This feature updates the date picker component for the new assignment creation experience. The new date picker has a more streamlined design and requires a slight workflow change: to clear a date/time, the X alongside the time field has been replaced by a Clear option inside the calendar.

Instructors can find the date picker in Due Date, Start Date, and End Date fields on the Create and Edit Assignments page.

To provide instructors with additional insight about their courses, statistics in the classic Content experience now include more information.
To view course content statistics, as an instructor, navigate to Content,and then select Table of Contents > Related Tools > View Reports.

***More information to come as this becomes available. 

To improve usability of the Grades tool and reduce calculation errors, Manage Grades now includes total points for grade categories and Final Calculated Grade. Previously, there was no indicator of the total points while users were managing their grade book, and instructors were required to manually add up the points from all grade items to check if the total matched their syllabus.

For weighted grade books, the total weight is displayed in addition to the total points. For formula grade books, the manually-entered max points is displayed instead of the total points. Totals do not include bonus grade items and do support grade item dropping.

Instructors can now view a preview of their quiz from Quiz Builder. Clicking the new Preview button on the Add/Edit Questions view of the quiz opens a quiz preview attempt in a new tab for a complete view of how the quiz appears to learners. 

This feature introduces a new option for Quizzes Attempt settings that allows students to only retake their incorrectly answered questions from previous quiz attempts. Instructors can select this new option in the Assessment tab of a quiz. When the Retake Incorrect Questions Only check box is selected for subsequent quiz attempts, 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). 

When grading a Retake Incorrect Questions Only quiz attempt, the instructor can only provide a score for the questions answered on this attempt.

A learner’s score for a Retake Incorrect Questions Only attempt remains at minimum, the score they had on the previous attempt. Correctly answered questions on the Retake Incorrect Questions Only attempt add to the learner’s attempts score. The Quiz Overall Score is calculated using the existing Highest/Lowest/First/Last/Average aggregation functions. The “Average” aggregation function can be used to give the student partial marks for questions that were not answered correctly on the first attempt.

WebEx Ready Rooms are now available in the following locations:

• 129H
• 151K
• 315NN

These rooms are equipped with all of the technology you need to conduct WebEx Sessions. You can use these rooms for live WebEx sessions or pre-recorded lectures. You can easily schedule time in the WebEx Ready Room through Outlook by creating a new meeting and selecting the desired room as the location. This will allow you to see when the room is available.

Unfortunately, we still live in a world of uncertainty due to Covid-19. We need to all be mindful of the potential that we may have to transition to remote working/teaching again this Spring. In saying that, we feel that we have made great strides through the Online Learning summer project, and all of your hard work, to be better prepared if we are put into that position again. Please keep in mind that content for each course, and part of term, should be loaded into the Course master shell, as this is where we will pull content/assignments/etc. if that decision is made. 

NetTutor is an online tutoring service that is available to our students via D2L.  You are welcome to join one of these upcoming webinars to learn more about NetTutor, how students can access the service, tutor qualifications, subjects supported, and how NetTutor can have an impact on your students’ academic success. The webinars are approximately 25 minutes each with additional time allotted to answer any questions.

Sunday, November 15, 12:30pm Pacific, 3:30pm EST

Wednesday, November 18, 1:30pm Pacific, 4:30pm EST

Monday, November 30, 12:30pm Pacific, 3:30pm EST

Tuesday, December 8, 12:00pm Pacific, 3:00pm EST

Honorlock is an online proctoring service that is available on-demand to students 24/7/365.  It utilizes a Chrome extension, which will need to be downloaded by the student prior to taking the test, and will work with Chrome books and third-party sources (like “MyLabs”) where the assignment is password protected. Students will be required to verify their identity prior to gaining access to the assignment. This is the suggested method of online proctoring for Dual Enrollment students with the high number of Chrome Books utilized in that population.  To access information about upcoming Honorlock webinars, please visit this website:   https://honorlock.kb.help/faculty-policies-and-procedures/upcoming-honorlock-webinars/.

Honorlock has created a brief survey that will help provide them with additional insights on we plan to utilize Honorlock over the next couple of weeks. The survey data collected will help guide support and proctoring coverage to ensure that instructors and exam takers continue to receive exemplary service, even during these busy times.

To help with collecting this information, please complete the following survey if you plan to use Honorlock to administer your upcoming final exams.

HONORLOCK SURVEY LINK

Respondus LockDown Browser prevents students from printing, copying, going to different URLs or accessing other applications during an online exam.

Respondus Monitor enhances LockDown Browser by using a student’s webcam to record the assessment session. This enables online exams to be taken in non-proctored environments and deters students from accessing other resources during an exam (such as a phone, a second computer, etc.). It also ensures the right student is taking the exam, and that the student isn’t getting help from others. This application does not work well with Chrome books or with third-part sources (like “My Labs”). PLEASE NOTE: If Respondus Monitor is rolled from a Master shell or another course, the instructor needs to open Lockdown browser within the course, or the students will receive an error that the instructor needs to finish the setup. No changes need to be made by the instructor, but they just need to go to the Respondus LockDown Browser setup page, and that is all it takes to make it active.

Instructor Training: LockDown Browser & Respondus Monitor

This comprehensive training webinar is intended for instructors who plan to use LockDown Browser and/or Respondus Monitor with online exams. The session provides a detailed demonstration of both applications, including enhancements that make Respondus Monitor even more effective and easy to use.

Tuesday, November 17, 1:00pm EST

Thursday, November 19, 12:00pm EST

Tuesday, November 24, 1:00pm EST

Thursday, December 3, 3:00pm EST

Virtual Classroom will no longer be available after the end of the Fall term. Faculty are encouraged to use WebEx as their video conferencing software, as this is supported by the college. As Virtual Classroom goes away, we will be adding a WebEx integration with D2L. What does this mean? You will be able to host and record your WebEx sessions directly in your D2L class, so there will be no need to post outside links. Since the session will be recorded within the individual courses, the recording link will automatically populate within the course also. Several faculty members are currently piloting this integration, and we plan to roll it out across all courses at the end of the year. 

We have been working on this transition for several years, and it is finally happening! We plan to intergrate Office 365 into D2L to replace the current D2L email. We have tested the integration, and we plan to switch over at the end of the year. The Office 365 widget will be available in D2L, and this will eliminate faculty and students having to monitor multiple email acccounts for the college. We will be providing instructions closer to the time of transition on how to create rules in your Outlook account to separate student emails from your regular employee emails that you are currently receiving, if that is something that you are interested in.