September 2024 Updates

With this release, the software that powers annotations (PSPDFKit) in the Assignments tool is updated from version 20.24.03 to 20.24.04. As part of this update, the unsupported PSPDFKit Bookmarks tool is disabled and the Bookmarks option in annotations is removed to avoid confusion. This update also fixes defects and prevents further defects related to PSPDFKit being out of date.

Previously, instructors could click Bookmarks and add bookmarks to the document. However, added bookmarks were not saved after refreshing the page.

Figure: Before this update, instructors could click Bookmarks to add bookmarks to pages of a PDF. However, these bookmarks were not saved.

Figure: After this update, Bookmarks is removed.

Technical Details

Impact:

• Slight impact to instructors due to the removal of Bookmarks in annotations that was not functioning properly or supported.

Availability:

• This feature is available to all clients.

To enable:

• This feature is automatically enabled for all users.
• This functionality is not dependent on any new or existing configuration variables or permissions.

The following changes to existing Brightspace Data Sets (BDS) are available in this release:

• Assignment Summary
  • new column: IsAIGenerated (int, non-nullable)
• Attendance Registers
  • new column: DateDeleted (datetime, nullable)
  • new column: DeletedBy (int, nullable)
• Attendance Sessions
  • new column: DateDeleted (datetime, nullable)
  • new column: DeletedBy (int, nullable)
• Attendance User Sessions
  • new column: IsDeleted (bit, non-nullable)
  • new column: Version (bigint, non-nullable)
• Discussion Topics
  • new column: IsAIGenerated (int, non-nullable)
• Question Library
  • new column: IsAIGenerated (int, non-nullable)

The purpose of the new IsAIGenerated columns is to ensure transparency and inform stakeholders of when D2L Lumi capabilities were used.

Technical Details

Impact:

• Moderate impact to administrators due to the addition of new columns to existing Brightspace Data Sets.

Availability:

• This feature is available to all Brightspace Core clients.

This update introduces new messaging to inform administrators of the existing limit of 20 attributes per locked learning group. Previously, there were no indicators in the user interface about this restriction. Now, the interface includes a clear message, Choose up to 20, to guide administrators during attribute selection. When administrators attempt to select over 20 attributes, an error message appears that reinforces the limit.

Figure: The text notice Choose up to 20 appears on screen, along with the new error message when attempting to select over 20 attributes for a locked learning group.

Technical Details

Impact:

• Slight impact to administrators due to the introduction of messages regarding the attribute limit for learning groups.

Availability:

• Learning Groups is included with the Brightspace Core for Corporate or Brightspace Core for Upskilling and Professional Development for Education packages only.

To enable:

• This functionality is automatically enabled for all users of Learning Groups.
• This functionality is not dependent on any new or existing permissions or configuration variables.

For Brightspace implementations that use the new quiz evaluation experience, it is now possible for instructors to attach a rubric to written response (long answer) questions on a quiz.

Figure: When creating new or editing existing written response questions, instructors can now click Add Rubric to attach a new or existing rubric.

Subsequently, within the quiz, instructors can use the rubric to grade the written response quiz questions. The rubric appears below the learner’s answer or the instructor can click Pop Out to open the learner response in a separate dialog, enabling the instructor to view the rubric and the written response in separate windows.

Figure: The instructor can click Pop Out to view the response submission in a separate window, or open the rubric below the submission in the same window.

Figure: The rubric appears in the quiz window for the written response question.

Learners can now see the rubric for written response quiz questions while they are taking the quiz. After the quiz is complete and graded, the learner can review the rubric in the graded quiz for any feedback the instructor provides during the evaluation.

Technical Details

Impact:

• Slight impact to instructors due to the ability to add a rubric for written response quiz questions and use the rubric when grading written response questions.
• Slight impact to learners due to the ability to see rubrics for written response questions on their quizzes and find feedback on the rubric after the quiz is evaluated.

Availability:

• This feature is available to all Brightspace Core clients who have enabled the new quiz evaluation experience.

Grading workflows are now optimized in the quiz evaluation experience to improve instructor productivity. The new quiz evaluation experience can now be turned on in the quiz page you are grading.

Figure: Instructors can click the down arrow on the top right of the page to expand the dialog used to turn on or turn off the new quiz evaluation experience.

Figure: The dialog indicates if the experience is on or off and provides buttons to turn it on or off.

After instructors have opted into the new experience, they can scroll between users and select the quiz attempt they want to evaluate for the user.

Figure: In the new quiz evaluation experience, instructors can use the right and left arrows to select the learner and then select the quiz attempt they want to evaluate from the drop-down list.

In the main assessment area there are now two panels, which is consistent with other updated experiences in Brightspace. The following question types are supported in the new quiz evaluation experience:

• Multiple choice
• Written response
• True or false
• Short answer
• Fill in the blank
• Multi-select
• Question pools

All other types of questions (matching, arithmetic, significant figures, and multi-short answer) are not currently supported.

If users attempt to use an unsupported question type, an alert message appears:

Figure: The message indicates that the question type is not supported and provides a link to switch to the Classic quiz evaluation experience.

On the left panel, evaluators can filter by Pending evaluation or Retaken questions only, and can view attempt details, quiz questions, and answers. From this area, evaluators can leave feedback for specific quiz sections.

Figure: The Filters drop-down enables evaluators to see questions that are Pending evaluation, or Retaken questions only.

On the right panel, evaluators can enter or review the grade and feedback for the quiz attempt, or use other quiz management options, such as Edit Quiz, Preview Quiz, Reset Evaluation, and Quizzes Event Log, in the Evaluation Options menu.

Figure: Instructors can update the Attempt Grade, add Attempt Feedback, or use the Evaluation Options menu to Edit Quiz, Preview Quiz, Reset Evaluation, or view the Quizzes Event Log.

Technical Details

Impact:

• Slight impact to instructors due to the new interface components of the updated quizzes experience.

Availability:

• This feature is available to all clients.