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What instructors can do is design learning experiences where misrepresentation becomes difficult to sustain over time. Supporting integrity does not require monitoring every step of a student’s process or relying on unreliable detection tools. Instead, it requires making student thinking and decision-making visible in ways that AI-generated work struggles to align with consistently.

This article introduces four high-impact integrity checkpoints that can be implemented directly in Brightspace using tools instructors already know. Together, they provide credible authorship evidence, normalize ethical AI use, and reduce the likelihood of misunderstandings.

Design Goal: Minimum Effort, Maximum Clarity

These checkpoints are based on a simple principle:

If the learning process is visible, integrity becomes the default.

Rather than collecting exhaustive documentation, this approach captures just enough evidence at key moments to demonstrate how students are thinking, researching, and writing.

Checkpoint 1: Topic and Research Question Rationale

Purpose
This early checkpoint captures original intent and prevents integrity issues before they begin.

Tool choice note: For this checkpoint, an Assignment with a text submission is a practical choice. Assignments support exploratory writing, are faster to skim at scale, and align well with the low-stakes, process-oriented purpose of this checkpoint.

This early checkpoint captures original intent and prevents integrity issues before they begin.

What students submit

• A working topic
• A research question
• A short rationale (150–200 words) explaining why the question fits the assignment

AI use documentation
Students include one simple disclosure statement at the end of their submission:

• AI used for brainstorming or wording: Yes/No. If yes, briefly describe how.

Why this matters
Early thinking is difficult to fabricate convincingly with AI. Capturing it provides a clear baseline for authorship and helps instructors guide scope and direction early.

Checkpoint 2: Research Decision-Making

Purpose
This checkpoint makes research judgment visible, not just source collection.

Tool choice note: An Assignment works well when you want a private, assessable record of research decisions. A Discussion can be effective when you want to normalize research struggles and decision-making through peer visibility. Choose based on whether your goal is assessment or shared learning.

This checkpoint makes research judgment visible, not just source collection.

What students submit

• An annotated bibliography (3–5 sources) or
• A short research log describing key decisions

Required focus
Students address questions such as:

• Why was this source chosen or rejected?
• Identify one specific source that changed or refined your thinking. What did you originally think, and what changed after engaging with this source?
• Describe one topic change you made after starting your research (for example, narrowing the focus, shifting the angle, or dropping a subtopic) and explain what prompted that change. 
• Describe one question or line of inquiry you initially planned to pursue but later abandoned, and explain what made it less useful or relevant.

AI use documentation
Students explain where AI assisted, if at all, and how they verified or revised its output.

Why this matters
Evaluating sources and explaining decisions requires contextual reasoning that AI tools struggle to replicate authentically.

Checkpoint 3: Drafting Evidence Through Version History

Purpose
This is a passive safeguard that shows writing development over time.

Tool choice note: An Assignment with a file or link submission is the simplest way to collect drafting evidence without increasing workload. It allows instructors to access version history only if questions arise, rather than reviewing drafts routinely.

This is a passive safeguard that shows writing development over time.

What students submit

• A link to a Google Doc or Word Online draft with version history enabled

Student expectations

• Drafting must occur in a tool that records revision history
• Early, incomplete, and revised drafts are encouraged

AI use documentation
No separate form is required. Students may flag sections where AI assisted with clarity or editing.

Why this matters
Version history provides powerful evidence of authorship without adding to instructor workload. It only needs to be consulted if questions arise.

Checkpoint 4: Final Submission with Aligned Process Commentary

Purpose
This checkpoint consolidates integrity evidence by checking for alignment between the final paper and earlier process artifacts. It is not intended to serve as a standalone proof of authorship.

Tool choice note: An Assignment with both file and text submission fields allows students to submit the final paper and aligned commentary together, keeping integrity evidence consolidated in one place.

This checkpoint consolidates integrity evidence by checking for alignment between the final paper and earlier process artifacts. It is not intended to serve as a standalone proof of authorship.

What students submit

• Final paper
• A short aligned commentary (150–250 words)

Aligned commentary prompts
Students respond to prompts that explicitly reference earlier work:

• Identify one substantive change you made between an earlier draft and the final version and indicate where that change appears in the paper.
• Identify one source from your annotated bibliography or research log that most influenced your final claim and explain how that influence is visible.
• Identify one section of the paper that required the most reworking and briefly explain what earlier decision made it challenging.

AI use documentation
Students include a concise disclosure summarizing any AI use across the assignment stages.

Why this matters
Alignment-based commentary is harder to fabricate convincingly than generic reflections. Its value lies in how well it corresponds to documented drafts and research decisions, not in the commentary itself.

What This Approach Does and Does Not Prevent

This approach does not:

• Prevent students from using AI tools to generate text
• Guarantee that every submitted sentence is human-written
• Replace institutional academic integrity policies
• Eliminate the need for instructor judgment

This approach does:

• Make misrepresentation difficult to maintain across time and artifacts
• Surface inconsistencies between drafts, research decisions, and final work
• Normalize transparent, ethical AI use rather than concealment
• Reduce reliance on AI detection tools
• Provide defensible context if integrity questions arise

The goal is not AI-proofing. The goal is alignment-proofing: designing assignments that yield consistent traces of authentic learning and make shortcuts easier to detect through misalignment than through surveillance.

Final Takeaway

Supporting academic integrity in an AI-enabled world does not require more policing. It requires better visibility into learning.

By capturing these four moments in the writing process, instructors gain meaningful insight into student thinking, not just confirmation that a task was completed. These checkpoints are designed to support instructional judgment through visibility, not to function as compliance checks.

In doing so, instructors can protect both themselves and their students while reinforcing the core goal of higher education: meaningful thinking and learning.

My institution uses your product for content delivery. I would like to re-think your default deadline time of midnight for assignments and quizzes. As you're likely aware users typically adopt default parameters in programs. There is ample evidence that midnight deadlines do not promote healthy work life balance in students. Therefore, please consider changing the default from midnight to something more reasonable like 5 pm. I am aware that users can change the deadline time but I have found at my own institution that instructors use the default simply because they cannot be bothered to change it.

Thank you!

When I began adapting content from online learning materials into scripts for AI avatars, I expected the process to feel familiar, like writing narration for a video or voiceover. I quickly realized that scripting for synthesized speech is a different kind of challenge. What looks good on paper can sound robotic out loud, and tiny changes in punctuation can shift the whole tone.

Whether you're building branching scenarios, integrating avatars into course content, using text-to-speech for accessibility, adding voice to knowledge checks, enhancing onboarding experiences, or creating engaging feedback in Brightspace, here are a few things I’ve learned that might help you bring more life to your AI voices.

✏️ Write How It Sounds, Not How It Reads

AI avatars don’t just read your script, they perform it. Unlike a human narrator, though, they need clearer cues for pacing and tone.

• Use commas and ellipses to guide rhythm and pause.
• Choose contractions (“we’re” instead of “we are”) to sound more natural.
• Break up longer sentences to avoid a flat, monotone delivery.

✅ Try this: Read your script out loud. If it feels clunky or too stiff, it’ll sound even more awkward when the avatar reads it.

📣 Watch for Tricky Pronunciations

AI voices often get tripped up by:

• Proper names
• Acronyms
• Homonyms (like “read” vs. “read”)

One example that stands out was the word “present," which needed to be written as “preezent” to sound correct. Spelling things out phonetically or adjusting the sentence can make a big difference.

✅ Pro tip: You can improve pronunciation by playing with phrasing, punctuation, or even using phonetic spellings. I found that simplifying the surrounding sentence often worked better than trying to force a technical fix.

🧠 Use AI to Help Troubleshoot Pronunciation

Sometimes, no matter how many tweaks you try, the AI still doesn’t say it quite right. When that happens, I use generative AI tools to brainstorm alternatives. By feeding in a tricky line and asking for clearer or more phonetic versions, I can quickly explore new options without getting stuck.

• Ask AI to suggest phonetically friendly rewrites
• Try prompts like: “Make this easier for text-to-speech to pronounce”
• Use it to compare different wording approaches

✅ This kind of quick brainstorming has saved me time and helped smooth out some of the more frustrating hiccups.

✂️ Keep It Short and Sweet

Brevity goes a long way. Long or complex sentences tend to sound dull or confusing when read by an avatar.

• Break ideas into smaller chunks
• Use line breaks for natural pauses
• Don’t be afraid of fragments as they often sound more natural

✅ Think of each line as one breath. What would you say in a single moment, out loud?

💬 Tone Is in the Text

If you want your avatar to sound friendly, excited, or warm, your words need to carry that tone.

• “Let’s explore this together!” works better than “We will now examine…”
• Choose active verbs and language that sounds human
• Use exclamation points carefully — they can boost energy when used sparingly

Final Thought: You’re Not Just Writing, You’re Directing

Scriptwriting for AI avatars is part writing, part sound design. You’re directing a performance, even if your “actor” is synthetic. I've found that writing for AI voice is a distinctly different skill from writing text meant to be read.

If you’re trying this in your own courses, I’d love to hear how it’s going. What’s worked? What’s still frustrating? Let’s keep learning from each other and sharing the quirks we encounter along the way.

With AI, it’s now possible to simulate these conversations, bringing diverse stakeholders together to debate, challenge, and build ideas.

What is an AI-Simulated Dialogue Prompt?

It’s a simple but powerful way to use AI to generate stakeholder conversations. You prompt AI to assemble a panel of stakeholders who represent different perspectives on an issue. The AI then simulates a realistic, critical dialogue, where stakeholders engage in a dynamic, multi-voice conversation.

For example:

🧠 Assemble a panel of stakeholders to help explore the challenge of balancing academic rigor with student well-being in higher education. Include a faculty member, a student, an academic advisor, a mental health counselor, and a university administrator. Have them discuss the issue, share perspectives, and decide on an answer together. Show the meeting, including disagreements and areas of alignment.

Or:

🧠 Assemble a panel of stakeholders to explore the challenge of fostering meaningful interaction in online learning. Include an instructor, an instructional designer, a student, a learning technologist, and an accessibility specialist. Show the discussion, their perspectives, and what they decide.

The AI provides a detailed dialogue showing how these perspectives interact, where they align, and where they differ. It’s like running a virtual think tank, revealing challenges and possibilities.

Why Use This Prompt?

The AI-Simulated Dialogue Prompt is a powerful way to:

✅ Explore complexity through stakeholder discussions
✅ Generate insights for strategy, design, and problem-solving
✅ Build empathy by seeing issues from diverse angles
✅ Identify trade-offs and competing priorities
✅ Challenge assumptions and uncover blind spots
✅ Spark creative ideas for real-world challenges

Whether designing a product, shaping policy, or brainstorming solutions, this tool helps teams think bigger, see deeper, and act smarter.

How to Use It

Here’s a simple formula to get started:

🧠 "Assemble a panel of stakeholders to explore this issue. Include [list of stakeholders]. Have them meet, discuss the question, and decide on an answer together. Show how the meeting went."

For example:

• Assemble a parent, a student, a teacher, and a principal to discuss school safety.
• Assemble a climate scientist, an oil industry representative, a policymaker, and an environmental activist to discuss energy policy.
• Assemble a healthcare provider, a patient, a technologist, and an ethicist to discuss AI in diagnostics.

The goal is to simulate real, critical conversations—not just agreement, but challenges, debates, and collaborative problem-solving.

Take Action

This is more than an idea—it’s a call to experiment. Share your questions. Try prompting a panel. Explore a challenge you’re working on. See what insights and ideas emerge.

Let’s keep building, sharing, and learning together.

At D2L, we believe that the most impactful learning experiences are built through collaboration—not just between instructors and learners, but also among the professionals who design and support those learning moments behind the scenes. 

That’s why we want to spotlight our Instructional Design Advisory Committee forum, which has been bringing together learning design professionals from across our Brightspace client community for years. 

Who Is This For? 

This committee is made up of an executive-level audience from our client institutions, including: 

• Instructional Designers 
• Content Developers 
• Curriculum Designers 
• Learning Experience and Educational Technology Specialists 

If you play

a key role in shaping learning design at your institution, we would love to have you join the conversation. 

What to Expect 

Our quarterly meetings are peer-driven conversations about the real challenges, innovations, and evolving trends shaping instructional design today. You’ll join a community of thought leaders who share a passion for improving online learning experiences—and who want to help shape the future of education, together. 

Each session is designed to provide: 

• Peer-to-peer networking and open dialogue 
• Insights into the evolving landscape of digital learning 
• Collaborative discussions that inform D2L’s product roadmap and support offerings 

Why Participate? 

By contributing your voice to these meetings, you’ll not only gain new perspectives from colleagues across the sector—you’ll also have an opportunity to directly influence how D2L supports your work. Your feedback helps us understand the trends, challenges, and innovations you’re navigating, so we can better align our tools and services with your goals. 

Discussion Topics May Include: 

• Emerging uses of AI in learning design 
• Instructional design best practices from across the field 
• Accessibility in the Online Learning Space 
• Gamification and engagement strategies 
• Designing collaborative learning spaces 
• Efficiency tips and workflows for course creation 
• Guest speakers from D2L with insider insights 
• Current trends in online learning and future directions 

Let’s Design the Future—Together 

We invite you to attend our next quarterly meeting and join a dynamic, thoughtful community committed to improving the way we teach and learn. Your expertise and input are invaluable to D2L as well as your peers across the industry. 

📅 Stay tuned for our next meeting invitation. We hope to see you there! 

If you have questions or want to know more, complete the linked Form.  

I'm planning internal learning on Zoom and MS Office.

• There will be an initial set of modules on set up, configuration, and security
• I'd like to develop and release new modules once a month that focuses on a new tool or feature.

This way we are not overwhelming them with a long course, and we can keep up with changes to both platforms.

I'm thinking of adding a date and time restriction on new modules, with Announcements that tell learners a new module is available. Perhaps release conditions to bug them once if they haven't viewed it in a week.

Has anyone come up with a better solution?

Hello D2L Team,
I am writing this email as a result of a teacher conference that I went to last week Thursday and Friday. One of the conferences was titled 'The Wonders of Brightspace Portfolio' and during that conference a lot of great information was shared. However, as a user of Portfolio, there were some questions and suggestions that I brought up to the presenter, which several other teachers agreed with. Therefore, I decided to request that these suggestions be added to Portfolio to help make using it a lot more time efficient.

One of the suggestions is providing a selection box beside each students' evidence, so that we can click on all of the students' evidence that we would like to add the same title for, 'class category/categories' and/or 'expectation(s)' for (instead of doing this for every single student individually and for each of their shared evidence from several submissions). This takes a lot of time.
My final suggestion is allowing the students to hear their recording before it is submitted and having the opportunity to erase and re-record when using Funster. A lot of my students use the recording feature and wish that this was an opportunity, as they are young and sometimes make mistakes when recording. I do know that they can start the process of taking a picture again and re-recording that way, but again this gives me more work because then I have to go into the system and erase their previous submission, which can sometimes be confusing or deleting errors may happen. Also, sometimes there is limited time with class devices... so when they get to use them they want to make it worth it. 

I hope that my email is clear and that these suggestions will be taken into consideration and added to Portfolio, as this school board will one day require teachers to use Brightspace exclusively, but there is no extra time added to the day.
Regards, --

Kay

will there be opportunities to participate in any optional hands on activities throughout the semester? For example, educational field trips. Or will that be on us as students to determine what we should participate in and engage with? Do you have suggestions of activities outside of the classroom that will enrich our education?

Thankyou

Nor is there a (reliable) way to message them here on the Community because you don't know their user name. For example, I am Mike Barker on the PIE and Mike.B.559 here on the Community. But how do people know I am not Mike.B.698?

So, while I realize the PIE is hosted on an external service provider (brightidea.co), if the goal is to foster community, links between the two need to be more cohesive and transparent.

Tags: UX, usability, communication, community building

Join us for an interactive workshop designed to empower female-identifying people in leadership. We'll ditch the one-way talks and embrace an "unpanell" approach, where our facilitators (formerly panelists) actively guide the conversation alongside participants.

Together, we'll explore:  

• the unique strengths women-identifying people bring to leadership and the challenges and opportunities that come with them  
• unmasking imposter syndrome and learning to leverage your authenticity as a leadership superpower  
• how to cultivate a network of supportive relationships where you can both give and receive invaluable guidance  

 Join us in person

Tuesday, July 9, 2024 at 4:45 PM ET in the Third Floor Foyer of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre (MTCC) – North Building. 

Join the conversation online

If you’re not able attending Fusion in person this year, we’re continuing the conversation right here on the Brightspace Community!

We would love to hear your thoughts on the below questions within this discussion thread:   

1. What is a unique strength you bring to leadership that you haven't always felt comfortable sharing? How can we, as a group, create a space where all women feel empowered to leverage their unique talents? 
2. Imposter syndrome can hold us back. Share a time you felt this way in a leadership role. What did you learn from that experience, and how can we collectively support each other in overcoming imposter syndrome? 
3. Building a supportive network takes effort. Share a specific strategy you've used to cultivate meaningful connections with other women leaders. How has this network helped you grow in your leadership journey? 
4. Effective networks are a two-way street. When have you offered support to another woman-identifying leader in your network? How did that experience benefit both of you? 
5. Imagine your ideal leadership network – a community that truly empowers you. What are the key characteristics of this network, and how can we, as a group, begin to build it together? 
6. Beyond this workshop, what's one action step you can take to connect more authentically with a woman-identifying leader in your life (colleague, mentor, friend)? 
7. What are the key characteristics of a culture that empowers emerging and established leadership that makes an impact? How do we sustain this cultural growth (or better yet, culture add) as the players change and roles change at an organization? 

We have two different groups of learners doing segmented content within the same course. We're using Sections for the first time and think we have the segments and release conditions for the different content, quizzes and awards under control, with the exception described below.

In the Gradebook, both quizzes display for users in each of the two sections. This impacts their Grades progress summary (ie, their final grade is diluted by the inclusion of the quiz they don't need to do). Ideally Section 1 users would only have Quiz 1 grades in the Gradebook and Section 2 users, only Quiz 2.

I'd be grateful for thoughts on how to resolve?

Thanks in advance.

Donna