New Discussion Evaluation Experience

Starting this August 2021, you have had a chance to try out the New Discussion Evaluation Experience that is being redesigned to make it more similar to the New Assignment Evaluation Experience. This experience will be the default (i.e. only) experience in December 2021, and you can opt-out of it until then, if you don’t like it when you first try it out, by using the chevron in the top right corner of the screen.

Note: If you would like to learn more about the Discussions Tool in Brightspace, please read this article.

This article describes the steps you need to take in order to assess a discussion topic:

1. Navigate to your course and, from the course’s navbar click, on Activities/Discussions. Then click on the chevron for the topic that needs to be assessed.  Select the Asses Topic option.

2. You can start evaluation by Users or by Assessments. While on the Users tab, click on Topic Score for the user’s discussion you intend to evaluate

3. The next window will display the student’s discussion post, and it is the actual window that allows you to evaluate, enter the grade and the feedback for one student at a time. Once you enter the grade, you have the choice to Publish it or save it as a Draft. The first option will automatically deliver the grade to the student, while the second one saves the grade and feedback as a draft.

Note: You might want to finish grading ALL the discussion posts, for all students, and then publish all the grades at the same time. 

a. Displays the name of the student whose discussion post you are currently evaluating.

b. The name of the topic where the student had posted the response(s).

c. The content of the post.

d. Text box where you enter the grade (also displays the maximum points possible for the topic you are evaluating).

e. If you have attached a Brightspace Rubric to the discussion topic, here is where you can use it during the evaluation process.

f. This HTML text box allows you to enter the Overall Feedback.

g. Once you publish or save the grade/feedback as a draft, you may navigate to the next student.

h.  This New Discussion Evaluation Experience will be the default (i.e. only) experience in December 2021, and you can opt out of it until then, if you don’t like it when you first try it out, by using the chevron in the top right corner of the screen.

 4.  If you have saved the grades and feedback as a draft, when you are ready to publish them, select all the students and click on Publish Feedback.