Brightspace Learning Environment

Assignments – New assignment creation experience universally enabled | Updated

This feature sets the new assignment creation experience to ON by default. This will mean that the classic assignment experience will no longer be available. The d2l.Tools.Dropbox.CreateExperienceOptIn (OrgUnit) configuration variable is deprecated and is no longer available to site administrators.

Details of the New assignment creation experience can be found here; the differences between classic to new assignment creation experiences can be found here.

Brightspace Editor – Hotkey shortcut to Brightspace Editor source editor | New

This feature adds a new hotkey shortcut in the Brightspace Editor to access the source editor. Previously, the source editor was unavailable by a hotkey shortcut.

The hotkey shortcut is:

• Windows: Ctrl+Shift+E
• Mac: Command+Shift+E 

This feature addresses the following accessibility criteria:

• WCAG 2.1 Success criterion 2.1.4 Character Key Shortcuts

Brightspace Learning Environment – Alerts in the minibar persist for 90 days | Updated

With this release, when you click on the Message alerts, Subscription alerts, or Update alerts icons in the minibar, you can retrieve alerts from the last 90 days. Previously, all alerts disappeared after 7 days.

The way these alerts display to users has not changed: when you click one of the icons, the 5 most recent alerts appear in the dropdown. When you click Load More, 5 more alerts appear.

Brightspace Learning Environment – Support for surname prefixes during sort function | Updated

In some countries, including the Netherlands, Belgium and Sri Lanka, surnames have one or more prefixes (known in Dutch as Tussenvoegsel) that are part of the formal last name. For example, van der Speigle or Van Gogh. In some cases, the sortable last name should not include those prefixes. 

It is now possible to indicate if a user's Legal Last Name differs from the Sortable Last Name. If clients include a Sortable Last Name, the Brightspace Learning Environment uses the Sortable Last Name in when alphabetizing user lists. 

The following tools currently support the Sortable Last Name:

• Classlist
• Grades
• Quizzes
• Assignments
• Discussions
• Manage Exemptions
• New Content - Completion Summary

Additional tools will be added to this list in future releases. 

To add a sortable last name to a user's information, do one of the following:
In the Users tool, in User Information, add a Sortable Last Name.
In the Brightspace API, add a sortable last name for the appropriate user.


Figure: The Sortable Last Name field on the User Information screen
 

Brightspace Pulse – Display Pulse banner in Grades | New

To promote Brightspace Pulse usage in organizations, administrators can choose to display a banner in the learner view of the Grades tool. The banner includes links to the Brightspace Pulse app from the Google Play and Apple App Store. Previously, the banner was only visible from the Notifications Settings page.


Figure: The Brightspace Pulse banner visible from Grades and the Notifications Settings page
 

Content – Language changes for back buttons in New Learner Experience | Updated

When a user accesses the new learner experience immersive viewer from a location other than the course content area, the Back to Content button has been updated to display Back. Clicking Back returns the user to their previous location in Brightspace. The language has been updated to remove confusion over where the button directs the user. There are two places this text changes: the immersive navigation page, and the end-of-unit page.

 

Content – New Content Edit Experience supports media file captions | New

The New Content Edit Experience now supports the ability to upload captions to a media file. This functionality was previously only available in the previous Lessons view and the Classic Content Experience.

To add captions, users select Advanced Editing and select a language along with their SRT file with the subtitles.

This feature addresses the following accessibility criteria:

• WCAG 2.1 Success Criterion 1.2.2 Captions (Prerecorded)

Content – Updated count and overdue badges | New

In the Classic Content tool for instructors and learners, the count and overdue badges in the Table of Contents now reflect an updated appearance that is consistent with the New Content Experience and other Brightspace tools. The new count badge is circular (for single digits) or a capsule (for double-digits), with a grey background, and with higher contrast text. In addition, the overdue badge is now circular (for single digits) or a capsule (for double-digits). Previously, the count badge was rectangular, with a white background, and grey text/outline. The overdue badge was rectangular and red.

This feature addresses the following accessibility criteria:

• WCAG 2.1 Success Criterion 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum)

Figure: The new count and overdue badges in the Classic Content tool

Figure: The old count and overdue badges in the Classic Content tool

Course Import/Export – Import and export intelligent agents | New

With this release, administrators and instructors can now include intelligent agents when importing or exporting courses. This allows administrators and instructors to share the dynamic notification interactions in imported/exported courses with other Brightspace instances. Previously, intelligent agents were not included when importing or exporting courses.
 

Discussions – Consistent evaluation experience | Updated

This feature is a continuation of the Discussions - New Discussion Evaluation Experience | Updated feature introduced in September 2021/20.21.9. 

With this release, the d2l.Tools.Activities.CEDiscussionOptIn configuration variable is set to ON. This removes the ability to opt-out of the new Discussions evaluation experience.

To give customers flexibility in implementing this feature, administrators can still override the configuration variable. However, the configuration variable will be removed in the January 2022 (20.22.01) release.

For more detail about the improvements in this new experience, visit the Welcome to Our New Discussion Evaluation Experience post on Brightspace Community.

For additional information on the consistent evaluation experience across all Brightspace tools, visit the What is Coming in Evaluation: 20.21.12 post on Brightspace Community.

Discussions – Consolidated dates ON by default | Updated

This feature builds on the default setting progression for visibility and posting restrictions in discussion forums and topics. In August 2021 / 20.21.8, it was possible for administrators to opt-in to the workflow. This was updated again in September 2021 / 20.21.9, when the default was updated to be on by default, but administrators could change the setting. With the final change to the workflow in December 2021 / 20.21.12, the discussion date consolidation is now ON by default for all clients, and cannot be turned off. 
Note: All date overrides are cleared when the default changes to ON.
For more information, see the Changes To Availability And Locking Dates For A Consolidated Dates Workflow blog post.
Once the new workflow is enabled, the following changes are visible to instructors when creating or editing discussion forums and topics:

Note: These changes also affect the Classic Content and Manage Dates tools.

• From the Restrictions tab, the previous Locking Options are now consolidated with the Availability Start Date and End Date options and display as the following new options:  
  • Visible with access restricted before/after start/end. The topic/forum is visible to learners before/after the start/end date, but they cannot access it. Previously, Classic Content was the only tool to make discussions visible without access. 
  • Visible with submission restricted before/after start/end. The topic/forum is visible to learners before/after the start/end date and they can access it, but they cannot post new threads or replies. This effectively makes a discussion read-only. Previously, this was accomplished with the lock option or unlock dates.  
  • Hidden before/after start/end. The topic/forum is hidden from learners until the start/end date. This is a new feature. Calendar events for Availability Starts and Availability Ends are hidden until the start/end date. Notifications are also not sent until the start/end date. Previously, the hidden status of a discussion topic was decided by the tool displaying the topic. 
• From the Restrictions tab, the Display in Calendar option is now consolidated with the Availability Start Date and End Date options, which adds the start date and end dates to the calendar. Previously, the tool decided which calendar event should be added to the calendar. With this change, calendar events for availability dates may change and additional events for Availability Start Dates may be added. 
• Calendar events for unlocked dates are now hidden from learners.  
• Where Discussions and User Progress may have previously hidden a topic or forum when outside of availability dates, those tools now may show them as visible, but inaccessible. 
• From Discussion Settings, instructors can now set the default visibility and access behavior for new discussion forums and topics. The defaults can be set at an organization level. 

Figure: The new consolidated options for visibility and posting restrictions in the Restrictions tab


Figure: The new default options for visibility and posting restrictions in the Discussions Settings
 

Quizzes – Improved language terms | New

To offer more intuitive and consistent terminology to instructors and learners when using Quizzes, many interface labels and dialogs now use more descriptive language. For example, Automatic Grade is now Automatically Publish Evaluation. Previously, many interface labels and dialogs used short terms that did not provide clear meaning for some users.

For a detailed list of all language term updates in Quizzes, see the Quiz Language Updates blog post.

 

Widgets – Arabic language support for select hosted widgets | New

To improve the user experience across more international languages, the following widgets now have Arabic (ar-SA) language support:

• Visual Table of Contents
• Photo Banner
• Learner Awards

Integrations

LTI® Advantage – Assignments and Grade Services | Updated

A new LTI Advantage Assignments and Grade Services (AGS) configuration option is available at the Deployment level that allows grades created using LTI Advantage to be included in final grades.
 
Previously, with the legacy LTI Basic Outcomes integration, grades created by a tool were automatically excluded from the final grade as most instructors pre-configured the gradebook in advance. With LTI Advantage’s AGS including a more robust grade integration, it removes the need to pre-configure the gradebook in Brightspace. Administrators can now choose how grade items created by AGS affect final grades.

Grade items created using LTI Advantage that do not have a score can be deleted if you send an AGS delete command. If the grade item has a score, the AGS line item is deleted, but the grade item in Brightspace Learning Environment remains.

This feature addresses PIE Item D7778.
 

LTI® Advantage – View as role logic change | New

This feature changes Brightspace Learning Environment behavior when using the View as role feature and completing an LTI Launch. Previously, when a user selected View as role and completed an LTI launch, they were sent the IMS role mapped to their current role in the org unit where the launch occurred. Now, when a user selects View as role and completes an LTI launch, they are assigned the IMS role that is mapped to the role they selected from the View as role menu.

This allows instructors to view a course as a learner, preview LTI materials as a learner would see them, and maintain consistency with how role switching is treated in Brightspace Learning Environment.