What’s New with D2L Brightspace?

Quiz Exit Dialogs

Users who are attempting to exit an in-progress Quiz attempt will now receive a contextual warning in the form of a pop-up dialog box. The pop-up dialog-box will change dependent on quiz settings, and provide users with important information regarding their ability to return to the Quiz. 

Rubrics with Carleton Logo

Rubrics that are printed or downloaded as a PDF in Brightspace now prominently feature a Carleton University logo to indicate more explicitly the originating institution.

Preferred Language Settings Update

You can now easily access preferred language settings in Brightspace via the personal menu (your name). Previously, this setting was located under “Account Settings”. By default, your preferred language is set to English (United States).

Copy “One-Time Run” Intelligent Agent Schedules

Instructors can now copy, export, and import “One-Time Run” intelligent agents and their scheduled dates. Previously, the run date was removed when agents with a “One-Time Run” scheduling frequency were copied to another course. The run date now copies over automatically, allowing for a time-saving and streamlined workflow.

For more information about Intelligent Agents, see Setting Up Intelligent Agents.

Track Rubric Edits with Enhanced Visual Cues

You can easily track your changes while editing locked rubrics with new visual cues. When an instructor edits a rubric that has already been used for grading, the changes are now highlighted and indicated with the word “Edited”. This makes it easier to view where edits have been made and if there are any unsaved changes. Once the changes are saved, the edit indications are no longer visible.

For more information about editing locked rubrics, see Editing Rubrics.

“View Section” in Groups Removed for Students

Students are no longer able to view their Section(s) in the Groups tool. This prevents them from being able to see the names of other students enrolled in their Section and to email them. Students can still see and email other members of Groups they are enrolled in.

Preview Equations in Editor

You can now preview mathematical and statistical equations directly within the Brightspace Editor. This allows you to view how the formatting will appear to students without having to select the “preview” function or publish the text first. Please note that this feature is not yet available in the Quizzes tool.

To insert an equation into the editor, click the Equations icon in the toolbar and select any of the following options from the drop-down menu: MathML, LaTex, Graphical, or Chemistry.

For more information on inserting equations into the Brightspace editor, see Using the Brightspace Editor.

New “Replies Only” Release Condition for Discussions

Instructors can now select “Replies Only” as a condition detail when creating a “posts authored in topic” release condition for a discussion. When this option is selected, you can specify the number of replies a student is required to post within a certain Discussion Topic in order to fulfill the condition to unlock the content or activity.

For instructions on how to create a release condition, see Creating Release Conditions.

Manually Saving Rubric Changes

When grading using a rubric, you will now be prompted to Save or Discard your changes to the rubric if you attempt to navigate away from the evaluation page without saving your progress. Selecting Discard will erase any changes made to the rubric during that session and return it to the state when the evaluation was last saved as a draft or published.

For more information on using rubrics for assessment, see Creating Rubrics.