Updates to Class Progress

New features have been added to the Class Progress tool in BOLT. See when students accessed the course or downloaded content.


You are now able to see when students have accessed your course.


To see this, go to Course Resources, select Class Progress, and click on a student. On the left side of the page, click on Course Access. This will load a page displaying when the student logged into your course.

You are also able to see when students have downloaded content topics.


To see this in Class Progress, click on Content on the left side of the page. This will load a page displaying the student’s progress in the Content tool of the course.


Modules that have been downloaded will be tagged as "Downloaded".


Expand modules to see student progress in their content topics by clicking on the “# Topics, # Modules” link.

Once you can see all the topics, any topics students have downloaded will be tagged as “Downloaded”. (Note that the tool may still say the student “Never visited” the content topic, even if the student has downloaded it for offline viewing.)

BOLT Unvailable Sunday, July 10 from 1am to 7am

Every month, BOLT undergoes a maintenance window. This month’s maintenance window is on Sunday, July 10, 2016 from 1:00am to 7:00am ET. BOLT will be unavailable during this time. Please plan accordingly. 

Maintenance Window FAQ

Q: Where are the maintenance dates announced?

A: Maintenance dates are announced here on our BOLT Students blog, our BOLT Blog for faculty, and in the News items on your My Home page in BOLT.

Q: What will happen if I try to log in during a maintenance period?

A: A page will load that says Desire2Learn is unavailable due to scheduled maintenance.

Q: Why am I still seeing a page that tells me D2L is unavailable after the maintenance window?

A: If you tried to login to BOLT during the maintenance window, your browser may be loading the scheduled maintenance page from its cache memory. If you encounter this page outside of the maintenance window, please clear your browser cache before trying to login to BOLT again.

• Clear your browser cache in Internet Explorer
• Clear your browser cache in Firefox
• Clear your browser cache in Chrome
• Clear your browser cache in Safari

Q: This is a bad time for BOLT to be unavailable. Can maintenance be rescheduled?

A: We understand frustration when BOLT downtime occurs during busy times of the academic year. Unfortunately, we cannot reschedule the maintenance windows. The IMDC has no control over the regularly scheduled maintenance windows. They are scheduled by our vendor and are necessary to keep BOLT working optimally. 

Did you know...

...you can use the Course Copy tool in BOLT to save development time?

If you’ve taught your course before, or if you’re teaching a course based on a specified curriculum, you can use the Course Copy tool to save development time. Course Copy will copy your old course into your new one.


You can find the Course Copy tool in the Copy Course Content widget on the right side of the course home page of your new course.

BOLT FAQ: Time Savers in BOLT

Save Time with These BOLT Tips

	Combine multiple sections of a course. If you are teaching several sections of the same course in a semester, consider combining them into one course offering.
	Use the Course Copy tool. If you already developed a course, you can use the Course Copy tool to copy it over to a new semester’s course. Remember to modify dates and documents with semester or new information!
	Upload and add multiple topics. Zip multiple files, upload the zip file to the Manage Files area, and unzip the file there. Select the files and click Add Content Topics to add them to Content at once.
	Use Copy features where possible. Did you know you could copy quizzes, surveys, questions, and content files? If you create a “template” item, you can copy it to create similar items in your course.
	Use Bulk Edit to modify multiple items. Using the Bulk Edit feature allows you to make multiple changes to multiple items at once. The feature is available in a number of tools in BOLT. You can change names of items, dates settings, add conditions, or change the status of the items using Bulk Edit.

Improvements to Rubrics and Grades

On June 17th, instructors will be able to transfer the overall score on rubrics to grade items.


The rubric assessment interface has been updated to a modern look and feel as well.


To use this new rubric grading experience, instructors will:
1. Go to Manage Grades
2. Select Enter Grades a grade item's context menu
3. Click on the icon in the Assessment column of a student's row on the Enter Grades page.

4. Grade using the rubric. Add feedback as you go.
5. Click Save and Record to transfer the overall score and feedback to the grade item.

Improvements to the Groups Tool

Several improvements to the Groups tool will take effect on June 17th in BOLT.

 

Save time in BOLT with these improvements:

 

Automatic creation of discussion topics for new groups.

If you have set up discussion areas for groups in a category, and new groups are created as new students enroll in the course, discussion topics for those groups will be created automatically.

 

Automatic descriptive naming of discussion topics.

If you choose to set up discussion areas for groups in the Groups tool, topics will automatically be named in the format [Category Name] - [Group Prefix] #.

 

For example, if you have a category with 3 groups called Research Project and a Group prefix of Team, your discussion topics would be:

• Research Project - Team 1
• Research Project - Team 2
• Research Project - Team 3

Course Announcements in Courses Only

Starting June 17th, course announcements will no longer be visible on the My Home page.


Course announcements will still be visible in the Announcements widget on the course home page.


Notifications settings will remain the same. If students have opted to receive announcements notifications, they will still receive them as usual.