Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

July 2020 Highlights

Posted by Donna Swanson

D2L Brightspace 20.20.06 updates for July 23, 2020

This month’s updates Include:

• D2L Brightspace Link – Link to D2L Brightspace in MyPCC | New
• Browsers – Updated list of supported browsers
• Rubrics – Accessibility improvements in Rubric creation workflow | Updated
• Widgets – Pinned tab in My Courses widget | New
• End of Life – Assignment Grader Mobile App

D2L Brightspace Link – Link to D2L Brightspace in MyPCC | New

A new D2L Brightspace login link has been added to the main MyPCC Navbar.  The new link image is the laptop, which is intended to match the WEB courses icon in the schedule.  When you click on the link you will be automatically logged into Brightspace.

Browsers – List of supported browsers| updated

• Brightspace Learning Environment supports HTML5 Video Player and does not rely on Adobe Flash and Adobe Flash Player. However, you can still create Flash-dependent video content in Brightspace Learning Environment.
• All supported browsers (Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari) deploy using a continuous delivery model and Brightspace supports the latest versions of these browsers.
• As of the July 2020/20.20.07 release, Firefox ESR is no longer a supported browser, due to extremely low usage. To support clients through this transition, D2L will fix high-priority issues for Firefox 68 ESR (until the end of September 2020) and Firefox 78 ESR (until the January 2021 release).
• Brightspace Learning Environment’s browser version check now displays warnings for browsers earlier than the following versions:

• Chrome 81 (released in April 2020)
• Chromium-based Edge 81 (released in April 2020)
• Edge Legacy 44 (not receiving any further updates)
• Safari 13 (released in September 2019)
• Firefox 76 (releases May 5th, 2020)

You can access Brightspace Learning Environment with older versions of our supported browsers; however, D2L does not test Brightspace Learning Environment against these older versions. This means you may encounter unexpected user interface behavior and appearance, or broken and unsupported functionality. In most cases, D2L does not fix software defects experienced in unsupported browser versions. For an optimal experience that offers better performance, accessibility, and security, D2L strongly recommends that all users access Brightspace Learning Environment with a supported browser.

Rubrics – Accessibility improvements in Rubric creation workflow | Updated

This feature was originally released for the Rubrics tool in June 2020/20.20.6. This update includes the following accessibility improvements in the rubric creation workflow:

• When you change the names of levels in the rubric create or edit experience, screen readers now read the updated name rather than the original default level names.
• Screen readers now indicate when new levels, criterion, groups, and overall score levels are added to a rubric. Previously, there was no loading progress indicator.
• Screen readers now state that there is a new level, criterion, group, or overall score level.
• The keyboard navigation tab sequence is improved when navigating to the Add and Cancel buttons in the Outcomes Picker window.

Widgets – Pinned tab in My Courses widget | New

A new Pinned tab now appears in the My Courses widget. The Pinned tab allows learners and instructors to create a curated view of their pinned courses.

The Pinned tab appears in the widget only after a user pins a course. The tab remains in view until all courses are unpinned. The My Courses widget remembers the last viewed tab and shows that same tab the next time the homepage is viewed. This makes it easy for instructors and learners who only wish to view pinned courses to see those courses upon login.

End of Life – Assignment Grader Mobile App

D2L will no longer support the Assignment Grader Mobile App.  They will be removing it from the app stores on September 30, 2020

They will no longer support the application, if you do have it installed on your device you may use it indefinitely, but there will be no support available if you encounter issues using it.

The replacement tool will be Quick Eval tool that D2L introduced a few months ago.