Brightspace Questions?

Innovation Corner
November 2024

In This Edition...

Spring & Summer Course Shells are Now Available!

Now is the time to start thinking about your upcoming course updates! If you want to make some updates but are not sure where to focus your limited time, consider requesting a Quality Course Design Review of your course! An instructional designer will provide you with a rubric and feedback on how well your course meets each of our eight QCD standards. You can use this information to target your course changes. Please allow one week for your review to be completed.

Request a Review

Are you utilizing the Notes Section in Akademos?

Help students prepare for your class by adding information to your textbook adoption notes field!

Some information to include:

Whether a certain format is required (print, ebook, integration, etc.)
How students should access their materials (Brightspace, Publisher's website, etc.)
HonorLock requirements that may incur a cost (webcam, microphone)
Other requirements that students may need to purchase (calculators, tools, lab kits, safety equipment, etc.)

You can edit this field until December 2nd for spring courses!

Accessibility Gets a NEW Look in Brightspace

Visit the Events page to register for an upcoming Panorama training!

Look for Panorama in the "More Tools" menu in any course in Brightspace!

Panorama Replaces Ally November 19th

You may soon notice that the accessibility icons in Brightspace look a bit different. We are making the switch from Ally to a similar, but more robust, tool called Panorama!

Just like Ally, Panorama includes colored icons next to much of your content in Brightspace. Clicking on those icons will still give you a detailed report of the content's accessibility issues.

Here are few of Panorama's features:

Reports: Panorama checks even more content types, such as module descriptions.
Autopilot: On some reports, you will see an "Autopilot" button (see image to the left) that will automatically fix some accessibility issues for you!
Fix This: On some content, you will see a "Fix This" button that will allow you to fix some accessibility issues right in the accessibility report!
Alternate Formats: Panorama includes more alternate format options, such as handwritten math readability, language translation, and more.
Design Tool: Panorama includes an accessible design tool that you will now see in your Brightspace text editor toolbar.

Will The Robots Win?

On a recent episode of Pixelated Pedagogy, Jordan, Caleb, and Shannon discuss the latest AI trends and whether AI will soon become our colleague, assistant, or... housekeeper?