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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
To streamline access to assignment feedback, learners can now immediately access inline feedback from User Progress, Grades, and Dropbox. From these tools, the View Inline Feedback link takes the learner directly to the annotations view (or Turnitin viewer, if that is the tool used to provide feedback). The inline feedback also includes a link to the file for the assignment, so learners know which document contains the feedback. Previously, the View Inline Feedback link took the learner to the Dropbox feedback summary page, where they had to click a second link to view the feedback.
Figure: Grades view for learners displaying the View Inline Feedback link, which now opens directly in the annotation view.
CourseLink – EXIF Data Warning Appears when Uploading Images
In some instances, when users upload .jpg files in any file upload area across CourseLink, an EXIF (exchangeable image file) data warning appears informing the user that the file may contain geolocation data.
Video Note – Automatic Closed Captioning
To improve accessibility, video notes now provide automatic closed captioning for newly created videos. After video processing, users can view closed captions using video player controls.
In addition, users can now download a transcript and the closed caption file associated with a video independent of Video Notes.
Localized closed captioning is available for the following languages:
US English (en-US)
British English (en-GB)
Canadian French (fr-CA)
German (de-DE)
Brazilian Portuguese (pt-BR)
Korean (ko-KR)
Italian (it-IT)
Spanish (es-US)
Modern Standard Arabic (ar-SA)
Russian (ru-RU)
Japanese (ja-JP)
Turkish (tr-TR)
Dutch (nl-NL)
Chinese Mandarin (zh-CN)
Notes:
Canadian English is not available for closed captioning and defaults to en-US.
Chinese Traditional (zh-TW) closed captions are not currently available and defaults to zh-CN.
Mexican Spanish (es-MX) closed captions may not be available and defaults to US Spanish (es-US)
Swedish closed captions are not available.
Figure: A Video Note with closed captions.
Instructors Only
Course Administration – Course Reset
Course Reset is a new tool that enables an instructor to reset a course back to an empty shell. Course Reset permanently deletes course content, activities, associated files, user grades, user progress records, and interaction data from the course in a single bulk process. Users can optionally choose to include course groups, and/or course widgets, navbars, and homepages as part of the course reset process, or leave them in the course.
The Course Reset process does not affect user enrollments, sections and section enrollment, course associations, course paths associated to the course, ePortfolio, ePortfolio sharing groups or forms, email/instant messages sent to or from users in the course, and Activity Feed posts.
Course Reset permanently deletes the course data and it will not appear in any reporting or data sets after the course reset process is complete. After performing a course reset, an Audit Log maintains a record of the course reset action, including the date and time of the course reset, the data that was selected for deletion, the user who performed the course reset, and any errors that occur during the course reset process.
Grades – Tab Delimited Import into Gradebook
Users can now import tab separated value (.tsv) files into Gradebook. Previously, users could only import comma delimited files into Gradebook, which created a usability issue in some international regions.
Outcomes Management – Levels of Achievement are Mapped to Rubric Levels
Levels of achievement, used to measure progress towards learning outcomes, can now be mapped to rubric levels. Instructors no longer have to use a percentage score to translate rubric levels to levels of achievement. This means they can use text-only rubrics, as well as points-based rubrics, to automatically identify a suggested level of achievement for the learner’s performance.
Achievement levels are automatically mapped to rubric levels. If there are more rubric levels than achievement levels, some achievement levels may span more than one rubric level. In this case, the levels on each side of the center are symmetrically and evenly distributed.
If there are more achievement levels than rubric levels, some achievement levels are excluded in the map. In this case, the top and bottom achievement levels are automatically mapped to the top and bottom rubric levels and distributed evenly and symmetrically.
After the automatic mapping has occurred, instructors can manually adjust the alignment. The alignment levels can be manually adjusted by dragging the colored circles in the Achievement Levels row of the rubric to identify the desired mapping. Changes can be made to the alignment until a submission is evaluated using the rubric. At that point, the rubric and mapped achievement levels are locked.
Figure: Rubrics dialog enabling instructors to adjust the outcomes mapped to rubric levels.
Quizzes – Learning Outcomes can be aligned to Quiz Questions
In the new Quiz Builder, questions can be aligned to learning outcomes. After you align an outcome to a quiz question, that outcome is aligned for all quizzes in which the question appears. This feature builds on the availability of learning outcomes with other tools, including content items, Dropbox, and rubrics.
After instructors align learning outcomes to one or more questions in a quiz, they can evaluate levels of achievement against learner quiz attempts. Suggested outcome achievements are provided for questions that are auto-graded with the ability to overwrite the suggestion. The default outcome achievement suggestion is based on the default outcomes achievement scale for the course. After the learning outcomes are published, quiz attempts appear in the outcomes progress page as individual demonstration of the learners’ achievement toward the outcomes. They are also visible to instructors when evaluating or reviewing attempts from within Quizzes and visible to learners within Quizzes if a submission view is set up to show quiz questions, responses, and associated outcomes to learners.
Instructors can align outcomes to all questions in a question pool by selecting the question pool from the main Quiz Builder page and then selecting Align to Outcomes from the More Actions menu. They can remove alignment to a particular question or set of questions within a question pool by opening the pool and selecting the clear option next to outcomes tag on each individual question.
Quick Eval – Course Level Filtering
When opening Quick Eval within a course, only the list of activities and submissions related to that course display. This helps instructors easily view and evaluate submissions on a course-by-course basis. If an instructor wants to view all submissions across all their courses, they can still use the More Options menu to see the Multi-Course Quick Eval, or open Quick Eval from outside of a course.
Quick Eval – Dismiss Activities until next Submission
Instructors can now remove items from their Quick Eval list until a new submission is received for the activity. The removed activity appears on the Dismissed Activities list and can be restored at any time. Once a new submission arrives to the Quick Eval list, the previously dismissed activity reappears there.
Previously, instructors could only select a specific date or forever when dismissing an activity. This new option provides instructors with an additional option to manage the submissions on their Quick Eval list.
Contact
If you have any questions about the updates, please contact CourseLink Support at:
Brightspace Pulse – Additional Languages Supported
To provide consistent language support with the Brightspace
platform, Brightspace Pulse is now available in the following additional
languages:
Arabic (Saudi Arabia)
Chinese (Simplified)
Chinese (Traditional)
Danish
French (France)
German (Germany)
Japanese
Korean
Swedish
Turkish
Previously, Brightspace Pulse was only available in: English (U.S.), Spanish (Latin America), French (Canada), Portuguese (Brazil), and Dutch.
Classlist – Total Number of Users Field and Floating Buttons
To improve ease of use, the total number of users for their selection (whole class, section, group) now appears in a field at the bottom of the Classlist page for at-a-glance viewing to help instructors keep track of the total number of learners, which may extend beyond the users visible on the page. On the Print Classlist and Email Classlist pages, the clickable Print and Email buttons now float consistently on screen, to ensure easy access to these actions without excessive scrolling.
Groups – Self-enrollment Group Capacity, Start Dates and Descriptions
This feature includes three improvements to Groups:
Group members can now see the description of their group. For self-enrolled groups, group members will now see the group description at all times, including before and after enrollment. For other group types, instructors can now choose to display the description to members of the group. This visible group description setting is off by default for non-self-enrollment groups. Previously, all group descriptions were hidden from group members.
An instructor can now increase or decrease the capacity for self-enrollment groups after they have been created, and prior to the group sign-up expiry date. Decreasing a group size to an amount smaller than has already signed up for a group will not re-allocate users to other groups. Previously, self-enrollment groups were not editable after they were created.
Instructors can set Start dates for self-enrollment groups. This feature allows them to schedule self-enrollment groups availability, ensuring learners are prepared and have equal opportunity to self-enroll.
User Management – Character Limit for Long Text Fields in User Profile
To add a reasonable character limit to long text fields in the User Profile page, the following Personal Info
fields are now limited to 4000 characters each:
Interests/Hobbies
Favorite Music
Favorite Books
Favorite TV Shows
Favorite Movies
Favorite Quotations
Favorite Websites
Future Goals
Most Memorable Learning Experience
Instructor Only
Copy Course Components – Add Validation Logic to the Copy Process
Copy Course Components now contains a validation logic step to the course copy process, which can inform users if they performed a copy from the source previously, avoiding unnecessary duplication of copied course components.
Discussions – Assessment Consistency Changes
When assessing discussions, instructors have new multi-select options to Publish Feedback and Retract Feedback. In the Status column, the Draft / Published checkbox has been replaced by information on the date when feedback was saved as draft or published. These changes are visible on both the Users and Assessments tabs. The Save, Save and Close, and Cancel buttons have also been removed as their functionality has been replaced by the Publish Feedback and Retract Feedback options.
Figure: Previous view when assessing a discussion topicFigure: Updated view when assessing a discussion topic
Grades – Export Sorting Options
This feature introduces the ability to sort exported gradebooks based on the following options: OrgDefinedID, Username, Last Name, and First name. The sort options available are based on the User Information Privacy permissions for the role.
Outcomes Management – Levels of Achievement are Mapped to Rubric Levels
Levels of achievement, used to measure progress towards learning
outcomes, can now be mapped to rubric levels. Instructors no longer have to use
a percentage score to translate rubric levels to levels of achievement. This
means they can use text-only rubrics, as well as points-based rubrics, to
automatically assess students against learning outcomes.
Achievement levels are automatically mapped to rubric levels. If
there are more rubric levels than achievement levels, some achievement levels
may span more than one rubric level. In this case, the levels on each side of
the center are symmetrically and evenly distributed.
If there are more achievement levels than rubric levels, some achievement levels are excluded in the map. In this case, the top and bottom achievement levels are automatically mapped to the top and bottom rubric levels and distributed evenly and symmetrically. After the automatic mapping has occurred, instructors can manually adjust the alignment. The alignment levels can be manually adjusted by dragging the colored circles in the Achievement Levels row of the rubric to identify the desired mapping. Changes can be made to the alignment until a submission is evaluated using the rubric. At that point, rubrics and mapped outcome achievements are locked.
Figure: Rubrics dialog enabling instructors to adjust the outcomes mapped to rubric levels
After rubrics and assessment outcomes are mapped, when an instructor enters a mark on the rubric, a suggested achievement level is automatically set based on achievement levels and rubric level mappings.
The suggested achievement levels are displayed for the instructor to review and adjust if necessary.
Figure: Rubric items aligned with outcomes provide information results in suggested achievement levels, which can be adjusted by instructors
Quick Eval – Dismiss Activities from List
To improve the ability to manage items on their Quick Eval list, instructors can now select items that appear in their Quick Eval list and remove them temporarily or permanently. Instructors can view their dismissed items in the Dismissed Activities List and restore them to the Quick Eval list at any time.
Quizzes – Synchronization with Grades
Quiz scores and feedback entered in Grades now synchronize automatically with Quizzes. To further streamline the workflow, the Overall Feedback fields in Grades and Quizzes are now consolidated, and the Grade Item Public Comments field has been removed from Grades. All comments entered in the Overall Feedback field in Grades synchronizes automatically with the Overall Feedback field in Quizzes. This update creates a more direct workflow and aligns Quizzes with the consistent feedback experience implemented in Assignments and Discussions. Refer to the blog post Improving Consistency Of Synchronization Between Grades And Quizzes Tool (20.20.01 – January Release) for more information. Note: Synchronization only occurs for new grade entries. Existing grade data for quizzes will not be migrated due to the high impact to all past data and reports.
Contact
If you have any questions about the updates, please contact CourseLink Support at:
The Dropbox page shows a count of new submissions and resubmissions in the New column, which you can opt-in /opt-out of displaying.
Figure: Dropbox page with the New column
Intelligent Agents – Email images
This feature includes the following change to Intelligent Agents (IA):
Users can now insert images directly into the body of intelligent agent emails using the Add Image button in the HTML editor. The images are attached to the email and shown in place when viewed in the recipient’s external mail client.
Learning Outcomes | New
CourseLink has released a new tool called Learning Outcomes. The new outcomes tool can be used to track and assess learning outcomes at a program and/or course level.
You can find the tool under the Course Admin options.
Figure: The Learning Outcomes tool under Course Admin
Once outcomes have been added to a course, they can be linked to Rubric criteria, Dropbox folders, and Discussions.
Note: Linking to Grade items and Quiz questions will be coming in a future release.
Any new programs or achievement scales can be set up by contacting CourseLink Support.
The official release video, below, can be viewed on D2L’s YouTube channel.
With the release of the new Learning Outcomes tool, all language related to outcomes will be removed from the Competencies tool.
Updated terminology:
LOA Framework will be restored to Competency
Learning Outcome will be restored to Objective
Learning Outcomes – View assessment details on the Outcomes Progress Details page
To increase the value of the Outcomes Progress Details page, instructors and other instructor-type roles can now view feedback and submissions for dropbox and discussion topics for individual learners.
The page links to a summary of the activity, the learner’s submission or demonstration of the activity, the assessment that an instructor has provided. The feedback page displays the following information:
Activity description
Learner submission
Rubric assessment
Score achieved by the learner
Start, due, and end dates
Outcomes and levels achieved
General feedback provided by the instructor or evaluator
Quick Eval – Improve consistency across supported tools
To improve consistency across tools in Quick Eval, the following updates are being released:
When feedback on a quiz submission is saved as draft, a draft icon displays next to the quiz submissions in Quick Eval.
In Activities view, the Publish All option is available for Quizzes.
Quizzes – Restore quiz attempts in the Quiz Attempt log | Update
When an instructor restores a learner’s deleted quiz attempt, note the following workflow changes:
A deleted quiz attempt can only be restored if the learner does not have another quiz attempt in progress.
The Restore button only appears for the latest deleted quiz attempt.
Quizzes – Save feedback as draft
Instructors can now clearly see when feedback is saved as a draft, or published, while evaluating quiz submissions. On the quiz evaluation page, the Graded (G) checkbox and Save button have been replaced by the Publish and Save Draft buttons.
Figure: The Publish and Save Draft buttons allow instructors to quickly save drafts of feedback left on quiz submissions
Quizzes – Set quiz options in Quiz Builder
The new Quiz Builder experience now allows instructors to set additional quiz options when creating quizzes. A More Actions button is visible when users select the checkbox for one or more questions; allowing instructors to set questions as mandatory or bonus directly from Quiz Builder, and change the number points assigned to a question or set of questions. There is no change in how the bonus, mandatory, or points features work.
Video Note – Removal of Flash
The Video Note tool has removed all Flash-based recording options.
Video Note – Record Video workflow update
Instructors are now able to attach pre-existing Video Notes in the Record Video workflow.
Contact
If you have any questions about the updates, please contact CourseLink Support at:
To improve the delivery of course notifications in CourseLink, the Notifications option, available from the username on the minibar, includes the following changes:
Added a Summary of Activity option for receiving email notifications about the summary of activity for each course. Options include: Never, Daily, or Weekly (default).
Removed the following Customize Notifications options: Allow past courses to send me notifications and Allow inactive courses to send me notifications. Learners can now only receive daily email digests for current and future courses.
Removed the following SMS notifications for Instant Notifications: Content – content item created, Content – content item updated, and Content – content overview updated.
If any of the removed notification options are currently selected, learners will no longer receive these notifications after the monthly update. To receive content-related instant notifications, CourseLink recommends using the Brightspace Pulse mobile app or select the Email option for the instant notification type on the Notifications page. Email content notifications remain unaffected.
Supported browsers | Updated
New clients can no longer access the CourseLink Learning Environment using Microsoft Internet Explorer. If users attempt to access CourseLink using Internet Explorer, an unsupported page appears. The unsupported page contains links to download supported browsers and a link to the Community End of Life communication. The text of the unsupported page is customizable using the Language Management tool. Users cannot log in to CourseLink using any version of Internet Explorer.
When a user tries to access CourseLink using any version of Internet Explorer, a retro pop-up dialog box appears. The text in the retro pop-up dialog box has been updated to include the January 2020 end of life date information. Users who had previously dismissed the pop-up will see it again following the August update if CourseLink is accessed using any version of Internet Explorer. The pop-up can be dismissed again and will not reappear with subsequent updates.
OpenDyslexic font setting | Removed
The OpenDyslexic font is intended to increase readability of text for users with dyslexia. D2L introduced this font into CourseLink as a measure of support for users with dyslexia, based on interest from clients and initially positive media reports. However, to date, there is no empirical evidence that it improves readability or comprehension for users with dyslexia. To ensure that D2L offers true accessibility solutions and that we align our design system and development practices with the W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1 Level AA Criteria), the OpenDyslexic font is removed in the August 2019 release.
Email – Add images to messages | Updated
When composing email messages, users can select Insert Image to add pictures from their computer, a URL, or Manage Files. Images are inserted in place, attached to the email, and display in place for the recipient. The Insert Stuff button is no longer shown in Email, as it has several workflows that are incompatible with the external email experience.
Instructors Only
Dropbox – Spell check for annotation notes | Updated
When assessing submissions with the built-in annotation tools in Dropbox, text within the comment annotation is now checked for spelling mistakes.
Intelligent Agents now re-evaluate the status of release conditions at the moment of triggering to determine whether a user has completed a particular release condition or not. Previously, Intelligent Agents retained release condition information from users, even if users no longer triggered the retained release condition.
Quizzes – General availability of Quiz Builder
Quiz Builder is a new work flow for adding, editing, reordering, and deleting quiz content in the Quizzes tool.
Quiz Builder saves instructors time by streamlining the screens and work flows for building and arranging quiz content. Instructors can add questions, sections and question pools, or import from the Question library. From a single interface, they can edit, delete and reorder questions. They can also review critical information such as question points and total points in the quiz; mandatory and bonus status and shuffling behavior.
You can use the new Quiz Builder experience by clicking Add/Edit Questions on the quiz Properties tab. The updated Add/Edit Questions screen provides the option to add, edit, reorder, delete, and move between sections using keyboard interaction in the new experience. The experience is accessible when using assistive technologies.
Quizzes – Restore quiz attempts in the Quiz Attempt log | New
Instructors can now restore deleted quiz attempts for learners from within a quiz using the new Quiz Attempt log. The New Quiz Attempt log tracks quiz attempt submissions per user, in both an overview and detailed set of logs.
The following actions are captured in the Overview:
Attempt Started
Attempt Submitted
Attempt Deleted
Attempt Restored
Figure: The overview tab on the Attempt Logs page
Video Assignments – Auto Analysis ™ tool | New
Auto Analysis™ is a tool for the Video Assignments integration. It automatically transcribes all uploaded Individual Project assignments and measures the speaking rate, speech clarity, and use of filler words. The transcribed data is compiled into a report with a score that instructors can use as a data point when assessing the assignment. Instructors can configure an Individual Project to show or hide overall delivery scores.
The Auto Analysis™ tool interface appears in all languages supported by Video Assignments. Note that Auto Analysis™ is designed for English-speaking video assignments only – it cannot transcribe or analyze non-English audio.
This automated reporting feature provides learners greater insight into their performance and opportunity to reflect, practice and improve their assignment before submission.
Figure: The report view by Auto Analysis™ provides feedback on the Clarity, Fillers, Speaking Rate and Overall Delivery score on Individual project assignments
Contact
If you have any questions about the updates, please contact CourseLink Support at:
As part of D2L’s ongoing commitment to design and develop against WC3 accessibility best practices, there are updates to our shared web components, such as fonts, buttons, menus, and input fields, to ensure they align with WCAG 2.1 standards. These changes include:
Text color change from #56A5C to #494C4E for our standard font styles, which is WCAG Level AAA compliant.
Resetting clients to “Normal” for their Org default size to ensure that default configurations have appropriate legibility. In addition, the configuration option for setting a font override at the Org level has been removed. Users can still change their personal font preferences using Account Settings and existing individual user overrides are retained.
Changes to the color, borders, hover and focus styles of other web components such as buttons, menus and input fields to ensure they comply with WCAG 2.1 color contrast requirements for non-text components.
These changes will improve readability and provide better ability to meet contrast compliance with non-text elements. It is D2L’s intention to be an industry leader in inclusive design, and these changes improve support for individuals with alternative fine motor, cognition, and low vision needs. These compliance changes contain no changes to workflows; all changes are look and feel only.
Widgets – Updates to language terms for Updates Widget and My Courses Widget
There are changes to lang term values to increase the clarity of the fields in the Updates Widget, the My Courses Widget, and Dropbox (displayed in Grades) to more clearly describe the capability of the feature.
In the Updates widget:
Show the number of new assignment submissions is now Show the number of unread submission files
New Assignment Submissions for {subject} is now New Assignment Submission Files for {subject}
In the My Courses Widget:
Unread Assignment Submission is now Unread Assignment Submission File
New Assignment Submissions is now New Assignment Submission Files
{number} Unread Assignment Submission is now {number} Unread Assignment Submission Files.
In Dropbox (displayed in Grades):
New submission – View {subject}’s submissions in a new window is now Unread submission file – View {subject}’s submissions in a new window
Navbar – Display user initials when there is no user profile image
If a user does not upload a user profile image in CourseLink, the navbar now displays the user’s initials in the user-profile badge. This change occurs for all roles and displays in the CourseLink navbar. Previously, if a profile image was not uploaded, a blank user image displayed.
Figure: User initials now display in the navbar
Surveys – Improvements to the learner experience
To improve the learner experience when taking a survey, the following updates are now available:
The primary button when completing a Survey has been updated from Save Responses to read as Submit Survey. Learners will continue to be prompted to confirm their submission when they submit the survey
Learners can still save survey answers manually. The Save button now reads as Save Responses
A new Back to Questions button is displayed when attempting to submit a survey with unanswered questions
While learners are taking an anonymous survey, an alert appears at the top of the survey indicating that the survey is anonymous and their user information will not be tied to their responses
Instructors Only
Dropbox – Edit category improvements
An Edit Categories option is now available in Dropbox to allow users to edit all categories from one page. You can add, modify, delete, and sort categories, as well as manage unused categories. If a category with folders is deleted, those folders are added to the No Category area.
Figure: Select Edit Categories from the Dropbox pageFigure: Manage all categories from one page
Dropbox – Eraser added to Annotations
An eraser has been added to the Annotations tool bar to allow evaluators to remove ink annotations made when evaluating Dropbox submissions.
Quick Eval – Improvements to Quick Eval
To improve the Quick Eval experience, the following updates are now available:
The Back to Quick Eval button directs users to the Quick Eval tool at the course level or My Home level, depending on where you launched it from
Different date formats are supported in the Submission Date column
Brightspace Insights – Assessment Quality Dashboard available in Insights Portal | New
There is a new embedded Assessment Quality Dashboard available in the Insights Portal. The goal of the Assessment Quality dashboard is to understand the quality of assessments using quiz and question statistics such as reliability, average grade, and correlation for all quiz and question types (except question pools). This dashboard includes a visualization that displays data for:
Question details
Question statistics data points
Quiz details
Quiz reliability data points
Quiz summary statistics data points
Figure: Assessment Quality card in CourseLink
Contact
If you have any questions about the updates, please contact CourseLink Support at:
Discussions – Save feedback in draft state when associated with rubrics | Updated
This feature provides instructors the option to save feedback as a draft on discussions associated with rubrics before publishing it to learners. Now, when instructors add feedback for discussions with rubrics, the Save Draft and Publish buttons display. This feature extends existing Save Draft and Publish options available in other assessment tools to discussions that are only associated with a rubric.
Note that if a discussion topic is associated with more than one rubric, then both the rubrics are now visible in the same pop-up dialogue. Previously, the rubrics had to be opened individually to complete evaluation. This change also benefits the use case where a discussion topic was evaluated using a learning objective.
Quick Eval – Improvements to Quick Eval list | Updated
To improve the Quick Eval experience, the following updates are now available:
A Draft icon displays in Quick Eval for discussion posts that have feedback in draft status.
Evaluators only see discussion posts and quiz attempts from learners in sections they are enrolled in. This matches the behavior of Dropbox submissions.
Quizzes – Arithmetic and significant figures questions round up from .5 | Updated
Arithmetic and Significant Figures questions in quizzes now round up from .5 by default. Previously these types of questions were rounded down from .5. Past quiz attempt scores are not affected by this change.
Rubrics – Consistent assessment experience for Discussions | New
When instructors use the updated rubrics grading experience with Discussions, the following workflows present the same assessment experience:
If a rubric is attached to a discussion that is not associated with a grade item
If a rubric is attached to a discussion and associated with a grade item, but the instructor clicks on the rubric name to assess instead of topic score
In these workflows, the same assessment screen displays, with the details, score, feedback, post information, and all rubrics available to grade.
Rubrics – Updated grading experience for rubrics with learning outcomes | New
When an instructor assess a rubric with associated learning outcomes, the updated grading experience now displays. This new experience displays in all locations where an instructor can assess a rubric with learning outcomes, for example, Competencies, Dropbox, Quizzes, Survey, Discussions, and Grade Items.
Below the rubric, a list of associated learning outcomes displays. The pyramid learning outcome symbol appears on rows to indicate which criteria the learning outcome is aligned to, or with the overall score, if it is aligned to the overall score. In User Progress, the display of the rubric assessments for competencies obeys the draft/publish state of the associated activity.
User Progress – Consistent tracking of Content progress across the Brightspace Platform | Updated
Previously, different tools and features within CourseLink used different logic for determining user progress through Content topics. Now, the logic has been consolidated so that it is calculated in the same way across the platform.
Content must meet three criteria to be included in the user progress:
The learner must have access to the content
The content must be marked with a completion method of Required Automatic or Required Manual
The content is not exempt
When content does not meet these conditions, the topics are not included in the calculation of the learner’s progress.
These changes affect the following areas of CourseLink:
Class Progress has a new Content Completed graph to represent completed content. The current content-related column is being renamed from Content to Content Visited.
The Content sections of the User Progress tool have several changes:
In the Content section of the Summary page and in the Content detail page, the Visits graph is being replaced by the Content Completed graph.
The progress on a module now reflects the number of completed and required topics in all levels below the module. Previously, the module progress reflected the number of completed topics immediately inside the module and the number of completed sub-modules. The new progress percentage and number is an actual reflection of how far the learner has progressed through the module.
The Topics Visited statistics on the left side of the page now include a denominator. The data represents the number of unique topics that the user visited. The denominator indicates the total number of topics that the student can access. In addition, the #Visits column is now renamed to Total Visits.
Brightspace Insights – Engagement Dashboard available in Insights Portal | New
There is a new embedded Engagement Dashboard available in the Insights Portal. This dashboard highlights areas where intervention might be required to guide learner engagement and performance. This dashboard includes 4 visualizations, including data for:
Course Access
Assignment Completion
Time the learner spent in the course content
Current final grades
Figure: The Engagement dashboard card in CourseLink
The Insights Portal can be access on the My Home page navigation bar or through the Course Admin link in courses.
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:
When instructors evaluate assignments and new or updated feedback is published, email instant notifications are available for learners.
QuickLinks – Create Quicklink to Rubrics
Instructors can now create Quicklinks directly to Rubrics with the Rubric is visible to Students setting enabled. In addition, users can also access Manage Rubrics at the bottom of the Quicklinks menu.
Contact
If you have any questions about the updates, please contact CourseLink Support at:
Instructors can now use the built-in annotation toolbar in Dropbox to provide contextual feedback with highlighting, free hand drawing, shapes, and associated commenting. This allows instructors to complete all their evaluation and feedback work directly in Dropbox, without the need to use any external tools or applications. Annotations remain editable until the feedback is published by the instructor. If instructors want to add additional feedback after publishing, they can update the annotations and re-publish them.
Figure: Document viewer toolbar with annotations button
You can review the features of the annotations tool in this D2L video:
Video: Features of the annotations tool
Dropbox – Improvements in Dropbox | Updated
This feature includes the following improvements:
Learners can now submit .cs file types as assignment submissions.
The Publish All Feedback on Anonymized Assignment Submission permission has been renamed to Publish All Feedback on Assignments. When the permission is turned on for the instructor role, instructors can publish draft assignment feedback in bulk by clicking Publish All Feedback.
Figure: Publish all feedback
Rubrics – Rubric icon criteria changed | Updated
The checked rubric icon now displays only when a rubric has been fully scored by the instructor. Previously, the checked rubric icon displayed for partially or fully scored rubrics. The unchecked rubric icon displays when a rubric is unscored, or partially scored to provide instructors and learners with more visual information about the status of the rubric.
Figure: Unscored or partially scored rubric
Figure: Scored rubric
Rubrics – Override criteria scores before selecting a level | Updated
Instructors can now enter a score for a criterion on a points-based rubric before clicking on a level within the rubric. Previously, an instructor could only manually enter a score after selecting a level.
Contact
If you have any questions about the updates, please contact CourseLink Support at:
