Overview

As of June 2, 2018, Minnesota State D2L Brightspace learning environment migrated to D2L’s cloud hosting services, and moved onto D2L’s continuous delivery (CD) model. On D2L’s CD model, we receive monthly updates for our Minnesota State D2L Brightspace sites. Check out the D2L Brightspace Update Schedule available at the D2L Brightspace public webpage.

After each upgrade, these new and updated features will be available in D2L Brightspace. 

• Starred () items are feature or changes that students and sometimes instructors will experience.
• Remaining items are features that will be available to instructors only.

Assignments

Improved tooltip for unsaved changes to evaluations (January 2024)

• When instructors evaluate student work in Assignments and Discussions, the tooltip for reporting evaluation errors is updated to include clearer language.

Annotations toolbar has updated icons (June 2024)

• When instructors use the annotations toolbar in assignments, they may notice updated icons. Note there is no change to the annotations functionality.

Advanced Assessment workflow is available (August 2024)

• The new Advanced Assessment workflow is available for multiple evaluators to better manage evaluator workflow and reduce bias in marking.

Email status message removed after an assignment submission (August 2024) 

• The Confirmation Email Sent Successfully message no longer displays for students after they submit an assignment. However, an email as a receipt of the submission is still sent to them.

Assignment annotations toolbar removes the Bookmarks option (September 2024)

• The Bookmarks option has been removed from the assignment annotations toolbar.

Advanced Assessment workflow updated when evaluators are unenrolled (November 2024)

• The Advanced Assessment workflow is updated to ensure students are assigned at least one evaluator.

Learner View of Grade in New Evaluation Experience (December 2024)

• When instructors evaluate student work in Assignments, Discussions, and Quizzes, the new ‘learner view of grade’ displays the grade scheme as quick reference for the instructor. For Quizzes, instructors must opt into the new evaluation experience to access this feature.

Awards

Export achievements as digital credentials (January 2024) 

• Students can export their award achievements as a digital credential.

Brightspace Learning Environment

D2L’s branded footer on select pages (February 2024) 

• In D2L Brightspace, a “Powered by D2L Brightspace” footer appears on select pages, including the course homepage.

Updated versions of supported browsers in D2L Brightspace (July 2024) 

• In D2L Brightspace the minimum supported browser versions have been updated. It’s recommended that you use the latest version of your browser.

Brightspace Pulse

Set which push notifications to receive through Pulse app (January 2024) 

• In Brightspace Pulse, you can set which push notifications you’d like to receive using the push app settings.

Updates to improve the user experience in the Pulse app (November 2024) 

• The Brightspace Pulse app will be updated throughout the next two months to improve the user experience, including the mobile browser integration.

External links now open in native browser (December 2024) 

• The Brightspace Pulse app latest update will open external links in the native browser, rather than the in-app browser. Users must update to the latest app update, and log out/log back in to the app to access these changes.

Content

HTML topic default font face and size are now Lato 19 (August 2024)

• In Content, the default font face and size is now Lato 19 for newly created HTML topics. This change does not affect existing content.

Discover

Perform bulk actions on enrollment requests (February 2024)

• In Discover, instructors (who can approve enrollment requests) can now perform bulk actions on enrollment requests.

Discussions

Add and review instructor feedback files in discussion evaluations (April 2024)

• In Discussions, instructors can add feedback files to discussion evaluations, and students can review the feedback files for their work.

New consistent deletion and restoration workflows for group-restricted discussions (August 2024)

• Now Discussions associated with a deleted group cannot be restored until the group is first restored by D2L. 

Reading View improvements for students and instructors (August 2024) 

• When using the ‘Reading View’ in a discussion topic, several improvements have been made including duplicating the ‘Start New Thread’ button at the bottom of the page to reduce scrolling.

Learner View of Grade in New Evaluation Experience (December 2024)

• When instructors evaluate student work in Assignments, Discussions, and Quizzes, the new ‘learner view of grade’ displays the grade scheme as quick reference for the instructor. For Quizzes, instructors must opt into the new evaluation experience to access this feature.

Email

Emails queue as background task when sent to 100 or more recipients (July 2024) 

• Emails sent from D2L Brightspace that have 100 or more recipients are queued for sending as background tasks, allowing users to continue working while the email is being sent.

Grades

Feedback files are now available in Grades for Assignments, Quizzes, and Discussions (May 2024) 

• Instructor feedback files added to evaluations in Assignments, Discussions, and Quizzes are not accessible to students from Grades. Students can review these feedback files from the Grades > Comments and Assessments column for the graded item.

Automatic zero applied for missing or late submissions based on activity’s due date (July 2024)

• Instructors may notice a new grade book setting that automatically enters a zero for each student’s grade score when they miss the due date for an activity (only file and text-based assignments, quizzes, and LTI tools).

Groups

Restore deleted groups or categories of groups (November 2024)

• Deleted individual groups and categories of groups can now be restored through the Groups tool new Recycle Bin.

HTML Editor

Insert Stuff > My Computer now allows drag-and-drop (January 2024)

• For instructors, the HTML Editor’s option for Insert Stuff > My Computer now supports a drag-and-drop file upload from the user’s computer.

More consistent link creation in HTML Editor (March 2024) 

• For students and instructors, when creating links in the HTML Editor, it is more consistent window with the same options regardless of where the link is inserted.

Insert Stuff feedback is no longer stored in Manage Files (June 2024)

• When instructors add feedback via the Insert Stuff picker in the HTML Editor, the feedback is no longer stored in the course Manage Files.

Manage Dates

Bulk edit and offset dates for recurring Intelligent Agents (June 2024)

• Instructors can bulk edit and offset Intelligent Agents with recurring schedules from the Manage Dates tool.

Notifications

SMS notifications will no longer be available in July 2024 release (January 2024) 

• For students and instructors, the SMS (short message service) notifications will no longer be available in the July 2024 release.

SMS notifications has been removed from D2L Brightspace (July 2024) 

• For students and instructors, the SMS (short message service) notifications option has been removed from D2L Brightspace. Uses can continue to subscribe to email-based notifications and use the Brightspace Pulse app to receive mobile push notifications.

Twitter field renamed to X (March 2024)

• For students and instructors, the Twitter field in the Profile tool has been renamed to X to reflect the current name.

Quizzes

View in pop-ups option removed from Question Library (January 2024)

• When instructors choose settings in the Question Library, the View actions in pop-up option is no longer available.

Written Response questions remain as pending evaluation until manually graded (January 2024)

• When instructors grade quiz attempts, any ungraded written response questions remain as ‘pending evaluation’ until the instructor manually grades them.

Question mark icon removed from the Question Library (February 2024)

• When instructors have questions in the Question Library, the question mark icon no longer displays.

Improved experience for exporting quiz statistics and reports (March 2024)

• When instructors export quiz statistics or reports, they will now receive a minibar notification to download them.

Additional functions are available for arithmetic quiz question types (April 2024)

• When instructors are creating arithmetic quiz question types, they can use additional functions, including: ASIN, ACOS, ABS, Log2, SIHN, and COSH.

The new quiz evaluation experience is on and available to try out (September 2024)

• When instructors are evaluating student quiz attempts, they can try out the new quiz evaluation experience.

Attach rubrics to written response questions and grade rubrics in quiz attempts when using the new quiz evaluation experience (September 2024)

• When using the new quiz evaluation experience, instructors can attach rubrics to written response questions and score those student responses with rubrics.

Review unscored rubrics when taking a quiz and rubrics with feedback after their instructor has graded the quiz attempt (September 2024) 

• Students can review unscored rubrics when taking a quiz and review rubrics with feedback after their instructor has graded their quiz attempt.

Learner View of Grade in New Evaluation Experience (December 2024)

• When instructors evaluate student work in Assignments, Discussions, and Quizzes, the new ‘learner view of grade’ displays the grade scheme as quick reference for the instructor. For Quizzes, instructors must opt into the new evaluation experience to access this feature.

Rubrics

Criteria descriptions limit increased to 500 characters (December 2024)

• The Criteria descriptions can now be up to 500 characters. (Previously, they had a 256-character limit.)