Video: Release Highlights
Announcements
- After removing the Downloadable Release Note document from our Release Note deliverable, we determined that there are unpredictable results when copying and pasting table text. To mitigate the impact of tables reformatting to a size larger than the text editor page, starting with the March 2022 Preview Release Notes, we are now presenting Technical Details without a table.
- A new User Attributes API is available, and it enables users to Read (GET) and Write (PUT) user attribute value data. This feature implements PIE item D5941 - Import User Attributes via API.
- As of the March 2022/20.22.3 Release, all instances of URKUND in the Brightspace Learning Environment will appear as Ouriginal.
To view the change log for this release note landing page, see Document Change History at the bottom of this page.
Announcements — Create new announcements quickly with new Copy option
This feature adds a new Copy option in the context menu of an announcement in both the Announcements tool and the Announcements widget. The Copy option is applicable to both course level and global announcements. This only appears when you are in the org unit where the announcement was created.
Users click Copy, which opens a new edit announcement page in draft mode with the details of the original announcement copied over. The following details are copied:
Note: Release conditions only copy if the user has the Attach/Remove Release Conditions on Announcements permission. Display Author Information setting only copies if the user has the Change Display Author Information Setting permission.
Start dates and/or end dates are not copied over. No notifications are triggered by this action until the edit page is saved.
Previously, users had to manually select the content of an announcement and paste it into announcement creation.
Figure: The new Copy option in the context menu.
This feature implements PIE item D4608 – Ability to Copy Announcements
Technical Details
Impact:
Availability:
To enable:
-
At the org unit level, ensure that users have the See Announcements and Add/Edit/Delete Announcements permissions to copy course announcements. At the organization level, ensure that users have the See Announcements and Add/Edit/Delete Global Announcements permissions.
Brightspace Insights — Additional features added to the new Assessment Quality Dashboard
This release introduces several improvements to the Assessment Quality Dashboard:
-
New Flagged Question card added to the Summary area. When a user clicks this card, it filters the Quiz Details table and displays a "flagged questions" status indicator at the top of the page to indicate that this filter is in place. The Flagged Question card can be turned on and off in Settings. Flagged questions are those that are outside the set threshold for acceptable values in their statistics.
-
New Flagged Quiz Items column added to the Quiz Details table.
-
New "!" icon added next to quiz items that have one or more flagged questions.
-
New In Question Pool column added to the Quiz Item Analysis table to indicate if the item is part of a question pool.
-
Ability to link out to the Quiz edit page from the Quiz Item Analysis added to quickly take action.
Figure: Assessment Quality Dashboard with Flagged Question card.
Figure: Settings page for Assessment Quality Dashboard with checkbox to turn the Flagged Question card on and off.
Figure: Quiz Details table with Flagged Quiz Items column.
Technical Details
Impact:
Availability:
To enable:
Brightspace Insights — New Assessment Quality Dashboard is now default
This feature builds on the value of the new Assessment Quality Dashboard released in Brightspace Platform 20.21.12/December 2021.
With this release, the new experience is turned on by default, but an administrator can still turn it off and return to the legacy Assessment Quality Dashboard experience using the d2l.Tools.Insights.AssessmentQuality.EnableNewExperience configuration variable.
In the June 2022 release the configuration variable will be removed and the new Assessment Quality Dashboard will be the only experience available.
Technical Details
Impact:
Availability:
To enable:
Brightspace Learning Environment — Improved layout of show/hide interface
To improve consistency across the platform, this release features a stylistic upgrade to the layout of the show/hide interface. This does not affect usability or change interactions; in addition, all accessibility interactions remain unchanged.
Figure: The updated show/hide interface.
Figure: The show/hide interface before this release.
Technical Details
Impact:
Availability:
To enable:
Brightspace Parent & Guardian — Improved experience viewing grades on a mobile device
When you click to select a course option, the focus of the page automatically moves down to the grades area filtered according to the course you selected. If you want to view more than one course, you can choose All Courses, or you must return to the course list, clear your choice, and then select a different course. It is only possible to select one option at a time.
Previously, when you used Brightspace Parent & Guardian on a mobile device, the condensed view provided course list and filters at the top of the page. However, there was no visual aid to indicate that selecting a course triggered a filter for the grades that displayed further down the page.
Note: This change applies only to the mobile implementation of Brightspace Parent & Guardian; the changes do not apply to the desktop implementation of Brightspace & Guardian.
This feature addresses the following accessibility criteria
Technical Details
Impact:
Availability:
To enable:
Content — Media Library added to Classic Content Experience
This feature adds the Media Library to the Classic Content Experience, which is accessible by navigating to Existing Activities > Media Library.
Figure: The Media Library option in the Existing Activities dropdown menu of the Classic Content Experience.
For more information about the Media Library functionality, refer to Evolving The Audio-Video Experience.
Technical Details
Impact:
Availability:
To enable:
Content — New Learner Experience now supports Print and Download for all file types
This release adds Print and Download options to content files and HTML content in New Learner Experience (LX), which allows learners to study their course content offline more easily. The new buttons appear at the top of the page in the full-screen content viewer and function the same as in classic Content experience.
Previously in LX, learners could download their content files as PDFs but not in their original file formats, and there were no print or download options for HTML content.
Figure: Full-screen view of a Word file in New Learner Experience before the update, with buttons to download as a PDF and print as a PDF within the PDF renderer.
Figure: Full-screen content topic in New Learner Experience after the update, with Print and Download buttons near the top of the page.
This feature implements PIE items D7125, D8300, and D8565.
Technical Details
Impact:
Availability:
To enable:
Content — Workflow improvements to creating media topics
When creating a new video or audio topic in Content, instructors no longer must wait for the uploaded media file to finish processing to continue creating the topic. While the media file remains unavailable during processing, instructors can navigate away from the upload page to work on other content creation tasks. If another user attempts to access the media file in the topic before processing is complete, a message prompts them to wait for the media file to become available. When processing is complete (or the uploaded media file is invalid or corrupted), a notification displays from Update alerts on the navbar, with a link to the organization home page. Previously, instructors had to wait for a media file to complete processing before they could continue creating the topic. Also, a lack of status information about the media file processing caused some instructors to upload media files multiple times, believing that the processing had completed or failed.
Figure: Video file processing messages from Update alerts on the navbar
Technical Details
Impact:
-
Slight impact to instructors due to workflow improvements when creating media topics.
-
Slight impact to learners due to a new message that appears when attempting to access a media topic that has not completed processing.
Availability:
-
This feature is available to all clients using the Classic Content experience, New Content experience, and New Learner experience.
This feature does not change Video Note workflows or improve uploading time.
In the Classic Content experience, new video files are now published as visible by default. As a workaround, instructors can set the topic containing the processing video as hidden. When the processing is complete, instructors can set the topic to visible.
Data Hub — Enrollments and Withdrawals ADS now includes an Org Unit filter
To increase the value of the Data Hub offering, this release adds a new Org Unit filter to the Enrollments and Withdrawals Advanced Data Set. This filter allows users to find everyone enrolled in (or withdrawn from) a department, semester, or course offering by refining the ADS output. Like other ADSs with an Org Unit filter, users must enter a valid Org Unit ID or else the report will not run.
Previously, users could only apply an org unit filter after downloading the output file, which was potentially very large.
Technical Details
Impact:
Availability:
To enable:
Discover — Redundant activity type no longer appears on course cards
Previously, course cards in Discover displayed the activity type. However, as Course is the only type of activity currently available in Discover, the activity type was redundant. This change removes the activity type from the course cards.
Technical Details
Impact:
Availability:
To enable:
Discover — Support now available to override language terms in Discover
Customers can now override terms used within Discover to be consistent with how language terms provide custom language terms in other areas of Brightspace Learning Environment. Previously, it was not possible to override any terms in Discover as it has been in other areas of the Brightspace Learning Environment.
This feature implements PIE items D5657, D5431, D4661, and D4014 (Language terms can be updated in Discover using the Language pack)
Technical Details
Impact:
Availability:
To enable:
Multi-Profile Widget — Displays a list of users and their roles in a course to learners
The Multi-Profile Widget retrieves user information from User Profiles and the Classlist to display a list of users in the Course and their roles to learners.
An administrator can modify the following setup options:
-
Customize Widget Heading - create a unique heading for the widget separate from the Multi-Profile Widget title
-
Display Roles - select roles to display in the widget (for example, Instructors, Facilitators, and so on)
-
Create Categories - create categories that group roles based on function (for example, Facilitators and Instructors grouped within a category called Course Leaders). Categories are fully customizable.
-
Display Profile Fields - select the profile fields that display in the widget.
Figure: The Multi-Profile Widget as an Administrator
An instructor can modify the above settings in addition to the following settings on an individual course basis:
-
Display Profile Fields > Display My Profile Only - a quick setting to switch to a single profile view; this setting can be changed by anyone with permissions in the widget
-
Update User Settings - choose to remove individual users from an instance of the widget, change the category an individual user displays in, and reorder the appearance of users
-
Edit Custom Course Information - add custom text for the course (for example, office hours, area of interest, and important links)
Figure: The Multi-Profile Widget as an Instructor.
Figure: The Multi-Profile Widget as a Learner.
Technical Details
Impact:
-
Slight impact to administrators due to the ability to modify the Multi-Profile Widget settings for all instances of the widget.
-
Slight impact to instructors due to the ability to modify the Multi-Profile Widget settings on an individual basis.
-
Slight impact to learners due to the ability to view a list of users based on their role within the Classlist.
Availability:
To enable:
SAML Administration — Register an Identity Provider in Brightspace
The SAML Administration user interface is now available for administrators that allows registration of an identity provider for their Single Sign On (SSO) of choice. Previously, this task required the assistance of D2L Support.
Administrators with the Security tool > Manage SAML Authentication permission can access the SAML Administration tool from the Admin Tools menu.
The SAML Administration tool consists of three main areas:
-
Identity Providers (Add, Edit, and Delete Identity Providers)
-
Set the Default Brightspace Log in Experience
-
Troubleshoot issues by enabling SAML logging
Figure: The SAML Administration page
Technical Details
Impact:
Availability:
To enable:
SCORM — Easier object import with optional custom review/retake process
This feature allows instructors using the new SCORM/xAPI in Classic Content or the New Content Experience to disable Brightspace’s built in SCORM review/retake functionality. Disabling Brightspace’s review/retake functionality will prevent learners from experiencing issues when the package has a native built review/retake logic. Disabling the custom review/retake functionality can only occur during upload of a SCORM/xAPI object.
To view this new option in Classic Content, navigate to Upload/Create > New SCORM/xAPI Object. In the New Content Experience, this workflow is Add Existing > SCORM/xAPI and then upload a SCORM object.
In the publishing workflow, navigate to Edit Properties and expand the Advanced Settings area. Under the new subheading Course Package Review/Retake Options, select one of the following:
If a currently uploaded file needs to have this setting changed, users must reupload and replace the original file.
Previously, instructors using new SCORM/xAPI workflows in Classic Content or the New Content Experience did not have a choice to disable the Brightspace built-in review/retake functionality. This could cause conflicts with native functionality if it existed.
Figure: The Review/Retake subheading in the Advanced Settings area.
Technical Details
Impact:
Slight impact to instructors due to the ability to disable the retake/review function during publishing under Advanced settings.
Availability:
This feature is available to all clients.
To enable:
This functionality is automatically enabled for users of the new SCORM/xAPI workflows.
SCORM — Edit dates and associated grade items for imported SCORM packages
Building upon the SCORM – Improved editing in New Content Experience | New feature released in November 2021, imported SCORM topics in the New Content Experience have an improved editing experience. Instructors who use the new create/edit workflow can now edit dates and associated grade items for imported SCORM topics. This offers more consistent editing abilities to the New Content Experience and improves the editing experience for instructors.
Previously, in the New Content Experience, only topic titles were editable for imported SCORM.
Figure: SCORM edit page viewed in the Classic Content create/edit experience
Figure: SCORM edit page viewed in the New Content create/edit experience
Technical Details
Impact:
-
Slight impact to Administrators due to the need to set the value of the d2l.Tools.Content.LessonsCreateExperienceOptIn configuration variable.
-
Slight impact to instructors due to new editing options for imported SCORM packages in the New Content Experience.
Availability:
This feature is available to all clients.
To enable:
Ensure the d2l.Tools.Content.LessonsCreateExperienceOptIn configuration variable is enabled so instructors can opt-in to the new create/edit experience.
- *Added on 3-March-2022 Updated the title of Brightspace Insights – Additional features added to the new Assessment Quality Dashboard (previously called Brightspace Insights – Metrics for Flagged Questions added to the new Assessment Quality Dashboard), added Link Out to Quiz Edit Page component, and removed Quiz Reliability Metric component.
- *Added on 3-March-2022 Added the Content - Workflow improvements to creating media topics feature.
- *Added on 3-March-2022 Renamed the Profiles Widget — Displays a list of users and their roles in a course to learners feature to Multi-Profile Widget — Displays a list of users and their roles in a course to learners.
- *Added on 3-March-2022 Updated the Brightspace Parent & Guardian - Improved experience viewing grades on a mobile device feature to reflect the final design.
- *Added on 3-March-2022 Removed the SCORM — Edit dates and associated grade items for LOR based SCORM packages feature. This feature will be added in a future release.