These updates have been made by SUNY to support the SUNY Digital Learning Environment.
The Campus Implementation Planning Work Group is made up of over 100 members of SUNY from across a wide variety of campuses. Focus groups are formed for specific configuration change recommendations with additional campus representation so that we have a thorough investigation and multiple perspectives on the change, the impact, and the timing of any recommended changes.
07/05/2023 (see attachment for specifics)
- Gradebook Defaults - Beginning with J-Term and Spring 2024 terms:
- any new course created will default to a weighted grading system. This can be customized by the instructor to use a points-based grading system if desired.
- the gradebook calculation settings default will be to “Drop Ungraded Items”. Faculty can still opt to treat their ungraded items as 0, but this should be an active choice by the instructor. Faculty will need to be aware that they will need to actively add zeros for incomplete items if they keep the new default.
- Regardless of the gradebook defaults in Brightspace courses, when you copy an existing course from one semester to another, the settings from the existing course will override any default gradebook settings.
- Ally Configuration Settings
- The Translation option is available as an alternative format in the list of Ally alternative formats.
4/25/2023 ( see attachments for specifics)
- No reply email settings - The notification received in your college email for an email sent from Brightspace will now include a No-Reply in the sender address (e.g., From: Penny Copper < no-reply @ mail.mylearning.suny.edu >).
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Rename “Create a File” to “Create a File (Web Page)” – On 05/08/2023, Create a File will be changed to Create a File (Web Page) in the Upload / Create drop down menu. The purpose of this change is to make it clearer to faculty that this menu option creates a new webpage in a Brightspace module and to make the terminology in the dropdown menu more consistent with how HTML pages are listed in a module index.
04/10/2023 - See attachment for specifics
- “Save as Draft” Enabled for Discussions – This feature is currently disabled. Enabling this feature will help both faculty and student users save a draft when typing a discussion response in a textbox, so they do not lose work.
- Course Mail: Preview Pane – Preview Pane is currently active by default. After this change, the preview pane in course mail will no longer show by default. This will address the experience of the preview pane obstructing the view of the Brightspace course mail inbox.
- Course Mail: Signature Line – The default wording of the no-reply email notifications will be reworded to be clearer.