June 2019

Assignments - Assignment list opt-in for learners | Updated

The ability to opt in to the new Assignment list has been split into two configuration variables; one for learners and one for instructors. This allows administrators to choose which roles can opt in to the new Assignment list. Previously, the d2l.Tools.Dropbox.UseAssignmentListOptIn configuration variable controlled the opt in ability for all users.

Chat - Using Preferred Names | New

Users without the Manage Chat Alias permission now see their preferred name reflected in the Chat tool. Previously, the preferred name was not available.

Users with the Manage Chat Alias permission enabled are not affected, and can independently update their chat alias, as usual.

This feature implements PIE item D5174.

Configuration Variable Browser - Intelligent Agents | New

The new d2l.Tools.IntelligentAgents.DisableAgentsOnCopy configuration variable now exists for Intelligent Agents, allowing administrators to copy the active/inactive status of the original Intelligent Agents when a course is copied (For example, when the configuration variable is enabled, copying Course A will also copy the active/inactive status of Course A's Intelligent Agents). This configuration will be turned on by default.

This feature implements PIE item D5190.

Data Hub - Awards Object Data Set | New

To increase the value of the Data Hub offering, this release includes the new Award Objects Brightspace Data Sets. This dataset provides details on all awards that have been created anywhere in the organization.

Data Hub - Changes to the Brightspace Data Sets major version| Updated

In Brightspace Platform 10.8.8, there was a change to the Users data set to no longer include the InternalEmail column. This field is a legacy column that exists in users' Brightspace Data Sets. Its contents are D2L-specific and of no value for external analysis. Users were provided with a 6 month window to manually update their Brightspace Data Set Version. The update removed the legacy column from the User Data Set. Now, the 6 month opt-in window is over and clients will be automatically updated to Brightspace Data Sets 3.x.

Data Hub – New columns available in data sets | Updated

To increase the value of the Data Hub offering, new columns are now available in the Awards Brightspace Data Sets:

• Criteria has been added to the Awards Issued data set
• Evidence has been added to the Awards Issued data set

Data Hub – New Quiz Section Objects Brightspace Data Set | New

To increase the value of the Data Hub offering, there is a new Brightspace Data Set providing information about quiz section objects. The Quiz Section Objects data set details all the sections and question pools that have been created in quizzes in the organization.

Discussions - Changed permission name | Updated

The existing permission Access to Discussions now appears as View Discussions, to better reflect the ability to view the tool. This change more clearly communicates what the permission does and makes it consistent with other tools in Brightspace Learning Environment. No functionality changes are associated with this permission name change and all user roles that have this permission will maintain their permission.

Discussions - Save feedback in draft state when associated with rubrics | Updated

This feature provides instructors the option to save feedback as a draft on discussions associated with rubrics before publishing it to learners. Now, when instructors add feedback for discussions with rubrics, the Save Draft and Publish buttons display. This feature extends existing Save Draft and Publish options available in other assessment tools to discussions that are only associated with a rubric.

Email - Custom header changes for forwarded email messages | New

To align with the DMARC mail standard, emails forwarded from D2L servers now appear to originate from the sender’s D2L domain account instead of the original sender account. Currently, forwarded emails from the original sender email address (external servers such as {user}@gmail.com), but sent over D2L servers, are often rejected due to an organization's Sender Policy Framework (SPF). With this change, D2L adjusted the mail headers used by the Brightspace platform when forwarding emails from a user account to the specified external address.

Email users should note the following:

• Email messages forwarded to the specified external address through the D2L email account come from the user’s D2L email address in the format of {username}@{D2LMailDomain}
• Email header changes show the new "From" address as the user’s D2L email address, and the "Reply-To" address as the original sender’s (external) email address.

Figure: Example of email headers on forwarded messages

This feature provides more consistent and successful email delivery on D2L servers.

New Content Experience – Improved End of Unit layout for missed activities | Updated

In the learner view of the New Content Experience, the End of Unit screen shows learners a list of activities that they have not completed. The missed activities section now displays the missed items as a hierarchical list, rather than a simple flat list.

Quick Eval – Improvements to Quick Eval list | Updated

To improve the Quick Eval experience, the following updates are now available:

• A Draft icon displays in Quick Eval for discussion posts that have feedback in draft status
• Evaluators only see discussion posts and quiz attempts from learners in sections they are enrolled in. This matches the behavior of assignment submissions.

Quizzes - Arithmetic and significant figures questions round up from .5 | Updated

Arithmetic and Significant Figures questions in quizzes now round up from .5 by default. Previously these types of questions were rounded down from .5. To opt-out of this change, administrators can turn off the d2l.Tools.Quizzes.RoundingLogicUpdate configuration variable. Past quiz attempt scores are not affected by this change.

This feature implements PIE item D1751.

Quizzes - New Quiz Authoring Experience Preview | New

The new quiz authoring experience preview contains the following additions:

• Users can delete questions from a quiz using the new quiz authoring experience
• Users can delete sections from a quiz using the new quiz authoring experience
• Users can delete question pools from a quiz using the new quiz authoring experience

It is currently not recommended to implement the new quiz authoring experience preview for general use in courses.

Quizzes - Change in permission name | Updated

The See the Quizzes tool permission is now called View Quizzes. This update clearly communicates what the permission does and makes it consistent with other tools in Brightspace Learning Environment.

Rubrics - Consistent assessment experience for Discussions | New

When instructors use the updated rubrics grading experience with Discussions, the following workflows present the same assessment experience:

• if a rubric is attached to a discussion that is not associated with a grade item
• if a rubric is attached to a discussion and associated with a grade item, but the instructor clicks on the rubric name to assess instead of topic score

In these workflows, the same assessment screen displays, with the details, score, feedback, post information, and all rubrics available to grade.

Rubrics - Updated grading experience for rubrics with learning objectives | New

When an instructor assess a rubric with associated learning objectives, the updated grading experience now displays. This new experience displays in all locations where an instructor can assess a rubric with learning objectives, for example, Competencies, Assignments, Quizzes, Survey, Discussions, and Grade Items.

Below the rubric, a list of associated learning objectives displays. The pyramid learning objective symbol appears on rows to indicate which criteria the learning objective is aligned to, or with the overall score, if it is aligned to the overall score. In User Progress, the display of the rubric assessments for competencies obeys the draft/publish state of the associated activity.

User Progress – Consistent tracking of Content progress across the Brightspace Platform | Updated

Previously, different tools and features within Brightspace Learning Environment used different logic for determining user progress through Content topics. Now, the logic has been consolidated so that it is calculated in the same way across the platform.

Content must meet three criteria to be included in the user progress:

• The learner must have access to the content
• The content must be marked with a completion method of Required Automatic or Required Manual
• The content is not exempt

When content does not meet these conditions, the topics are not included in the calculation of the learner’s progress.

These changes affect the following areas of the Brightspace Platform:

• The Learner Usage Advanced Data Set now calculates Content progress based on the criteria above.
• Class Progress has a new Content Completed graph to represent completed content. The current content-related column is being renamed from Content to Content Visited.
• The Content sections of the User Progress tool have several changes:
  • In the Content section of the Summary page and in the Content detail page, the Visits graph is being replaced by the Content Completed graph.
  • The progress on a module now reflects the number of completed and required topics in all levels below the module. Previously, the module progress reflected the number of completed topics immediately inside the module and the number of completed sub-modules. The new progress percentage and number is an actual reflection of how far the learner has progressed through the module.
  • The Topics Visited statistics on the left side of the page now include a denominator. The data represents the number of unique topics that the user visited. The denominator indicates the total number of topics that the student can access. In addition, the #Visits column is now renamed to Total Visits.
• The Valence APIs now have two new bulk routes. For more information about these, see the Brightspace Developer Platform documentation.