January and February 2025 Brightspace Release Notes
As the Spring semester is well underway, there have been a few updates that have come out in January and February of this year. Below is a list of highlights of recent changes that are now available in Vanderbilt’s Brightspace. To see the full list of updates from D2L, please see the reference links at the bottom.
Brightspace Editor – Updated Accessibility Checker icon
This release updates the Accessibility Checker icon in Brightspace Editor to improve user recognition and understanding.
Figure: The updated Accessibility Checker icon is now a human figure within a circle, replacing the eye symbol with a check mark for better clarity.
Figure: The previous Accessibility Checker icon of an eye and checkmark.
Class Progress – Change default to hide grade distribution charts
The default display settings in the Class Progress section of a course now hide box plots of class grade distribution for graded items. Instructors can still enable this feature, but it is disabled by default to better match expectations of what data is visible to students.
Figure: Before this recent change, a box plot like the one shown above would automatically be visible to students when they looked at grades for activities like Assignments, Quizzes, or Discussions. These graphs can still be enabled by the course Instructor under Class Progress settings if they wish.
Lessons View Content Experience – Add topic descriptions to provide context for activities
Instructors can now add topic descriptions in the Lessons View Content Experience to set expectations and provide context for learners. These descriptions appear directly on the activity page to guide learners. Additionally, they are visible to the Search bar, enabling learners to find the correct topic more easily.
Instructors can edit topic descriptions from the activity page using the (…) Options menu and selecting Edit.
Descriptions can now be found in the following topic types:
- LTI links
- Web links, including Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, and Capture.
- Files, including media files but excluding HTML files.
- SCORM, including imported content and content from Learning Object Repository (LOR).
- LOR items, such as URLs and files.
| Note: Inline or new tab topics are now in the secondary panel to allow space for editing descriptions. |
Figure: The topic descriptions appear alongside the content on the activity page.
Quizzes – Filter Quiz Statistics by Section or Group
Quiz statistics now include filters for Sections or Groups, allowing instructors to analyze specific sections and groups effectively. The new filter improves analytics for courses with large class sizes and multiple instructors.
| Note: Filters appear only when sections or groups exist in the course. |
Figure: On the View Statistics page, select the desired filter option and click Apply. The filters apply to all three tabs: User Stats, Question Stats, and Question Details.
Rubrics – Streamline grading with minimum or maximum score for ungraded rubric criteria
This feature updates the instructor workflow of evaluating a rubric and providing feedback to learners. Now, instructors can quickly assess all ungraded Rubric criteria and then go back through to add feedback where necessary. To provide a more streamlined experience for instructors using analytical type rubrics for assessments in the Consistent Evaluation experience for assignments, discussions, and written response quiz questions, the instructor can automatically set ungraded levels to a minimum or maximum value.
Note: This functionality does not appear as an option in the following scenarios:
|
From a drop-down beside the rubric name in each assessment pop-out, or from a context menu in Consistent Evaluation, there are two options:
- Set Ungraded to [top rubric level name]: where all ungraded levels within this rubric are set to the maximum value using the top level of the rubric.
- Set Ungraded to [lowest rubric level name]: where all ungraded levels within this rubric are set to the minimum value using the bottom level of the rubric.
When an instructor selects an option, a confirmation dialog appears to advise of the bulk action and provides an option to undo the update.
Previously, instructors were required to click individual criteria, which, for large rubrics, was a time-consuming task involving many clicks to set the rubric score to 100%.
Figure: In Assignments and Discussions, click to open the context menu beside the rubric name to choose an option for all ungraded criteria.
Figure: In Consistent Evaluation, click the drop-down menu beside the rubric name to choose an option for all ungraded criteria.
References:
Leave a Response