Every month, VIULearn is updated by our software provider D2L. Most of the time you won’t even notice the changes, because they are behind-the-scenes improvements. An example of a behind-the-scenes improvement was an improvement to the Import / Export / Copy Components tool that allowed bigger courses to be copied faster.

Sometimes, there are improvements made to the system that you will notice or that may improve how you can use the system. This month, there are two key changes I’m excited to tell you about.

“Not” Release Conditions

Release conditions are conditions attached to content or activities that restrict learner’s access to those items until the learner completes a specific task. For example: A learner can only access a quiz if they have opened all of the files in a module, or a News item displays once a learner submits to a dropbox to congratulate them.

The Release Conditions have been improved and now include the ability to release content or activities when a learner has not completed something. There are a lot of possibilities with this new type of release condition. For example: you could set an intelligent agent to email you when a learner misses an assignment or doesn’t submit to a quiz – something many of you have asked about!

Check out this short video on the “Not” Release Conditions:

Watch this space for a few more ideas on using the new “Not” Release Conditions in the next month!

Grading Discussions with Rubrics

Many teaching faculty members grade discussions with a rubric. This process has always been a little clunky, but there have been some improvements to the interface that allow you to see and fill in the rubric and see the discussion post on the same screen. There are still a few improvements to be made in the integration between these tools, but filling in your rubric has never been easier! I hope to see some more improvement in this tool in the next couple of years.

Check out this short video on how grading discussions with rubrics has improved: https://admin.video.ubc.ca/tiny/zpmwt  (the link will open in a new window or tab).

Do you have any questions about these changes? Do you want to know more? Please send an email to learnsupport@viu.ca to ask a question or make an appointment with us. We would love to hear your thoughts!