New Features & Updates

Brightspace Editor – Updated Accessibility Checker icon

This release updates the Accessibility Checker icon in Brightspace Editor to improve user recognition and understanding.

Figure: The updated Accessibility Checker icon is now a human figure within a circle, replacing the eye symbol with a check mark for better clarity.

Figure: The previous Accessibility Checker icon of an eye and checkmark.

Creator+ – New Authoring Tools Menu in Brightspace Editor

Insert Elements, Practices, and Layouts have been relocated from Other Insert Options (+) to the new dedicated Authoring Tools menu   in Brightspace Editor. This update improves the visibility, organization, and usability of Creator+ tools, delivering a more streamlined and efficient experience.

Figure: Use the new dedicated Authoring Tools menu in Brightspace Editor to access the Creator+ tools and H5P Interactives.

Portfolio – Find evidence easily with improved searchability

Users can now find evidence more easily in the Portfolio tool with improved filtering and sorting options. The enhanced searchability offers the ability to use a Date filter when searching for evidence, sorting either by a preset date range or a custom date range.

Previously, users could only search for evidence using the Evidence Status, Class Category (if available), and School Category (if available) filters in Portfolio.

Figure: Click Filters and select a preset or custom date range.

Rubrics – The Criteria descriptions limit increased to 500 characters

To support larger criteria descriptions, administrators and instructors can now add up to 500 characters to the description of the criteria when creating and editing rubrics. This new limit provides more context about learning expectations.

Full descriptions of criteria are available in the Learner view.

For instructors, when evaluating, up to three lines are displayed. To display the complete text, they must click more.

Note: This change applies only to new rubric items created or edited after this release. Existing rubrics retain their original 256-character limit unless manually updated.

Figure: Click more to display the complete text for the rubric description. Jan. 2025

Groups: Restore Groups and Categories

A new Recycle Bin feature is now available in the Groups tool, allowing instructors to restore individual groups or entire group categories within a course offering. When a group is restored, any existing enrollments and lockers (if applicable) are reinstated. Additionally, activities associated with the restored groups, such as discussions or assignments, can be recovered separately through their respective restore pages.

Note: Groups and categories deleted before November 15, 2024, will not appear in the Groups Recycle Bin. This feature only applies to deletions made after this date.

Figure: Click Recycle Bin to view the deleted groups and group categories.

Figure: Select the check box for a group or group category and click Restore.

Assignments: Update to assignment annotations PSPDFKit

The unsupported Bookmarks tool has been removed from annotations to prevent confusion. This update also resolves existing issues and helps prevent future ones related to outdated PSPDFKit software. Previously, instructors could add bookmarks, but they were not retained after refreshing the page.

Figure: Before this update, instructors could click Bookmarks to add bookmarks to pages of a PDF. However, these bookmarks were not saved

Figure: After this update, Bookmarks is removed.

Discussions 

There are new deletion and restoration workflows for group-restricted discussions. When a user deletes a group, the associated activities, including discussions, are also deleted. These discussions cannot be restored unless their associated group is restored first. Once the group has been restored, associated discussions can be restored using the Discussions restore workflow.  

• The following are new Reading View improvements for students.  
• The Start New Thread button is duplicated at the bottom of the page when viewing a topic, eliminating the need to scroll back to the top of the page. 
• The Add Attachments section is opened by default when creating a new post or new topic. Previously learners had to open the section manually to add attachments. 
• The Add Attachments section is wider on screen when learners create a new thread. 

Data Hub 

New columns have been added to the following Brightspace Data Sets: 

• Quiz User Answers 
• Release Condition Objects
• Survey User Answers 

Grades

The sort component for learner names in Grade book Mastery View is updated to improve consistency with other areas of Brightspace and to resolve minor visual issues with the previous sort functionality. Instructors can now sort learner names in any of the following orders: 

• Last name alphabetically  
• Last name reverse-alphabetically 
• First name alphabetically 
• First name reverse-alphabetically