Designing and Organizing Materials in Content

Basics

Units, Lessons, and Folders

The Content area in Brightspace can be visualized and broken up into a folder-based system. The main folders, called Units, are the first content item created. Sub-folders, called Lessons, can be created using the Create New button. Within lessons, another set of sub-folders called Folders can be made. Any sub-folder created after a folder are all respectively called “Folders”. There can be an infinite number of folders within each other, but CPI recommends not putting files too deep within a folder structure for organization and ease of access.

A tree of folders

When editing Units/Lessons/Folders, there is a Description text box to add text and media. This text box is different from the Page Content text box offered by the Page content item. Description text boxes in Units/Lessons/Folders are best used for summaries, to-do lists, etc., while Page Content is better suited for lesson and lecture materials and content.

Visit https://cpibrock.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/BLEDOCU/pages/940277761 to learn more about the Page content item.

Various content items can be stored in each of the folders using the Create New and Add Existing buttons. They will appear to be indented to show they are in different folders.

Content items indented in the various Content folders

Example documents sorted into folders

To learn more about content items, visit https://cpibrock.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/BLEDOCU/pages/954793993 and https://cpibrock.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/BLEDOCU/pages/951451689

Moving Content Items

Units, Lessons, and Folders can be turned into each other by dragging them into different positions on the Table of Contents in the Content area

View of the Table of Contents in the Content area with a folder being dragged higher up in the structure to become a unit arrow points to its new position

Folder being dragged above Unit, to turn it into a unit itself

Folder in Table of Contents of Content area is now a unit

Folder is now a Unit in the Table of Contents

Content items can be moved throughout various Units, Lessons, and Folders by hovering over the content item, and then clicking and dragging the 8-dotted icon that appears next to them.

Move icon only appears when the mouse hovers over the item

Organization Tips

In the Content tool, use Units to keep related course resources, activities, and content together in one place. For instance, an instructor can create a Unit called “Site Resources” and upload all course readings to that folder. Likewise, name a folder “Unit 1: Poetry” and compile all relevant activities, tasks and assessments to the folder (see picture below).

Unit called Brightspace and Accessibility with various content items within it

An example of sorting items into units

The most common practice in organizing Course Content is by Topic unit or by Term week (i.e. Week 7). Instructors may also want to consider creating lessons (sub-folders) within the units to further organize course content into applicable themes or tasks. An example is to create a lesson titled “To do” and compile tasks and resources in this space for easy access.

Here are some examples of how content units might be organized:

Note: These examples are meant to serve as ideas for a potential Content structure. Blend and create in the Content area as instructors see fit!

Weekly

Units ordered Syllabus, Overview, Week 1, Week 2, Week 3

Content-Type

Units ordered Syllabus, Overview, Readings, Assignments, Lecture Content