Written by: Jackie Guan, Product Manager, D2L.
Advanced Assessments (AA) is a set of features that enable instructors and admins to create and evaluate assignments with one or more instructors, manage instructor workflows with delegation, and restrict which instructors in the course can publish evaluations. These features were deployed in all production environments as of the August 2024/20.24.8 release and are enabled (On) by default.
To find out more about Advanced Assessment and the various features, refer to the Advanced Assessment for all environments of Brightspace blog post.
Listening to client feedback, we learned that the Advanced Assessment launch is large and requires additional training materials and time with users. Therefore, we want to give clients more control and time to adapt to the new feature. We added the new d2l.Tools.Activities.AdvancedAssessmentsEnabled to enable/disable the AA features, allowing administrators to show or hide these features.
Important: If you have requested to delay the rollout of AA and had the features turned off, your opt out status is temporarily retained. You have a one-month window to opt out using the new configuration variable.
In the November 2024/20.24.11 release, AA will be enabled for all clients, and all users who have not opted out via the configuration variable by that time will have AA automatically enabled.
Advanced Assessment Configuration Variable
Goal of the configuration variable
- To enable more control for clients to turn AA features on or off, Advanced Assessments are available in the Assignment tool when the configuration variable is enabled.
- If the feature is turned on and AA assignments are created, we keep the created assignments and allow instructors to finish evaluation if needed.
The future configuration variable details
Name
- d2l.Tools.Activities.AdvancedAssessmentsEnabled
Location
- Admin Tools > Config Variable Browser > Tools > Activities > d2l.Tools.Activities.AdvancedAssessmentsEnabled
Editing Permissions
Config variable is to be enabled/disabled at the org level
- Admins can add exceptions for the course level
Figure: An example of the Manage Allocations AA feature restricted by an administrator.
Figure: An example of assigning publishers and evaluators AA features restricted by an administrator.
Description
When enabled, Advanced Assessment features such as Co-Marking, Delegation, and Multi-Evaluator are available in the Assignment tool for courses with more than one evaluator who has the Give feedback permission. These features allow instructors to better manage large class sizes, share evaluations in single or multiple evaluation formats, and decide who can publish final evaluations for learners to view.
How it works?
When the configuration variable is On, AA features are available, allowing users to create, edit, and evaluate assignments.
When the configuration variable is Off, AA features are not available. However, for assignments that are already created using AA, the following rules still apply:
- Previously-created AA assignments are read-only on the Assignment creation page, allowing users to review the information.
- Messaging is added on the Assignment creation page to inform users that AA is no longer available for these assignments and that settings are locked.
- These assignments remain available for evaluation so that instructors can finish their work and ensure assignments are not left incomplete.
AA features are designed for optimal performance with the configuration variable enabled. We recommend that clients remain enabled once they turn on these features.
