Instructor Support for Educational Systems

November 2022 - 18/11/2022

Updated on

The new Brightspace release is available from 18 November 2022 10:00.

New Features

Export Grades for uSis

The Export Grades for uSis functionality is designed to simplify the flow of grade entry from Brightspace to uSis as much as possible. The export immediately provides the data education staff need to enter grades in bulk into uSis.

Please see How do I export Grades for uSis? for more information on this new functionality.

Enhancements

Group/Section Management –Descriptions now available for self-enrollment groups for students

This feature allows students to view descriptions for self enrollment type groups before they choose a group. Instructors need only add a description once, instead of copying and pasting the description into all child groups. Previously, the description only appeared after users had self enrolled.

Please see How do I create Groups? for more information group descriptions and self enrollment groups.

Group/Section Management – Improved clarity when performing deletions of associated activities

This feature implements a change to the message users receive in the Delete Category dialog when deleting a group (category) containing activities (i.e., Assignments and Discussions). The dialog now includes a count of how many assignments or discussions the user is deleting. Previously, this information was not clearly indicated to the user.

See How do I remove Groups? for more information on deleting groups and group categories.

Quizzes – Improved population method for calculating standard deviation

With this release, in Quizzing statistics, the method of calculating standard deviation from the sample standard deviation is changed to the population standard deviation.

The population standard deviation (Excel STDEV.P) is a more appropriate method since sampling is not conducted when calculating statistics. 

Please see Quiz Statistics: where do I find them and what do they show me? for more information.

Rubrics – Clarify grading criteria by editing text fields in assessed rubrics

Instructors can now edit the text fields in rubrics that have already been used for evaluation. This feature is intended to let instructors correct spelling errors, clarify wording, and make other minor changes that do not impact the academic integrity of the rubric. Instructors still can't make structural changes (such as adding evaluation levels or criteria), edit points, or add outcome alignments to assessed rubrics.

See How do I create or edit a Rubric? for more information.

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