What’s New with D2L Brightspace?

Discussions Creation Experience 

The discussions creation interface has been updated to align with the new quiz creation experience. The update introduces collapsible menus in place of tabs, making it easier to navigate and manage discussion settings. Pulldown menus for Availability Dates & Conditions, Posts & Completion, and Evaluation & Feedback replace the legacy tab menus.

For more information on Discussions, visit the Discussions support page. 

Synchronous Quizzing 

A Synchronous quiz option has been added to the quiz creation experience in Brightspace. Synchronous quizzes have the same start date and quiz timer for all learners. In Synchronous quizzes the timer will start and end at the same time for all learners, which ensures that learners take the quiz simultaneously. The synchronous option is available in the Timer settings of the quiz creation page. 

For more information on the Synchronous quiz options, visit the Creating Quizzes Support page. 

Announcement Pinning 

It is now possible to Pin announcements so that they appear at the top of the announcement widget or the top of the announcements tool page. Pinning announcements helps ensure that important information remains visible to learners. Like pinned discussions and courses, pinned announcements are indicated by a pin icon. 

The New Quiz Creation Experience

The new update introduces collapsible menus in place of tabs, making it easier to navigate and manage quiz settings. Timing settings have been modified, allowing instructors to choose whether to automatically submit a learner’s attempt when time runs out or not enforce a time limit at all.

New pulldown menus replace the legacy tab menus. All the same functions that were in the legacy quiz creation experience can be found in the new quiz creation experience; however, some of these functions have been moved. For example, some of the functions found in the legacy Assessment tab menu can now be found in the new Evaluation & Feedback pulldown menu.

Instructors can customize what learners see after completing a quiz, such as showing no questions or displaying incorrect questions with correct answers. Additional submission views can be added through the Customize Quiz Results Display button.

Adding questions to quizzes follows a similar process to the legacy quiz creation experience, but is now located below the quiz description. Header and footer settings are now found under the Timing & Display section.

Learners can now choose to hide the quiz timer and view the quiz description while taking the quiz using the Quiz Information button.

For more information on the New Quiz Creation Experience, visit the New Quiz Creation Experience support page.

Discussions

To align with the date range feature in the Assignments tool, availability date ranges have been changed in Discussions. Now, when users hover their cursor over an availability date range, a window will appear displaying more details like the time the discussion opens, closes, and other restrictions.

For more information on Discussions, visit the Discussions support page.

New Tools 

TLS is proud to share that 4 exciting new tools are available for Brightspace inside the course navbar.

• Scheduler Tool The Scheduler tool allows Brightspace users to schedule time slots that students can sign up for. Use the scheduler to set up either individual or group time slots, and keep track of which students have signed up for each time. The scheduler can be used to organize events during regular class time (group or individual presentation times), as well as outside of class time. Examples of use might include signing up for office hours or for group presentation time slots.
  For more information on the Scheduler tool, visit the Scheduler Tool support page. 
• Bulk Assignment Renamer The Bulk Assignment Renamer will change the names of folders on downloaded student assignments so that they are easier to organize by student name. When re-uploading assignments, this tool will also return the folders into the format that is compatible with Brightspace.
• Embed Link Creator The Embed Link Creator converts Kaltura Mediaspace links into embeddable URLs that are more widely compatible with tools, such as EonXR and H5P.
• Quiz-to-Text Converter The Quiz-to-Text converter can change Brightspace Quiz Bank files into a text file format for easier printing and/or for pen and paper quizzes.

Assignment due date preview 

On the Assignments page, the due date preview below each assignment now displays a limited version of the information, with the full details presented as a pop-up upon hovering over the information. The due date remains visible on the Assignments page, with the start and end dates contained in the hover pop-up.

Old Community site retired 

The D2L Brightspace Community site has been updated with a new URL and new website. D2L has now retired its legacy community site, and users are directed to go to the new community site to find resources, training materials, upcoming events, instructions, and ideas for using Brightspace.

Visit the new Brightspace Community to see the new site and explore all it has to offer!

D2L has launched a new Brightspace Community site. The Brightspace Community is a web space where Brightspace users can find resources, training materials, upcoming events, instructions, and ideas for using Brightspace. Connect with D2L by submitting your feedback on the platform and ideas for improvements. Read how others are using Brightspace on the community forums and vote on new features you’d like to see in the Product Idea Exchange (PIE).

Visit the Brightspace Community to see the new site and explore all it has to offer!

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.