On December 9th, Online Learning will be restoring instructor access to customize the new standardized navigation bar (navbar) in D2L Brightspace. If you need to customize your navbar, we strongly encourage you to make a copy of the default navbar for your modifications. (instructions below) Consistent navigation is something students have said is important and is a best practice promoted by Quality Matters and others.
In addition to the navbar customization access, we will add a link to the Attendance tool to the Course Info menu on Monday, December 16th. A number of instructors identified this tool as important to their programs, and the Links workflow did not work well for students and instructors. We have turned off the attendance tool for courses that were not using it so those instructors wouldn’t have to take extra steps to turn it off.
Primary needs
Students: Consistent navigation among courses.
Faculty: Ability to provide links to course-specific resources.
As an instructor, you can turn tools off or add custom links to the Links tab in the new NavBar.
Warning: Turning off a tool will make it unavailable in the entire course, not just the navbar. Only turn off tools you are sure you don’t need on the navbar. Never turn off Content, any tools in the Course Info dropdown and Grades, as this will make them inaccessible to students. Never turn off tools that are not on the navigation bar (see step 3 below).
Click the Instructor Tools link and select Course Admin.
On the Course Administration page, click Tools.
On the Tool Status page, turn off unused tools (must be options in your navbar – do not disable tools not visible in your navbar)
For example, turning off the Discussions from the Coursework group in the navbar:
When you turn off the tool, a Set status to ‘Off’ pop-up message confirms the change.
Note: Changes to the settings on this page are saved automatically and will be reflected to your students immediately
If you have something, such as a homework site (WebWork) or an OER textbook, which you anticipate students needing very often in the course, in addition to adding it to the “Links” area, you can also put it in a short announcement and then ‘Pin’ that announcement to the top, so it stays visible.
Create your announcement on the homepage, or in the announcements tool.
Next to the title of the announcement, select “Pin to top” from the context menu.
You will know it was successful if you see “Pinned” underneath the announcement title.
Note: If you do this, try to keep your message short so that other announcements are still easily visible to students.
Notice: When creating custom navigation bars, you take responsibility for maintaining and updating system and tool links typically managed by Online Learning. This includes essential resources like tutoring links, help options, and tools such as Zoom. Please review the Quarterly Updates to see if any system links have been changed.
Does not include the role-specific Instructor Tools group of links, reducing clutter for student navigation in your course
Sending navbar corrections and/or feedback
To send corrections or feedback, click the Help tab and select “Send corrections or feedback.” A new window will open. Follow the prompts to submit your feedback.
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