Continuous Delivery Updates for July 2019

Students and Instructors

Accessibility – Compliance with WCAG 2.1

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.

User initials now display in the navbar
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.

Select Edit Categories from the Dropbox page
Figure: Select Edit Categories from the Dropbox page
Manage all categories from one page
Figure: 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
Assessment Quality card in CourseLink
Figure: Assessment Quality card in CourseLink

Contact

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

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

Continuous Delivery Updates for June 2019

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Instructors Only

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:

  • 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
The Engagement dashboard card in CourseLink
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:

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

Continuous Delivery Updates for May 2019

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Instructors Only

Dropbox – Annotate in full screen

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.

Page rotation options
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
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. 

Evaluator view of the Quick Eval list
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:

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



Continuous Delivery Updates for April 2019

Instructors Only

Dropbox – Notification Improvements

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:

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

Continuous Delivery Updates for March 2019

Instructors Only

Dropbox – Annotate learner submissions | New

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.

Document viewer toolbar with annotations button.
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.
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.

Unscored or partially scored rubric icon
Figure: Unscored or partially scored rubric
Scored rubric icon
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:

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