D2L Monthly Upgrades – What was new for June – Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning

And here we go with our second post in the “catch up with D2L monthly update changes” series: June

So, for June we saw the following changes:

Grades – automatically set the grade item score based on a rubric score

And another great change to the Rubrics tool – you can now use Rubrics you’ve attached to Grade Items to automatically add grades to your gradebook! No more doubling up on effort.

Here’s how it works:

Go to the grading area for the Grade Item you’ve attached your rubric to
Click Assessment for each student in turn
Score your rubric and click Save and Record . You will see the Grade column updated for the student.
When you are finished grading the Grade Item, click Save and Close.

Groups – automatic creation of discussion topics

This may not apply to everyone, but now if you add a group (in the Groups tool) to a Group Category due to new students enrolling in the course, a discussion topic is automatically set up for that new group (if you have set up discussion topics for your Group initially). Just a nice feature so you don’t have to remember to do this manually!

Groups – descriptive naming for discussion topics

A small change, and maybe not something you’d notice, but now when you create a group with discussion forums, the forums contain the name of the Group Category + “Group #”, meaning that the forums will be named for the Group Category with the Group’s number.

Here’s what it looks like:

Create your Group Category, making sure to Set up discussion areas. Click Save.
Set up the Forum for your Discussion areas. Click Create and Next.
Click Done.
Now, go to the Discussions Tool and find the Forum you created. Note that the Topic Titles contain the title of your Group Category, with the Group #.