March-April Brightspace Updates

Posted by Michael Coley on Thursday, April 13, 2023 in Releases.

There have been a few important updates to Brightspace in the last two months, so we wanted to spotlight them here. If you have any questions about these updates, or anything else Brightspace related, be sure to contact the Brightspace and Instructional Technology Support team.

Awards – Share achievements with Public URL sharing for awards

Students can now share their awards with a Public URL directly from the Awards tool using the new Awards Sharing option.

The new method simplifies sharing a badge or certificate to showcase achievements. The user can create a public URL for an award, which can then be shared on a digital resume or social media profile, for example, LinkedIn.

To share an award using a public URL, a student can navigate to the My Awards page, select the desired award, click the Share link, and then click Create Link.

Figure: The Share option in Awards.

Figure: The Create Link button in Awards.

Figure: The Copy Link button in Awards.

As a result, the public URL of the award is generated and appears. students can copy and share this link or delete it if needed.

Lessons View – Make all new content topics visible by default

To simplify the instructor workflow when creating a course, newly-created content topics in courses with Lessons View enabled will be automatically Visible by default when the course begins.

Previously, newly-created topics were always Hidden. This required instructors to toggle the topics’ Visibility to Visible to allow students to access them. Instructors frequently missed that their new content topics were Hidden by default, which caused confusion.

Quizzes – Confirmation dialog for students exiting a quiz

This feature introduces a confirmation dialog box to students closing in-progress quizzes. The dialog box is context-based, providing additional information about the impact of exiting the quiz (such as whether a student will be able to return to their quiz after exiting).

Figure: An example of a confirmation dialog box to learners closing in-progress quizzes.

Previously there was no dialog or warning to students who exited a quiz accidentally or on purpose.

Note: The dialog only appears when the student selects the X [Close this Quiz] for the quiz. Closing the browser window or tab does not display the confirmation dialog.

Figure: The X (Close this Quiz) button appears to a student attempting a quiz.

The message shown when a student tries to exit a quiz depends on the time limit and end date settings for the quiz. Figure: The Exit Quiz confirmation dialog for quizzes with no time limit, no end date, or a time limit that expires before the end date.

Figure: The Exit Quiz confirmation dialog for quizzes with a time limit and no end date.

Figure: The Exit Quiz confirmation dialog for quizzes with an end date, no time limit, or an end date that will arrive before the time limit expires.