mycourselink Updates

Discussions – New Discussion Topic Editing Experience universally enabled

With this release, the New Discussion Topic Editing Experience, which was introduced in the December 2022/20.22.12 release, has completed the adoption program and is now the only editing experience for all customers. The New Discussion Topic Editing Experience is set to on as the default with no option to opt out, and the Legacy Discussion Topic Editing Experience is no longer available after this release.

The Chat tool is going away in January 2024

Access to the Chat tool will end as part of the January 2024 (20.24.01) release.

If you use chats in Content, the content topics will remain, but the chats will be no longer available. Instructors will need to reconfigure courses with chat-based content topics.

For more information, refer to blog post 'Intent to End of Life Notice for: Chat' in the Brightspace Community

Quizzes – Better identify bonus questions in a quiz

Quizzes now clearly mark bonus questions with Bonus , improving learner understanding and addressing a previous lack of indication in Quizzes.

mycourselink & Google Drive

Students and Instructors may now connect their mycourselink/D2L and Google Drive accounts. This allows them to easily access and import Google Drive files into mycourselink/D2L tools like Content, Discussions, and Assignments.

Announcements – Copy announcements to other courses

This feature adds the ability to copy announcements to other courses when the new permission Announcements > Copy to Other Courses is enabled for the user role. Users must be enrolled in both the source and destination courses

A single announcement can be copied to multiple course offerings. Users can copy announcements from the Announcements tool or the Announcements widget from the context menu of an announcement by selecting Copy to Other Courses. Once copied, the announcement is in a draft state and users must publish the copied announcement in the destination course to complete the copying process.

The following attributes are copied:

• Headline
• Display Author Information
• Content
  Note: The copied Content attribute includes any associated files such as inserted images.
• Start and End Date
• Attachments
• Pin state

Note: Release conditions are not copied.

New Discussion Creation Experience – Choose default group and section restrictions

Now, after clicking Manage Restrictions when creating or editing a discussion topic, Restrict topic and separate the threads will be selected initially by default. This has been changed as it is the more commonly used option.

The previous default value ( Restrict topic ) is still available and can be selected after clicking Manage Restrictions .

Quizzes – Deduction option for incorrect answers

Instructors can set a quiz to deduct a percentage of a question’s point value for incorrect answers submitted. This feature applies specifically to question types that can be auto-graded, for example, multiple-choice and true or false questions. The only question type that can’t be auto-graded is written response.

Figure: Under Evaluation & Feedback, instructors can select Deduct points for incorrect answers and enter a Deduction percentage.

Instructors can also enter negative values when manually grading individual quiz questions or manually updating all quiz question attempts from the Quizzes tool.

To ensure that instructors can view accurate quiz statistics, Question Statistics are also updated to account for this new functionality. Therefore, if negative grading is enabled, Question Statistics may display the following differences in statistics:

• Point Biserial results may be lower when negative grading is enabled.
• Standard Deviation has a wider distribution to account for negative grading.
• Questions with a negative average score appear below zero in the Grade Distribution graph.

To ensure that learners are fully aware that negative marking is enabled for a quiz, the Summary page of a quiz explicitly notifies the learner that for each question answered incorrectly, a percentage of that question's point value is deducted from the final attempt grade.

Also, learners are given the opportunity to explicitly clear previously-selected answers to auto-graded questions by clicking Clear Selection. This gives learners the opportunity to leave the question blank and receive a mark of zero (0), instead of forcing them to guess and enter an answer that could possibly incur a percent deduction.

Learners who are given the ability to view questions after submitting their quiz by their instructor can review questions that received negative score deductions for incorrect answers.

Note: The overall quiz score cannot be negative and caps at zero.

Quick Eval Tool

Quick Eval is now available. It offers a single location to view all learner submissions, including assignments, quizzes, and discussions. Visit the mycourselink Grading webpage to learn more.

Setting Extra Time Accommodations For Quizzes Through the Classlist in mycourselink

Extra time accommodations for students can be set on the classlist, which will automatically adjust quiz times for all quizzes on a course site. To adjust access and availability dates, use the Manage Special Access feature in each individual quiz.

To set extra time for quizzes through the classlist:

1. Click Classlist on the navigation menu
2. Click the arrow beside the student’s name then click Edit Accommodations
3. Check the Modify Time Limit box and choose one of the following options:
   • Multiplier of the original quiz time
   • Extra time
4. Click Save

Notes:

• An accommodation icon will appear next to the student’s name.
• Repeat these steps for each student with an accommodation.
• These settings can be adjusted anytime throughout the term by repeating the steps above. The changes would be applied to all future quizzes.
• Extra time set up on the classlist applies to asynchronous and synchronous quizzes.
• Extra time accommodations can still be set up through the Manage Special Access option on each quiz if the classlist isn’t used.

New Quiz Timing Option: Synchronous

The synchronous-timed quiz option enables instructors to set up a quiz where all learners begin and end the quiz at the same time. This new feature is available under the Timing & Display section in the quiz editing tool.

To set a quiz as synchronous:

1. From a quiz page, expand the Availability Dates & Conditions area.
2. Set start date and time .
3. Expand the Timing & Display area.
4. Click Timer Settings.
5. In the Timing dialog, under Quiz Start , select Synchronous: Timer starts on the start date .
6. Click OK .

Figure: Set up a synchronous quiz.

Note: If no start date and time is set for the synchronous quiz, the No Start date set alert appears under the selected option, and you cannot save the quiz. The Due Date option is disabled for synchronous quizzes.

A synchronous quiz starts at the Start Date and ends when the time limit has lapsed, regardless of any action taken by the learner. For example, if a learner clicks Start Quiz! 15 minutes after the start date on a 1-hour quiz, they only have 45 minutes left to complete it. To indicate when a quiz becomes available, learners have a countdown timer on the Quiz Information and Start Quiz pages. The Start Quiz! button becomes available when the start date and time is reached.

Figure: A countdown timer on the Start Quiz page.

Quizzes – Quiz Timing Improvements Featuring Auto-Submission

This release updates the Quiz Creation experience for instructors by simplifying the quiz timing setup workflow, adding useful new features, including the ability to auto-submit, and removing obsolete quiz timing options. With this release, learners can show or hide the timer, receive time warning messages, and access more information about their quizzes.

Note: All Quiz Timer settings behavior and User Interface changes will immediately be applied to existing and in-progress quizzes with the Continuous Delivery Update.

Instructors Workflow Changes

The following workflow changes and advanced Quiz Timing options are now available for instructors.

• The updated settings allow instructors to choose if they want to set a time limit by selecting the Set time limit checkbox, which is cleared by default. If Set time limit is selected, instructors can add a Time Limit and edit the Timer Settings .
  

• The previous Prevent the student from making further changes option has been changed to Automatically submit the quiz attempt . Quiz auto-submission automatically hands in quizzes on enforced time limit quizzes at the end of the set time, improving quiz integrity. This behavior is changed on all existing and in-progress quizzes with the update.

  Note: The Automatically submit the quiz attempt option is now the default setting for all newly created quizzes with a time limit and is used automatically if the instructor does not edit the quiz timing settings. The previous default setting was Allow the student to continue working .

• The previous Allow the student to continue working option has been changed to Flag the attempt as exceeded time limit and allow the learner to continue working . This behavior is changed on all existing and in-progress quizzes with the update.
• The Grace Period and Allow student to continue working but automatically score zero options are removed to further streamline the process of quiz creation. With this update, any existing and in-progress quizzes that include these settings are changed to the following new behavior:
  • A quiz that previously had a grace period now uses the time limit set on the quiz.
  • A quiz previously set to Allow student to continue working but automatically score zero now sets the quiz to Automatically submit the quiz attempt .
• The Timing & Display section displays comprehensive summary information in either collapsed or expanded view, helping instructors to find errors and to understand which settings they could change.
  
• The Special Access settings are updated to simplify setup and incorporate the updated settings.
  

Improvements for learners

The following improved Quiz Timing options are now available for learners:

• Option to show or hide the timer to reduce anxiety during quiz taking.

   

  Note: Once a learner sets their preference, the setting preserves across all quizzes.
  

• Warnings displayed at certain times to support awareness of time left. The following warnings are applied:
  • 1 minute remaining on the quiz
  • 5 minutes remaining (only on quizzes with 10 minutes or longer quiz time limit)
  • Half of the elapsed time (only on quizzes with 20 minutes or longer quiz time limit)
    
• The simplified Quiz Results page appears when a learner completes a quiz attempt or returns later to view their quiz results (previously known as Submission View ). The page now displays the text ‘Your work has been saved and submitted’ to all learners. This text is no longer editable by instructors. The existing text field allows adding a custom message to be displayed within the Quiz Results page under the new default message.
  
• Option to review quiz instructions and details without leaving the quiz.

The New Quiz Creation Experience is now universally enabled

In this update, the New Quiz Creation Experience reaches the end of the adoption phase of feature development and becomes the only editing experience for all customers with no option to opt out.

See the Welcome to the New Quiz Creation Experience knowledge article for an in-depth look at all the feature and capability changes with this update.

Quizzes – Create engaging assessments quickly with the new quiz creation experience

The new quiz creation experience brings create and edit consistency changes from Assignments to Quizzes.

The primary panel on the left contains common, frequently used fields that are always displayed. These fields are most relevant to learners and are core to quiz creation. The add/edit question workflow has been brought into the primary panel, giving users the ability to easily modify quiz questions without the need to navigate to a separate interface.

The right-hand panel organizes additional, more advanced options such as start and end dates, release conditions, and special access. These options follow the same logical groupings as found in Assignments. Other quiz-specific settings can be found in the right-hand panel including creating a password protected quiz, applying IP restrictions, adjusting quiz timing, setting display options, managing attempts, and altering evaluation and feedback settings.

See the Welcome to the New Quiz Creation Experience knowledge article for an in-depth look at all the feature and capability changes with this update.

Discussions – Introducing the new creation and editing experience

The new discussion creation experience brings create and edit consistency changes from Assignments and Quizzes to Discussions, making it familiar and easy to learn. This first release is at full parity with classic discussions and brings refreshed workflows and improvements to restricting group topics and threads, associating topics to forums, and wording changes to a few settings that you may be familiar with.

The primary panel on the left contains the same frequently-used fields as Assignments and Quizzes. These fields are most relevant to learners and are core to discussion topic creation. The right-hand panel provides advanced options such as start and end dates and release conditions. These options follow the same logical groupings as found in Assignments and Quizzes. Other topic-specific settings can be found in the right-hand panel.

Refer to the Introducing the New Discussion Creation Experience knowledge article for an in-depth look at all the feature and capability changes with this update.

Awards – Share Achievements to LinkedIn Profiles

Learners can now share achievements from the Awards tool directly to their LinkedIn profiles.

This feature simplifies showcasing awards in LinkedIn profiles. Awards can now be shared directly from Brightspace without using a third-party tool or creating a link to the award first.

To share an award to their LinkedIn profiles, learners can navigate to the My Awards page, select the desired award, click Share, and then click the new Share to LinkedIn button.

Shared awards appear in the Licenses & Certifications section of learners' LinkedIn profiles.

Previously, awards could be shared to LinkedIn by first sharing the award to Badgr or creating a public link to the award (available as of November 2022) and then copying the link to LinkedIn.

This feature implements PIE item D8491 (Share Badges Directly to LinkedIn).

Real-time Integration for mycourselink

Real-time integration for mycourselink has been implemented. This automates the creation of online course sites and synchronizes enrolments in real time for an improved student and instructor experience.

• Instructors will see course sites in mycourselink without having to request them through MyInfo.
• Improvements to crosslinked course sites.
• Course shells will initially be empty, meaning instructors can decide when and what content they want to transfer to their sites through the import feature.
• Registrations and withdrawals are immediately reflected on mycourselink classlists.

The following pages have been updated to incorporate this upgrade:

• mycourselink (instructors)
• Adding Graduate and Teaching Assistants to Course Sites
• Transferring Content Between Course Sites
• Pinning Course Sites in mycourselink
• Crosslinked Courses FAQs
• Opening a Course Site to Students

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the Teaching Commons technical team at mycourselink@lakeheadu.ca

Assignments - Anonymous Marking

To avoid unconscious bias in the grading and feedback process, instructors can configure assignments to use anonymous learner names. When the feature is turned on, instructors only see an anonymized learner name on the assignment. Learners can be assured that their submissions are assessed fairly.

• Instructors can only publish anonymous marking using Publish All Feedback , to prevent identifying learners through selective anonymous marking feedback submission. Note that the Publish button is disabled on the submission page.
• Instructors can set up anonymous marking when creating an assignment by checking the Hide student names during assessment box in the Evaluation and Feedback section of the assignment settings. Instructors can also enable anonymous marking for assignment submission folders after they are created, but cannot disable the feature once submissions have been made.
• Instructors can publish feedback without completing feedback for all submissions. Clicking Publish All Feedback displays a confirmation dialog box indicating that some submissions will be published without feedback.
• After Publish All Feedback is selected, the user names associated with anonymous submissions are revealed to instructors.

Assignments – Consolidate availability dates

This feature updates the assignment availability dates to be consistent with the new availability date model, which was previously added to Discussions. Instructors can now include availability dates in the Calendar and have greater control over the behavior of availability dates for their learners. As a result, instructors can:

• Stop late submissions.
• Let learners view assignment information and submissions after it ends.
• Schedule the visibility of an assignment.
• Allow learners to view an assignment while preventing them from attempting it.
• Post the start and end of an assignment to the Calendar.

For more details about changes to Assignments, refer to: New Assignments Date Feature - Updated Date Availability, Visibility, and Access Options .

Note: The Media Library tool referenced below is available under the Other Tools menu.

Media Library – Quickly access, create, edit, and manage all audiovisual content with Media Library

To improve audiovisual content management options for users of Brightspace Core, we are excited to announce that Media Library will be included in the November 2022/20.22.11 release.

Media Library offers a consolidated media processing, storage, and streaming option for all audiovisual materials. Media files uploaded using Record Audio, Record Video, Video Note, Content Tool (Add video workflow), Lessons, or Capture App (Creator+ only) are stored in the same Media Library repository.

The new Media Library management tool provides the following options:

• Filter content based upon audiovisual type.
• Update file information, such as the title and description.
• Edit video timelines using the editor.
• Add chapters to video content.
• Create manual and automated captions for video content.
• Download audiovisual content to a device.
• Preview content.
• Delete files.

Media Library – Create content with webcam recordings

This update introduces a webcam feature as an option in Media Library. Users can create both video and audio-only recordings, which improves their ability to directly record content for their course within Media Library.

Note: The Video Note record bar is now changed to show the New Recording option and the Audio only toggle. To record a video, or video note, click New Recording . To record only audio, or an audio note, toggle the Audio only switch to ON .

Media Library – Easily search content with improved filter-sort options

Media Library now offers improved filter-sort functionality when searching for files. Audio-visual content is now easier to find and improves options for finding content in Media Library.

Users can search for specific pieces of content using the following old and new filters:

• Content Type: Audio, Video, or Both
• Source: Where content was added from. Multiple filters can be selected. Filters include:
  • Content - Uploaded from the Content tool
  • Media Library - Uploaded or created in Media Library
  • Audio or Video Note - Content created in Audio or Video Note
  • Capture App - Created and published via the Capture App
  • Imported - Added from course imports
  • Other - Content added prior to the addition of source tracking
• Date Modified
  • Note: Changes to Date Deleted on the Recycle Bin screen.
• Date Created

Media Library – Improve the content consumer experience by viewing and downloading audio-video transcripts

Users can now view and download transcripts from audio-video content in Media Library with the new Transcript View . This update consolidates and ensures that the media player experience is the same for all files uploaded to Media Library.

Transcript View allows users to pair playback of a video file with the captions scrolling as opposed to the standard bottom of the screen. This introduces a button in the media player that allows users to download the transcript in TXT format or the caption track in VTT format to their device. The ability to turn on Transcript View is an option in the media player's menu.

Awards – Share achievements with Public URL sharing for awards

Learners can now share their awards with a Public URL directly from the Awards tool using the new Awards Sharing option.

The new method simplifies sharing a badge or certificate to showcase achievements. The user can create a public URL for an award, which can then be shared on a digital resume or social media profile, for example, LinkedIn.

To share an award using a public URL, a learner can navigate to the Awards page, select the desired award, click the Share link , and then click Create Link .

Rubrics – Clarify grading criteria by editing text fields in assessed rubrics

Instructors can now edit the text fields in rubrics that have already been used for evaluation. This feature is intended to let instructors correct spelling errors, clarify wording, and make other minor changes that do not impact the academic integrity of the rubric. Instructors still can't make structural changes (such as adding evaluation levels or criteria), edit points, or add outcome alignments to assessed rubrics.

Previously, after an instructor used a rubric for an evaluation, the rubric was locked and couldn't be edited. To make changes, instructors had to completely remove the rubric, make edits to a copy of the rubric, attach the copy of the rubric to the grade item, then redo all the assessments.

Assignments – Access new shortcuts to undo and redo PDF annotations on evaluations

Previously, the only way to remove PDF annotations in Assignments was to use the eraser tool or delete the selection. Now, an undo/redo button is added for PDF annotations when evaluating in Assignments. Alternatively, standard keyboard shortcuts are now also supported for undoing and redoing annotations:

• Ctrl-z | Command-z (Apple) - Undo
• Ctrl-Shift-z | Command-Shift-z (Apple) - Redo

Quizzes – End of Life for Disable Right Click option

As of this release, the Disable Right Click option in quizzes is removed from Quizzes in Brightspace Learning Environment. The option is no longer available in Quiz Setup, and existing quizzes with the setting no longer enforce the limitation on learners.

This option was previously intended to allow Instructors to disable right-clicking during the time a learner was taking quiz, thus making it more difficult for learners ability to copy or print the quiz and share it with others. However, as browsers have reduced the ability for web sites to control end-user behavior, the Disable Right Click setting could not necessarily be applied to all students, and it provided a false sense of security around quiz content.

For more information concerning this change, refer to Advanced Notice: Retirement of Quizzes "Disable Right Click" Setting in Brightspace Community.

Quizzes – Save time and prevent data loss with the Restore Deleted Quizzes functionality

This feature adds a new option in quizzes that allows instructors to restore deleted quizzes. This option appears in the More Actions menu in the Quizzes tool. Instructors using this option are provided with a list of deleted quizzes that indicates when they were deleted and by whom, along with a button to restore a selected quiz.

Restored quizzes automatically have any associated quiz attempts that were already taken, statistics, and scores for those quiz attempts restored as well. Learning Outcomes associated to quiz questions are unaffected, and re-appear with the questions when the quiz is restored. Links to a grade item and competencies are not restored.

Assignments – Save time by copying assignments to other courses you teach

Instructors who teach several courses are now able to directly copy assignments between their courses. The copied assignment includes the following key assignment properties:

• Assignment folder and properties, including instructions, assignment category, and visibility
• Assignment properties including description, attachments (direct file attachments, uploaded from Google Workspace or OneDrive, and audio and video files), and category
• Grade item and grade category
• Availability dates
• Submission and completion information, including the Optional Grade item and the course scheme if used.
• Rubric(s) associated with the assignment. When copying an assignment that uses a shared rubric, instead of linking a copied assignment to a shared rubric, the rubric is also copied. The copied assignment links to the copied rubric. If an assignment uses a rubric that is archived, the rubric is copied and retains the archived state in the destination courses.

The following attributes are not copied:

• Instruction quicklinks and attachment resources created with the Attach link to existing activity action.
• Instruction images added using Insert Image that were saved to course files.
• Availability Release conditions and special access settings
• submission and completion information including group assignment designation.
• Evaluation and Feedback information including Turnitin associations, competency, and outcome associations.
• Content topic associations (for example, if the assignment is linked from content)

NOTE: In some cases, references to links and images that are not copied may result in broken links.

The Copy to Other Courses option appears in the context menu of assignments.

In the Copy Assignment dialog, you can select any rubrics and grade items associated with the selected assignment to include them in the copy package. The Choose Destinations area enables you to search by keyword or semester to find the destination courses for the assignment. The maximum number of courses you can select is 10.

NOTE: If you are looking to copy items from other tools or multiple Assignments at once, you can still use the options found by clicking Course Admin then Import/Export/Copy Components

Classlist – View user pronouns next to names to further personalize learning

The Classlist will now display user's pronouns next to their names. Pronouns display in the 'Last Name, First Name' column of Classlist, to the right of the user's name, in parentheses. User name text is blue, pronoun text is grey. Previously, the only location where pronouns displayed was in a user's profile card.

To set your pronouns:

• Log in to https://mycourselink.lakeheadu.ca
• Click your name at the top-right of the page
• Click Account Settings
• Check the Allow others to see my pronouns box in the Pronouns section
• Select Use different pronouns and enter your pronouns in the box below
• Click Save and Close

Uploaded media files use Content Service

To improve the functionality of audio-video files in Brightspace this feature ensures most audio-video files are handled by the Content Service. The new capabilities are documented in the Brightspace Learning Environment – Improved viewing features in Audio-Video player | New, and the Brightspace Learning Environment – Improved editing features in Audio-Video Editor | New features from this release. Newly uploaded audio-video files can now take advantage of all the features of the Content Service, and similar behavior is experienced in all locations where media files can be uploaded or edited. Audio-video files that were uploaded prior to this release do not have access to the features available to files hosted by the Content Service. All audio-video files uploaded to Content service are now automatically converted to mp4 files (or mp3 for audio) to ensure they are playable on all supported devices.

Note: Videos uploaded as Assignment submissions or uploaded to a course’s Manage Files area continue to use the legacy method for handling files.

Improved editing features in Audio-Video Editor

This feature introduces new capabilities to the Audio-Video editor for files uploaded to the Content Service. Users can now edit video timelines, create chapters, and add captions to their videos. D2L recommends using the desktop experience when editing audio-video files.

Editing timelines allows users to skip unwanted sections of a video recording.

Chapter titles can be used to create a Table of Contents for videos to allow quick navigation to specific sections.

Captions can be uploaded from a .vtt or .srt file or automatically generated to make videos accessible to all users.

Videos can be edited from course content or by using the Edit > Advanced Editing option in the Admin Tools menu.

Improved viewing features in Audio-Video player

To improve the functionality of the Audio-Video player in Brightspace Learning Environment, multi-bitrate streaming, and search functionality are now available.

Multi-bitrate streaming allows high-definition videos to be played at standard definition to reduce the bandwidth necessary for users to watch videos.

The new search functionality allows users to locate key words in video captions and quickly navigate to those sections.

the Updated Assignments Creation Experience

The assignment creation interface is being updated to make it easier to use. Information on this new interface can be found on the Welcome to the Updated Assignments Creation Experience page.

Check out these tables to compare Classic Assignment creation functionality to the New Assignment Creation Experience.

Discussions - New Discussion Evaluation Experience

The new evaluation experience for Discussions appears first for all users, but they have the ability to opt-out until the December 2021/20.21.12 release, at which time the new evaluation experience for Discussions will become the only option available.

For more detail about the improvements in this new experience, visit the Welcome to Our New Discussion Evaluation Experience post on Brightspace Community.

For additional information on the consistent evaluation experience across all Brightspace tools, visit the What is Coming in Evaluation: 20.21.12 post on Brightspace Community.

Discussions – Improvements to visibility and posting restrictions

The following changes are visible to instructors when creating or editing discussion forums and topics:

• From the Restrictions tab, the previous Locking Options are now consolidated with the Availability Start Date and End Date options and display as the following new options:  
  • Visible with access restricted before/after start/end. The topic/forum is visible to learners before/after the start/end date, but they cannot access it. Previously, Classic Content was the only tool to make discussions visible without access.
  • Visible with submission restricted before/after start/end. The topic/forum is visible to learners before/after the start/end date and they can access it, but they cannot post new threads or replies. This effectively makes a discussion read-only. Previously, this was accomplished with the lock option or unlock dates.  
  • Hidden before/after start/end. The topic/forum is hidden from learners until the start/end date. This is a new feature. Calendar events for Availability Starts and Availability Ends are hidden until the start/end date. Notifications are also not sent until the start/end date. Previously, the hidden status of a discussion topic was decided by the tool displaying the topic.
• From the Restrictions tab, the Display in Calendar option is now consolidated with the Availability Start Date and End Date options, which adds the start date and end dates to the calendar. Previously, the tool decided which calendar event should be added to the calendar. With this change, calendar events for availability dates may change and additional events for Availability Start Dates may be added.
• Calendar events for unlocked dates are now hidden from learners.  
• Where Discussions and User Progress may have previously hidden a topic or forum when outside of availability dates, those tools now may show them as visible, but inaccessible.
• From Discussion Settings, instructors can now set the default visibility and access behavior for new discussion forums and topics. The defaults can be set at an organization level.

Assignments - Consistent evaluation experience

With this release, the new  Assignments - Consistent evaluation experience is now permanently turned on by default.

For additional information on the consistent evaluation experience, visit the What is Coming in Evaluation: 20.20.12 post on Brightspace Community.

Brightspace Editor – Available as the default editor

This release sets the new Brightspace Editor as the default editor across Brightspace Learning Environment.

As mentioned in the Brightspace Editor – Replaces The HTML Editor | New release note in April 2021, the Brightspace Editor does not have a built in spell checker. Your web browser’s built-in spell check functionality is available in the new Brightspace Editor and D2L recommends using it.