Academic Technology Updates for December 2023

The ability to copy announcements to other courses was originally released for the Announcements tool in November 2023.

As of this release, the instructors can publish copied announcements in other courses using either the Announcements tool or widget. This is done by selecting the Copy to Other Courses option from the announcement’s context menu. In the Copy Announcement window, there is a new check box option labeled Publish Announcement on Copy. When this box is selected, the announcement is directly published in the destination course or courses, skipping the draft stage. If the check box is not selected, the announcement copies as a draft into the destination course or courses.

Previously, copied announcements appeared in draft form and required publishing in the destination course to complete the process.

The Assignments and Discussions tools’ evaluation feedback field is changing from a 500,000-character limitation to a 300,000-character limitation, resulting in an updated dialog warning appearing when the user hits 300,000 characters.

The character limit update improves performance and security for evaluations. Previously, when a user would enter over 300,000 characters, the new information may not have been saved. This potential save failure resulted in the loss of anything entered between 300,000-500,000 characters.

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 was displayed showing when the availability of that quiz ended.

This release updates the course import workflow to include the NAME values of the active Homepage and Navigation Bar during export, provided that the Homepage or Navigation Bar:

• is shared from a parent orgunit level; and
• is specifically chosen (not Default).

During import, Brightspace attempts to match the NAME of the Homepage and Navigation Bar to one shared to the destination course offering. The Homepage and Navigation Bar are set to the match if found; otherwise, the course offering is set to use the Default.

Note: Currently exported Brightspace packages do not contain Homepage and Navigation Bar information and use the Default during import.

While this information is exported automatically, users can choose to not set the active homepage and navbar to the one in the imported package by navigating to Advanced Options and un-selecting Homepage and Navigation Bar named in course package should be set as active.

Previously, information about the Homepage and Navigation Bar was not retained during import or export. This feature only imports and exports the NAME value of Homepages and Navigation Bars; it does not allow for the import or export of a Homepage or Navigation Bar.

With this release, the New Discussion Topic Editing Experience, which was introduced in December 2022, has completed the adoption program and is now the only editing experience for all users. The New Discussion Topic Editing Experience is set to on as the default with no option to opt-out, and the Legacy Discussion Topic Editing Experience is no longer available after this release.

Quizzes now clearly mark bonus questions with Bonus, improving student understanding and addressing a previous lack of indication in Quizzes.

When an evaluator assesses an assignment or discussion in the Grades tool, the rubric now uses the Consistent Evaluation interface where there is work submitted for evaluation. This is consistent with the assessment experience for assignments or discussions in other areas of Brightspace.

Previously, evaluations for these activities used a pop-out Rubric grid when launching from the Grades tool. When users click the drop-down menu on the column header to enter grades, the rows with un-submitted work now use the Consistent Evaluation experience instead of the previous Rubric pop-out.

This feature addresses the following accessibility criteria:

• WCAG 2.1 Success Criterion 3.2.4 – Consistent Identification