How do I log into Brightspace?
- Visit brightspace.uwindsor.ca
- Sign in using your UWin ID email (UWinID@uwindsor.ca) and password
FAQs for the transition from Blackboard to Brightspace
A few pilot instructors will begin using Brightspace for the Fall 2022 semester. All other instructors will begin using Brightspace for the Winter 2023 semester.
Two years of Blackboard courses (beginning from Winter 2021) have been migrated from Blackboard to Brightspace for you, so you will be able to use your old course material to create your new courses, if you wish. Courses older than two years can be migrated for you on request.
Yes, Brightspace can accept downloaded packages from Blackboard. Packages can be exported from Blackboard following these instructions and importing using these instructions. You will need to have a Brightspace course site in which to import the package.
Workshops and resources are available now to help you learn Brightspace.
- Live workshops, in-person and on-line, for facutly, staff, and GAs are available to help you learn Brightspace.
- Faculty specific workshops, are available for registration at https://ctl2.uwindsor.ca/workshops/147/.
- Sandbox sites (course sites to experiment and learn in) have been provided to all instructors and people offering departmental support.
- The Brightspace Community (set up an account and password using your UWinID email address to log in) contains Guided Training and a wealth of how-to documents and videos.
- “How to” documentation on the Brightspace website.
- Information sessions are available for interested Faculty and Departmental Councils by emailing brightspace@uwindsor.ca
- Brightspace Drop-in support is available in-person and online Monday through Friday, 12:30-4:30 until holiday break. In-person: CTL offices (accessed through 700 California) room 2263. Online: uwindsor.ca/brightspace/dropin. For extended exam and holiday hours, visit the Brightspace Instructor resources page.
GATA specific support and training is also available.
Winter course sites will be available in November 2022. But if you would like to begin earlier, you may use your Sandbox course site and move the learning material into your winter course site when you receive it. If you did not receive a sandbox course site, please create a support ticket at uwindsor.ca/brightspace/ticket.
University of Windsor’s contract with Blackboard ends on April 28th, 2023, and was not able to be extended. In consideration of being able to access material for course appeals, late grading, etc., the move to Brightspace needs to be completed before the start of the Winter 2023 semester. For additional details on the LMS Review process, please refer to https://www.uwindsor.ca/ctl/559/lms-review.
A Student FAQ webpage has been created for students, which includes how-to's and videos for learning Brightspace.
In the grade centre, there is an option to bulk download student submissions into a zip file which can be uploaded to your OneDrive. Blackboard's support documentation will walk you through the process. Make sure you do not select "Assignment File Cleanup" as that will delete the submission. This process will only download the original files the student submitted. Downloads of the annotated documents will have to be done individually.
You can download your Grade Centre into an excel spreadsheet by following these instructions. A helpful video is also available as well.
A guide and video are available to assist you to migrating grades from Blackboard to Brightspace. These grades will not be associated with any assignment submissions. Migration assistance sessions will be made available as well.
CTL has prepared the following guide, which outlines the tools that were available in Blackboard and their equivelant in Brightspace.
- Navigate to the Discussion Board in your Blackboard site, then select the forum that you wish to download its threads and posts and save offline.
- Once in the forum, select the topic(s) to download or click on the top checkbox to select all the topics in the forum.
- Click on Collect to gather all the threads in a single page view.
- The attachment in each thread is visible while on Collection view. Note: the attachments can only be saved manually by right-clicking on each attachment. There is no bulk download method available for this.
- Select Save Link As… then select a destination folder on your computer to save in.
- On the Collection page, click on the Print Preview and a new pop-up window should appear.
- In the new window, select Save to PDF under Destination on the right Print panel.
- Click Save.
- One more window should appear asking you to select where to save the file. Select a destination folder on your computer and give it a descriptive file name.
- Click on Save.
No student work or data is migrated from Blackboard to Brightspace. Only the materials and content structures made by the instructors (and TAs) are migrated. If the item you’re looking for is not a student submission or grade, you can create a ticket to inquire about the missing item https://uwindsor.ca/brightspace/ticket.
If you are looking to dowload the a zip file of your course resources, which maintains the file structure, please follow the steps below:
Access the course you are interested in exporting, and go to Control Panel-> Packages and Utilities-> Export/Archive Course
At the top right,select Export Common Cartridge Package, leave the default options and select Submit and wait for the package to process.
Download the package to your computer, and edit the .imscc to say .zip, and then you will be able to open the package and see your files and file structure.
The Brightspace drop-in can assist with this process.
Common Brightspace FAQs
Course sites in Brightspace are set not visible to students upon creation. The toggle to make your site visible to students is located on the course home page.
The open dates for the semesters is as follows:
Fall September 1
Winter January 1
Summer April 1
The start date of your Brightspace site can be adjusted by navigating to Course Tools-> Course Admin-> Course Offering Information
| Role | Permissions |
|---|---|
|
Instructor |
Ability to manage a course and assess student work. Can see inactive sites. |
|
Instructional Designer |
The same as an instructor with a different label. |
|
TA-Lead |
The same as an instructor with a different label. |
|
Departmental Support |
The same as an instructor with a different label. |
|
Facilitator |
Like an instructor without data access |
|
Learner |
Student access. Able to read content, submit assessments and participate in discussions |
|
PALS |
Peer Assisted Learning (for the Peer Assisted Learning program): Read only including discussions. Same as a TA-Read Only with a different label |
|
TA-Read Only |
Read only including discussions. |
|
TA-Grader |
Includes the ability to grade all assessment items in a course. Cannot edit content |
No, there is no capacity for Brightspace to be used to proctor assessments.
Yuja Video Platform, YuJa Panorama, Leganto, Mobius (Nursing) and Mobius (Math) are available in Brightspace.
To evaluate a potential integration with Brightspace, a security, legal, contractual, and technological review needs to be completed. This process can take a semester or longer. Consultation with other University departments is likely required. To being the process, open a Brightspace service request, and attach the following documents:
- HECVAT/HECVAT Lite (demonstrates IT security/cybersecurity protocols the vendor has in place to assist us in evaluating institutional risk.)
- VPAT (confirms a level of accessibility a system meets. Public websites must meet a certain level of accessibility according to Ontario law.)
- Contact at the company that you have been working with
- Preferably contacts at other schools that have used this software
An announcements created when a course is set as "Inactive" will be saved in the Announcements tool and will appear in the Announements widget (if used), but will not be emailed. See more information about activating your course.
Announcements created before the start date or after the end date of the course also do not get emailed. See more information about the course start and end dates.
If you create an announcement before the course is active and/or before the start date of the course, set the start date of the announcement to a date when the course will be active and after the start date of the course and an email will go out on the start date of the announcement.
While selecting students to email or to release grades to, if you select all the students on a page in the classlist or gradebook, only those names that appear on the page get emailed or grades released. Students on other pages do not get selected. To ensure all students are selected, go to the bottom of the screen and select "200 per page" so that all students are displayed on the page, and then select the check box in the column header to select all the check boxes. Once all the checkboxes are select, send or release. If you have more than 200 students, repeat the process for all pages.
The best way to send an email to the entire classlist, is to use the Email Classlist button found near the top of the page of the Classlist tool.
You will receive a Brightspace formatted txt file with your Scantron results. The text file will have a default title of Scantron. If you have have an existing column where you would like the results added to, you will need to edit the text file and change Scantron to the title of your existing column.
To import the results:
- Click on Grades in your course navbar, and select Import
- Attach the Brightspace txt file you were provided. You can check the box if you would like a new column created for the results.
- The wizard will alert you of any student numbers not in your class. The wizard will also walk you through creating a new column if it was selected earlier.
- The wizard will confirm the grades being added.
When a window pop-up appears asking you to save/confirm something, the button to do so might not appear if your screen is small or if you are zoomed in. To be able to see the missing button or scroll bar, zoom out. If this does not work, restart the process you started as your session may have timed out. If neither of those work, try using a different browser.