Video: Release Highlights
Announcements
- The Early Access of the New Brightspace Community is finally here! For important time line information, see the Community Transition Plan blog post in Brightspace Community
- As part our ongoing Brightspace re-branding initiative, Brightspace Parent & Guardian app icons are updated within the app and across Brightspace.
- There have been a few updates to increase the value of the Awards – Share achievements with Public URL sharing for awards | New feature released in November 2022/20.22.11 and updated in December 2022/20.22.12. In the 20.23.01 release, the user experience for reviewing publicly-shared awards is improved. If the link to an award is copied and shared from the browser, the award preview now includes the award name, image and description on some sites. The generic text public award page and references to the system short name details displayed earlier are removed.
- Section codes are now included in the Manage Sections interface. This update improves the filtering and re-ordering of sections and clearly distinguishes section names. The column header Section is now updated to Name. Previously, only the section name was used.
To view the change log for this release note landing page, see Change History at the bottom of this page.
Adoption Dashboard – The New Experience is now on by default | Updated
In the October 2022 / 20.22.10 release, the Adoption Dashboard's New Experience was set to ON as the default with the option to opt out. The configuration variable d2l.Tools.Insights.Adoption.EnableNewExperience is now removed. As a result, users can no longer opt out of the Adoption Dashboard New Experience.
Technical Details
Impact:
- Moderate impact to administrators and instructors due to the new Adoption Dashboard user interface.
Availability:
- This feature is available to all clients who have the Performance+ package or who have purchased Brightspace Insights in the previous packaging model.
To enable:
- This functionality is automatically enabled for all users.
Brightspace – Supported Browsers | Updated
This release updates the list of retro or legacy browsers (specific older versions of supported browsers). If you are using a browser below the latest updates, the "Your browser is looking a little retro" warning message appears. The browsers include:
- Chrome 107+ (released October 2022)
- Android Chrome 107+ (released October 2022)
- macOS Safari 16+ (released September 2022)
- iOS Safari 16+ (released September 2022)
- Firefox 106+ (released October 2022)
Previously this message would only show for browsers under Chrome/Edge 100, Safari 15, and Firefox 99. There are no changes to legacy browser requirements that remain at versions below Chrome/Edge 74, Safari 13, and Firefox 67.
Brightspace AWS – Brightspace now has data center residency in India | New
To support the sale of Brightspace in emerging markets and the data residency requirements for those markets, Brightspace AWS hosting is expanding into India using AWS- Asia Pacific South-1 (Mumbai). Previously, AWS hosting was only available for that region in Asia Pacific -Southeast -1 (Singapore) and Asia Pacific Southeast 2 (Australia). There is also a new Brightspace Core variation with the following exclusions:
- Bongo (Video Assignments and Virtual Classroom) is not being deployed or sold in the new Mumbai region
- Initial deployment will not include Discover, Learning Path, Manager Dashboard, Learning Groups, and User Attributes. It is expected that these will be deployed in a subsequent version in 2023.
- Ultra High Availability is not supported.
Technical Details
Impact:
- Slight impact to clients in the Asia Pacific region with the new data residency location.
Availability:
- This feature is available to all clients who have purchased the specific Brightspace variation for this region. Note that this variation is being deployed with High Availability, not Ultra High Availability.
To enable:
- This functionality is automatically enabled for all users, except the noted Video Assignments and Virtual Classroom (Bongo), Discover, Learning Path, Manager Dashboard, Learning Groups, and User Attributes features.
Brightspace Editor – Equations render consistently for all users | Updated
To improve consistency in Brightspace Editor, this release updates the Editor so that it renders all equations during editing or creation in the same MathJax format as when published. This helps with correct formatting and spacing of equations, which makes it easier to review work prior to publishing.
Previously there were layout and styling differences during creation and editing; the former used WIRIS format rendering and the latter MathJax.
Note: There are no changes to the Equation Editor used to create an equation to insert into the editor.
Figure: The Equation Editor showing the rendering of an equation during creation after the January 2023/20.23.1 Release.
Figure: The Equation Editor showing the rendering of an equation during creation prior to the January 2023/20.23.1 Release.
Technical Details
Impact:
- Slight impact to all users due to the ability to view equations in the same format, regardless of user role.
Availability:
- This feature is available to all clients.
To enable:
- This functionality is automatically enabled for all users.
Creator+ Content Styler – Add more color with the updated color selector | Updated
This feature changes the color options available to the user in the Content Styler menu and adds custom, optional HTML Title attributes to the other color selectors. The Accent and Accessible Accent color selectors now use more standard color selectors found in other areas of Brightspace. The selectors now have their Title attribute set relevant to the color property they control and have improved alternative tiles that are more descriptive.
Previously, the selector icon was misleading when choosing accent colors. The title attributes were not descriptive enough for a screenreader user to know what color they were controlling.
Figure: The improved Content Styler user interface.
Technical Details
Impact:
- Slight impact to administrators and instructors since color choices are more obvious and due to the improved experience for administrators using a screenreader.
Availability:
- This feature is available to all clients.
To enable:
- This functionality is automatically enabled for all users with Creator+. If you wish to purchase Creator+, contact your D2L Sales representative.
Data Hub – Brightspace Data Sets Major Version 8 | New
Brightspace Data Sets (BDS) Major Version 8 is now released. Version 7 will continue to exist in parallel for 6 months (January 2023 to June 2023) to give users time to accommodate the changes before migrating. All clients will be automatically migrated to BDS version 8 in July 2023.
Included in the upgrade to Major Version 8 are disruptive changes to existing Brightspace Data Sets:
- Grade Objects BDS: remove CategoryName column. (Please note, you can still find the category name by using the ParentGradeObjectId column and the Name column.)
- Quiz Objects BDS: remove DisableRightClick column.
For more information about the changes for BDS version 8, refer to Motivations behind the changes in Data Hub Brightspace Data Set (BDS) Major Version 8 on Brightspace Community.
Technical Details
Impact:
- Large impact to administrators due to breaking changes to existing data sets. Any automated workflows based on the affected data sets must be reviewed and potentially adjusted to work with the new version.
Availability:
- This feature is available to Brightspace Core clients.
To enable:
- Ensure the Can Access Brightspace Data Sets permission is granted to administrators at the org level. You must also ensure the d2l.Tools.BrightspaceDataSets.Version configuration variable is set to version 8. New and changed data sets appear the first time the data set runs after the version update.
Data Hub – LTI Link Migration Audit Brightspace Data Set | New
This release adds the new LTI Link Migration Audit Brightspace Data Set (BDS) to provide administrators with an audit log of all attempted LTI link migrations.
Each row in the data set represents an attempted link migration from LTI 1.1 (legacy) to LTI 1.3 (advantage). Having access to this data helps administrators to understand their migration process and make any changes necessary to complete the migration from 1.1 to 1.3.
Previously, administrators could only see if their migrations were successful by checking the Migration Log under External Learning Tools, and there was no information older than 90 days.
The LTI Link Migration Audit BDS only captures migration attempts from January 2023 onwards and does not contain historical information.
Technical Details
Impact:
- Slight impact to administrators due to the addition of a new data set.
Availability:
To enable:
- Ensure the Can Access Brightspace Data Sets permission is granted to administrators at the org level and the d2l.Tools.BrightspaceDataSets.Version configuration variable is set to version 7 or 8. New and changed data sets appear the first time the data set runs after the version update.
Discover – Approve or decline course self-enrollment requests | New
This release allows you to accept or decline learner self-enrollment requests. All enrollment requests are managed from the Manage Requests page. Previously, learners could self-enroll in any course that was available in Discover, without the approval of an administrator or instructor.
Figure: The Require approval for self-enrollment requests option of Approval Flows.
This feature implements the following PIE items:
- D5824 (Discover Enrollment – Security)
- D5979 (Approval work-flow for Discover enrollment)
Technical Details
Impact:
- Large impact to administrators and instructors due to the ability to accept or deny self-enrollment requests.
- Large impact to learners who must obtain approval before self-enrolling in a course.
Availability:
- This feature is available to all clients who have Discover as part of Brightspace Core.
To enable:
- Administrators must grant to the desired user roles the Discover > Configure Availability in Discover and the Discover > Approve Enrollment Requests permissions to use Approval Flows.
Email – Reduce spam in emails with limitations on daily emails | New
This feature introduces the ability to prevent users sending out an unlimited number of emails – and thus reduce the amount of spam emails – by implementing a daily limit of email recipients. Administrators determine which roles have a restriction by assigning the Send Limited Daily Emails permission. The daily limit is set by the d2l.Tools.Mail.DailyRecipientSendLimit configuration variable, which has a default value of 100 daily recipients and a maximum of 5000.
Once a user reaches the daily recipient limit, they receive a notice in the Email tool and the Send button becomes invisible. This notice states "You have reached your daily recipient limit and can no longer send emails." Users can continue to save emails as drafts.
Note: A user's day is calculated based off the user's time zone, from 12:00:00 through to 11:59:59.
Administrators can also configure which institution email or emails receive alerts from Brightspace about roles going over the daily limits with the d2l.Tools.Mail.DailyRecipientLimitNotifications configuration variable.
Technical Details
Impact:
- Slight impact to administrators due to the ability to set email recipient limits and related alerts to user roles.
- Slight impact to instructors and learners due to the ability to have their daily email recipient restricted.
Availability:
- This feature is available to all clients.
To enable:
- Administrators must assign the Send Limited Daily Emails permission to the desired user roles, and then set the daily limit using the d2l.Tools.Mail.DailyRecipientSendLimit configuration variable (default is 100).
Insights Dashboards – Use data better with the improved user interface and experience for dashboards | Updated
All dashboards in the Insights Portal now have multiple improved interface and user experience updates. The new experience allows for better visibility of dashboard and chart data and creates consistency across the Insights Portal dashboards.
The updated Dashboard provides the following features:
- Linking and mirroring zoom for all Dashboard charts.
- Help tooltip to show users how to zoom in and out of charts.
- Ability to perform a fullscreen zoom on charts.
- Addition of a Showing only bar to provide visibility into highlighted and muted chart data.
Figure: The new Adoption Dashboard user interface.
Figure: The zoom tooltip for dashboards.
Technical Details
Impact:
- Moderate impact to administrators and instructors due to a new and improved user interface and experience.
Availability:
- This feature is available to all clients who have the Performance+ package or who have purchased Brightspace Insights in the previous packaging model.
To enable:
- This functionality is automatically enabled for all users.
Learning Outcomes – Clear aligned learning outcomes from assessment activities | New
A Clear All button is now available to remove all Learning Outcomes aligned to an assessment activity. When you click the Clear All button, a verification message appears to ensure that you do not mistakenly remove all aligned outcomes from an activity.
This feature addresses the following accessibility criteria:
- WCAG 2.1 Success Criterion 3.3.6 Error Prevention (All)
Figure: The new Clear All button. The Clear All Alignments dialog requires you to verify that you intend to clear all alignments.
Technical Details
Impact:
- Slight impact to Instructors due to new workflow to clear alignments.
Availability:
- This feature is available to all clients using Learning Outcomes.
To enable:
- This functionality is automatically enabled for all users who have the Learning Outcome tool turned on and has Learning Outcomes imported and aligned to assessment activities.
Lessons – Set content topics as optional or required in the New Content Experience | Updated
With this release, instructors using the New Content Experience (Lessons) can set a Content topic as Optional or Required. Previously, instructors were required to switch temporarily to the Classic Content experience to change a topic to Optional or Required.
There is no change to learner visibility with this release. Learners using New Learner Experience (LX) can see if a topic is Optional or Required but learners using the New Content Experience (Lessons) can't.
This feature implements the following PIE items:
- D8573 (New Content: Add Completion Method Value "Not Required" to Allow Optional Content)
- D6221 (Completion Tracking in the Lessons Tool)
Figure: The More Options menu for a required content topic, showing the new Set as Optional option.
Technical Details
Impact:
- Slight impact to instructors due to a new menu option that sets a given topic to either Optional or Required.
Availability:
- This feature is available to all clients.
To enable:
- This functionality is automatically enabled for all users.
Pulse - View topic descriptions | Updated
Building upon the Brightspace Pulse – Access links and images in module descriptions when you’re on-the-go feature originally released in October 2022/20.22.10. This feature improves the experience of learners using Pulse to review course topics by making full HTML topic descriptions available.
Previously, learners could access Content in Pulse, but could not see information included in topic descriptions that were visible in the Brightspace web application.
Figure: The View Description option for a topic in Pulse.
Technical Details
Impact:
- Slight impact to learners who can now review vital information using topic descriptions in Pulse.
Availability:
- This feature is available to all clients.
To enable:
- This functionality is automatically enabled for all users.
Release Conditions – Additional Replies Only release condition for Discussions | Updated
This release alters the existing release conditions for Discussions by adding a new Replies Only option to the Posts authored in topic and No post authored in topic condition types drop-down menus. This helps instructors release material, or not release material, based solely on replies.
Previously the only options were New Threads Only and Threads and Replies.
Figure: The Create a Release Condition dialog with the new Replies Only option selected from the Type drop-down menu.
Technical Details
Impact:
- Slight impact to instructors due to the ability to select Replies Only from the Release Conditions drop-down menus.
Availability:
- This feature is available to all clients.
To enable:
- This functionality is automatically enabled for all users.
Rubrics – Discard incomplete evaluations | Updated
The Rubric evaluation workflow provides an autosave feature to streamline the evaluation process; however, if an instructor exited the partial evaluation, the automatically saved parts of the assessment were committed to the rubric and visible to the learner. To provide a better experience in Consistent Evaluation (inline and pop-out views), the instructor has the option to Publish the current evaluation, or to Save as Draft. If the instructor chooses to Save as Draft, the working copy of an evaluation is saved to a temporary file until the instructor clicks Publish, and then commits the assessment to the Rubric. If an instructor clicks the new Cancel button, the working copy is deleted. If an instructor edits a previously published evaluation and then decides to cancel before updating, all the changes in the evaluation, including the rubric evaluation changes, are discarded.
Note: Portfolio and Grade book pop out windows and the Rubric Create and Edit windows currently only support the auto-save functionality.
Figure: The Discard button on an in-process evaluation. The Saving and Saved indicators no longer appear at the top of the evaluation window.
Technical Details
Impact:
- Slight impact to instructors due to the ability to cancel assessments without automatically saving partial evaluations.
- Slight impact to learners who no longer see partial evaluations due to the automatic save function for assessments.
Availability:
- This feature is available to all clients using the assignment and discussion evaluation experiences.
To enable:
- This functionality is automatically enabled for all users using Rubrics with the Consistent Evaluation experience.
Rubrics – Simplified learner permissions to view rubric feedback | Updated
The See Rubrics permission is no longer a requirement for learners to view rubric feedback. With the January 2023/20.23.1 Brightspace release, a migration script will remove these permissions from Learner roles at the course offering org unit level, and persist only in instructor and evaluator roles.
The See Rubrics permission is planned in future releases to be used for visibility features (such as the Archived Rubrics tag) which are not appropriate for Learners to view. This update aids the preparation for those usage scenarios.
Note: If you remove the See Rubrics permission for a user, that user will not see the Rubrics tool in on the Nav bar. If you remove the See Rubrics permission for a user, that user will not see the Rubrics tool on the Nav bar.
Technical Details
Impact:
- Slight impact to learners who no longer require the See Rubrics permission to view evaluated rubrics and rubric feedback.
Availability:
- This feature is available to all clients using Rubrics.
To enable:
- This functionality is automatically enabled for all users. A database script automatically removes Learners from the See Rubric permission.
Rubrics – Statistics icon moved to allow more space to grade tasks | Updated
The Rubrics Statistics icon is available when the rubric tile is collapsed and expanded. When the rubric tile is collapsed, the icon appears at the bottom of the rubric tile. When the rubric is expanded, the icon now appears inside the grading task. This change provides expanded horizontal space for evaluators to complete the grading tasks.
Previously, when the icon appeared outside the expanded rubric tile, the space available to grade tasks was limited by the space used by the icon.
This change provides parity between the legacy evaluation experience and the new Consistent Evaluation experience.
Figure: Previously, the Rubrics Statistics icon appeared outside the collapsed Rubrics tile.
Figure: Now, the Rubrics Statistic icon appears at the bottom of the collapsed Rubrics tile.
Figure: The Rubrics Statistics icon also appears inside the expanded Rubrics tile.
Technical Details
Impact:
- Slight impact to instructors due to the increased space available to grade tasks.
Availability:
- This feature is available to all clients.
To enable:
- This functionality is automatically enabled for all users.
- Added on 15-December-2022 Preview Release Notes published.
- Added on 5-January-2023 Added the link to the Community Transition Plan blog post to Announcements.
- Added on 5-January-2023 Updated the Rubrics – Discard incomplete evaluations | Updated topic to provide clearer information.
- Added on 5-January-2023 Update to Adoption Dashboard – The New Experience is now on by default | Updated to reflect client availability.
- Added on 5-January-2023 Update to Insights Dashboards – Use data better with the improved user interface and experience for dashboards | Updated to reflect client availability.
- Added on 11-January-2023 Updated the Rubrics Statistics icon moved to allow more space to grade tasks | Updated topic to reflect the updated location of the Rubrics Statistics icon in the collapsed and expanded rubric tile.
- Added on 11-January-2023 Update to Adoption Dashboard – The New Experience is now on by default | Updated to reflect client availability.
- Added on 12-January-2023 Updated the link to the Release Highlights video.
- Added on 31-January-2023 Updated the Rubrics – Simplified learner permissions to view rubric feedback | Updated topic to better describe the implications of withdrawing the See Rubrics permission.
- Added on 11-January-2023 Updated the Adoption Dashboard – The New Experience is now on by default | Updated topic to reflect client availability.
- Added on 19-January-2023 Updated the Learning Outcomes – Clear aligned learning outcomes from assessment activities | New release note to add animated GIFs instead of an image.
- Added on 19-January-2023 Updated the Rubrics – Discard incomplete evaluations | Updated release note to replace an image with the animated GIF.
- Added on 19-January-2023 Updated the Rubrics – Simplified learner permissions to view rubric feedback | Updated topic to better describe the implications of withdrawing the See Rubrics permission.
- Added on 2-March-2023 Updated the Data Hub – Brightspace Data Sets Major Version 8 | New release note to clarify that Data Hub is available to Brightspace Core customers.
- Added on 2-March-2023 Updated the Data Hub – LTI Link Migration Audit Brightspace Data Set | New release note to clarify that Data Hub is available to Brightspace Core customers.