LMS Weekly Update: Brightspace January Release

The January system release brings a few small improvements:

Tools/Classlist – Total number of users field and floating buttons: Now the number of users displays at the bottom of the Classlist page for at-a-glance viewing to help instructors keep track of the total number of learners, which may extend beyond the users visible on the page. On the Print Classlist and Email Classlist pages, the clickable Print and Email buttons now float consistently on screen, to ensure easy access to these actions without excessive scrolling.

Copy Course Components – Add validation logic to the copy process: When using the Import/Export/Copy Components from under the Tools/Course Admin menu, the Copy Course Components now contains a validation logic step to the course copy process, which can inform users if they performed a copy from the source previously, avoiding unnecessary duplication of copied course components.

Discussions – Assessment consistency changes: When assessing discussions, instructors have new multi-select options to Publish Feedback and Retract Feedback. In the Status column, the Draft / Published checkbox has been replaced by information on the date when feedback was saved as draft or published. These changes are visible on both the Users and Assessments tabs. The Save, Save and Close, and Cancel buttons have also been removed as their functionality has been replaced by the Publish Feedback and Retract Feedback options.

Grades – Export sorting options: This feature introduces the ability to sort exported gradebooks based on the following options: OrgDefinedID, Username, Last Name, and First name.

Groups – Self-enrollment group capacity, start dates and descriptions

This feature includes three improvements to Groups:

• Group members can now see the description of their group. For self-enrolled groups, group members will now see the group description at all times, including before and after enrollment. For other group types, Instructors can now choose to display the description to members of the group. This visible group description setting is off by default for non-self-enrollment groups. Previously, all group descriptions were hidden from group members.
• An instructor can now increase or decrease the capacity for self-enrollment groups after they have been created, and prior to the group sign-up expiry date. Decreasing a group size to an amount smaller than has already signed up for a group will not re-allocate users to other groups. Previously, self-enrollment groups were not editable after they were created.
• Instructors can set Start dates for self-enrollment groups. This feature allows them to schedule self-enrollment groups availability, ensuring learners are prepared and have equal opportunity to self-enroll.

Quick Eval – Dismiss activities from list: To improve the ability to manage items on their Quick Eval list, instructors can now select items that appear in their Quick Eval list and remove them temporarily or permanently. Instructors can view their dismissed items in the Dismissed Activities List and restore them to the Quick Eval list at any time.

Tip of the week: I have different points possible for gradebook column than the quiz itself. What do I do?

If there are no submissions for your quiz, you just need to edit the points for the associated column, from Grades/Manage Grades (edit the column).

If you already have grades for the quiz, then you will need to “force” the quiz grades to be readjusted in the gradebook.

• Once you correct the points for the quiz column in your Grades area, go to Activities/Quizzes/Grade/Users tab. Select all the students and then click Retract Feedback.
• Go to Grades and choose Enter Grades for the quiz column. Select all students and click on Clear Grades (please note that this will NOT clear the quiz attempts)
• The final step is to go back to the quiz, Activities/Quizzes/Grade/Users tab and use Publish Feedback for all students.