Video: Release Highlights
General Announcements
- The Locale and ForceLocale fields are now included in the Course.CourseOffering JSON block returned by the Course API GET call. This enhancement ensures consistency between the Brightspace user interface (UI) and API responses. Previously, these fields were not available via the API, preventing customers from retrieving course-specific locale information programmatically. Customers can now access this data as part of their course integration workflows.
- We are excited to share that Credly integration is available as a complimentary D2L Link package up to and including August 2027. Contact your D2L Account Manager for more information. Refer to About Credly for more information about this integration, including access to Credly Release Notes, and Credly support information.
- We are thrilled to announce D2L Academy. D2L Academy is a centralized hub for D2L learning resources designed to help educators and leaders unlock the full potential of D2L Brightspace. It provides access to a comprehensive suite of training materials, including courses, expert-led live sessions, industry-recognized certifications, and support for configuring D2L Brightspace.
- D2L is continuing to unlist outdated Brightspace Tutorial videos that no longer reflect the current interface and workflows. Updated tutorial videos are embedded in the documentation to align with the latest functionality. To review the list of added, unlisted, and removed videos, refer to the article: Brightspace Tutorial Video Updates: Added, Unlisted, Removed.
To view the change log for this release note landing page, go to Change History at the bottom of this page.
Analytics Builder – Brightspace Data Sets Major Version 10 is now the default | Updated
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Analytics Builder is part of the Performance+ package. For more information, contact your D2L Client Sales Executive or Account Manager. |
Brightspace Data Sets (BDS) data contracts are versioned and managed through a clear change management policy to ensure consistent and predictable changes. In adherence to the policy, BDS Major Version 9 is no longer supported in Analytics Builder. Authors must adopt BDS Major Version 10 by updating their custom datasets and analyses that rely on BDS Major Version 9.
For step-by-step instructions, refer to Updating Analytics Builder for Brightspace Data Sets Major Versions in Brightspace Community.
After the version update and a full data set run completes in Data Hub, BDS Major Version 10 is pulled into Analytics Builder. BDS Major Version 9 updates will end, and anything mapped to BDS Major Version 9 will continue to function but will have outdated data.
Analytics Builder will attempt to auto-upgrade datasets and assets from Major Version 9 to Major Version 10. If the auto-upgrade fails, Authors will receive a Brightspace notification, and the impacted assets will be moved to a dedicated Assets to Review folder in Analytics Builder. BDS Major Version 9 will be available until September 30, 2025, so that Authors can resolve any breaking changes. After this date, unresolved items with breaking changes may become non-functional.
Technical Details
Impact:
- Large impact to administrators who must rework their assets to keep them aligned with the latest data.
Availability:
- This feature is available to clients with the Performance+ package and clients who have provisioned their instance of Analytics Builder.
To enable:
- This functionality is automatically enabled for clients with Analytics Builder.
- Ensure the d2l.Tools.BrightspaceDataSets.Version configuration variable is set to version 10.4.
- Authors must have the Analytics Builder > Can Manage Analytics Builder permission at the org level and must be granted an Author license.
Brightspace – Improved screen reader accessibility for some tabs and pages | Updated
To enhance accessibility, screen reader and assistive technology support is now improved for five tab pages in Brightspace. The changes clarify the content structure and tab navigation cues for screen readers. There are no visible changes to the interface.
The following pages are updated:
- Insights Portal
- Bulk Course actions
- Bulk Course Import History
- Outcome Sets and Achievement Scale tabs in Learning Outcomes
- Print Quiz in Quizzes
Technical Details
Impact:
- Slight impact to all users who can better navigate the tabs and content of pages in Brightspace.
Availability:
- This feature is available to all clients.
To enable:
- This functionality is automatically enabled for all users.
- This functionality is not dependent on any new or existing permissions or configuration variables.
Brightspace – New Window icon for all menu items | Updated
To help users better anticipate navigation behavior in Brightspace, a 
New Window icon now appears next to all menu items that open in a new tab or window. This change applies to all applicable menu items across the platform interface. Previously, an icon indicating a new window appeared only in some menus.
The icon design is also updated to better align with current styles used in Brightspace.
Technical Details
Impact:
- Slight impact to all users who can observe the new icon in menus.
Availability:
- This feature is available to all clients.
To enable:
- This functionality is automatically enabled for all users.
- This functionality is not dependent on any new or existing permissions or configuration variables.
Brightspace Parent & Guardian – View student course work from parent perspective | New
This feature introduces a new View as Parent & Guardian option that provides teachers with a comprehensive view of how student information appears to parents, including learning activities, progress, and assessments. Teachers can better understand how families see student efforts in the course, to help improve parent conferencing and communications.
Teachers can access the parent view from the drop-down menu for each student in Classlist. Selecting View as Parent & Guardian opens a new window that displays student information as it appears to parents in the Parent & Guardian portal. This view includes only course activities and progress for the specific student (parents do not see information for the entire class). Additionally, the Parents & Guardians view only displays for courses the teacher is able to access. Parents can still view all information from the courses their students are enrolled in through their own view in the Parent & Guardian portal.
To access the View as Parent & Guardian option, teachers must have the new See Parent/Guardian Activity & Information and View as Parent/Guardian permissions assigned to their role.
This feature implements the following PIE item:
- D9114 (Brightspace Parent & Guardian: More visible Child-Parent Relationships)
Figure: In Classlist, click Parent/Guardian Information from the drop-down beside the name of a student to access the parent view.
Figure: Click View as Parent & Guardian from the Parents and Guardians of [student] window.
Figure: The Parents and Guardians view is a new window that displays the course homepage as a parent sees it.
Technical Details
Impact:
- Slight impact to administrators who must add the new permissions to teacher roles.
- Slight impact to teachers due to the ability to access the Parent & Guardian view for each student enrolled in their courses.
- Slight impact to parents who will benefit from the improved understanding and communication with teachers.
- Slight impact to learners who will benefit from improved understanding and communications between their guardians and teachers.
Availability:
- This feature is available to all Brightspace Core clients.
To enable:
- This functionality is automatically enabled for all users.
- This functionality is not dependent on any new or existing configuration variables.
- Teaching staff must have the following new permissions assigned to their roles at the course offering level:
- Brightspace Parent & Guardian > See Parent/Guardian Activity & Information
- Brightspace Parent & Guardian > View as Parent/Guardian
Data Hub – End of adoption period for Brightspace Data Sets Major Version 10 | Updated
Brightspace Data Sets (BDS) data contracts are versioned and managed through a clear change management policy to ensure consistent and predictable changes. In adherence to the policy, the adoption period for BDS Major Version 10, which was announced in April 2025/20.25.04, has ended. Major Version 10 is now the only supported version. Any clients who are still using Major Version 9 are automatically migrated with this release.
The following Brightspace Data Sets have been replaced and are no longer available in Data Hub:
- Quiz Question Answers
- Survey Question Answers
- Quiz Question Answer Options
For more information about this version update, refer to Motivations behind the changes in Data Hub Brightspace Data Set (BDS) Major Version 10 in Brightspace Community.
Technical Details
Impact:
- Large impact to administrators due to disruptive changes to existing data sets.
- Analytics Builder and Insights Report Builder Authors must review and adjust their affected assets. Refer to update instructions for Analytics Builder and Insights Report Builder (English only).
Availability:
- This feature is available to all Brightspace Core clients.
To enable:
- Ensure administrators have the Brightspace Data Sets > Can Access Brightspace Data Sets permission at the org level.
- Ensure the d2l.Tools.BrightspaceDataSets.Version configuration variable is set to version 10.4.
- New and changed data sets appear the first time the data set runs after the version update.
Groups – Enrollment limit increase | New
To support growing class sizes, the Groups tool now allows enrollment of up to 3000 users per group within a group category. Previously, the limit was 200 users per group.
This increased limit applies to all enrollment workflows, including:
- Automatic enrollment during group creation
- Automatic enrollment during Classlist enrollment, where automatic enrollment group types exist
- Manual enrollment using the Enroll Users and Import options within the Groups tool
- Groups enrollment via the Bulk User Management tool
- Enrollment using Brightspace APIs
The 3000-user limit is now strictly enforced across all methods of group enrollment. Previous workarounds that bypassed the former enrollment limit will no longer function for any group that has reached the 3000-user limit.
Currently, the automatic enrollment overflow functionality enrolls users into other groups in the same category if the selected group is full. However, when the 3000-user limit is reached in all groups, further enrollment attempts will fail. To continue processing enrollments, you must add additional groups to the category.
In cases where enrollment fails due to the user limit, the following indications appear:
- Brightspace APIs return an error
- Bulk User Management and Group Import CSV display user-specific errors in the import results
- IPSIS and Banner integrations report failures
- In the Groups tool, additional users cannot be selected without deselecting users already enrolled in the group
For more information about this feature and future developments, refer to the Improving groups with increased enrollment limits blog post.
This feature implements the following PIE items:
- D6942 (Allow for more than 200 people in a group/section)
- D4750 (Remove 200 member cap on Self-enrolling Groups)
Technical Details
Impact:
- Moderate impact to administrators due to the 3000-user group limitation set for all enrollment workflows.
- Moderate impact to instructors due to the ability to organize classes into groups that accommodate larger numbers of learners.
Availability:
- This feature is available to all clients.
To enable:
- This functionality is automatically enabled for all users.
- This functionality is not dependent on any new or existing permissions or existing configuration variables.
Honorlock – New Partner Offering | New
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Honorlock is a partner add-on solution that must be purchased separately. For more information, contact your D2L Client Sales Executive or Account Manager. |
Honorlock is now available as a D2L partner add-on solution, offering a powerful, AI-enhanced online proctoring solution designed to support academic integrity and provide a seamless experience for learners, instructors, and administrators.
Honorlock proctoring offerings are available for higher education institutions on a per-user or per-exam basis. Corporate use is not currently supported.
The following features are included with Honorlock:
- Live Pop-In™: Minimizes false positives by escalating only real-time concerns to trained human proctors, saving instructors and administrators hours of manual review
- BrowserGuard™: Secures test browsers by blocking access to websites, applications, and keyboard shortcuts like copy and paste
- Cell phone detection
- Speech detection
- Additional AI-driven monitoring features
All sessions are managed through secure Amazon Web Services (AWS) infrastructure, adhering to strict data protection and institutional compliance standards.
Technical Details
Impact:
- Slight impact to administrators, instructors, and learners who benefit from a streamlined and secure assessment experience.
Availability:
- Honorlock is available globally to eligible higher education institutions upon purchase and completion of a standard implementation process. For more information, contact your D2L Client Sales Executive or Account Manager.
To enable:
- Honorlock integrates with Brightspace via LTI 1.3. Setup includes registering the tool and may involve minimal configuration by site administrators. For more information, contact your D2L Client Sales Executive or Account Manager.
Insights Report Builder – Brightspace Data Sets Major Version 10 is now the default | Updated
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Insights Report Builder is part of the Performance+ package. For more information, contact your D2L Client Sales Executive or Account Manager. |
Brightspace Data Sets (BDS) data contracts are versioned and managed through a clear change management policy to ensure consistent and predictable changes. In adherence to the policy, BDS Major Version 9 is no longer supported in Insights Report Builder. Authors must adopt BDS Major Version 10 by updating their DataFlows, reports, and dashboards that rely on BDS Major Version 9.
For step-by-step instructions, refer to Updating Insights Report Builder for Brightspace Data Sets Major Versions in Brightspace Community.
After the version update and a full data set run completes in Data Hub, BDS Major Version 10 is pulled into Insights Report Builder. BDS Major Version 9 updates will end, and anything mapped to BDS Major Version 9 will continue to function but will have outdated data.
Following our Change Management Policy for Insights Report Builder, Authors have three months after a BDS major version release is set as default to adopt the changes in Insights Report Builder. We will delete BDS Major Version 9 and any DataFlows, reports, and dashboards that use it from Insights Report Builder in December 2025/20.25.12.
Technical Details
Impact:
- Large impact to administrators who must rework their assets to keep them aligned with the latest data.
Availability:
- This feature is available to clients who purchased Performance+ before April 2024 or purchased Brightspace Insights in the previous packaging model and have provisioned their instance of Insights Report Builder.
To enable:
- This functionality is automatically enabled for clients with Insights Report Builder.
- Ensure the d2l.Tools.BrightspaceDataSets.Version configuration variable is set to version 10.4.
- Authors must have the Analytics Builder > Can Manage Analytics Builder permission at the org level and must be granted an Author license.
Local Authentication Security – Email-based two-factor authentication (2FA) | New
To improve secure access options for all users, Brightspace now offers email-based two-factor authentication (2FA) in addition to third-party authenticator applications. This feature ensures that users do not have to use a personal device with a configured authenticator app to access Brightspace securely. Administrators can enable or disable email-based 2FA for users with local logins based on their organization’s authentication policies.
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Important: Users without an external email configured for their Brightspace login will not be able to see the option to configure email-based 2FA. |
This functionality is controlled by the new configuration variable, d2l.Auth.TwoFactor.EnableEmail2FA, which is OFF by default.
When enabled for the organization, users can select their preferred 2FA method from one of the following options in Account Settings:
- Receive an emailed login code to the external email address they have registered in Brightspace
- Use an authenticator application
- Set up both methods for flexibility
When logging in, users enter a code obtained from either method to complete authentication securely. Users with enforced 2FA configured on their account can choose to configure a single method while logging in to Brightspace. After logging in, they can configure a second method via Account Settings.
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Note: The emailed login code expires after 5 minutes. |
Figure: Account Settings displays both 2FA options.
Figure: Users with enforced 2FA are required to configure the email authentication during login to Brightspace.
This feature also includes minor visual enhancements to the authenticator app setup screens for a clearer configuration experience.
Figure: The Enable Two Factor Authentication set up screen appears.
Technical Details
Impact:
- Slight impact to administrators who can enable this functionality using the new configuration variable.
- Slight impact to instructors and learners who may be required to set up 2FA for their accounts.
Availability:
- This feature is available to all clients.
To enable:
- Set the new d2l.Auth.TwoFactor.EnableEmail2FA (Org) configuration variable value to ON.
- This functionality is not dependent on any new or existing permissions.
PIE – Enhancement to the Product Idea Exchange (PIE) | Updated
This update enhances the Product Idea Exchange (PIE) based on customer feedback and introduces a new idea submission pipeline. We are refocusing on using PIE for new product ideas only. For bugs, support issues, or feedback on existing features, use our Customer Support Portal or speak with your Customer Success representative. Updated guidelines for PIE are available in the Community.
This update makes it easier to:
- Engage directly with the D2L Product Management team
- Receive faster updates on submitted ideas with simplified statuses and streamlined process
- Gain visibility into how ideas influence the product roadmap
Released ideas are highlighted in Brightspace Release Notes.
D2L will provide feedback on submissions that do not follow the updated guidelines to provide an opportunity to update the submissions. Submitters receive a notification and have 90 days to enhance it.
D2L is also reviewing existing PIE submissions to inform migration plans. Customers are encouraged to revisit older submissions marked as Feedback Review Window and provide comments on those still relevant.
The current PIE interface remains open for commenting until August 31, after which it becomes read-only for six months to allow historical reference and migration.
Technical Details
Impact:
- Moderate impact to all users due to the enhanced PIE experience.
Availability:
- This feature is available to all clients with a Brightspace Community account.
To enable:
- This feature is enabled automatically for all clients with a Brightspace Community account.
Quizzes – Print your quiz | New
In response to customer feedback, this update provides instructors with a simple way to print an offline quiz that supports all native Brightspace quiz question types, shuffling and randomization options, question pools, multiple versions, and an Answer Key.
Figure: From the Manage Quizzes page, click the drop-down beside the quiz name and select Print.
Figure: From the Print Quiz page, select a version tab, configure formatting, and click Print [Version].
The d2l.Tools.Quizzes.PrintQuizFeature (OrgUnit) configuration variable controls this feature. It is ON by default. Administrators can turn it OFF if more time is required for documentation or training.
Options to support multiple quiz versions include:
- Shuffle Quiz (under Timing & Display) to shuffle quiz sections and questions.
Figure: In the Timing & Display section of the quiz settings, select Shuffle Quiz to randomize the order of questions and sections within the quiz.
- Shuffle questions in this section (when creating or editing a section).
Figure: When creating or editing a quiz section, select Shuffle questions in this section to randomize questions, sections, and pools within the section.
- Randomize answer order when creating or editing a supported question type, for example, Multiple Choice.
Figure: When creating a multiple-choice question, select Randomize answer order to present answer choices in a different order for each learner.
To help instructors quickly and easily grade printed quizzes taken offline, an Answer Key is provided for each version. It includes the correct answers and, where applicable, the grading method.
Figure: To grade a quiz, instructors can select Show correct answers and print the required version of the quiz with an Answer Key.
This feature implements the following PIE items:
- D362 (Print Quiz and Quiz Key)
- D3718 (Quizzes - Generate PDF of the Quiz for Printing)
- D5909 (Make all screens which have "forms" exportable to PDF)
- D8049 (Printing Quiz)
- D11794 (Quizzes: Print Test for Offline Completion)
Technical Details
Impact:
- Slight impact to administrators due to the default enablement of the print quiz feature, with the option to turn off the configuration variable if required.
- Large impact to instructors, who can now print quizzes.
- Slight impact to learners, who may now complete quizzes in printed format.
Availability:
- This feature is available to all clients.
To enable:
- This feature is enabled automatically.
- This functionality is controlled by the d2l.Tools.Quizzes.PrintQuizFeature (OrgUnit) configuration variable (default: ON).
- This functionality is not dependent on any new or existing permissions.
17-July-2025 Preview Release Notes published.
7-August-2025 Added the release announcement about the Credly integration, available as a complimentary package.
7-August-2025 Added the release announcement introducing D2L Academy.
7-August-2025 Added the release announcement for video updates.
7-August-2025 Added the PIE – Enhancement to the Product Idea Exchange (PIE) | Updated release note.
7-August-2025 Removed the My CPD Records – API routes for attachments | Updated release note. This feature will be available in a future release.
7-August-2025 Added the Brightspace – Improved screen reader accessibility for some tabs and pages | Updated release note.
7-August-2025 Added the Brightspace – New Window icon for all menu items | Updated release note.
7-August-2025 Added the Brightspace Parent & Guardian – View student course work from parent perspective | New release note.