Brightspace Learning Environment

Assignments - Streamlined access to inline feedback | New

To streamline access to assignment feedback, learners can now immediately access inline feedback from User Progress, Grades, and Assignments. From these tools, the View Inline Feedback link takes the learner directly to the annotations view (or Turnitin viewer, if that is the tool used to provide feedback). The inline feedback also includes a link to the file for the assignment, so learners know which document contains the feedback. Previously, the View Inline Feedback link took the learner to the Assignment feedback summary page, where they had to click a second link to view the feedback.

This feature implements PIE item D5351.

Figure: Class Progress view for instructors and learners displaying the View Inline Feedback link, which now opens directly in the annotation view

Figure: Grades view for learners displaying the View Inline Feedback link, which now opens directly in the annotation view

Figure: Assignments view for learners displaying the View Inline Feedback link, which now opens directly in the annotation view

Brightspace Learning Environment - EXIF data warning appears when uploading images | New

In some instances, when users upload .jpg files in any file upload area across Brightspace Learning Environment, an EXIF (exchangeable image file) data warning appears informing the user that the file may contain geolocation data.

Brightspace Learning Environment – Improvements to Security using a WAF | New

To improve cloud environment security, D2L is proactively blocking suspicious requests using a Web App Firewall (WAF).

The WAF checks all traffic coming in to the Brightspace cloud environment to match rules. Traffic that matches its rules, which indicate that the traffic is a potential security concern, will not be allowed into the servers. This change helps ensure that suspicious traffic does not reach your environment, further reducing the likelihood of an infrastructure-affecting security incident.

The WAF checks if the traffic is coming from a site that may be a potential security concern and if the traffic is coming from outside of a client’s region.

The second check is in place to avoid the possibility of blocking all traffic from a client in the unlikely event that a customer is negatively impacted by the WAF.

Administrators may receive inquiries from users blocked by the WAF. D2L recommends troubleshooting the user’s issue to determine if they are using a proxy or a virtual private network (VPN). If this is not the case, reach out to D2L to determine if the WAF is blocking legitimate traffic.

Brightspace Pulse - Add deep links in custom apps to Pulse | New

To promote Brightspace Pulse usage in organizations, developers can now add a deep link in a custom app to Brightspace Pulse. When a user clicks the deep link in a custom app for the first time, the Brightspace Pulse app launches on their device, prompting them to log in to the app. If the user does not have Brightspace Pulse installed, they are taken to the Brightspace Pulse app site, prompting them to install the app.

Brightspace Wiggio - End of life | Removed

Effective February 2020, Brightspace Wiggio is no longer available to users. Refer to Intent to End of Life Notice For: Wiggio for additional information, as well as steps to export content from Wiggio and disable the LTI integration in Brightspace Learning Environment.

Course Administration - Course Reset | New

Course Reset is a new tool that enables a course administrator to reset a course back to an empty shell. Course Reset permanently deletes course content, activities, associated files, user grades, user progress records, and interaction data from the course in a single bulk process. Users can optionally choose to include course groups, and/or course widgets, navbars, and homepages as part of the course reset process, or leave them in the course.

The Course Reset process does not affect user enrollments, sections and section enrollment, course associations, course paths associated to the course, user progress in linked SCORM objects, LOR objectsin Brightspace Learning Repository, portfolio objects saved to a users' Portfolio or ePortfolio, ePortfolio sharing groups or forms, email/instant messages sent to or from users in the course, LTI tool provider information, and Activity Feed posts.

Course Reset permanently deletes the course data and it will not appear in any reporting or data sets after the course reset process is complete. After performing a course reset, an Audit Log maintains a record of the course reset action, including the date and time of the course reset, the data that was selected for deletion, the user who performed the course reset, and any errors that occur during the course reset process.

This feature implements PIE item D198.

Data Hub – End of Adoption Period for Brightspace Data Sets Version 4 | Updated

As of the February 2020 release, the 6-month adoption period for Brightspace Data Sets Version 4 has ended, and this is now the default version. This release will migrate all Data Hub clients from version 3 to version 4 if they haven't previously opted in.

For a full description of features that are included in Version 4, refer to the Brightspace Platform September 2019/20.19.9 Release Notes.

Grades – Tab delimited import into Gradebook | New

Users can now import tab separated value (.tsv) files into Gradebook. Previously, users could only import comma delimited files into Gradebook, which created a usability issue in some international regions.

This feature implements PIE item D5385.

Learning Paths and My Learning widget - General availability | New

Learning Paths is a new tool that allows organizations to group multiple courses into a sequential, easy-to-follow program to achieve specific learning goals for professional development and continuing education. Assigning a learner to learning paths automatically enrolls the learner in every course within the learning path and provides a simple interface that visualizes the learner's progress through the courses in the learning path.

Learning Paths helps manage programs for non-traditional learners in your organization:

• Make onboarding, training or leadership development programs out of re-usable courses.
• Keep learners engaged with clear indications of progress through multiple courses in the learning path.
• Give your non-traditional learners a clear path towards completing their continuing education across multiple courses.
• Continue to use your existing enrollment and reporting workflows.
• Easily assign learning paths to learning groups and individual learners.

Learning Paths works with Learning Groups to assign and monitor the completion of learning paths for learning groups and direct reports. At this time, managers can view assigned learning paths alongside assigned courses in Manager Dashboard. Learning Groups administrators can assign learning paths to learning groups in the same workflow that they assign courses. Note that due dates cannot currently be set for assigned learning paths, only courses. As part of this change, Manager Dashboard and Learning Groups user workflows now refer to courses and learning paths as Learning and Learning Items throughout the tool interfaces.

Learning Paths requires specific configuration variables, permissions, and a specified learner role to use. See Technical Details for more information.

My Learning widget

Learning Paths also uses the new My Learning widget to provide a direct access point to learners who are assigned to learning paths. The My Learning widget appears on the My Home page. It displays assigned learning paths on a tile with an image, the learning path name, and a progress bar. Up to four learning item tiles display within the widget. The top image that appears represents your most recently accessed learning item. It also displays active courses that are not part of a defined learning path.

Figure: The Edit Learning Paths page lets users easily view the content and visibility settings of a learning path

Figure: The learner view of a learning path displays the description, courses and progress bars, as well as a Continue button to directly access the next content module

Figure: The My Learning widget displays both learning paths and courses assigned to learners on the My Home page

Locale Management - Additional numbering and date formats | New

When creating or editing a custom locale with the Locale Management tool, administrators can now specify a new numbering format (commonly used in Switzerland) and new date formats (commonly used in Switzerland and other German-speaking countries). For example, in a custom Swiss locale, users can now use the following numbering and date format in Brightspace: 1’390.00 and Monday, 03. August 2020.

In the Locale Management tool, the following new numbering and date formats are available:

• From the Numbers tab, the Group Separator list now includes the ' option.
• From the Dates and Times tab, the Standard Date Format list now includes the dd. MMMM yyyy option, the Long Date Format list now includes the dddd, dd. MMMM yyyy option, and the Month and Day Format list now includes the d. MMMM option.

This feature implements PIE items D3931 and D4083.

Figure: The new ' Group Separator option in Locale Management

Figure: The new Date Format options in Locale Management

Manager Dashboard and Learning Groups - Navbar icons | New

Navbar icons are now available for Manager Dashboard and Learning Groups.

Figure: The Manager Dashboard and Learning Groups icons appear on the navbar

MathJax – Ability to choose global MathJax settings | Updated

MathJax is a cross-browser JavaScript library that renders mathematical equations using MathML, LaTeX, and ASCIIMathML markup. MathJax, rather than the Equation Editor in Brightspace Learning Environment determines the rendering size of the equation based on the text surrounding it. Previously, the default scaling provided to MathJax was 130% of the surrounding text.

Now, using the d2l.Tools.WYSIWYG.MathjaxScaling configuration variable, it is possible to change the default scale percentage.

Outcomes Management – Levels of achievement are mapped to rubric levels | Updated

Levels of achievement, used to measure progress towards learning outcomes, can now be mapped to rubric levels. Instructors no longer have to use a percentage score to translate rubric levels to levels of achievement. This means they can use text-only rubrics, as well as points-based rubrics, to automatically identify a suggested level of achievement for the learner’s performance.

Achievement levels are automatically mapped to rubric levels. If there are more rubric levels than achievement levels, some achievement levels may span more than one rubric level. In this case, the levels on each side of the center are symmetrically and evenly distributed.

If there are more achievement levels than rubric levels, some achievement levels are excluded in the map. In this case, the top and bottom achievement levels are automatically mapped to the top and bottom rubric levels and distributed evenly and symmetrically.

After the automatic mapping has occurred, instructors can manually adjust the alignment. The alignment levels can be manually adjusted by dragging the colored circles in the Achievement Levels row of the rubric to identify the desired mapping. Changes can be made to the alignment until a submission is evaluated using the rubric. At that point, the rubric and mapped achievement levels are locked.

Figure: Rubrics dialog enabling instructors to adjust the outcomes mapped to the rubric levels.

When an instructor evaluates a learner's work using a rubric that has been aligned to learning outcomes, a suggested achievement level is displayed based on achievement levels and rubric level mappings.

The instructor can manually adjust the suggested achievement levels for each of the associated outcomes if necessary. The achievement levels for any outcomes that have been associated directly with the activity and not with the rubric, must be set manually. No suggestion will be displayed for those outcomes because they are not included in the rubric mapping.

Figure: Rubric items aligned with outcomes provide information results in suggested achievement levels, which can be adjusted by instructors

Quick Eval - Course level filtering | New

When opening Quick Eval within a course, only the list of activities and submissions related to that course display. This helps instructors easily view and evaluate submissions on a course-by-course basis. If an instructor wants to view all submissions across all their courses, they can still use the More Options menu to see the Multi-Course Quick Eval, or open Quick Eval from outside of a course.

This feature implements PIE item D5474.

Quick Eval - Dismiss activities until next submission | New

Instructors can now remove items from their Quick Eval list until a new submission is received for the activity. The removed activity appears on the Dismissed Activities list and can be restored at any time. Once a new submission arrives to the Quick Eval list, the previously dismissed activity reappears there.

Previously, instructors could only select a specific date or forever when dismissing an activity. This new option provides instructors with an additional option to manage the submissions on their Quick Eval list.

This feature implements PIE item D5505.

Quizzes – Learning Outcomes can be aligned to Quiz questions | New

In the new Quiz Builder, questions can be aligned to learning outcomes. After you align an outcome to a quiz question, that outcome is aligned for all quizzes in which the question appears. This feature builds on the availability of learning outcomes with other tools, including content items, assignments, and rubrics. After instructors align learning outcomes to one or more questions in a quiz, they can evaluate levels of achievement against learner quiz attempts. Suggested outcome achievements are provided for questions that are auto-graded with the ability to overwrite the suggestion. The default outcome achievement suggestion is based on the default outcomes achievement scale for the course. After the learning outcomes are published, quiz attempts appear in the outcomes progress page as individual demonstration of the learners' achievement toward the outcomes. They are also visible to instructors when evaluating or reviewing attempts from within Quizzes and visible to learners within Quizzes if a submission view is set up to show quiz questions, responses, and associated outcomes to learners.

Instructors can align outcomes to all questions in a question pool by selecting the question pool from the main Quiz Builder page and then selecting Align to Outcomes from the More Actions menu. They can remove alignment to a particular question or set of questions within a question pool by opening the pool and selecting the clear option next to outcomes tag on each individual question.

Note: Outcome alignments are copied between courses, but are not included in export packages.

Video Note – Automatic Closed Captioning | New

To improve accessibility, video notes now provide automatic closed captioning for newly created videos and the ability to manually add or update closed captioning for all previously recorded videos. After video processing, users can view closed captions using video player controls.

In addition, users can now download a transcript and the closed caption file associated with a video independent of Video Notes.

Localized closed captioning is available for the following languages:

• US English (en-US)
• British English (en-GB)
• Canadian French (fr-CA)
• German (de-DE)
• Brazilian Portuguese (pt-BR)
• Korean (ko-KR)
• Italian (it-IT)
• Spanish (es-US)
• Modern Standard Arabic (ar-SA)
• Russian (ru-RU)
• Japanese (ja-JP)
• Turkish (tr-TR)
• Dutch (nl-NL)
• Chinese Mandarin (zh-CN)

Notes:

• Canadian English is not available for closed captioning and defaults to en-US.
• Chinese Traditional (zh-TW) closed captions are not currently available and defaults to zh-CN.
• Mexican Spanish (es-MX) closed captions may not be available and defaults to US Spanish (es-US)
• Swedish closed captions are not available.

This feature implements PIE D5864.

Figure: A video with closed captions