Course Homepages

Owned by Kelsey Hall (Unlicensed), created
Last updated: Dec 19, 2024 by Stuart McCulley
5 min read

Instructors can choose between several layout options for a course site’s homepage. Each choice is made up of an arrangement of Widgets and has been designed to highlight different site elements: focusing on content, course structure, or communication.

Unfortunately, customization is limited to these selections.

It is possible to change the active homepage layout at any time through the ellipsis button in the bottom-right of any homepage.

Homepage options and widgets

All homepage options consist of a combination of the following widgets:

The look and feel of the different options will change as more content is added. It may be best to toggle between the options once the rest of the site is set up.

The default option (#4+Teams) has a balanced and familiar set of widgets in Announcements, Visual Table of Contents, Calendar, Multi-Profile, Syllabus, and Teams Course Connector.

Activity Feed

An interactive hub for site members to post messages that are visible site-wide. Instructors can also link to assignments, quizzes, and other tools.

Add an Instructor or Teaching Assistant

A tool dedicated to quickly adding teaching assistants or co-instructors to a site’s roster. This widget is not visible to students. Further information is available in the guide for adding TAs or co-instructors to a site.

It is also possible to further adjust enrollment (e.g. assign a TA to only specific sections) through Classlist.

Announcements

A communication tool that allows instructors to create course announcements using the full text-editor. These can be targeted at specific roster sub-sections and by default prompt email notifications. Detailed instructions are available in the guide for creating and managing Announcements.

Calendar

A monthly course calendar that will display upcoming events within the site, including date-dependent assignments, quizzes, discussions, etc. It is also possible to create events directly in the Calendar widget.

Course Connector for MS Teams

The Brightspace-Microsoft Teams integration that is used to create a Teams site based off the membership of your Brightspace site’s Classlist in a few simple steps.

Homepage types one, two, and four include a plus version with the Teams Course Connector widget.

Full details are available in the guide for using the Teams Course Connector in Brightspace.

This widget is not visible to students.

A screenshot of the Brightspace at Brock course site's homepage, it shows the announcements, calendar, single profile, and visual table of contents widgets.

A site using homepage option #4.

Multi-Profile Widget

Profile cards share information about the course instructor(s) and/or teaching team and include images that are retrieved from Brightspace Profiles when available. Only site members in the Instructor role can edit the Multi-Profile Widget.

The ellipsis in the top-right offers the following options:

  • Update User Settings provides control over which members of the teaching team are visible, how they are labeled (which can be different from their actual site role), and in what order they appear.

  • Add Biography, Contact, More Information offers a text box for sharing any necessary information, e.g. preferred methods of contact, office hours, and external site links. It also provides a link to edit a user’s global Brightspace Profile Information which can share external/social media links.

a screenshot showing the multi-profile widget and a teaching team with three members
The Multi-Profile Widget with two Instructors and a Teaching Assistant.

Syllabus Widget

A place to quickly and directly upload a course syllabus. Doing so will create a new Unit (named “Syllabus”) in the Content area that contains the uploaded file. The widget will also find and link to any previously uploaded document named “syllabus” in the Content area.

For students, the widget offers a convenient link to the course syllabus from the homepage.

Visual Table of Content

An interactive tiled list of content items that links directly to course material and provides students with a progress bar to track what they have read. Each item is tied to a Content Unit and all changes are managed within Content itself (including the display image, which can be changed from the default by adding another image to the first page in the Content item). Other configuration details can be changed (e.g., default image, text colour, and progress bar colour)--reach out to edtech@brocku.ca for more information.

Change a course site’s Homepage

  1. Navigate to a course site’s homepage or click the Course Home tab in the navbar.

  1. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the ellipsis button in the bottom-right corner.

  • Select the Manage Homepages button to view and choose between the different layouts.

  • Remove the Banner will eliminate the image across the top of a homepage, along with that instance of the course name. More details can be found on the Navbars and Banners page.

  1. The Manage Homepages page will show a full list of homepage options with a brief description. Note that Widgets are positioned differently in the various options and it may be worth toggling between them to compare. Select from the Active Homepage dropdown menu and click Apply.

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