Archived iLearn Release Notes

Assignments

• The new assignment creation experience is no longer opt-in. It is on by default.

Brightspace Editor

• A new hotkey shortcut to access the source editor has been added for accessibility.

Alerts/Notifications

• Alerts in the minibar will now persist for 90 days.

Content

• Updated count and overdue badges in the content navigation menu.

Course Import/Export

• With this release, instructors can now include intelligent agents when importing or exporting courses.

Quizzes

• Improved language in the Assessment tab area. Automatic Grade is now Automatically Publish Evaluation. See the Quiz changes in this blog post.

Brightspace HTML Editor

• Expanding on the drag-and-drop and copy/paste images features in Quizzes-Feedback, Grades-Feedback and Comments, and Discussions-Feedback.

Content

• Improvements to the PDF inline viewer menu.

Upload Files

• Users will receive a warning if they attempt to upload a file with an extension that is either not allowed by the Assignment or is on the security restricted list.

 Assignments

• When evaluating an assignment, there is a Preview Activity option in the Assignment context menu to see a preview of the assignment details. Select the ... (three dot) icon in the upper right corner for the menu.

Brightspace HTML Editor

• Drag and drop and Copy/Paste functionalities are now available in the following areas:
  • Content Module/Topic Descriptions
  • Quiz/Survey/Self-Assessment - Description, Header. Footer
  • Grades - Description
  • Content Course Overview descriptions
  • Discussion Forum/Topic descriptions

Brightspace Pulse App

• The latest version of Brightspace Pulse is supported on devices with iOS® 12+ or Android^TM 6.0+ (2015 release). Older versions of Brightspace Pulse will continue to work on devices with iOS 11 or Android 5.0, but will not receive any app updates. For an optimal experience, D2L recommends installing the latest version of Brightspace Pulse on devices with iOS 12+ or Android 6.0+.

Content

• The Print button is visible when viewing a PDF topic or the Course Overview as a PDF. 

Course Import

• Users can now view the history of course import attempts for courses in a specific org unit. From the Import/Export/Copy tool on Course Admin, users can view the Course Import History page, which includes the following information for each course import attempt:  
  • the original package name 
  • status of the import 
  • user who created the import job 
  • the timestamp for the import attempt 

Assignments

• Create select box grade items in the new Assignment Creation Experience
• Delete submissions functionality for bulk actions available when viewing assignment submissions.
• Ability to restrict the file extension, includes a custom file extension option. Can restrict to PDF, Annotatable Files, Files that can be previewed without conversion, Images and Videos, and Custom File Types.
  

Account Settings

• A user can go to their Account Settings and set the user pronouns they wish to show in the user profile.

Discussions

• The new evaluation experience is now set to On (Opt-In) by default. This experience is similar to the new Assignment evaluation experience.
• When viewing a post, you can now hover over the profile card and see the Org Defined Id (T#). 

Import/Export/Copy Components

• You can now export release conditions and associations.

Rubrics

• Additional information is now shown on the rubric tile when collapsed. You can now see if a rubric has been scored or not, if it is partially scored or completed.
• The Brightspace HTML Editor (for formatting) is now available when editing the rubric description and feedback areas. You can also use the Insert Stuff and Insert Quicklink to link to things in the rubric.
• It is now possible copy and delete a criteria group on a rubric.

Assignments

• The attachments toolbar in the evaluation experience feedback area has been updated to allow to provide Quicklinks to resources in the course, web links, and upload files from Google Drive or OneDrive.
• Release Condition Sync option with Grades option available. We are looking at this workflow and considering the option.

Brightspace HTML Editor

• Available as the default editor.

Brightspace Learning Environment

• Currently, in a persons individual Account Settings, they can select how to deal with dialog boxes due to previous issues with screen readers. Modern screen readers now provide better support for dialogs and this option is now removed.

Brightspace Pulse App

• If a course is using the Activity Feed, there is now the ability to add a comment to the feed through the app.
• A student can now view all their Grades in the app in one location. When they select it, they can see the grade and the feedback.
• Students can now view the content module descriptions through the app. 

Discussions

• A new evaluation experience is now available as Opt-In. This experience is similar to the new Assignment evaluation experience.
• The date restrictions for the discussions have been updated to be simpler. It will have one start date and one end date, but an instructor can choose what is displayed before and after the dates.
• View more information about the Discussion Updates. 

Rubrics

• Increased accessibility with labels on radio buttons.
• Inline grading improvements that allow the grader to hover over a level to see the details. The keyboard navigation has also been improved. When the level is selected, the level information area displays the selected level's information by default.
• Overall score now appears in a mobile view and the New Assignment and Discussion Evaluation Experiences.

Assignments

• The ability to align assignments with categories has been added to the new Assignment Creation Experience.

Brightspace HTML Editor

• The Quiz Builder will now use the new inline editor.

Content

• There will be a new icon for External Resources links.

Grades

• Text items, calculated items and formula items can now be added to categories for organization. They still do not count in the calculation of the final grade.

Quiz

• The Introduction field will be removed. If a quiz has content in this field, the content will be moved to the Instructions field.
• The Reports tab will be removed and the Reports will be in the Quiz menu drop-down. There will be a Setup Reports link and a View Reports link.
• The Grace Period can be set to 0.
• For quizzes that contain questions that need to be manually scored (such as Written Response questions) AND that have the "Allow attempt to be set as graded immediately upon completion" option disabled, a new Pending Evaluation status appears beside the quiz attempt on the Grade Quiz page.
• While evaluating a quiz attempt with unevaluated questions, the instructor can now select Pending evaluations in the Question View drop-down menu to filter for only the questions that require manual evaluation. 

Attendance

• Instructors can now restore mistakenly deleted attendance registers and their associated session data.

Brightspace HTML Editor

• Format painter has been added to allow you to copy and apply text formatting.

Brightspace Platform

• LaTeX equations in quiz questions will be seamlessly rendered without the need to use the LaTeX equation option in the Equation Editor.

Rubrics

• When an attached rubric is deleted from an evaluated assignment, if evaluations of that rubric have been performed, the user now receives a detach rubric confirmation message for the assignment.
• A option to reorder criterion groups is now available in the new Rubric Creation Experience.

 

Assignments

• Annotations available for TXT file-based assignments.
• Download file when using annotations in the new Assignment Evaluation Experience allows you to choose to Download Original and also as a PDF.

Attendance

• Instructors can now set the visibility of attendance registers in bulk.

Brightspace Editor

• Copy/Paste and Drag or Drop images is now available.
• Improved keyboard navigation for keyboard users and toolbar icons are spaced out more in accordance with WCAG standards.

Rubrics

• A Copy Row option have been added to facilitate reusing rubric criteria that has already been created.
• A Delete Row option has been been moved to the context menu for each criterion.
• Print or export to PDF of a Preview of a Rubric has now been added.

Widgets

• A Work To Do widget has been added for student information of overdue and upcoming work. This widget will be added to the My Home area for all students by Fall 2021.

 

Accommodations

• Instructor
  • An icon now appears next to the learners name in the Classlist to indicate that the learner has an accommodation.
  • Instructors can filter the Classlist on Accommodations.
  • Instructors can now grant additional time or quiz time multipliers for those needing an accommodation of time in the quiz tool.
  • The quiz specific special release settings can override the Accommodation settings, but a warning will appear letting the instructor know.
• Student
  • An icon appears by their name in the classlist to show they have an accommodation.

Assignments

• The action menu for the groups has been updated to allow the instructor to email the group, see all group members, or instant message the group in one location.
• Anonymous marking is now in the new Assignment Evaluation Experience.
• The Brightspace Editor (replacing the older HTML editor) is now in the new Assignment Creation and Evaluation Experiences.
• A context menu has been added on the Assignment Evaluation Experience that allows you to Edit or set Special Access Dates quickly.

Brightspace Editor

• The Brightspace Editor is replacing the older HTML editor throughout the system.
• View more about the new Brightspace HTML Editor.

Content

• When creating a URL content type, it will automatically select the Open as External Resource box by default.

Rubrics

• Improvements to the experience for those using a screen reader while creating or scoring rubrics in the new Rubrics experience.

Assignments

• Previously, when you copied an assignment, the copied assignment was set to active and you had to open the newly copied assignment to edit it. Now when you copy an assignment, the copied assignment is set to inactive and you are directed to the Edit Assignment screen to continue editing it as part of the copy assignments workflow.
• When hovering over a learner’s name or profile picture in the new evaluation experience, the learner’s user profile card appears. The card displays the user’s online/offline status as well as links to Email, Instant Message, User progress and User profile.
• The New Assignment Evaluation experience now supports Turnitin® Similarity and Turnitin® Grademark® in Assignments.

Awards

• To prevent plagiarism and protect an organization's intellectual and branding copyrights, all earned certificates downloaded from the Awards tool are now password-protected from editing. Each certificate is generated with a random password that is not displayed to users, preventing anyone from editing the certificate in Adobe® Acrobat® or Adobe Reader®.

Brightspace Pulse App

• Learners receive a notification in Brightspace Learning Environment and Brightspace Pulse under the following conditions:
  • If the assignment or quiz has a due date, the learner is notified two days before the due date.
  • If the assignment or quiz has no due date, but has an end date, the learner is notified two days before the end date.
• Learners do not receive a notification in Brightspace Learning Environment and Brightspace Pulse under the following conditions:
  • Learner completed the assignment by submitting to the assignment folder.
  • Learner completed the quiz according to the defined completion criteria (attempt submitted or score threshold achieved).
  • The assignment or quiz has no dates attached.
  • The assignment or quiz includes only a start date.

Calendar

• They have implemented some changes in the way the calendar functions to improve the usability for keyboard users.

Quizzes

• Previously, to copy and continue editing a quiz, you had to navigate to the Manage Quizzes page, click the More Actions > Copy functionality, and then select the quiz you wanted to copy, rename it, and click Edit quiz after copy completes. 
• This feature updates the copy quiz workflow to better align with Assignments. Now, the copy functionality is available on the individual quiz drop-down menu. When you copy a quiz, the copied quiz is set to inactive (as per the original copy quiz workflow) and you are directed to the Edit Quiz screen to continue editing it. Now, the copy quiz workflow also copies over Special Access settings and aligned Learning Objectives.
• Improved workflow for creating multi-select questions.

Rubrics

• Navigation accessibility improvements for screen readers.

Accommodations

• This feature enables instructors to grant learners accommodations through the Classlist tool. Accommodation options currently available include: more time to complete quizzes at the course level and the ability to bypass right-click restrictions in quizzes. The right-click restriction in quizzes is the ability for learners to right-click in the quiz while taking the quiz. This setting will be applied to all quizzes in the course.

Assignments

• The rubric will have a pop-out window in the new evaluation experience to allow for a larger, more detailed view of the rubric while grading.
• A Save button has been added to allow you to continue editing the assignment.

Brightspace Pulse App

• When students access the course via the Brightspace Pulse App, the Last Accessed column now displays an updated timestamp. This experience was not consistent in updating prior to this.

Assignments

• The new assignment creation experience is set to Opt-in.
• Multiple rubric support is available in the evaluation experience.

Assignments

• The evaluation experience has been updated that is currently Opt-in.

Quizzes

• The ability to decide how points are assigned in a Multi-Select Question has been added. Options are All or Nothing, Correct Selections, Correct Answers, Limited Selections, or Right Minus Wrong Selections.
• Instructors can now identify a Retaken Attempt in the Attempt Log or while grading in the User tab and the Attempts tab.

Assignments

• An updated and more streamlined date picker is available where you can easily choose or clear Due Date, Start Date or End Date on the Create/Edit Assignments page.

Brightspace Pulse App

• A new dark mode is now available when Dark mode is enabled on your Android device.

Content

• Updates have been made to the Content Statistics available to instructors in the Content area. Select Table of Contents - Related Tools - View Reports. A new Available To column to show who the content is available to in the Module stats and User stats.

Grades

• Manage Grades now includes total points for grade categories and Final Calculated Grade.
• For weighted grade books, the total weight is displayed in addition to the total points.
• Totals do not include bonus grade items and do support grade item dropping.

Quizzes

• A Preview button has been added to the Add/Edit Questions view in the Quiz tool.
• The ability to allow students to Retake Incorrect Questions Only on subsequent attempts.

Restricted File Types (Added):

• .cgi 
• .cmd 
• .hta 
• .jar 
• .lib 
• .pl 
• .pm 
• .ps1 
• .sh 
• .vbscript
• View all restricted file types

Quizzes

• Users can now Import questions directly into sections in the quiz.

Assignments (in the new experience)

• Manage Special Access has been added under the Availability Dates & Conditions options.
• Notification Email has been added under the Submission & Completion options.

Discussions

• Word Count has been added to each thread entered by a student.
  • Instructors will see the word count on each post to assess.
  • Students will see the word count as they are typing the post.

Quizzes

• A new option is available when using the Written Response, Arithmetic, and Significant Figures question types. Instructors can now choose an option to allow students to upload documents, images or even record audio and video to support their answers.
  • The files will be stored and when grading, instructors will see a list of the attachments. They can view them, download them, or open them in another tab to view.
• A Move To option has been added to the Question List to be able to move questions to the beginning of the list, end of the list or into a section.

Rubrics

• Opt-In is no longer an option. The new experience is now the only view.

UPDATE: July 10, 2020 

Assignments

• We have just enabled the New Assignment Experience that was released in late June. It is a vast improvement on the current look and feel. In the new experience, it is more streamlined and uses more of a Panel type structure. You can choose to "opt-in" to this experience in iLearn. 

Click HERE to learn more about this experience, and view step by step instructions for how to navigate it. 

UPDATE: October 23, 2019
Releases: 20.19.08 [August], 20.19.09 [September], 20.19.10 [October]

Accessibility

• Updates to the fonts and styles to comply with WCAG 2.1 standards.

Assignments

• Assignment list page updated for learners
• Spell check for annotation notes
• Option to turn on or off the Make annotation tool available for assessment
• Grades entered into Grade book will sync with assignment
• Changes to the immersive navigation bar

Class Progress

• Faculty can show or hide progress indicators from students

Discussions

• Discussions graded in the Grade book will sync with the Discussion grades.

Email

• Add images to messages

Intelligent Agents

• Release Conditions Re-evaluate when triggered. 
• Email attachments can be added to automated emails.

Notifications

• Additional options for weekly summary added to notification settings

Brightspace Pulse App

• iOS Support

Quick Eval Tool

• Now has an Activities view. You can choose which activity to grade.

Quizzes

• Arithmetic and Significant Figures questions round up from .5 by default. Previously they were rounded down.
• New Quiz Builder Experience for adding questions, sections and question pools.
• Restore a deleted Quiz Attempt using the Quiz Attempt Log.

Release Conditions

• New Content Topic Completion option 

Other options

• Consistency updates throughout the platform
• Ability to publish AICC packages
• OpenDyslexic font will be discontinued
• Internet Explorer 11 no longer supported as of January 2020

UPDATE: July 22, 2019
Releases: 20.19.06 [June], 20.19.07 [July]

Accessibility

• Updates to the fonts and styles to comply with WCAG 2.1 standards.

Assignments

• An Edit Categories option is now available.
• An Eraser tool is added to Annotations tool bar

NavBar

• If someone doesn't have a profile image, their initials will now be displayed instead of a generic image.

Quick Eval Tool

• Update to show a Draft icon if a discussion post that has feedback is in draft status.

Quizzes

• Arithmetic and Significant Figures questions round up from .5 by default. Previously they were rounded down.

Rubrics

• Consistent assessment experience for Discussions whether a discussion topic is associated with a grade item or not.

User Progress

• Updated so that the information recorded is only for content that is accessible to students, must be marked as complete and is not exempt.

UPDATE: May 21, 2019
Releases: 20.19.04 [April], 20.19.05 [May]

Quick Eval (NEW TOOL)

• This tool allows you to see a list of unevaluated learner submissions from all courses in one location. Submissions from Assignments, Quizzes, and Discussions are displayed in one location to improve efficiency when locating work that requires evaluation and providing feedback to learners. Educators can sort, filter, and search submissions to prioritize their evaluation work.
• Learn more about Quick Eval

Assignments

• When instructors evaluate students, the notifications have been improved. Students are emailed when new or updated feedback published if the students select this notification type.
• Annotate in full screen mode.
• If you don't use Annotations, you can now opt-out of the annotation window.
• Instructors can now rotate the page using the annotation tools

Discussions

• Save feedback for students in DRAFT state.

Grades

• Transfer of a rubric score to a grade item score is now by default.

Rubrics

• You can now create a Quicklink to link to an existing Rubric throughout the course.
• Now available for group assignments and discussions.

Quizzes

•  Quizzes can now be evaluated in full screen mode.

UPDATE: March 15, 2019
Releases 10.8.9 [January], 10.8.10 [February], 10.8.11 [March]

Assignments

•  New assignment types available
  • Evaluate on paper
  • Observed in person
• An updated list of assignments with more details available for both faculty and students.
• Assignment Grader, used for offline grading, no longer uses an EduDentity account to login. Faculty will use their iLearn login credentials to access.
• Faculty will be able to use the pen-enabled annotation on learner submissions to give feedback to students.
• .CS files (C#) are now accepted file types for assignment submissions.

Rubrics

• The rubric creation experience has been enhanced and is much better.
• Rubric feedback icons for students now show if the rubric is ungraded, partially graded or completely graded.
• Instructors can now enter an overall criteria score in a point-based rubric before clicking the level.

Content - SCORM Report Updates

• Now includes options for a Summary, Interactions and Objectives reports.
• Instructors can export the statistics in a CSV format.

Other

• Quiz - the default when copying will set all quizzes as inactive in the new course.
• Intelligent Agents - allows an instructor to export an agent run history.
• Turnitin - To use the e-rater Grammer checker, it must be enabled in the More Options in Turnitin area when setting up an assignment.

View the release notes for January [10.8.9], February [10.8.10] and March [10.8.11].

UPDATE: November 26, 2018
Releases 10.8.6 [October], 10.8.7 [November], 10.8.8 [December]

My Home & Course Home

• Course tiles changed
• Instructors can customize course banner image text.

Assignments

• Evaluation of assignments is now in full screen.
• New assignment types are able to be linked in Content.
• Instructors can anonymously grade student submissions.

Quizzes

• Auto-save for student answers is now enabled.
• When taking a quiz, the quiz is in full screen.
• Instructors can add initial text to Written Answer questions.
• The new quiz experience is the default.

Rubrics

• Continued improvements to the workflows.
• Grading rubric feedback will be visible to students in the gradebook.
• An improved creation experience is coming.

Discussions

• Better workflow for using rubrics in the grading experience.

Content

• Send to Binder has been removed.
• The wording Overview will be changed to Course Syllabus.

View more details about the current and planned updates for December for iLearn.

For more information about the most current release notes, you can go to the Brightspace Community.

UPDATE: August 2018

My Courses Widget

This is the area on the iLearn My Home page where your courses are listed.

• The new courses for a term will be appear in your My Courses widget on the My Home page without being pinned first.
• You can pin these courses to prevent them from being removed when they close. Just select the ellipses (…) in the upper right corner of the course image and select Pin.
• You can unpin old courses at any point the same way you have been doing it.
• Course images will now say “Opens On” instead of “Course Starts”.
• Students will now be able to see past and future courses in addition to current courses, however the past and future courses will not be accessible, only visible.
• Students may want to unpin previously pinned courses by clicking the the pin icon on the course image.
• View more information about the My Courses Widget and Daylight.

Assignments Tool

• There is now a Text-Only assignment type (under Submission Options in the Properties tab). You cannot change this setting once it is set for that assignment.
• Examples for uses of Text-Only student submissions
  • Video Links (students can link to Kaltura, Youtube, Vimeo or other)
  • Journal Entries
  • Links to large files

Rubrics Tool

• They are now consistent across tools now (looks the same across the system) in the assignments tool, discussions and grades.
• Now links to the grades tool and updates the information with the assigned grade, overall feedback and a link to the detailed rubric feedback.
• August update - students can see the rubric in the Progress tool in the user drop-down
• More updates to this tool are coming this semester with a bulk of them in October and a revamp of the user interface to make it simpler to create rubrics around the end of the year.

Turnitin Integration has been updated

• Grademark grades can be sent to to D2L grades as Draft, you can publish the grades in D2L when you are done grading and ready to release them to the students.
• Can now choose to use only Grademark even if you don’t want to do the originality (plagiarism) report
• Group folders work with Turnitin
• If enabled, students can only submit file types supported by Turnitin

UPDATE: May 2018

You can now add your own TA-Grader, TA-Content and/or Mentor to your class in iLearn. Learn how! If you need a TA-Full, Co-Instructor or Incomplete student, please complete the existing request form. If you aren't sure what role you need to use, view the descriptions.

Other Changes for May 2018

UPDATE: August 24, 2017

This app allows students to stay more connected. It also helps them prepare and improves their productivity by allowing them to access course information on their mobile device. It also allows for push notifications of new announcements, content being added to the course, quizzes and assignments that are due and more.

To setup this app to work with your Tennessee Tech classes on iLearn:

1. Download the app
2. Click Pick my School and enter Tennessee Tech University
3. If it asks for the web address, enter elearn.tntech.edu
4. It will bring up the Tennessee Tech iLearn login screen. Login with your Tennessee Tech account.

Watch this video for more information about using this tool and what it can do for you.

UPDATE: June 29, 2017

With the new Daylight features comes a new quiz question creation experience. We enabled this option on Friday, June 30^th. This new experience has a cleaner and more user-friendly interface for creating and editing quiz questions. The feature is also one you can opt-in or out of using currently. If you prefer the old way you can turn off the new experience and go back to what is familiar.

Another quick note about the quiz questions is that the Long Answer Question is now called Written Response Question. It should not affect anything from previous tests, but if you are looking to create an essay type test, you will now use the Written Response Question. This has changed whether you use the new interface or the older one.

View more information about the new quiz question creation interface.

 

UPDATE: May 30, 2017

We are have updated iLearn with the new Daylight User Experience. Daylight is the new look and feel for D2L Brightspace (iLearn) and allows for more a better viewing experience from different devices.

Don't see your course in the My Home area? You might have to pin them to the top. Learn more about the Daylight Update.