The Discover self-enrollment tool
As a new school year begins, we are pleased to announce the deployment of the Discover self-enrollment tool in Brightspace. This tool allows our students to self-enroll in various offerings like courses, spaces and resources that will help make their journey at Algonquin College a success.
Starting today, you will see a new Discover link on the Brightspace homepage navigation menu.
My Mediasite available in Brightspace
My Mediasite is a new tool, replacing TechSmith Relay, with a simple interface that allows you to create, record, share, and publish your presentations easily. Mediasite will host these videos and also has a Brightspace integration that allows you to embed video content directly within your courses. View help guides, tips, tricks and advice on our new LTS webpage, and sign up for info sessions and training sessions.
August system release
This month’s system release brings a few enhancements to the system:
Assignments – Copy assignment option
You now have the option to select the Copy Assignment option, in the drop-down menu for an existing assignment, to quickly create new assignments within a course.
This feature copies all settings of an existing assignment, except the associated grade item and Turnitin settings.
Checklists – Copy a checklist
Now you can now perform copy actions for checklists. You can copy a whole checklist, a checklist category (including all items within it), or individual items in a checklist.
Classlist – User experience changes
When adding users to a classlist (Tools/Classlist/Add Participants) search results now include users who are currently enrolled in the course. Previously, enrolled users were not displayed in these search results, suggesting that the user might not exist in the system. On the search results page, an icon displays beside an enrolled user’s name, indicating their enrollment status.
Grades – Unrelease all final grades
Grades features a new workflow to quickly undo the release of final grades for a course. You can easily select Unrelease All from the Final Grades drop-down menu.
Notifications – Deleted content links to message
Notifications for content that is subsequently hidden/deleted/conditionally released are now removed from the Brightspace notifications area on the minibar. Notifications that arrive via email or in Brightspace Pulse push notifications, now provide a link to the Course Table of Contents, with a message that states ‘Item not available’. Previously, clicking the link created a ‘404 Not Authorized error’.
Question Library – Attach files in “written response” type of questions
When creating a written response question, now you can allow learners to upload files in their answers and include embedded images. Learners can also record audio or video responses when answering written response question types.
Quizzes – User experience updates for editing quizzes with attempts
To improve the user experience for instructors who edit quizzes with previous attempts by learners, the following updates have been made:
- Points for past quiz attempts are no longer modified when edits are made that affect the overall points and/or the grading calculations for a quiz. A learner’s grade on previous quiz attempts must now be changed directly by the instructor using the ‘Update All Attempts’ workflow. Previously, the points for all past quiz attempts were modified automatically, which could alter a learner’s grade unexpectedly.
- Warning messages now appear when editing a quiz question with previous attempts, to clearly communicate to instructors that editing quiz questions does not affect the content or automatically change the score of learners’ past attempts.
Online Faculty Brightspace Support (Monday to Friday, from 8 am to 5 pm)
When emailing us your requests, we would appreciate if you could ensure that all information relevant to your issue is provided. For example:
- The complete course code, including semester and section number (20F_ABC1234_010).
- The user’s first name and last name (ideally user name, too), when asking us to add users to courses.
- For merged courses’ requests, specify if you need to keep the individual sections available or not.
- When asking to have coordinator access to a program, include list of all courses (codes and section numbers).
Multiple Ways to find Answers to your Brightspace Questions:
- Book Online Appointments with the Brightspace Faculty Support Team
- Email Brightspace Faculty Support Team at brightspace@algonquincollege.com. After emailing us, you will receive an automatic reply with your case number.
- Access our Digital Learning Environment Knowledge Base (DLEKB).
- View our collection of the LMS Weekly Updates on the Brightspace website.
- Peer-to-Peer Community Support – click here to find out how you can get support from other teachers or volunteer for this support.
- More Brightspace and Zoom links on the Academic Continuity website
- Access here Professional development opportunities offered by LTS.