There now new ways for students and instructors to track work and submissions in Brightspace! We’ve added 2 new widgets to homepages
Work to Do widget for students
The Work to Do widget shows upcoming, due, and overdue work. Students can see the work for a course on the course homepage OR work for all of their courses on the main Brightspace homepage.
Instructors can preview how this will look for students by viewing as a learner. This widget will not show on the course homepage for instructors. A screenshot example is shown below.
The list of Work to Do will only be available for work
- that is managed by Brightspace
- EXCLUDES Kaltura quizzes, VoiceThread Assignment builder, and others
- with due or end dates attached
If there are no dates assigned or students have finished all the work for a 2 week period, the widget will display the message “You have no activities with due or end dates available.” To learn more about dates and how to add them, see our post Using Brightspace Calendar and Dates.
Quick Eval widget for instructors
The Quick Eval widget highlights submissions that need evaluation. This widget shows a list right on the course homepage instead of having to click through the course admin to the Quick Eval tool.
The widget will show up to 6 activities with the earliest due date first. You can also click from the widget to see all activities in the Quick Eval tool. Activities with submissions have a red indicator bubble with the number of submissions to be graded. Activities without submissions can be dismissed from this list until there is another submission by a student (keep reading to learn how to do this).
This has the same limitations as the Work to Do app in that it EXCLUDES work that is not built with Brightspace tools such as the VoiceThread assignment builder. For these external tools, you will have to check for students elsewhere.
Dismiss Quick Eval activities
All Activities (Assignments, Quizzes that have manual grading, and Discussions) will appear in the Quick Eval widget unless they are dismissed. From the Quick Eval page, you can dismiss them until the next submission to that activity.
Click “View all Activities” from the Quick Eval widget or go through Course Admin then Quick Eval to navigate to the Quick Eval page.
From the “View by:” options at the top of the page and click the Activities button.
Hover over the activity to dismiss and click More Actions. Then choose Dismiss until… from the dropdown menu.
In the Dismiss Activity popup, you can choose from 3 options
- Next submission: it will show up again if a student submits to the Activity
- A specific date: maybe you have a big grading day at the end of the semester
- Forever: you’ve finished grading and are not taking any more submissions
Choose your preferred option and click Dismiss Activity.
Previously dismissed activities can also be restored from the Quick Eval page.
If you have questions about using the widgets or do not see them on your course homepages, please contact the IDAT team.