Updated : Tue 07/20/21 Category : D2L

(This list is not all-inclusive. It only shows those changes that will impact faculty the most. The date the updates will take place changes from month to month. You can expect the following updates to be in place by the end of the month.)

Assignments – Add categories in the New Assignment Creation Experience

This feature builds on the Assignments – Brightspace Editor in the new Assignment Creation Experience | New feature that was released in April 2021/20.21.4.

The new assignment creation experience supports the alignment of assignments to categories. This feature is turned off by default. When it is enabled, instructors can add new or existing assignment categories when creating or editing a new assignment.

The new assignment creation experience with the ability to align assignments to categories
The new assignment creation experience with the ability to align assignments to categories

Brightspace Platform – New Brightspace External Resource icon

To differentiate from the similar generic download icon, the external resource icon is now changing to a building block icon. This new icon better represents the building block approach of external resource functionality.  

The new icon now appears in the following locations:  

  • External Learning Tools under Admin Tools (Administrators) 
  • External Learning Tools under the Add Existing options of the Classic Content tool and the Lessons tool (Instructors) 
  • External Learning Tools in the Classic Content Experience and the New Learner Content Experience (Learners) Feature description
The new external resource functionality icon
The new external resource functionality icon

Grades – Add categories for text, calculated, and formula grade items

This feature enables you to better organize your grade book by adding categories to text, calculated, and formula grade items. This improved organization does not impact the calculation of the category these grade items are in. The totals in these categories do not contribute to the final grade.

You can import, export, and copy category values for these grade item types. In addition, you can also access these values using API and view them in data sets (CategoryId). There is no dataset update as the value was previously available but set to Null for these grade item types.

Quizzes – Quiz Introduction field removed

To reduce redundancy in the Quizzes tool, the Introduction field is removed. When an instructor edits a quiz, the Introduction field is no longer available.

If any quiz previously had text in the Introduction field, on clicking Edit, the text is automatically appended to the Description field. A message appears indicating that these two fields have been merged. Instructors can review the modified quiz description prior to saving the quiz.

The Edit Quiz page with the message that appears when you edit a quiz containing an introduction
The Edit Quiz page with the message that appears when you edit a quiz containing an introduction

 

 

Note: Check the visibility of the Description field prior to saving the quiz.

When importing a course using Import/Export/Copy Components, text in the quiz Introduction field automatically appends to the quiz Description field.

When viewing a quiz topic in the Classic Content tool, the text in the Introduction field now appears under the Instructions header.

A view of a quiz in the Classic Content tool - text in the Introduction field will appear under the Instructors header
A view of a quiz in the Classic Content tool - text in the Introduction field will appear under the Instructors header

Quizzes – Relocation of the Reports Setup functionality

The Report Setup tab on the Edit Quiz page is now available on the context menu of a quiz and reads as Setup Reports.

The Reports option available on the quiz context menu is also updated and reads as View Reports.

The New Quiz page with the Reports Setup tab before the update
The New Quiz page with the Reports Setup tab before the update

 

The Quiz context menu before the update
The Quiz context menu before the update
The updated quiz context menu with the Setup Reports and View Reports options
The updated quiz context menu with the Setup Reports and View Reports options

Quizzes - Set grace period time to 0 minutes

When setting an enforced time limit for a quiz, instructors can now set the grace period for a quiz to 0 minutes, in place of the default grace period setting of 5 minutes. Entering a 0 minute grace period flags the quiz attempt as exceeded immediately when the quiz time limit is reached by the learner. Quiz attempt logs display when the learner attempt exceeds the regular time limit, grace period time limit or any extended time limit. Grace period of 0 minutes can be set for quizzes with special access restrictions as well.  

Note that setting a grace period can support learner accessibility requirements and other situations, such as slow internet connections when completing quizzes.

Enter 0 in the Grace Period field that appears with the Enforced Time Limit option for a quiz
Enter 0 in the Grace Period field that appears with the Enforced Time Limit option for a quiz

Quizzes - Status and workflow changes for quizzes with ungraded questions

To support instructors who need to manually score questions within quizzes, the following quiz status and quiz grading workflow updates are available: 

  • For quizzes that contain questions that need to be manually scored (such as Written Response questions) AND that have the "Allow attempt to be set as graded immediately upon completion" option disabled, a new Pending Evaluation status appears beside the quiz attempt on the Grade Quiz page.
  • While evaluating a quiz attempt with unevaluated questions, the instructor can now select Pending evaluations in the Question View drop-down menu to filter for only the questions that require manual evaluation. 
  • Instructors can now filter the Users tab by status. The available filters are: Published, Saved as draft, Pending evaluation and an empty status. The empty status denotes a quiz with auto-scored questions, where all questions are evaluated and there is no question evaluation pending. 
The updated quiz status filters appear on the Attempts tab
The updated quiz status filters appear on the Attempts tab
The new Pending Evaluation filter appears in the Question View drop-down menu to easily locate questions requiring manual evaluation by the instructor
The new Pending Evaluation filter appears in the Question View drop-down menu to easily locate questions requiring manual evaluation by the instructor

 


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