December 2023

Announcements – Copy announcements to other courses in published state | Updated

The ability to copy announcements to other courses was originally released for the Announcements tool in November.

As of this release, users with proper role permissions can publish copied announcements in other courses using either the Announcements tool or widget. This is done by selecting the Copy to Other Courses option from the announcement’s context menu. In the Copy Announcement window, there is a new check box option labeled Publish Announcement on Copy. When this box is selected, the announcement is directly published in the destination course or courses, skipping the draft stage. If the check box is not selected, the announcement copies as a draft into the destination course or courses.

Previously, copied announcements appeared in draft form and required publishing in the destination course to complete the process.

Figure: Select Publish Announcement on Copy to publish the copied announcement in the destination course or courses.

Assignments – Interface improvements for annotations | Updated

D2L is updating the Annotations tool in Assignments to be a web component, as part of our internal technical maintenance work. As a result, the user interface for the annotations viewer is improved to include the following changes:

• Error state includes updated dialog language.
• Document conversion state now has in-page messaging and a loading icon. Previously, there was a dialog displaying the messaging.
• General loading state now has a loading icon. Previously, there was no loading icon.
• Note annotations and their print format show annotations instead of just the annotations icon.

Figure: If an error occurs while loading the assignment file, an error dialog appears.

Figure: The document conversion state appears while the assignment file is loading.

Figure: When an assignment file is loading, the loading icon appears.

Figure: If you print or convert an annotated file, the annotation appears on the page.

Assignments and Discussions – Feedback field limitations for evaluation experiences | Updated

The Assignments and Discussions tools’ evaluation feedback field is changing from a 500,000 character limitation to a 300,000 character limitation, resulting in an updated dialog warning appearing when the user hits 300,000 characters.

The character limit update improves performance and security for evaluations. Previously, when a user would enter over 300,000 characters, the new information may not have been saved. This potential save failure resulted in the loss of anything entered between 300,000-500,000 characters.

Figure: The warning message for character limitations appears when a user enters over 300,000 characters.

Calendar – View quiz start and quiz end dates as separate events in Calendar | New

When an instructor adds a Start Date and End Date in Quizzes and then selects Add Availability Dates to Calendar, both dates are displayed in the Calendar tool as separate events. Previously, only one event displayed showing when the availability of that quiz ended.

Figure: From Quizzes, instructors must enter a Start Date and End Date, and then select Add Availability Dates to Calendar.

Figure: Users can see when a quiz is available as a separate event item from when it ends.

Course Import – Homepage Name values retained for comparison  | Updated

This release updates the course import workflow to include the name values of the active Homepage during export, provided that the Homepage:

• is shared from a parent; and
• is specifically chosen (not Default).

During import, Brightspace attempts to match the NAME of the Homepage to one shared to the destination course offering. The Homepage are set to the match if found; otherwise, the course offering is set to use the Default.

Note: Currently exported Brightspace packages do not contain Homepage and Navigation Bar information and use the Default during import.

While this information is exported automatically, users can choose to not set the active homepage to the one in the imported package by navigating to Advanced Options and un-selecting Homepage and Navigation Bar named in course package should be set as active.

Previously, information about the Homepage was not retained during import or export. This feature only imports and exports the name value of Homepages; it does not allow for the import or export of a Homepage.

Quizzes – Better identify bonus questions in a quiz | New

Quizzes now clearly mark bonus questions with Bonus, improving learner understanding and addressing a previous lack of indication in Quizzes.

Figure: Learners completing a bonus question now see Bonus.

Rubrics – Grades tool now uses Consistent Evaluation interface for assessments | Updated

When an evaluator assesses an assignment or discussion in the Grades tool, the rubric now uses the Consistent Evaluation interface whether there is work submitted for evaluation. This is consistent with the assessment experience for assignments or discussions in other areas of Brightspace.

Previously, evaluations for these types of activities used a pop-out Rubric grid when launching from the Grades tool. When users click the drop-down menu on the column header to enter grades, the rows with un-submitted work now use the Consistent Evaluation experience instead of the previous Rubric pop-out.

This feature addresses the following accessibility criteria:

• WCAG 2.1 Success Criterion 3.2.4 – Consistent Identification

Figure: The Assessment column contains icons to indicate that there are evaluations available to complete.

Figure: The grade item (in this example, a discussion submission) appears with the rubric collapsed on the right. Click the arrow beside the rubric name to expand the rubric assessment area.