Course Administration

Availability Date Defaults - Allows instructors to change how activities are displayed and function for students before and after their availability dates. Presently, only Discussions availability options can be edited in this manner.

Course Offering Information - Allows instructors to set the course title, as well as activate the course. See more information at Course Offering Information

Homepages - Different preset homepage configurations. Instructors can choose an option depending on which style they would prefer. The choices are described in detail here: Course Homepages

Navigation & Themes - Instructors can create custom themes to apply to their courses that change some of Brightspaces colours and imagery to make their course feel like their own.

Calendar - Instructors can view their course calendar and edit events as well as creating new ones.

Content - Content is the main area for course learning materials. Learn more about building your Content area here: Content.

Course Builder - In Course Builder, instructors can create their entire course structure while populating it with Course materials. It is best paired with Manage Course Files to place documents in the course, and then insert them into the content through the Course Builder.

Frequently Asked Questions - Instructors can create FAQ items to be viewed by students.

Glossary - Instructors can create glossary items to be viewed by students.

Import / Export / Copy Components - Instructors are able to easily move course materials from one site to another. Learn more at: Import / Export / Copy Content from Site to Site.

Links - Instructors can create links to common sites to be used by students.

Manage Dates - Edit, offset, and set dates for content items and assessments.

Manage Files - Manage files is an instructor-facing repository for all content items in the course. Files, images, and more that are inserted into course Content or assessments are automatically added to Manage Files. The repository can be used to organize and store files away from student view. See more at Manage Course Files.

Attendance - Create attendance registers to track attendance for various activities such as mandatory discussions, and more.

Class Progress - The instructor-facing class progress allows them to hone in on the activities of students across the entire course. Student-facing class progress shows them a summary of their own activities. See more at: Class Progress.

Classlist - Oversee participants in the course. Add, remove, and message participants across the class. Classlist is only instructor-facing, cannot be accessed by students. Learn more here: Classlist.

Groups - Create groups of students to assign to various assignments, discussions, and more. Learn more at: Groups.

Sections - Sections are automatically created and filled based on course registration. To add a user to a section, see: Add a User to Specific Sections.

Assignments - Create assessments for students to take in Brightspace. Learn more at Assignments.

Awards - Gamify and reward good work ethic using badges and certificates. See more at: Awards.

Checklists - Create supervisory checklists that encourage students to follow a list of tasks. Learn more at Checklists.

Competencies - Create competencies and learning objectives within your course. Thresholds of achievement can be set for each objective on things like Assignments, Quizzes, Discussions, etc. For example, a grade of 80% or higher on a specific quiz means you have achieved this outcome/competency. A particular course can only use either the Competencies or Learning Outcomes tool, once one is activated the other becomes inaccessible. The current utility of this tool appears to be low, if you want to explore the use for your specific course please reach out to us at edtech@brocku.ca.

Grades - View and record grades which can then be imported at the end of the term. Go to Grades for more information.

Learning Outcomes - Create learning outcomes for your course and link them to certain Content, Quizzes, or Assignments. Once a link to a learning outcome is made a Mastery view in Grades becomes available. The current functionality of this tool appears to be low and doesn’t mean much more beyond just representing clicks on materials in the course site. If you want to discuss the utility of this tool, please reach out to us at edtech@brocku.ca

Quick Eval - View new submissions across assessments and grade them in one convenient place. See more at: Quick Eval.

Quizzes - Create quizzes for students to take in Brightspace. Learn more at Quizzes.

Rubrics - Create Brightspace rubrics that can be attached to assessments so students know expectations and what to work towards. See more at: Rubrics.

Self Assessments - Create assessments that aren’t graded nor recorded/saved. They are purely for student practice.

Surveys - Create surveys for students to provide feedback on any topic. Learn more at Surveys.

Announcements - Create announcements to be sent out to the entire class. Learn more here: Announcements.

Chat - Chat is a bare-bones communication tool. Messages can be sent back and forth between users, but they are deleted the second the user exits the chat. At this time, it is not recommended that chat be used widely.

Discussions - Create and hold class discussions where students can create threads and reply to their peers. Discussions can also be assessed. Learn more at Discussions.

Intelligent Agents - Intelligent agents can be used to automatically oversee a course. When certain conditions are met, students can be emailed automatically or notified in other manners. Learn more at Intelligent Agents.