How the release of Creator+ impacts Engagement+ package subscribers The Engagement+ to Creator+ Package Transition
On November 8th 2022, D2L will be launching Brightspace Creator+, the first release of a bold new vision to empower content creators to create and curate interactive, engaging, and delightful experiences that follow best practices in online course design. Creator+ scales the reach of your instructional design, course content creators and multimedia teams with this package of ready-made content templates, interactive elements, easy-to-capture video recordings and practice exercises allowing educators to craft beautiful and instructionally sound content using seamless and familiar Brightspace workflows.
As Engagement+ package subscribers you are entitled to all the tools currently included in the Creator+ package across all your environments. You will also retain entitlement to current Engagement+ tools that you have implemented. Tools in the Engagement+ package included: Capture, Course Catalog, and Awards Leaderboard. With the exception of Capture (please see below), all tools remain fully supported at this time. Any sunsets or product end-of-life, for any Brightspace tool, will be announced using the standard process.
What Specifically is Included in Brightspace Creator+?
On November 8th, 2022, as Engagement+ subscribers you will be able to enable the following tools at the Org tools level in any of your environments: Capture App, Content Styler, Insert Element, and Practices.
On November 8th, as a member of the D2L community you can also access our re-launched Creator+ course on the Community, which will have quick-start videos, self-directed training, best practices, information about new Creator+ templates, and other important information. This course will be kept up to date with Creator+ upgrades.
To help you get a clear idea of how Creator+ can enhance content creation and support your instructional teams, here is a complete list of everything included in the Creator+ package.
Insert Element Tool
Insert Element allows for easy, fast creation of engaging, interactive elements in your content. What this means is that any instructor, any facilitator, any course designer, can very quickly choose from a list of interactive and design elements, add in their learning content information and immediately get a rich visual interactive element. Insert Element is launched using a button from the Brightspace Editor, a tool already familiar to Brightspace users. The process is user-friendly, and the output is easy to update, mobile friendly, and completely accessible. What previously required direct code editing or a third-party tool is now available to any content creator. For information about Insert Element - please see our help documentation and release notes.
Practices
Practices provides a simple way to add an important instructional design principle to your courses – knowledge checks. The simple, intuitive interface allows the course creator to build engaging formative questions right into their content, including scoring and feedback. A dynamic preview while building your question allows course creators to see the impact of their choices on the end user experience. An easy edit workflow means they can adjust the questions on the fly, without technical help or expertise. What previously required JSON, SCORM, or 3rd party integrations, is now embedded into Brightspace for users of any skill level to use. For information about Practices - please see our help documentation and release notes.
Content Styler
Creator+ Content Styler enables more consistency of experience when creating content. Content creators can create HTML-based content on the fly without worrying about adhering to style guides or breaking a chosen template accidentally because that is all taken care of for them. When the new Creator+ cascading style sheet is applied automatically, the Creator+ HTML templates become flexible starting points to building stylized content — or content creators can just start typing without one. All Insert Elements and Practices are also styled to your organization’s preferred colors and fonts – like magic. Administrators can control the basic colors and styles, or appoint their own style sheet where desired. For information about Content Styler - please see our help documentation and release notes.
Capture App
Creating video content is a passion at D2L. Capture App (Capture v10) is a reimagining of our legacy Capture (v9.5 or previous) product from the Engagement+ package. For Creator+, we have redesigned this new version of Capture to take advantage of a streaming optimized infrastructure within Brightspace and to reduce the complexity involved in creating and publishing a video.
The Capture App provides any content creator an easy and seamless experience to record their screen, video, and audio (or each on its own) and have it immediately processed and uploaded to their Brightspace’s Media Library. Capture App and the Create Presentation options are available from within Media Library as a one-time download for either Mac or PC. Once downloaded, a creator can easily launch the Capture App from Brightspace whenever they want to create a presentation. With a newly simplified interface for recording, easy editing, and auto-captioning, users can create engaging videos that are fully accessible for their audience, quickly and without having to learn complex third-party video software. For information about Capture App - please see our help documentation and release notes.
Legacy Capture vs Capture App
The launch of Creator+ is also marking the official start of our retirement of legacy Capture. Legacy Capture has been the mainstay of our Engagement+ package for many years. Legacy Capture primarily was a video streaming product that hosted videos on an infrastructure that was separated from Brightspace and connected through LTI. Videos were published and managed in the Capture Portal (which was a separate product, and accessed either directly, or through an LTI integration with Brightspace). In contrast, Capture App (or Capture v10) is the first version of Capture hosed entirely within Brightspace, it no longer needs the Portal. It is sleeker and focused on presentation creation powered by a versatile and optimized streaming infrastructure.
Engagement+ Tools and Features
What's next for Legacy Capture Users?
Please see our Intent to End-of-Life Capture article in the Community for more information and an FAQ for Legacy Capture customers.
What's next for Awards Leaderboard and Course Catalog Users?
For all clients that are using any of the three other tools that were in Engagement+ package, you will maintain entitlement to those tools if they have already been implemented for your organization. Even though they didn’t quite fit into our vision for Creator+, we are still proud of all three tools, and they continue to be maintained. Awards Leaderboard can now be purchased separately for new clients interested in gamification.
Next Steps
Creator+ is one of our newest and most exciting releases at D2L, and we’re excited to share it with our Engagement+ clients. We think you are going to love it. During your next contract renewal, we may discuss changes to your contract to alter that entitlement language from Engagement+ to Creator+ and include separate, grandfathered, entitlements to the tools from Engagement+ that you have implemented and wish to keep entitlement to.
We’ve been working on it for some time and received excellent feedback on the tools and content included. We can’t wait to see the powerful tools we’ve built enhance teaching and learning at our customer organizations!
Please don’t hesitate to reach out to your D2L client team with any additional questions.