This month’s Brightspace release highlights include:
- Accommodations – Improvements in Classlist, Quizzes, User Purge, and User Progress
- Assignments – New Assignment Evaluation Experience
- Action menu for group assignments
- Anonymous marking
- Context menu on the Evaluation screen
- Single file submissions open directly when evaluator clicks into the evaluation
- Brightspace Editor – replaces the HTML editor
- the default editor in new Assignment Creation Experience and new Assignment Evaluation Experience
- the new editor will be released in other tools at a later date (Quiz Builder, Activity Feed, New Rubrics)
- Classlist – search filter when adding existing users (update)
- Content – URL topics open as External Resource by default (update)
- Quizzes – Improvements to Special Access functionality (update)
Please note that not all changes in the full platform release notes apply to UVic’s instance of Brightspace.
Brightspace Editor
The new editor is being phased in to Brightspace. The editor will be permanently changed in the August 2021 update, and will then be the only editor available. Changes to the editor make it easier to use and adds some new features. The editor will eventually be the same in all areas of Brightspace, making editing a more consistent experience. If you are using the new assignment experience (creation and evaluation), the new editor will appear by default already.
Changes to the 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.
Some features have been removed:
- Spell check functionality
- Cut/paste buttons (cut/paste functinoality still available through keyboard shortcuts)
Current Editor:
New Editor:
Accommodations
There are improvements for instructors in terms of setting up and confirming accommodations in the Classlist and Quiz Tool. There are also improvements for learners so that they can see their own course level accommodations from Classlist and Class Progress.
We have more information on how to set up course level accommodations from the Classlist in Teach Anywhere.
Improvements in Classlist for Instructors
- These improvements only apply when course level accommodations are set up from the Classlist. These improvements do not apply if accommodations are set up using Special Access.
- An icon will appear next to learners’ names in the Classlist to indicate which learners have accommodations set up.
- Instructors can use Search Options to filter the Classlist for Users with Accommodations.
- Instructors can Print or Email a list of users with accommodations after filtering for Users with Accommodations.
- Admins and Instructors can view and edit course level accommodations by selecting the Edit Accommodations option from the learner context menu in Classlist. Only admins and instructors will see the confirmation icon from the Classlist after setting up an accommodation.
Improvements in Classlist, Class Progress and Quizzes for Learners
These improvements only apply when course level accommodations are set up from the Classlist. These improvements do not apply if accommodations are set up using Special Access.
- An icon will appear next to a learner’s own name in the Classlist to indicate that a course level accommodation has been set up for them. To view accommodation details, learners can select My Accommodations from their learner context menu.
- An icon will appear next to Quizzes in Class Progress to indicate that a course level accommodation has been set up for them. Learners cannot see the details of the accommodation from Class Progress.
- When starting a quiz, on the Quiz Details page before starting, an icon will appear next to a learner’s time allowance to indicate that a time limit accommodation has been applied.
- Tip: Instructors can use the demo student in their course to set up simulated accommodations and see what learners will see.
Improvements in Quiz Special Access for Instructors
Instructors can now set up extended time accommodations using a multiplier of the original exam time (e.g. 1.5x), or extra time (e.g. an extra 30 minutes) or, like before, choosing a new time limit (e.g. 90 minutes instead of 60 minutes).
Important considerations for Special Access
- Special Access is a quiz-specific manual setting that does not dynamically re-calculate extra time for learners if an instructor changes the overall duration of the quiz. For this reason, we recommend that instructors set up course level accommodations from the Classlist for students registered with the CAL.
- Special Access can overwrite a course level accommodation for any learner on a quiz-by-quiz basis. When you overwrite an accommodation and click Save, a warning message describing the impact of overwriting the accommodation appears. Previously, this warning appeared at the top of the Quiz special access screen. Now, it appears when clicking Save.
Improvements in User Purge and User Progress
- User purge now includes user accommodations.
- The accommodations icon now appears in the User Progress tool alongside the Quiz domain if the learner has a quiz accommodation in that course
Assignments
Action menu for group assignments in New Assignment Evaluation Experience
The New Assignment Evaluation Experience now includes a drop-down menu from the group name. This menu contains links to:
- Email the group (opens in a new window)
- See all group members
- Instant message the group (opens in a new window)
Anonymous marking in the New Assignment Evaluation Experience
This feature makes anonymous marking fully supported in the New Assignment Evaluation Experience. When using Anonymous marking, the Anonymous User number appears in place of the username, just as it appeared in the legacy Assignments experience. In addition, the following features of anonymous marking remain the same:
- No profile card appears for anonymous users
- Usernames become visible once any learner’s evaluation is published
- Group names are always visible even when using anonymous marking
- Rubrics do not include the user’s name
Anonymous marking uses Publish All instead of the Publish button. If no feedback for anonymous users has yet been published, the Publish button is disabled and a message appears to direct users to the Publish All button. If any user feedback has been published, all Publish buttons become automatically enabled.
Context menu on the Evaluation screen in the New Assignment Evaluation Experience
A new context menu appears in the side panel of the updated assignment evaluation screen. This menu links to the following:
- Edit Activity (opens assignment page in new tab). This option appears for users who have the See and Manage Assignment Submission Folders permission.
- Special Access Dates (opens the Edit Activity screen so users can update Special Access rules). This option requires the Set Special Access on Assignment Submission Folders permission.
Note: The context menu will not appear if the user does not have the required permissions to access these links.
Content
URL topics now Open as External Resource by default
Previously, when a user created a new URL Content type, the Open as External Resource option was not selected by default. In some cases, this caused a Cross-Origin resource sharing (CORS) error to appear when viewing the content topics. Now, the URL Content type, such as a Google Team Drive Public link, has the Open as External Resource check box selected by default. Users can choose to deliberately remove the Open as External Resource option if necessary. If it is deselected, users are advised that D2L recommends opening links in a new window to prevent issues viewing the resource before saving.
When viewing a content topic that is a URL, the button to open the resource in a new window always appears so that if the content cannot load in an embedded frame, a user can choose to open the content in a new window.
Note: This applies to the classic Content experience only.
Classlist
Search filter when adding existing users
When enrolling users in a course, an administrator or instructor can now deselect the Include users already enrolled in org unit check box to set their search filter to filter out users already enrolled in the course.
