Peer-to-Peer communication

Students do not have access to the Classlist tool by default for privacy and safety reasons. However, a version of Classlist that students can access can be added to your course to help make facilitating communication between students within Brightspace easier. This page describes how to add that version of Classlist along with some additional ways to help students connect with one another.

Classlist viewable by Students

The default Classlist link available in most courses is not viewable by students, but an alternative link exists for instructors of smaller classes who want to make the names and roles of site members available.

Open

The version of Classlist viewable by students, from a student’s perspective.

1. Hover over the right-hand side of the navbar and click on the ellipsis button that appears.

2. Select to Edit This Navbar.

3. Under the Links subheading, select to Add Links.

4. Search for or scroll to the Classlist tool that is described as “Provides access to the Classlist tool”.

5. Check the box beside Classlist and Add. A tile with Classlist is added under the Links subheading and this can be reordered along with the other tools by dragging and dropping.

6. Select Save and Close and a new Classlist link will be added to the navbar. Instructors will see two tools named Classlist if the default was not removed but students will only see the new one.

Discussions

Instructors can create a Forum Topic in the Discussion tool to give students the opportunity to offer their contact information to the class directly.

Options to leverage Discussions:

• Instruct students to share their name, and their preferred contact method to the discussion thread

• Instruct students to use Discussions to organize their group projects throughout the term

Please see the Discussions articles below for further instructions.

Forums - Discussions

Topics - Discussions

Other tools

Students can also use other tools to connect outside of class time. Both Microsoft Teams and Brock email are university-supported communication tools, and although they do not directly integrate with the LMS they might be the most effective options.

• On Microsoft Teams students can message students in their class, either by searching the name of the student, or by clicking the students' name in a meeting chat or participant’s list to start a conversation. Instructors can create a Teams site right from their Brightspace course site.

Open

The start chat function on Microsoft Teams.

• On the student’s Brock email account they can search other students' names in the To field when composing a message. As name suggestions will populate, simply select the name of the student you wish to connect with.

  • Please note that all members of the Brock directory are listed, so it is suggested that students know at least the first and last name of the person they’d like to connect with prior to trying this method.