Instructors’ attached files now appear in the Attached Files section for each student’s discussion evaluation. Students can view attached file feedback when viewing their evaluated discussion topic.

Instructors can view all attached files by clicking on the student’s name and selecting Discussions. Student can view all attached files by clicking on Discussions in Class Progress. Instructors and students can view all attached discussion evaluation files in the Class Progress tool.

Additionally, the Discussions tool’s evaluation process is now consistent with the Assignments and Quizzes tools’ evaluation processes.

As a heads up, on May 3rd we will be disabling SMS Text notification settings for all users in D2L. This is a feature that is not widely used, but is available for students on an opt-in basis from their account page. This feature is sunsetting DURING summer semester otherwise, so it will be turned off early before the semester begins.

I apologize for any inconvenience caused. Push notifications, which is more widely used, will not be affected by this change.

As of this release, inserting a link into Brightspace Editor opens the Add Link dialog which allows users to determine if their links open in a new window (set as the default) or in the current window. The text box in the Add Link dialog also allows users to add text to their link.

The Add Link dialog opens when inserting links with the context menu or with new keyboard shortcuts (for example, ctrl+K or command+K).

Additionally, the dialog includes a new Insert Quicklink option, allowing users to easily insert a quicklink. When using Insert Stuff > Insert Link or Insert Quicklink > Link, the same Link, Text, and Open In options are displayed ensuring consistent link creation.

This release introduces a better experience for instructors when running and exporting quiz reports with large amounts of data. To avoid time-out failures and screen freezing, the following report types now run asynchronously:

• Attempt Details
• Question Statistics
• Question Details
• User Statistics
• User Attempts

When reports are ready for downloading, Brightspace generates a notification that instructors can access from the bell icon in the navbar.

Previously, quiz reports were generated slowly and would time-out in large classes.

The ability to copy announcements to other courses was originally released for the Announcements tool in November. This update allows instructors to Publish the copied announcement on copy rather than having to do so separately after copying.

When an instructor adds a Start Date and End Date in Quizzes and then selects Add Availability Dates to Calendar, both dates are displayed in the Calendar tool as separate events. Previously, only one event displayed showing when the availability of that quiz ended.

This release updates the Insert Stuff > My Computer file picker with the version currently used in the Insert Image workflow, which allows drag-and-drop file uploads from the user’s computer.
Previously, the file picker used an older file picker that did not support drag-and-drop of files.

This update allows grades in eligible 3rd party platforms with a higher value than what would be allowed in D2L to be passed to the gradebook.
For example, if a grade in a 3rd party platform was a 110 but the max grade for an item in D2L was set to 100, that grade would still pass to the gradebook and be set to 100, the new maximum.

When instructors grade quiz attempts, any ungraded written response questions remain as pending evaluation until the instructor manually grades them. Previously, when instructors clicked Publish or Update for a quiz attempt, the written response question’s pending evaluation status would be removed.

If a written response question is not graded, the status shows a pending evaluation message for the learner view. In the learner view, learners always see the message “This question has not been graded” until the instructor grades the question.

The instructor view displays the message “not auto-graded; a default value of 0 was assigned” until they grade the question.

This highly-requested feature adds the ability to copy announcements to other courses.  Instructors must be enrolled in both the source and destination courses.

A single announcement can be copied to multiple course offerings. Users can copy announcements from the Announcements tool or the Announcements widget from the context menu of an announcement by selecting Copy to Other Courses. Once copied, the announcement is in a draft state and users must publish the copied announcement in the destination course to complete the copying process.

The following attributes are copied:

• Headline
• Display Author Information
• Content
  Note: The copied Content attribute includes any associated files such as inserted images.
• Start and End Date
• Attachments
• Pin state

The Publish All dialog for Assignments and Discussions is improved and standardized to show key information about learner evaluations. Previously, the Publish All dialog did not display any information about learner evaluations or other key information, and the dialog messaging was not consistent across the Assignments and Discussions tools.

Learners can now export their earned awards in a standards-compliant format using the new Export Digital Credential option. This feature allows the download of certificates or badges as an industry-standard Open Badges 2.0 compliant Badge for their own record keeping or sharing.

This feature allows instructors, when creating Content, to set the directionality for all text on a page when using the Attributes menu in Brightspace Editor. The Text Direction attribute can be applied to the entire page by navigating to Attributes > Page Attributes and selecting the desired text direction. The attribute can have text be Default, Left to Right or Right to Left.

Previously it was only possible to set the text direction attribute on Selected Items.

The HIGHLY requested feature of copying an announcement from one course to another is currently being worked on and is expected to be released in the November update next month. Please keep an eye out for that announcement if you are one of the many instructors who have asked for it!