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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 – Updated default font and colour stylings for improved accessibility
This feature introduces a colour change to fonts and icons in CourseLink to meet WCAG guidelines.
Previously the dark grey font #494c4e did not meet the 3:1 contrast ratio with the colour of our links. The new font #202122 (still grey!) is darker and meets the WCAG link contrast criteria for accessibility. This change is visible in most locations in CourseLink.
Figure: Before and after showing the updated font colour visible in the My Courses widget.
CourseLink Instructors (depending on their role definition within their institution) can now use @mention push notifications to direct a message to Learners using Pulse. Originally, @mentions came through CourseLink but were only visible if the user opened Pulse and viewed their Subscriptions tab under Notifications. Now, the new functionality sends a push notification to the user when they are @mentioned.
Note: These notifications are available in the Pulse Notifications > Subscriptions area and are still available in Discussions.
Brightspace Pulse – Updates and subscriptions now align with all update subscription Alerts in CourseLink
In Brightspace Pulse, the Updates and Subscriptions tab is now aligned to show the same items as the Alert Bell and Discussions in CourseLink.
All CourseLink alerts now display within the Pulse Updates and Subscriptions tab. Improved logic in how alerts are sent to Pulse ensures that alerts are no longer sent from courses that are inaccessible (courses that are inactive or past the end date).
HTML Editor – Improved context link menu supports previewing of quicklinks in Editor
This feature implements a new and improved context link menu in Editor. The new menu has the same functionality as before – enabling users to highlight text and create a link, edit the link, remove the link, and preview the link – but now also enables support for the previewing of quicklinks that contain replace strings while editing their HTML. The new formatting context menu continues to allow users to highlight text within the editor and apply formatting or create links.
Previously, when a user created a new quicklink within the editor that contains a replace string, this proved not replaceable by the context menu. Clicking to preview the link resulted in a 404 Error.
Figure: The layout of the new Content link menu.
Manage Files – Improved error message when invalid files are uploaded
Building on the Manage Files – Users receive warning message when uploading a file blocked due to security feature added in November 2021, this feature adds an improved error message to the File Upload dialogue. When a user attempts to upload a file containing one or more illegal characters in the filename, this message explains to the user the reason why the upload failed.
Previously, users received a generic “Oops! Your file could not be uploaded” message, which did not explain the reason the file upload failed.
Figure: The File Upload dialogue with the new error message displayed.
SCORM – Improved completion messaging to avoid confusion in SCORM embedded experience
Upon completion of SCORM content a “This activity is complete” message displays. This change has been implemented to avoid confusion in the SCORM embedded experience as the old message was only relevant to content rendered in a pop-up window and did not account for other SCORM experiences.
Previously, the SCORM player would display the message: “The content has exited successfully, you may now close this window”.
This feature has accessibility impacts, including:
Audio/Video – Manual transcoding option to optimize video files
Depending on the file format of audio and video files, they might not play in a web browser by default. Previously, all uploaded audio and video files were transcoded; now, transcoding only occurs when necessary, All MP3 and MP4 video files are saved in their original form because they can play in a browser without transcoding. Other files, such as WMV and AVI, which would not play by default, continue to be automatically transcoded.
With this update, the new Optimize for Streaming option in the editing tool enables users who want to manually transcode original versions of the files, for example, to reduce the file size or enable multi-bitrate streaming.
Note: This feature applies to uploading audio and video files in Content and Video Note upload. Original versions of videos are used for editing and playback. This feature does not apply to Video Note webcam recordings, which continue to be transcoded automatically.
This change also moves the Language selector to the Table of Contents and Closed Captions area.
Figure: The Video Editing tool showing the new Optimize for Streaming button, and the Language selector in the Table of Contents and Closed Captioning area.
This feature has accessibility impacts, including:
WCAG 2.1 Success Criteria 1.2.1 Audio-only or Video-only (Prerecorded)
The Awards task was being evaluated against “All Enrollments”, which returns a list of all users enrolled in a course, regardless of roles or permissions. This list included users with the role setting “Display this role in the classlist” disabled.
Now when evaluating an award, the user list is limited to only users with the role setting “Display this role in the classlist” enabled. This is in line with the Awards UI configuration settings.
Role Permissions for earning certificates and badges are still respected.
Gradescope Replaces Scantron in F22
Scantron and the CCS Test Scoring application will no longer be available to instructors for quizzes, midterms, or exams after S22. Beginning in F22, the OpenEd-supported Gradescope Bubble Sheet Assignment replaces Scantron for bubble sheet test scoring.
Looking for information about Gradescope Bubble Sheets during S22? Register for any of OpenEd’s four Prepare for Gradescope Bubble Sheets sessions running June 13, July 14, and August 18 or join one of the weekly Gradescope Drop-in sessions, offered every Tuesday & Wednesday.
What’s New in Zoom – April 2022
Central library of polls – Users can manage a central library of polls for meetings. They can create or edit polls and use them for Personal Meeting ID (PMI) and non-PMI meetings. Previously, polls for PMI and non-PMI meetings were managed separately. When a poll is marked as available to all meetings, it will appear in the list of polls that can be launched in a meeting. This new central repository will not replace the “Personal Meeting (PMI) polls”; polls created here will only appear in PMI meetings. This feature is also available for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS desktop clients.
Contact
If you have any questions about the updates, please contact CourseLink Support at:
This feature releases the new and improved Brightspace Editor.
The new Brightspace Editor permanently replaces the previous editor in the new Dropbox Evaluation Experience and the new Dropbox Creation Experience. The new Brightspace Editor will be the only editor available in all new experiences released from May 2021 onwards. The new Editor will be released in the following tools at a later date:
Quiz Builder
Activity Feed
New Rubrics
Figure: The new Brightspace Editor.
The new Brightspace Editor includes the following improvements to existing features:
Refreshed formatting options
The Lato font type
A refreshed color picker
A refreshed font size menu
A comprehensive and standard emoticon menu
A comprehensive and refreshed Symbols menu
An advanced source code editor
A refreshed Tables feature, including data sorting
A refreshed Accessibility Checker
The Check Accessibility, HTML Source Editor, Preview, and Toggle Full Screen functionalities have now been placed in the top bar
The Editor also includes the following new features:
Wordcount functionality that includes words, characters, and text selection.
Context menus while editing to enable quick access to text, link, and image editing options; including advanced image editing options. Note that image editing is not available in all context menus yet.
A new overflow menu with additional, less frequently used menu options.
Copy/paste and/or drag and drop images is now available when the consistent evaluation experience is on for Dropbox feedback.
Design improvements to enhance use of the Editor on mobile devices and improve general usability.
Accessibility improvements – Improved keyboard navigation for keyboard users and toolbar icons are spaced out more in accordance with WCAG standards.
The list below outlines what is not included in the Editor:
Spell check functionality. D2L recommends using your browser spell check functionality.
CourseLink – Maximum File Size Increase
The maximum per file upload size limit in CourseLink has increased from 1 GB to 2 GB. Any existing tool specific limits will continue to be respected and not overridden.
Instructors Only
Dropbox – Annotations available for TXT file-based assignments
Previously, annotations enabled instructors to use highlighting, free-hand drawing, shapes, and associated commenting to provide feedback to learner assignments of the following file types: DOC, DOCX, RTF, ODT, PPT, PPTX, PPSX, ODP, XLS, XLSX, JPG, JPEG, PNG, TIF, TIFF, and GIF. Now, instructors can provide feedback for TXT, in addition to the existing types.
Dropbox – Download file when using annotations in the New Dropbox Evaluation Experience
The New Dropbox Evaluation Experience now includes the Download drop-down menu in the Annotations viewer. When using annotations in an assignment, instructors can use this menu to download the original file without navigating to the submission list. Instructors can also download the annotated PDF file.
Figure: The Annotations viewer with the Download drop-down menu
Dropbox – Conversion Warning
A message now appears to users when viewing a file that has been converted to .pdf from a different file type in Dropbox. The message states “This file has been converted and may have inaccuracies.”
Rubrics – Copy rubric criterion
To improve the value of Rubrics and facilitate reusing rubric criteria that have already been created, an action menu next to the criterion name provides Copy and Delete options. When an instructor copies a criterion, the new criterion is added under the original with the criterion name Copy of [name of original criterion].
The Delete function was previously available as a trashcan icon at the end of the criterion row outside the table. The new location in the action menu improves the discoverability of the Delete and Copy options.
Figure: The action menu beside the criterion provides copy and delete options.
Rubrics – Print or export to PDF
To improve the user experience with Rubrics, instructors can now print or download a PDF of a preview or evaluated rubric. Learners can also print or download a PDF of a rubric from the desktop browser implementation of CourseLink. The Print button displays above the top-right corner of the rubric.
Widgets – Work To Do widget
The new Work To Do widget provides learners a summary of assigned learning activities from all their courses that are overdue or have an upcoming due date. The widget can be added to CourseLink homepages to aggregate data from all courses, and to course homepages to show only due and overdue learning activities from the course.
The Work To Do widget displays the following learning activities:
Dropbox
Checklists
Content
Courses
Discussions
Surveys
Quizzes
Learning activities only appear in the Work To Do widget when the activity has a defined due date or end date. By default, the widget displays activities due in the upcoming 2 weeks, and overdue work from the previous 12 weeks.
Figure: The Work To Do widget organizes course activities by overdue and upcoming due dates so learners can easily prioritize their work and stay on top of their tasks.
Contact
If you have any questions about the updates, please contact CourseLink Support at:
Brightspace Pulse for iOS and Android now supports the ability to simultaneously log in to multiple Brightspace Pulse accounts. Learners can easily switch between multiple Brightspace instances without logging out from Brightspace Pulse. In addition, learners can receive notifications from all of their accounts in Brightspace Pulse.
This feature is useful to learners who may be:
supplementing a degree with a preferred course offering at a partner institution
simultaneously pursuing a degree and professional development at work
In Brightspace Pulse, a new menu icon or your organization’s logo displays in the navigation bar. Tap the menu icon or logo to open a menu with options to switch accounts, add new accounts, and access settings. The current active account is indicated by a checkmark icon.
If there is at least one outstanding notification for any of the accounts, a red notification dot displays on the menu icon or organization logo in the navigation bar.
Figure: Menu options that display when you tap the menu icon or organization logo in the navigation bar
Brightspace Pulse – Pin and Unpin Courses (updated)
To help learners more easily find their current courses in Brightspace Pulse for Android, learners can now pin and unpin courses from the Courses screens. Pinning a course ensures it remains at the top of the screen for easy access. Previously, learners could only pin and unpin their courses in Brightspace Learning Environment and Brightspace Pulse for iOS.
To pin or unpin a course in Brightspace Pulse, do one of the following:
From the Courses screen, tap the ellipses (…) icon in a course tile.
From the Course Homepage screen, tap the ellipses (…) icon at the top of the screen.
From the list of actions, tap Pin or Unpin. A pinned course is denoted by a Pin icon. Unpinning a course removes the pin icon.
Figure: The Courses screen displaying a pinned course tile with the ellipses (…) icon and pin icon
Instructors Only
Microsoft Teams Meetings Integration
Instructors with University Central Accounts can create, schedule, and share Teams Meetings from within CourseLink.
Add the instructor only widget to your course by making a copy of your homepage or editing an existing copy.
On your homepage, in the MS Teams Meeting widget, click Create meeting link.
Sign in with your account if you haven’t previously signed in.
Click Create meeting link.
Add a meeting title and select a date and time.
Click Create.
Click Copy to copy the dynamically generated meeting link.
Paste the meeting link into your course announcement, discussion, calendar event, or email.
Figure: Microsoft Teams Meetings sign in page
Calendar – Bulk Delete Items
To create parity with other tools and improve workflow, the Calendar tool now offers a Delete interface. Previously, it was impossible to bulk delete calendar items. This change enables users to multi-select and delete calendar items using the More Actions menu.
Figure: The Delete option appears in the More Actions drop-down menu.
Export Course Components – Org Unit Code Included in File Name
The default file name for exported courses now includes the Org Unit Code of the course being exported. The new file name convention follows the format: D2LExport_{OrgUnitId}_{OrgUnitCode}_{Timestamp}.zip. Previously, exported course names followed the format: D2LExport_{OrgUnitId}_{Timestamp}.zip.
Learning Outcomes – Transfer Rubric Feedback to General Feedback
Rubrics can be set to three types of visibility to learners: Always visible, Visible after assessment, and Always hidden. When a rubric is set to hidden, there is now a checkbox to indicate that you want the feedback provided on hidden rubrics to be transferred back to general feedback. The feedback from a rubric with this option enabled will appear to the learner as part of the general feedback on the activity. This is useful when instructors provide rubrics as a marking scheme for teaching assistants (not appropriate for learners to view), but want learners to benefit from the feedback provided on those rubrics. Instructors can also use this approach to provide learners with feedback on specific criteria listed in a rubric without knowing all the details for that criteria, such as a lab simulation for chemistry.
Note: If you select the option to display hidden rubric feedback in general feedback, the content does not also appear on the Outcomes Progress page for the submitted learner evidence.
Contact
If you have any questions about the updates, please contact CourseLink Support at:
When annotating submissions in Dropbox, instructors can now toggle to a full screen view. This allows for more screen space to display learner submissions and insert annotations, while removing unnecessary navigation menus.
Dropbox – Opt-out of Annotations
If Annotations are enabled for a specific course, instructors can now determine if they want to use the annotation tools when assessing submissions for a specific assignment. Previously, if you had Annotations enabled in a course, all assignments displayed the annotation tools with no option to disable them. The new option allows instructors to easily opt-out of using the annotation tools, without the need to request a configuration change from administrators.
Dropbox – Rotate page using annotation tools
Instructors can use the Page Rotation function when assessing assignments using the built-in annotation tools. Depending on the format of a learner submission, documents may appear rotated when initially rendered in the document viewer. Use Page Rotation to quickly reorient the document so it displays as expected.
Figure: Page rotation options available
Discussions – Save feedback in draft state
This feature provides instructors the option to save feedback on assessments in draft state prior to publishing it to learners. Now when instructors add feedback to assessments, the Save Draft and Publish buttons display.
Note: The Save Draft button does not appear when a discussion topic is only associated with a rubric.
Figure: General Feedback page with the Publish and Save Draft buttons
Quick Eval – Find and prioritize unevaluated learner submissions in one location | New
Quick Eval is a new tool that allows evaluators (instructors, teaching assistants, and so on) to see a list of unevaluated learner submissions from all their courses. Submissions from Dropbox, Quizzes, and Discussions are displayed in one location to improve efficiency when locating work that requires evaluation and providing feedback to learners.
Educators can sort, filter, and search submissions to prioritize their evaluation work. Sorting can be done using the first or last name of the learner, Activity Name, Course Name, and Submission date. Filtering can be done using one or more of the following categories: Activity Name, Course Name, and Submission Date. Clicking on a user’s name opens an evaluation screen directly from the Quick Eval list where the evaluator can complete their assessment. The search function in Quick Eval allows evaluators to locate submissions for evaluation by searching for a specific user, assignment, quiz, discussion topic, or course.
When learner submissions are evaluated and published, they no longer show up in the Quick Eval list. An empty Quick Eval list gives educators confidence that no learner submissions are pending evaluation.
Figure: Evaluator view of the Quick Eval list
Quizzes – Full-screen quiz evaluation
Now instructors can evaluate quiz attempts in full-screen mode. This update enhances an instructor’s quiz evaluation experience.
Rubrics – Rubrics Grading Experience available for group Dropbox and Discussions | New
The Rubrics Grading Experience available for Dropbox and Discussions is now available for group Dropbox and group Discussions. When a rubric assessment is in draft state, the assessment is not viewable by members of a given group. Once the assessment is published, all group members can view the rubric assessment. Previously, the new Rubrics Grading Experience was only available for regular Dropbox and Discussions.
In addition, when a non-file submission assignment is connected to a grade item in the gradebook, the assessment symbol on the Grade All screen launches the dropbox assessment experience.
Contact
If you have any questions about the updates, please contact CourseLink Support at:
