workflow
Figure: Updated copy quiz workflow

Rubrics – Navigation Accessibility Improvements

To increase the value of Rubrics in CourseLink, there have been accessibility improvements to the rubric creation workflow:

  • In the Overall Score, screen reader users are now informed that the overall score levels are selectable items. When the user navigates between levels, the screen reader now reads the level order, level name, point level, level content, and selection status.
  • When reading descriptions in rubric table cells, screen readers now read the level name and the point value.
  • Radio buttons that are used to grade a criterion are now labelled for screen readers to include the criterion for which this radio button applies, and the corresponding rubric level name and point value for each radio button.
  • When an Add Feedback button has the focus, screen reader also reads the name of the associated criterion.
  • When the screen reader focus is on the outcomes icon in the criterion column, it indicates the standard associated with the criteria name and reads the tooltip content.
  • When a Criterion Score cell has the focus, screen readers now indicate that it is the score of the criterion name, the score, and that the user can press enter to adjust the score using a spin button. 
  • Screen readers now have access to controls for adding feedback to criteria when reading the criteria group table. The table summary now includes the following text: This table lists criteria and criteria group name in the first column. The first-row lists level names and includes scores if the rubric uses a numeric scoring method. You can give feedback on each criterion by tabbing to the add feedback buttons in the table.
  • When a page is loaded, the keyboard focus is now on the first focusable interface component; extra tab stops have been removed. 

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 2020

Instructors Only

Announcements – Display Author Information

To provide more information to users, Announcements now supports displaying author information (name and timestamp) on new and edited announcements.

A new Show Author Information check box displays in the New/Edit Announcement page, allowing instructors to choose if they want author information to display.

Users reading the announcement may see some or all of the following author information:

  • the original author
  • the original date and time of the announcement
  • the author who edited the announcement
  • the date and time of the edit
The new Show Author Information option on the New/Edit Announcement page
Figure: The new Show Author Information option on the New/Edit Announcement page

Groups – Set Exact Time Learners Can Self-Enroll

When setting up groups that allow learners to self-enroll, instructors can now add an exact time when enrollment opens, and an exact time when self-enrollment expires. Previously, instructors could only set the date when enrollment opened or expired.

Set exact time when enrollment opens and expires
Figure: Set exact time when enrollment opens and expires

Quick Eval – Support for Anonymous Marking

Dropbox assignments created with the Hide student names during assessment option selected now display in Quick Eval’s Submission view with learner names and profile images hidden. Instructors using anonymous marking can access Quick Eval with confidence that it supports their anonymous marking needs.

Learner names and profile images are hidden in Quick Eval Submissions view
Figure: Learner names and profile images are hidden in Quick Eval Submissions view

Rubrics – Confirmation Message for Partially Unevaluated Rubrics

To prevent publishing partially unevaluated rubrics, the publishing workflow in the new Rubrics grading experience now includes a confirmation message that warns users when the rubric is not fully evaluated. Instructors have the option to continue publishing, or cancel. Warning messages appear when publishing a rubric for an individual student and when bulk publishing rubrics. Users attempting to publish an incomplete rubric evaluation must now click Publish to complete the workflow.

The confirmation message asks users if they want to publish anyway, when attempting to publish an incomplete evaluation for an individual learner.
Figure: The confirmation message asks users if they want to publish anyway, when attempting to publish an incomplete evaluation for an individual learner.

Rubrics – Improved Accessibility in Rubric Grading

In Rubrics, when using keyboard navigation to tab to a row of selectable cells, there is now a focus indicator to help orient users on the page.

Rubrics – Manually Map Outcomes Achievement Levels to Rubric Levels

You can now manually map achievement levels to Rubric levels for all types of rubrics. Previously, achievement levels were automatically mapped to points-based or custom points-based rubrics. This feature enables you to override the percentage scale alignment with respect to an individual rubric if you choose to do so. This feature only appears when the scale has percentage values defined and is only enabled for points and custom point-based rubrics. For no score rubrics, the threshold marker placement is suggested and adjustable since there is no score calculation in the rubric.

New learning outcomes containing options to manually or automatically map achievement levels to rubric levels
Figure: New learning outcomes containing options to manually or automatically map achievement levels to rubric levels

Rubrics – Overall Score Levels Calculated After Rubric Criteria Completion

In the new Rubrics grading experience, the Overall Score level is now only calculated after all the criteria in the rubric have been assessed. This change optimizes rubric performance by eliminating the calculation of incomplete Overall Score levels until the rubric evaluation is completed, and improves the grading experience for instructors and rubric evaluators.

Contact

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

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