April 2021 Updates

April's Updates include the following areas:

Accommodations

Improvements in Classlist, Quizzes, User Purge, and User Progress

The following improvements have been made in the Classlist, Quizzes, User Purge, and User Progress tools:

Improvements in Classlist for Instructors:

An icon now appears next to the learner’s name in the Classlist to indicate that the learner has an accommodation.
Instructors can filter the Classlist by Accommodations.
If there are no accommodations granted to a learner, the View accommodations menu option from the learner context menu in the Classlist does not appear. If the instructor role has the Add/Edit Accommodations permission, the Edit Accommodations menu option appears instead.
Instructors can also Print or Email a list of users with accommodations by adding the filter to those pages.

Improvements in Classlist for Learners:

An icon appears next to learners’ own names to indicate they have an accommodation. To view accommodation details, learners can click My Accommodations from their learner context menu.
When commencing a quiz, the accommodation icon appears next to a learner’s quiz time to indicate that their accommodation has been applied. If a learner’s time accommodation has been overridden by a quiz-specific special access, this icon does not appear.

Improvements in Quizzes for Instructors:

Instructors can now grant learners special access in terms of quiz time multipliers (for example, 1.5x quiz time) or +minutes (for example, an additional 30 minutes). Refer to the Quizzes – Improvements to Special Access functionality | Updated release note for more information.
Quiz-specific special access can overwrite an accommodation for any user on a quiz-by-quiz basis. When you overwrite an accommodation and then click Save, a warning describing the impact of overwriting the accommodation appears. Previously, this warning appeared at the top of the Quiz special access screen. Now, it appears on 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

Figure: The User Progress screen (Classlist>User drop-down menu > User Progress)

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)

Figure: The drop-down action menu appears from the Group Name on the File Submission page in Assignments

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.

Figure: Anonymous marking in Assignments displays learners as Anonymous User [#] instead of by username.

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.

Figure: The new context menu appears when grading a submission in the New Assignment Evaluation Experience

Single file submissions open directly
in the New Assignment Evaluation Experience

In the New Assignment Evaluation Experience, when a learner has submitted only one file, the evaluator no longer has to click into the evaluation and then into the file. The file opens directly for the evaluator, saving a click during the evaluation process. Late submission information continues to display above the file, as it currently does.

Brightspace Editor

Replaces the HTML Editor

The new Brightspace Editor replaces the previous HTML Editor as the default HTML Editor in the:

New Assignment Creation Experience
New Assignment Evaluation Experience

The new Editor will be released in the following tools at a later date for:

Quiz Builder
Activity Feed
New Rubrics

Figure: The previous HTML Editor

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.

The list below outlines what is not included in the Editor:

Spell check functionality. D2L recommends using your browser spell check functionality.
Cut/Paste functionality. D2L recommends using your browser hot keys/menus for this functionality.

Brightspace Portfolio

Improved workflow for submitting and approving evidence

[Update]

This feature was originally released for Brightspace Portfolio for iOS in the February 2021/20.21.2 release. To provide a more intuitive workflow for submitting and approving evidence in Brightspace Portfolio, the Brightspace Portfolio app for Android now includes a Recent Evidence list. From this list, learners can easily view captured evidence that is uploading, awaiting approval by an instructor, and approved (added to the learner's portfolio). Previously, there was no ability to see the status of submitted evidence, confusing some learners whose evidence did not immediately appear in their portfolios.

From the capture screen in the Brightspace Portfolio app, a new Recent Evidence icon displays. Tapping the icon displays the Recent Evidence list. Each item includes the title of the evidence, the date it was uploaded, and the status of the upload. Tapping Back takes the learner back to the capture screen.

Figure: The Recent Evidence icon from the capture screen in Brightspace Portfolio for Android in At Home mode

Figure: The Recent Evidence icon from the capture screen in Brightspace Portfolio for Android in My Device mode

Figure: The Recent Evidence list, displaying evidence that is Uploading, Awaiting Approval, and Approved

Share evidence with instructors

To offer learners a more personalized workflow for submitting evidence, learners can now choose when to share evidence with instructors. When this workflow is enabled, submitted evidence immediately appears in learner portfolios (no approval process). Instructors do not see evidence until learners explicitly share it with them. This new workflow is ideal for learners in a higher education or corporate learning environment where they may have work in progress that is not ready to share with instructors. For instructors, this allows them to only see evidence that is carefully curated by the learner for review, feedback, and assessment. Previously, submitted evidence was automatically shared with instructors and required approval before the evidence displayed in portfolios.

When the new workflow is enabled, evidence submitted by learners from the Brightspace Portfolio app or Portfolio tool immediately appears in learner portfolios (no approval process). From the Portfolio tool, learners then click the evidence tile to view the evidence details, which displays a new Instructor Sharing toggle. Clicking the toggle from Not Shared to Shared authorizes the instructor to view the evidence, provide feedback or attach rubrics/outcomes to the evidence.

Figure: The new Instructor Sharing toggle in evidence details

After sharing the evidence with an instructor and navigating back to the main portfolio page, the evidence tile displays a
new Shared with Instructors Shared with Instructors icon that indicates the evidence is now shared with instructors.

Figure: The new Shared with Instructors icon that indicates the evidence is shared with instructors

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.

Figure: The Add Existing Users page prior to the additional search filter

Figure: The Add Existing Users page with the new Enrollment search filter

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.

Grades

Mastery View calculation improvements

Mastery View was originally released for the Grades tool in December 2020/20.20.12. To increase the value of the Mastery View of the Grades tool in Brightspace Learning Environment, there have been improvements to the calculation functionality:

When you switch to a calculation method, but do not save the new method, you can return to the original calculation method, and restore the original values of the Choose Activities to use in the calculation field. If you switch to a new calculation method and save the new method, if you return to the original calculation method, the Choose Activities to use in the Calculation field uses the default values.
When evidence is deleted in Portfolio, the Mastery View determines whether to use the evidence in the learner’s overall achievement calculations according to the following criteria:
- If the evidence is soft-deleted (meaning it was deleted by a learner or instructor but can be restored by an instructor from the Instructor View), then the evidence is included in the achievement calculations.
- If the evidence is hard-deleted (meaning it was permanently deleted and cannot be restored), then the evidence is not included in the achievement calculations.

Quizzes

Improvements to Special Access functionality

This feature is in line with the improvements made to the Quizzes tool as listed in the Accommodations – Improvements in Classlist, Quizzes, User Purge, and User Progress | New feature. However, it is not dependent on granting any accommodations permissions, and is visible to any user with permission to Add Special Access.

Instructors can now grant learners special access in terms of quiz time multipliers (for example, 1.5x quiz time) or +minutes (for example, an additional 30 minutes). For example, if an instructor has a 30-minute quiz and using the Special Access page, grants three learners 1.5x the quiz time, their updated quiz time of 45 minutes displays. Instructors no longer have to manually calculate the updated quiz time.

Note: After extending the learners quiz time by way of quiz time multipliers or +minutes on the Special Access page, if an instructor updates the duration of the quiz, the learner’s quiz time on the Special Access page does not dynamically update at this time.

Figure: The Add Special Access screen before the updated quiz time functionality

Figure: The Add Special Access screen with the updated Timing area

Secure and consistent editing experience

For a more secure and consistent editing experience in Brightspace, creating any of the following question types now automatically filters out JavaScript and non-standard HTML: Likert, Ordering, Matching, Fill in the Blanks, Short Answer, Multi-Short Answer, Arithmetic, and Significant Figures. For existing questions containing JavaScript and non-standard HTML, the questions continue to display as intended until an instructor edits and saves the questions, which removes the JavaScript and non-standard HTML. Previously, instructors could add JavaScript or non-standard HTML to question types in order to create dynamic content for quizzes.

Rubrics

Navigation Accessibility Improvements

This feature was originally released for the Rubrics tool in June 2020/20.20.6 and updated in July 2020/20.20.7 and March 2021/20.21.3. To increase the value of the rubric tool in Brightspace Learning Environment, there have been accessibility improvements to the rubric creation and evaluation workflows:

Screen readers now inform users of controls for adding feedback to criteria when reading the criteria group table. The table summary now includes the following text: This table lists criteria and criteria group names in the first column. The first-row lists level names and includes scores if the rubric uses a numeric scoring method. You can give feedback on each criterion by tabbing to the add feedback buttons in the table.
When a score field has the focus, the screen reader now informs the user if it is a criterion score or a total score based on the field label. It also indicates which criterion the score is associated with and what action the user can take. For example: 2/4, score of Criterion 1. Press Enter to override the criterion score.
Previously, the Total Score and Criterion Score fields did not clearly indicate whether the score is a manual override. The override information appeared in a tooltip that was not visible to assistive technology including screen readers; an asterisk was the only differentiator. Now, the screen reader can read the tooltip content when the Total Score or Criterion Score fields have the focus.
Previously, when the Total Score was a manual override, the Clear Override button appeared; however, when Criterion Score was a manual override, the Clear Override button only appeared if the focus was on the score. Now, Clear Override appears when either the Total Score or the Criterion Score is a manual override, regardless of where the focus is.
To improve usability with assistive technology, the Add Feedback button indicates to screen readers the criterion to which the feedback is associated. The Clear Feedback button also indicates the associated criterion.
When the keyboard focus moves to the default rubric group or new criteria group, the screen reader now tells users the number of rubric levels and criteria in the group.
Previously, users who used keyboard-only navigation and screen readers were not able to delete aligned outcomes. Now, when a user navigates to the Browse Standards button and focuses on an outcome tag, the screen reader reads the tag content and provides guidance that they can press Delete to remove the aligned outcome
Previously, the screen reader only read the content of the level name and points fields and indicated that it was a text field. There was no indication of the significance of the field. Now, when the level name text field has the focus, screen readers indicate that the field is for editing the name of a specific level. When the points text field has the focus, the screen reader indicates that the field is for editing the points of a specific level.

As of the 20.21.4 release of Brightspace.