Category: D2L Tips

This tutorial is designed for faculty who have previous experience using the Grades tool in D2L and will cover the steps involved when you want to exempt a student from a specific grade item, but have her grade go to another specific grade item (for example, if she missed the Midterm and you want to exempt her from the Midterm and have the Midterm grade to automatically go to the Final Exam grade). For further information, please contact desupport@camosun.ca for assistance.

Steps

1. Go to the Grades tool in your course, and make sure you are in the Manage Grades area.

   

2. Create a Category for the items in question, here, the Midterm and Final Exam items – we will call the Category Exams. Make sure the Category weight is the sum of the Midterm (here 15%) and Final Exam (here 25%) weights in the gradebook. Here, the Category weight will be 15% + 25% = 40%. Select Manually assignment weight to items in the category, and click Save and Close.

   

   

3. Edit each grade item (Midterm and Final Exam) and move then into the Exams Category, setting their weightings accordingly (so that they will still hold the same weight in the gradebook.) For this example, the Midterm should be weighted to 37.5% (15×100/40) within the Category, and the Final Exam weighted to 62.5% (25×100/40) within the Category.

   

   

4. When you are ready to exempt the student from the Midterm, go to the Enter Grades area.

   

5. Click the down arrow next to the title of the item you wish to exempt the student from, and select Enter Grades.

   

6. Select the student you want to exempt, then click Exempt. The word Exempt will appear in the Scheme column for that student. Click Save and Close.

   

7. In the Confirmation pop-up, click Yes. The selected student will now have a Final Grade calculation which excludes the exempted item.

   

Things to Remember

Note that you can move items into a Category at any point during the term – just make sure the calculations are the same and other students won’t see a difference in their grading.

Exempting a student from a grade is not the same as dropping the lowest grade item in a Category. See the tutorial Dropping the Lowest Grade Item in a Category for further information.

Yes, by the end of November, look for the option to assign letter grades to student submissions in the Assignments tool.

When creating your Assignment dropbox, you will be able to select a Grade Scheme for that assignment, just like you do when creating a Grade Item. You will then be able to select the letter grade through a Select box in the Submissions area.

Here’s a quick glance at what that will look like in the submissions area, with the letter grade drop-down menu:

(image from https://community.brightspace.com/s/article/Brightspace-Platform-November-2019-20-19-11-Release-Notes-472497846)

We will post more about this function when it becomes live at the end of November!

I just wanted to alert you to some “improvements to consistency” in D2L that will be added to D2L this month.  These changes will have implications for several tools in D2L, so I wanted to take a moment to outline some of them to you today.

Because there are so many little changes, I am going to simply give you D2L’s list of explanations, so you can go check out these changes out as you want or need to, or you can contact desupport@camosun.ca to arrange a consult with an instructional designer if you have questions.

From D2L:  “The language and methods by which instructors make activities hidden or visible to learners across different tools is now consistent. Changes include:

• The visibility control now uses a checkbox with the consistent terminology Hide from users in all instances. This change affects the Assignments, Discussions, Quizzes, Surveys, and Grades (grade item and grade category) tools.
• In Discussions, the Visibility, Availability Dates, and Locking options move from the Properties tab to the Restrictions tab.
• The Hide from users checkbox appears under the title field of all activity creation pages in the Content tool.
• In Content, on the table of contents, there is now a visibility icon button for use with both content topics and modules. The icon serves as a visibility switch. The visibility status of a topic appears when the topic is not visible, when the table of contents is in bulk edit mode, or when a topic is in edit-in-place mode. The table of contents fly-out no longer provides the ability to switch the visibility of a topic or module.
• In Content, the Hide from users and Make Visible to users options are available in the context menus for topics and modules in the table of contents, and in the context menus of topics on the topics’ detail page.

The Instructor view of the list page of several tools now has consistent icons in a consistent order for activity restrictions. Changes include:

• All common activity icons appear before tool-specific icons.
• There is now only one Special Access icon in Quizzes (previously there were two, one for each type of Special Access). The Special Access icon also now appears in Assignments where it previously did not.
• All icons have been updated to the Daylight style (except the Bonus Grade item, which will be done in a future release).
• The Exemptions icon now appears on the list pages.
• Alt-text appears on all icons on the activity pages. In some cases, the alt-text has been changed to provide consistent text across all icons of the same type.

Across many tools, including Quizzes, Surveys, Grades, and Discussions, the Restrictions tab provides the ability to control the visibility status and availability dates for an activity. Changes include:

• Changes to the Restrictions tabs in Quizzes, Survey, Grades, and Discussions to show Hide from Users with a check box control to turn on or turn off the visibility of the item.
• Previous sections containing the visibility settings in Surveys, Grades, and Discussions (for Forums and Topics) are renamed to Availability.
• Availability dates in Grades (for a grade item and grade category) and Discussions (for Forums and Topics) now appear and can be hidden.

There is now a consistent individual and bulk process workflow to hide or show activities. With this workflow, users can quickly change the visibility status from the list of activities without first having to edit the activity. Changes include:

• In Quizzes, Surveys, and Grades, users can hide or show individual items under the context menu of an individual item or bulk items from the More Actions button at the top of the page.
• In Discussions, users can hide or show individual items under the context menu of each topic and forum. Bulk hide or show is not available for Discussions.

The language and methods by which instructors save content on the New Activity page (Content tool) are now consistent. Whether the item is visible or not is determined by the Hide from Users permission check box. Changes include:

• Publish and Save as Draft have been combined into a single button called Save.

In addition, there are other consistency updates throughout the Brightspace Learning Environment:

• The Completion Method icon in the table of contents in the Content tool is now a menu. If an instructor does not have permission to edit the Completion Method, the icon is displayed and the button menu does not appear.
• In the Grade book, on the context menu for a grade item, the Grade All option is now Enter Grades.
• In the Grade Item and Grade Category event log, the Visibility property is now Visibility Status. Status options are now Hidden or Not Hidden.
• In the Grade Item and Grade Category event log, the End Date Restriction and Start Date Restriction properties are now Availability End Date and Availability Start Date.
• In the Grade Item and Grade Category event log, changes to the Visibility and Date properties are now logged independently.
• In Surveys, the display of availability dates on the survey Administrator and User list pages are now consistent with the display currently used in Quizzes.

 

I just wanted to alert you to some “improvements to consistency” in D2L that will be added to D2L this month.  These changes will have implications for several tools in D2L, so I wanted to take a moment to outline some of them to you today.

Because there are so many little changes, I am going to simply give you D2L’s list of explanations, so you can go check out these changes out as you want or need to, or you can contact desupport@camosun.ca to arrange a consult with an instructional designer if you have questions.

From D2L:  “The language and methods by which instructors make activities hidden or visible to learners across different tools is now consistent. Changes include:

• The visibility control now uses a checkbox with the consistent terminology Hide from users in all instances. This change affects the Assignments, Discussions, Quizzes, Surveys, and Grades (grade item and grade category) tools.
• In Discussions, the Visibility, Availability Dates, and Locking options move from the Properties tab to the Restrictions tab.
• The Hide from users checkbox appears under the title field of all activity creation pages in the Content tool.
• In Content, on the table of contents, there is now a visibility icon button for use with both content topics and modules. The icon serves as a visibility switch. The visibility status of a topic appears when the topic is not visible, when the table of contents is in bulk edit mode, or when a topic is in edit-in-place mode. The table of contents fly-out no longer provides the ability to switch the visibility of a topic or module.
• In Content, the Hide from users and Make Visible to users options are available in the context menus for topics and modules in the table of contents, and in the context menus of topics on the topics’ detail page.

The Instructor view of the list page of several tools now has consistent icons in a consistent order for activity restrictions. Changes include:

• All common activity icons appear before tool-specific icons.
• There is now only one Special Access icon in Quizzes (previously there were two, one for each type of Special Access). The Special Access icon also now appears in Assignments where it previously did not.
• All icons have been updated to the Daylight style (except the Bonus Grade item, which will be done in a future release).
• The Exemptions icon now appears on the list pages.
• Alt-text appears on all icons on the activity pages. In some cases, the alt-text has been changed to provide consistent text across all icons of the same type.

Across many tools, including Quizzes, Surveys, Grades, and Discussions, the Restrictions tab provides the ability to control the visibility status and availability dates for an activity. Changes include:

• Changes to the Restrictions tabs in Quizzes, Survey, Grades, and Discussions to show Hide from Users with a check box control to turn on or turn off the visibility of the item.
• Previous sections containing the visibility settings in Surveys, Grades, and Discussions (for Forums and Topics) are renamed to Availability.
• Availability dates in Grades (for a grade item and grade category) and Discussions (for Forums and Topics) now appear and can be hidden.

There is now a consistent individual and bulk process workflow to hide or show activities. With this workflow, users can quickly change the visibility status from the list of activities without first having to edit the activity. Changes include:

• In Quizzes, Surveys, and Grades, users can hide or show individual items under the context menu of an individual item or bulk items from the More Actions button at the top of the page.
• In Discussions, users can hide or show individual items under the context menu of each topic and forum. Bulk hide or show is not available for Discussions.

The language and methods by which instructors save content on the New Activity page (Content tool) are now consistent. Whether the item is visible or not is determined by the Hide from Users permission check box. Changes include:

• Publish and Save as Draft have been combined into a single button called Save.

In addition, there are other consistency updates throughout the Brightspace Learning Environment:

• The Completion Method icon in the table of contents in the Content tool is now a menu. If an instructor does not have permission to edit the Completion Method, the icon is displayed and the button menu does not appear.
• In the Grade book, on the context menu for a grade item, the Grade All option is now Enter Grades.
• In the Grade Item and Grade Category event log, the Visibility property is now Visibility Status. Status options are now Hidden or Not Hidden.
• In the Grade Item and Grade Category event log, the End Date Restriction and Start Date Restriction properties are now Availability End Date and Availability Start Date.
• In the Grade Item and Grade Category event log, changes to the Visibility and Date properties are now logged independently.
• In Surveys, the display of availability dates on the survey Administrator and User list pages are now consistent with the display currently used in Quizzes.

 

Coming this month in D2L: a 2-way connection between Assignments and Grades, and between Discussions and Grades.

If you have linked an Assignment or a Discussion to a Grade item, you will now be able to enter marks in the Grades tool, and when saved, those grades will be sent to the Assignment or Discussion item. In other words, you can now grade your assignments in either the Grades tool or Assignments tool – whichever is your preference.

This function will be especially useful for assignments that are handed in in class (there are two new Submission Types in the Assignments tool to allow for “On-paper submission” and “Observed in Person”) or when you want to give students the option to either submit assignments to the Assignments tool or hand in paper assignments during class.

Want to know more? Contact eLearning Support (desupport@camosun.ca) to arrange for a consult with an instructional designer.

On September 5, I announced the new Annotation Tool in the Assignments tool in D2L . And today, I wanted to give you some additional notes about this tool, because of some questions that have come up for us from faculty.

First, the Annotation tool, which is enabled by default, can be disabled for specific assignments.  To do this:

1. Click the down arrow next to the assignment you want to edit, and select Edit Folder.
2. Scroll down to the bottom of the Properties tab to Annotation Tools, and deselect “Make annotation tools available for assessment”. Then click Save and Close.

   

Second, I wanted to mention the difference between downloading the annotated version (PDF version) and downloading the original document when assessing assignment submissions. Note that this is for file submissions when the Annotation tool is enabled.

1. Click the down arrow next to the assignment you want to grade, and click View Submissions.
2. Click on the Evaluate link for the student’s assignment you want to assess.
3. To download the document itself, click the arrow next to the assignment link, and select Download.

   

4. To view and download the Annotated file (as a PDF), click on the document link to open the Annotation tool, add your annotations, then click Download.

   

5. To close the Annotations tool window and return to the original view, where you can download the assignment document itself, click the X above, on the right side, of the Annotation window.

   

Stay tuned next Monday where I will tell you about a few new updates regarding the connection between the Assignments and Discussions tools, and the Grades tool.