Teams Course Connector in Brightspace

Owned by Marc Breschuk
Last updated: Aug 26, 2024
3 min read

The Course Connector for MS Teams is a Brightspace widget that instructors can use to quickly create Teams sites. It is located at the bottom on the default homepage for each Brightspace course site.

The Teams Connector will create a new Teams site that includes all students, TAs, and instructors as they are listed in the Brightspace site’s Classlist. It can use the entire site roster or create a Team for each section.

The Course Connector widget is included with several of Brock’s Brightspace homepage options and an instructor can choose to switch to a homepage that does not use it, if necessary.

Things to keep in mind

  • Allow at least 30 minutes for the new Teams site to be fully created, as not all features become available immediately. This time will increase for larger courses.

  • When creating a Team for each section, if a Brightspace site includes only one section, creating a team for each section will thus result in the creation of two Teams sites that are identical in membership (you should avoid doing this).

  • When creating a Team for each section, one Teams site is made for the primary, and then additional Teams sites for each of the secondaries (labs, seminars, tutorials, etc.).

  • Remember to activate a Teams site when it’s ready for student access.

  • An issue is currently affecting Teams sites created with the Teams Connector that utilize more than two channels. Contact edtech@brocku.ca for further assistance or switch to the legacy Teams client to create the channels without error.

  • Importing material from an older course site may revert a site’s homepage to a past version that does not use the Course Connector widget. In that case, switch back to one which uses it.

Use the Teams Course Connector to create a site

The Teams Course Connector widget is available to the instructor at the bottom of the Brightspace site’s Homepage. Click Create Course Team to begin.

sign.gif
Scroll down to find the widget.
Image of the Course Connector for MS Teams widget in Brightspace

Optionally create separate Teams sites for separate course sections

Activate Create a team for each section to create a Teams site which includes the enrollment of each Section (secondary, e.g., labs, seminars, tutorials) that’s listed within the Brightspace site. See the Sections area of the Brightspace site for information about available Sections.

This option will always create a Teams site for the primary section as well as additional Teams sites for each secondary section (e.g., labs, seminars, tutorials) that’s present within the site, even if only one section is present in Brightspace.

Optionally turn off the Teams Course Connector

The Teams Course Connector is available on specific Homepages in Brightspace, and a Homepage with the Course Connector is active within your site by default. To turn off the Course Connector, change the default homepage in your Brightspace site to one which doesn’t include the Course Connector.

  1. After opening a Brightspace site in which you have an Instructor role, open Course Tools from the Navbar and then select Course Admin.

  2. Click Homepages.

  3. Open the Active Homepage dropdown and then select a Homepage that does not display +Teams as part of the description.

  4. Click Apply.

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