View as Student

Owned by Stuart McCulley, created
Last updated: Oct 31, 2024 by Melanie Elliott
2 min read

Instructors may encounter situations where they wish to confirm what students are able to see/interact with on their course site. Brightspace offers the ability to achieve this through a function which allows instructors to view their site from the perspective of different roles, including student, TA, and more.

Activating and deactivating different views

Instructors are able to switch to student view at any time by clicking on their profile in the top-right corner of Brightspace.

From there, they have the option to either select View as Student or Change to switch their view to a different role.

View as Student and Change links highlighted in drop-down menu under profile
Click your name to select the View as option.

To reset back to an instructor, return to the profile and select the X next to Viewing As.

Sometimes we forget to turn off our Viewing As capability, a good reminder that you are masquerading are the orange arrows beside your name in the top right corner of Brightspace.

The Viewing As feature is not 100% comprehensive, features in Brightspace that require you to be a specific student (e.g., Groups) will not show an accurate representation of the student view.

Previewing assessments

Quizzes, Surveys, and Self-Assessments offer the ability to Preview assessments from the perspective of a student. This can help instructors see how students encounter assessments.

Click the drop-down arrow next to an assessment in Quizzes, Surveys, or Self-Assessments and select Preview. Additionally, Quizzes can be previewed in the quiz editor in the Quizzes Area.

Preview link highlighted in Questions area of quiz editor
The Preview link is just above the Total Points in the Quiz editor.

Please contact CPI at edtech@brocku.ca with any questions or comments about the contents of this site.