Integrating Cengage MindTap assignments with Brightspace

Marc.F.661

Hello - I am using Brightspace for the first time this semester for and am trying to find the best way to integrate MindTap assignments from Cengage into my Brightspace course site.

I have tried using Brightspace Assignments and Brightspace Content (through Add Existing/Cengage Content) but each of these approaches has been less than ideal.

When using Assignments alone, grades do not automatically flow from Cengage to Brightspace. And while students can "Mark Complete", this creates a lot of noise on my end because Brightspace still wants me to Evaluate these activities.

When using the Content approach, the grades flow automatically, but there is no good way for students to mark their work complete which is a less than ideal student experience. Not to mention, when I set due dates in Cengage, I am required to set these up again in Brightspace and this process is excessively cumbersome (which is exacerbated by the fact that I am teaching 4 sections).

I'm under the impression that the due dates will flow automatically from Cengage to Brightspace at some point in the future, but how will any changes impact/improve the student experience.

Is the enhancement truly on the roadmap? When will it be released? If it has been released already, what version do we need to be on to take advantage of it? Is there a recommended method of setup and integration?

Does anyone have any other creative ideas/approaches that minimizes the administrative setup effort and optimizes the student experience?

Any advice, guidance, suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

A struggling instructor,

Marc Firenze

Stefanie.B.518

Hi @Marc.F.661
Apologies for the delay in response here.
Your question has highlighted a few important areas where I think we can make the experience of using Cengage MindTap and Brightspace together an easier one.

Our Partners Team are taking a close look at some of these opportunities now including the question of how and when we might release improvements to the way dates flow from MindTap to Brightspace and how syncing and completion status can be best communicated.

I don't have the timeline/roadmap date for releasing the product improvement between the flow of dates from Cengage to Brightspace. This also means I can't comment on how this improvement will impact Learner Experience when those improvements to the way these tools work together comes out. I can confirm that this functionality has not yet been released.

We are working to provide more information on Partner and Integration Tool updates available through our Partners Group.

I will ensure this type of use case is raised as we look at the content planned for the group over the next year to see how we can better connect Community members with updates on Partner Tools.

I've reached out to a few colleagues who have provided the following ideas on how best to support the use of Assignments to ensure grades can be sync'd and allow students to mark the Assignment as complete

1. Use the Content workflow to import the graded Cengage activities.  This will create a grade column for the activity with the proper resource id so that we can sync the grade.
2. Create an ungraded Assignment and click the Attach Link to Existing Activity icon and then select External Learning Tools option to see the list of EXISTING LTI links from step 1.  Choose the Cengage link to attach to the Assignment.  If using just one link, then naming the Assignment the same as the link activity name will make it easy for students to know which grade column applies.
3. Students launch the Assignment, click on the attached link, and complete the Cengage activity.
4. Students mark the Assignment as complete as they do today.