Welcome to Discover, Brightspace’s internal course discovery and self-registration tool.
The purpose of this blog is to provide you with an overview of recent improvements to Discover and show you some exciting previews of what we have planned for future releases.
Review the following headings to learn about what new and exciting features we have planned for future releases and visit this page regularly for information about exciting updates to Discover!
February 20.24.2 release
Users with the appropriate role permissions (approvers) can perform bulk actions on enrollment requests in Discover. This feature simplifies managing multiple requests from the Manage Requests page. Approvers can:
- Select and process multiple enrollment requests simultaneously, including options to approve, decline, or delete.
- Send a collective comment to all declined enrollment requests.
To use this functionality, users must have the Approve Enrollment Requests and Delete Enrollment Requests permissions.
For more information on this feature, refer to the Discover – Perform bulk actions on enrollment requests | New release note.
September 20.23.9 release
We also have more exciting improvements to enrollment rules planned for September 2023.
Enhancements to Enrollment Rules – Phase 2 – Add an existing rule from the COI page.
In September, we will continue to introduce enhancements to enrollment rules, including the ability to add an existing enrollment rule to a course from the Course Offering Information (COI) page.
Enhanced Enrollment Rules permissions – clarifications and use cases
In the September 2023/20.23.9 release, we introduced additional improvements to our Enrollment Rules workflows. The rationale behind these improvements was to control who can create enrollment rules and condense the quantity of rules created across an Org in Brightspace. These changes encourage users to reuse the same rules instead of creating duplicate rules that effectively do the same thing, thus promoting consistency and reducing the total number of rules created.
As part of those improvements, we also changed the functionality of Discover permissions related to Enrollment Rules. We have since received feedback that these changes require some clarification to help you better understand how to make the most of these great improvements.
Configure availability in Discover permission prior to September 20.23.9 release
As part of our ongoing efforts to improve managing enrollment rules at scale, development requirements demanded that we temporarily change how permissions functioned in our August 20.23.8 release.
Prior to August 2023, the Configure availability in Discover permission allowed users to create, edit, or remove existing enrollment rules directly from the Course Offering Information (COI) page of a course.
As part of our development process, we had to move this functionality into the Manage Discover permission. Users with the Configure availability in Discover permission were therefore only able to view enrollment rules applied to a single course as read-only. Users were not able to add or remove rules unless they had Manage Discover also applied to their role.
The ability to add or remove existing enrollment rules from the COI page was added back to the Configure availability in Discover permission in the September 20.23.9 release. This timeline is detailed in the following table:
July 20.23.7 Release | August 20.23.8 Release | September 20.23.9 Release |
|---|
Configure availability in Discover enables users to create, edit, or remove enrollment rules from the COI page of a single course. | Configure availability in Discover only allows users to view existing enrollment rules from the COI page of a single course. Access is READ ONLY. The ability to add or remove existing enrollment rules is moved to those with Manage Discover permission. | Users with either Configure availability in Discover or Manage Discover permissions can add or remove existing enrollment rules from the COI page of a single course. |
Compare enrollment rule permission functionality in September 2023
As of September 2023/20.23.9 release, both permissions described above allow you to add or remove existing enrollment rules from the Course Offering Information (COI) page of a single course. However, the Manage Discover permission unlocks added functionalities suited for administrator use cases.
Although either of these permissions can individually provide you with the ability to add or remove existing enrollment rules from the COI page, Manage Discover enables additional functionality:
| Permission |
|---|
Functionality as of 20.23.9 | Configure Availability in Discover | Manage Discover |
Add or remove existing enrollment rules from the COI page of a single course. | Yes | Yes |
Link to the Enrollment Rules page from the COI page of a single course. | No | Yes |
Create new enrollment rules and associate them with multiple courses at scale from the Create Enrollment Rule page. | No | Yes |
Review and edit existing enrollment rules from the Enrollment Rules page. | No | Yes |
Use cases
The following sections describe use cases to help you understand which permissions you should be using as an instructor compared to an administrator.
Instructor use case: Add or remove existing enrollment rules from the Course Offering Information (COI) page
If you are an Instructor who is only interested in adding or removing existing enrollment rules from a single course, you can do so directly from the Course Offering information (COI) page of your course. In this use case you require the Configure availability in Discover permission.
Configure Availability in Discover permission functionality
This permission gives you access to the Add Enrollment Rules button on the COI page of your course.
The Add Enrollment Rules button enables you to search for existing enrollment rules and add them to your course.
You can also remove any enrollment rules added to your course by clicking the X next to the Enrollment Rule name.
This permission is designed to give you the ability to quickly add existing enrollment rules to your course without worrying about creating or configuring enrollment rules.
Figure: The Configure availability in Discover permissions allows you to work directly from the COI page to add or remove existing enrollment rules.
Administrator use case: Work from either the Course Offering Information (COI) page or the Enrollment Rules page to create, edit, delete, and apply enrollment rules at scale
If you’re an Administrator, you probably don’t want to have to add enrollment rules to courses one at a time through the COI page of a single course.
In this case, the Manage Discover permission unlocks the full potential of managing enrollment rules at scale. Use this permission to have the ability to create, edit, add, and delete enrollment rules starting from either the COI page of a single course, or from the Enrollment Rules page.
The Manage Discover permission enables the Add Enrollment Rules button on the COI page of a single course in the same way that Configure Availability in Discover does. This functionality is intentional; it ensures that as an administrator with just Manage Discover applied to your role, you can still add or remove enrollment rules from the COI page of as single course.
Manage Discover permission functionality
This permission gives you access to the new Enrollment Rules page where you can review and edit existing enrollment rules.
It also gives you access to the Create Enrollment Rule page, where you can search for and associate your new enrollment rule with as many courses as you wish (at scale).
From the COI page of a course, this permission also adds both the Add Enrollment Rules button and the Manage Enrollment Rules link.
Figure: The Manage Discover permission includes both the Add Enrollment Rules button and the added ability to Manage Enrollment Rules (from the Enrollment Rules page).
Links to Discover help documentation
Refer to the following help documentation for details about how to set up and use Discover.
Administrator documentation
Higher Education Instructor documentation
Corporate Instructor documentation
August 20.23.8 release
Here’s some great improvements that we have implemented in August 2023.
Course-by-Course Enrollment Rule Creation
As of the July 2023 release, Enrollment Rules allowed users with the Manage Discover and Configure Availability in Discover permissions to add an Enrollment Rule to a specific course through the Course Offering Information page. Rules controlled and limited which users could view and self-enroll in a course.
However, we recognized that Enrollment Rules functionality was limited in that rules could not be applied to multiple courses and needed to be applied on a course-by-course basis.
Enhancements to Enrollment Rules - Phase 1
The August enhancements have introduced improvements to Enrollment Rules functionality in Discover that make Enrollment Rules scalable. Expanding the power of Enrollment Rules in Discover opens avenues to future advancement and ease of use.
Figure: Use the Create Enrollment Rule page to create a new enrollment rule. Add conditions and apply the rule to as many courses as needed.
Discover is a powerful tool but is limited by a dependency on a legacy control. By making Enrollment Rules scalable, Discover will gain a new level of flexibility and gain independence from that control.
As Discover evolves, we will be focused on ease of use, crafting more streamlined workflows, and creating features that were not possible before the coming Enrollment Rules enhancements.
For more information about Enhancements to Enrollment Rules, refer to Discover – Create and add rules to multiple courses with enhanced Enrollment Rules | New.
January 20.23.01 Release
As part of the January 20.23.01 Release we are excited to announce the introduction of Approval Workflows as part of Discover. Administrators and Instructors can now approve or decline learner self-enrollment requests for any courses available in Discover!
Figure: Any course that is available in Discover can now also be set to require approval before a learner can self-enroll.
How do Approval Workflows help Administrators and Instructors?
Approval Workflows allow administrators and instructors to:
· Easily manage all learner enrollment requests from the Manage Requests page.
· Vet learner enrollment requests by requiring learners to answer enrollment questions.
· Approve or decline course self-enrollment requests submitted by learners.
· Provide reasons why a learner cannot enroll in a course when declining a request.
· Maintain anonymity when approving or declining requests, if desired.
How do Approval Workflows help Learners?
Approval Workflows allow learners to:
· Easily manage all self-enrollment requests using the My Requests page.
· Receive feedback from approvers when a request is declined.
· Better understand course requirements and pre-requisites before enrolling in a course by answering enrollment questions before requesting enrollment.
Release Note links
Here’s a list of links to previous Discover updates and improvements.
July 20.23.7 release
June 20.23.6 release
January 20.23.1 release
