The Quizzes Tool

Test/Quiz Question Generator and Quiz Question Converter

Brightspace Test/Quiz Question Generator

As the issue with the True/False questions is now fixed, we are making the Brightspace Test/Quiz Question Generator available to all faculty. After importing the quiz questions into a Brightspace Quiz or Question Library, it is imperative to double-check for the accuracy of the quiz questions you just imported using the Preview a Quiz option.

The Quiz Question Converter

There is one alternative to the Test/Quiz Question Generator, developed by D2L. To access this version, you will need to create a Brighspace Community account. The D2L version supports the same question types, except for the fill-in-the-blank one. More documentation on this is coming soon. Stay tuned!

Note: If you need assistance in verifying your quiz, please schedule an appointment with the DLE Team.

 

DLE Weekly Update: November News, Brightspace Tips and Grade Entry in ACSIS

New great feature introduced by the November release: Retake incorrect questions in subsequent attempts

This feature introduces a new option for Quizzes Attempt settings that allows students to only retake their incorrectly answered questions from previous quiz attempts. When you edit a Brightspace quiz (Activities/Quizzes), the new option is available for you to select from the Assessment tab. Each learner only sees the questions they had previously answered incorrectly in the same order as the initial attempt (including quizzes with random sections and random questions).

Brightspace Tips

Are you marking your students’ assignments anonymously?

Anonymous Marking is a tool in Brightspace which allows you to mark your students Assignment submissions without knowing the identity of the student. In case you are using Anonymous Marking, note it is not possible to publish individual evaluations. To maintain anonymity, all evaluations have to be published at the same time using the Publish All Feedback button. When marking, the first step is to save the grades/feedback as a draft (select Save Draft to save), and then go back to Activities/Assignments/View Submissions page and click on the Publish All Feedback button.

Do you need to copy ONLY the final exam (or any other quiz) from one course to another?

Use the Select Components button when you perform a course copy and select only the Quizzes option, followed by Selected Quizzes, and then the quiz you wish to copy. If your quiz is created as a random quiz with questions from the Question Library, make sure you also copy that particular section from the Question Library, by selecting the Question Library option, along with the Quizzes one. By doing this, you will make sure that you will have that Question Library section in the destination course, for usage in other quizzes.

Preparing a CSV (Excel) File for Uploading Grades into ACSIS

At the end of each semester, you are asked to upload the final grades for your students to ACSIS. This article provides you with step-by-step instructions describing how to prepare a .csv (Excel) file from the gradebook in Brightspace in preparation for submitting/uploading grades to ACSIS.

Does your course contain TechSmith Relay videos?

The TechSmith web server will be shut down on December 31, 2020. Any content not retrieved by this date will no longer be available to users.
You may have inherited a Brightspace course that contains TechSmith Relay presentations, created by you or another faculty member (past or present). The URL will typically contain “replay.algonquincollege.com” and will also indicate the username of the original creator, e.g. “replay.algonquincollege.com/replay/kershar/…” For more information, and the steps that you should take to address this, please take a look at this myAC post.

DLE Weekly Update: New Video on How to Show Quiz Results via Submission Views

Since using the Submission Views options in a Brightspace Quiz is the most common topic almost any time of the semester, we are sharing again the KB article on how to show the quiz results via Submission Views. In addition to the article that it’s been already appreciated by many of you, we NOW have for you a very informative video on this topic, created by our DLE Team.

When students complete quizzes, they will be eager to see their results AND feedback. The default quiz settings show only the overall grade, and nothing else. To release more information to students (i.e. questions, correct/incorrect answers, class averages, etc.) you need to either edit the default submission view or set up an additional submission view.

This KB article describes how to set up a submission view (Default View or Additional View) for a Brightspace quiz. The Quiz Submission Views video is included in this article.

Note: To check if it works the way you want it to, add the Test student account to your course.

Important: Make sure you select the correct role (teststudent) when adding this account to your course. If you use the learner role, you and the rest of the instructors won’t be able to impersonate it.

For more tips and documentation on Brightspace quizzes, please read these KB articles:

DLE Weekly Update: Regrading a Quiz in Brightspace

Possible Scenario: You noticed that you have a “bad” question in a quiz (wrong answer is set up as correct), but ONLY after all your students submitted the quiz. The first impulse is to delete the “bad” question, hoping that the quiz points will go down (e.g. from 30 points to 29 points), and that Brightspace will show the quiz score without the points for the deleted quiz question.

What You Need to Know:

  • The deleted question is NOT actually removed from the quiz, as the delete happened after the students submitted the quiz. The change will apply ONLY to the future quiz attempts.
  • The grade for the deleted question is still included into the attempt score for all students who submitted before the change.
  • The maximum points for the quiz remain at 30 points, for ALL students’ quiz attempts, as the change applies only for attempts taken from this point forward.
  • Having the grade book column adjusted from 30 to 29 points will not work, as Brightspace will only try to keep the same weight for the attempt and not actually reflecting the new grade out of 29 points.

Options You Have:

  • Regrade all students’ quiz attempts for the bad question and give to all attempts zero points. Note that the students who already got that question right will end up with a lower grade than the other ones.
  • Regrade all student’s attempts and give to all students the maximum points for the bad question.

This KB Article on Regrading a quiz has instructions on how to regrade the quiz, by going to Activities/Quizzes and then Grade (click on the chevron of that quiz).

Recommendations:

We recommend giving the points for the bad question to all students’ attempts, while keeping the points possible for that gradebook column as 30. In this way:

  • you will avoid having grades with decimals in the gradebook, in the case that you change the points to 29
  • you will avoid having a lower percentage for the students who already have right now a higher grade, as they got that question 19 right
  • you would avoid having different grades in the quiz and the gradebook column that will be less confusing.

More articles on Quizzes:

DLE Weekly Update: How to Show Quiz Results via Submission Views

How to Show Quiz Results via Submission Views

When students complete quizzes, they will be eager to see their results AND feedback. The default quiz settings show only the overall grade, and nothing else. To release more information to students (i.e. questions, correct/incorrect answers, class averages, etc.) you need to either edit the default submission view or set up an additional submission view.

This KB article describes how to set up a submission view (Default View or Additional View) for a Brightspace quiz. To check if it works the way you want it to, add the Test student account to your course.

Important: Make sure you select the correct role (teststudent) when adding this account to your course. If you use the learner role, you and the rest of the instructors won’t be able to impersonate it.

For more tips and documentation on Brightspace quizzes, please read these KB articles:

 

LMS Weekly Update: Tips on Quizzes, Turnitin Assignments and ZOOM…

Tips on Quizzes, Turnitin Assignments and ZOOM…

Quizzes

Question: My exam contains sections of various type of quiz questions (multiple choice, written response and short answer). I need to shuffle the questions within each section, while keeping the order of the sections intact when students are taking the exam. How do I do this?

Answer: Our recommendation is to start by having your quiz questions organized in Sections, in the Question Library, for an easy work flow. Then follow these steps:

  • Go to Activities/Quizzes/New Quiz to begin creating your exam.
  • Click on the Add/Edit Questions button and then choose Import/Browse Question Library.
  • Select all the sections (they look like folders) you need to bring over to your exam and click Add.
  • Double click on the name of each Section and check off the Shuffle questions in this section option.
  • Note that you could display extra information that comes up before the questions contained in each section, by using the Section text. Ensure you don’t have the Hide Section Text from students option checked off
  • DO NOT check off the Shuffle questions at the quiz level option from the Properties tab.

Turnitin

Question: I have given my students feedback using the GradeMarks in a Turnitin Assignment, but the feedback is NOT visible to them.

Answer: Students view the Turnitin feedback by going to Activities/Assignments, then clicking on the Feedback (read/unread) in the Evaluation Status column for that particular assignment OR or by going to their Grades.

  • Note that the assignment needs to be visible to students (it does NOT have to be available) so that they can access the Feedback.
  • Ensure you have a grade entered for each submission in the Turnitin Feedback Studio where you used the QuickMarks for grading.
  • Make sure you have the grades published by going to the Activities/Assignments/View Submissions screen, select all users and then click on the Publish Feedback option.

ZOOM

Question: My students have group presentations and I have split them in breakout rooms. How do I make sure I have a recording of each breakout room?

Answer: Set up the ZOOM meeting to record on your computer and NOT in the cloud. You will need to have one student from each room record the breakout room session. You can designate one person in each Breakout Room to record locally and then share that file with you after the meeting. Multiple students can record locally if allowed by the host.

Note: Need to know how to set up your Zoom account and get familiarized with the security and privacy guidelines around hosting and recording meetings? Check the LTS’s Tools for Delivery website.

D2L Fusion 2020 – Virtual Event

D2L Fusion 2020 is starting on July 20th and it is FREE. This virtual Fusion conference will take place three consecutive days each month, from noon to 3:45 p.m., over a few months period.

Reminder: New Assignment Create and Edit Experience

The June Brightspace release includes a new assignment create and edit experience. This will be available to faculty immediately across all courses, on an opt-in/opt-out basis, providing an early opportunity to test and provide feedback ahead of the summer vacation.

  • Access here the Knowledge Base article for instructions on how to turn it off or on.
  • Access here the Knowledge Base article for on overview of the benefits and limitations of the new assignment experience in its current state.

Reminder: Turnitin Mappings to be reset on August 21, 2020

Please take a moment today to schedule a reminder for yourself to export the content you wish to keep before August 21st, 2020. If you have any questions or need assistance, please email brightspace@algonquincollege.com, with the subject line “Turnitin Export”.

Instructions on How to Export/Import your QuickMarks and Rubrics:

LMS Weekly Update: Summer Updates

Question of the Week – Quizzes in Brightspace

We have made a summary of our documentation on quizzes, hoping that this will provide you with a quicker answer before you set up an appointment with one of our LMS Faculty Support Team members:

  • All you need to know about Brightspace Quizzes – Learn about the recommended workflow to create quizzes, find short answers to common questions (how to create a practice quiz, regrade students’ submissions, or how to hide the grades and print a quiz).
  • Ways to provide Quiz Feedback to your learners – There are multiple ways of providing quiz feedback to your students, and also different ways of accessing the feedback. Learn about the overall, attempt or question type of feedback.

Q. While taking an exam, if the screen freezes, or there is a short moment of no Internet connection, how will my students and I deal with this situation?

A. Once the problem is fixed, students will need to login again to Brightspace, access your course and click on the exam link. They will be allowed to continue the exam from where they left off, as answers are automatically saved, but the quiz timing will still go on while the student is out of the quiz. If they won’t be able to continue that quiz attempt, in an “one attempt” quiz situation, they will need to contact you, the teacher, and you will need allow them a second attempt, using the Special Access options, OR to reset the current attempt and allow them to retake it.

Update on Video Note – NEW!

In a continued effort to support learner engagement and connection, D2L is happy to announce that the 30-minute Video Note extension will remain permanent, with a default limit of 30 minutes and 1 GB uploads.

What is a Video Note?

A Video Note allows a simple way to record video using your computer’s webcam and instantly publish it in your courses. You may find this feature helpful when you want to personalize your course interactions or improve engagement with your students. Watch this video for a short overview on a Brightspace Video Note and read the documentation from D2L on how to use Video Notes in your courses.

Fall 2020 Courses in Brightspace

Shells for Fall 2020 courses will be made available to you around August 10th. The 20F courses availability will be advertised in the LMS Weekly Update email for that week.

Meanwhile, if you would like to start developing 20F course content and learn more about some of the tools in Brightspace, please send us an email at brightspace@algonquincollege.com and ask for a development course (please include the code/name for the course you are developing). Development courses in Brightspace are identified by an “X” in the course code/name. For instance, all development courses created this year (2020) start with 20X.

Brightspace Refresher

Need some tips and reminders on how to use Brightspace effectively? Get a refresher on how to upload and organize content, how to communicate with your learners, how to create and deploy assessment activities and how to configure the grades page for you and your students. Register for the sessions offered by LTS, by visiting their Faculty PD offerings.

Reminder: New Assignment Create and Edit Experience

The June Brightspace release includes a new assignment create and edit experience. This will be available to faculty immediately across all courses, on an opt-in/opt-out basis, providing an early opportunity to test and provide feedback ahead of the summer vacation.

  • Access here the Knowledge Base article for instructions on how to turn it off or on.
  • Access here the Knowledge Base article for on overview of the benefits and limitations of the new assignment experience in its current state.

Reminder: Turnitin Mappings to be reset on August 21, 2020

Please take a moment today to schedule a reminder for yourself to export the content you wish to keep before August 21st, 2020. If you have any questions or need assistance, please email brightspace@algonquincollege.com, with the subject line “Turnitin Export”.

Instructions on How to Export/Import your QuickMarks and Rubrics:

LMS Weekly Update: Upcoming Changes on Appointments and Grading Final Exams

Update on the LMS Faculty Support

Message from Michel Marcheterre, Digital Learning Environment Strategist, about the Appointments Upcoming Changes.

As we settle in this new way of providing support, I’m happy to announce that our support team is growing. With the additional support specialists, it allows us to make some changes to the way we deliver support through appointments.

As of Monday, April 20th, 2020:

  • Appointments will be for 25 minutes maximum. Our extra capacity allows us to spend more time with you.
  • We still ask that you limit yourself to one appointment per day. If you require more time, our support specialist will, at the end of your appointment, establish a strategy to provide you the help you need.
  • We ask you to please cancel an appointment ASAP if you can’t make it.
  • When you book an appointment, you will not be able to select which support specialist helps you – the system will assign your appointment to the next available support specialist.

You can schedule an appointment by clicking here.

You can still get help by emailing brightspace@algonquincollege.com. When you email us, make sure to use descriptive subjects (avoid generic titles like “Help!”, “Problem” or “Brightspace”).

Common Quiz Questions Asked AFTER the Exam Week

 

  • My final exam has questions I need to manually grade. How do I grade them? Many quiz question types will be graded automatically, as long as you have provided the answer key. In some cases, you may need to manually grade a quiz. Here are the recommended steps.
  • I have students who claim they have completed the exam, but did not get to submit it. How do I see and grade their attempts? When a learner takes a quiz, but fails to submit it, Brightspace shows no submission or grade. The learner’s quiz becomes an “attempt in progress.” You can search for the attempt and then submit it by “impersonating” the learner so that the quiz can be graded.
  • Some of my students could not take the exam when it was scheduled for the entire class. How do I reopen the exam only for those students? You will need to use the Special Access options, from the Restrictions tab. Click here to learn how to do it.
  • What do I do if my students have completed the exam, but I don’t see their grades in the Gradebook? Go to Activities/Quizzes and edit the quiz. Check if you have a Grade item associated with the quiz, on the Assessment tab. If not, create one using the Add Grade Item link. In addition to this, make sure that the Allow automatic export to grades option is checked off.
  • I need to hide the Final Calculated grade column. How do I do it? Click here for details.
  • I need to hide the grades until I finish grading the exam for all students. What is the best way to do it? Make the quiz inactive (from Activities/Quizzes, edit the quiz and hide it from the Restrictions tab) AND hide the gradebook item, as well. Go to Grades/ Enter Grades view, click on the chevron for the title of the column and choose Edit. From the Restrictions tab check off the Hide from Users option.

GOOD to KNOW! Displaying how the final grade is calculated will actually give away the hidden grades. From Grades, click on the Settings option and then on the Org Unit Display Options tab. Make sure that the Display how final grade was calculated to users is not checked off.

  • My final exam is graded and students can view their grades, but now I would like my students to have access to the exam questions and their answers. The submission view settings determine how students see their completed quizzes. Click here to learn how to show quiz results using submission views.

Zoom Security Changes

As already advertised by ITS, two features will become Zoom defaults as of Monday, April 20th – Password Protection and Waiting Rooms. These settings apply to all meetings scheduled through Outlook, Brightspace, and the web portal. The password, which is auto-generated and will display when you are setting up the meeting, will be embedded in the Brightspace link to join the session, and does not need to be shared, as long as students access the session through Brightspace.

For all other questions or inquiries regarding these Zoom changes, please contact ITS at 613-727-4723 x5555 or 5555@algonquincollege.com.

LMS Weekly Update: Quiz Questions, Update on Zoom Recordings and 2020 Spring/Summer Courses

Question of the Week – Quizzes in Brightspace

We have made a summary of our documentation on quizzes, hoping that this will provide you with a quicker answer before you set up an appointment with one of our LMS Faculty Support Team members:

  • Quiz documentation that exists in the Essentials for Faculty course in Brightspace – Find detailed instructions on how to create a quiz, how to import questions from the Test/Quiz Question Generator into a section in the Question Library, and available options for shuffling quiz questions. Also, you might find useful the step-by-step instructions on how to reset a quiz attempt, and how to submit an attempt in progress by impersonating the student.
  • All you need to know about Brightspace Quizzes (from a previous LMS Weekly Update) – Learn about the recommended workflow to create quizzes, find short answers to common questions (how to create a practice quiz, regrade students’ submissions, or how to hide the grades and print a quiz).
  • Ways to provide Quiz Feedback to your learners (from a previous LMS Weekly Update) – There are multiple ways of providing quiz feedback to your students, and also different ways of accessing the feedback. Learn about the overall, attempt or question type of feedback.

Q. While taking an exam, if the screen freezes, or there is a short moment of no Internet connection, how will my students and I deal with this situation?

A. Once the problem is fixed, students will need to login again to Brightspace, access your course and click on the exam link. They will be allowed to continue the exam from where they left off, as answers are automatically saved, but the quiz timing will still go on while the student is out of the quiz. If they won’t be able to continue that quiz attempt, in an “one attempt” quiz situation, they will need to contact you, the teacher, and you will need to reset the attempt.

Update to ZOOM – Where to Save the Recordings

We now have additional storage in the Zoom Cloud and are recommending that you save your recordings there – if done through the Zoom Classroom in Brightspace, the link will appear automatically and your students will have access to the recording from the Zoom Classroom, under the Tools menu. If your Zoom Meeting was hosted outside Brightspace and your need to share the link with the recording with your students, you may post it under the course Content or include it in a Brightspace Announcement.

Check the Zoom Security and Privacy Guidelines for Faculty Members file for recommendations on how to configure your Zoom account, how to conduct a meeting, and how to record and share online class sessions.

2020 Spring/Summer Course Shells NOW Available in Brightspace

2020 Spring/Summer course shells have been created and made available in Brightspace. In addition to the answers provided below, you might want to also check out the Brightspace Course Readiness Checklist in the Brightspace Essentials course.

Common questions at the beginning of the semester:

  • I don’t see my 2020 Spring/Summer course(s) when I login to Brightspace. First, make sure that you click on the 2020 Spring/Summer label in the My Courses widget. If no course displays there, then check ACSIS and/or with your support officer to ensure your course(s) are assigned to you. Email us at brightspace@algonquincollege.com if you still don’t see them listed after 48 hours.
  • How do I perform a Course Copy? Click here for details on how to copy the entire course content or just selected areas of the course.

GOOD TO KNOW! Existing announcements are sent as emails during a complete course copy

If you are performing a complete course copy after May 12th, when the Spring/Summer 2020 courses will automatically become available to students, be aware that all the announcements that are getting copied over into the new course will also automatically be sent as emails to all the students enrolled in your new course, as expected with announcements in Brightspace.

To avoid this, you could make the course temporarily inactive (Tools/Course Admin/Course Offering Information) for the duration of the course copy, or use the Select Components button when doing the Course Copy and exclude the announcements from the list of course components to copy.

  • How do I add a user to my course? Students are automatically added to your courses, but you might want to add another teacher to your course and this is how you do it.

GOOD TO KNOW! There are times when you need to add other teachers to your courses, with the intention to have them do a course copy to their courses, but you would like to make sure that your course content does not get altered by mistake. Instead of adding them with the instructor role, please use the new course copier role. Don’t forget to remove them from the course once the copy is completed.

  • I copied the wrong course! How do I delete the content and perform the course copy again? Click here for information on how to delete the course content and also the course activities and gradebook columns.
  • I have access to a course as an instructor, but I would like to have the course removed from my list of courses. What should I do?

Option 1: If you also see this course on your list of courses in ACSIS, first you need to talk to your department and make sure you have not been assigned by mistake to that course in Genesis. Then you can remove yourself from the course, using the Classlist option, from the Tools menu. Click on the checkbox beside your name and choose Unenrol.

Option 2: If you have been added by another fellow instructor, just remove yourself from that course. No need to email our LMS support.

  • I am teaching multiple sections of the same course and I would like an easy way to manage the common content. When teaching multiple sections of the same course, combining those sections into one shell might save you some time.

Option 1: Combine your course sections into an EXISTING course shell – For instance, if you teach 20S_ABC000_010 and 20S_ABC000_020, the 020 section will be merged into the 010. The 010 section will be renamed 20S_ABC0000_010_020 or 20S_ABC0000_AllSections. You and your students will have access only to one course section. Note that, if you already have content in both sections, merging them will ONLY transfer the student enrollment and not the content. It is recommended to ask for a merged course before the course start date.

Option 2: Combine your course sections into a NEW course shell (the way we used to combine them in Blackboard). A new 20S_ABC0000_010_020 or 20S_ABC0000_AllSections course shell will be created for you. Note that this option would work when multiple course sections are taught by multiple teachers. Students and teachers will have access to the combined course, at the same time with the individual section(s).

Send an email to brightspace@algonquincollege.com if you would like us to combine your courses and please include your preference in the request. Please make sure you give us the complete course code (include section numbers, too), the option you would like us to use when we combine them (into an existing shell or into a new one – read here details on this), and also if you would still need to keep the individual sections available to you and students.

 

LMS Weekly Update: Most Useful LMS Weekly Updates

Successful Brightspace Symposium

Thank you to everyone who attended this event, in person or online. The goal of the event was to create visions for effective teaching and learning in Brightspace, by showcasing faculty successes and highlighting additional features and integrations in the system. The winners of the So You Think You Can Brightspace contest were among the presenters, alongside a live Zoom demonstration and a fantastic student panel. The entire event was live-streamed via Zoom, one of the two sponsors for the day alongside D2L. You can watch a rerun of the day here, via YouTube.

Most Useful LMS Weekly Updates

As many of you are going back to tips on different Brightspace tools published in previous LMS weekly updates, we have summarized the most common and important ones in this week’s update.

Quizzes

Gradebook

Discussions

Surveys

Intelligent Agents

Assignments

General

Please email us at pietram@algonquincollege.com if you would like to see news on other Brightspace tools.