We have curated a list of resources and instructions for the most common tasks in Brightspace. (For How To's in a video format, visit our curated list of How-To Videos)
Brightspace Quick Reference Guide
D2L Brightspace Higher Ed Instructor Documentation
Brightspace Roles and Permissions
Course Delivery during unplanned disruptions
Getting started
- Sign in using your UWin ID email (UWinID@uwindsor.ca) and password
- Navigate Brightspace Learning Environment
- Change personal settings in Brightspace Learning Environment
- Manage Notifications (video). Learn how to set up getting notifications either by email or text when certain activity occurs in your course.
- Log out of Brightspace Learning Environment
- Supported browsers
- Add an existing user (TA/GA/Departmental support/Guest) to my course
- Using the Classlist
- Download a classlist
- Add a guest to Brightspace
- Customize your Course site:
- Blackboard and Brightspace tool comparison
- Make course site active/available to students
- Student View/Student Preview
Create Content
- Introduction to the Content tool (UWindsor's default is the Classic Content Experience)
- Add learning material to Content
- Why can't learners see the Content I posted?
- Hide newly created content so students are not notified
- The Brightspace Editor
- Add Teams recording to Content
- Notify learners about updated course content
- Best practices for creating release conditions
- Delete a module
- Exporting Videos from a Blackboard Site into YuJa, then Adding Video to Brightspace Site
- Connect Legato course reserves as a module in your course
- Copy course material from another course
- Use images provided by D2L Brightspace in Content
- Share YouTube video and have it start at a chosen point in the video
- The Brightspace Learning Object Repository(LOR)
- Adding Hyperlinks
- Change Course Banner
- Yuja/Stream/Youtube Comparison
- Exporting Course Content for reuse
Assignments
- Create an assignment
- Access the Rubric tool
- Create a rubric
- Create an accommodation for an assignment or quiz
- About assessing assignment submissions
- View ungraded assignment submissions
- Evaluate and add feedback to assignments
- Using Rubrics to grade
- Create a Video Assignment
- How to restore a deleted assignment
- Bulk upload assignments marked offline
- How to reset assignment submissions
Quizzes
- Create a question library
- Create a quiz
- Question types
- Copy an existing quiz (in the same course)
- Quiz Generator (create a quiz from a document of formatted questions, courtesy of Algonquin College)
- Import quiz questions to Question Library from a Blackboard archive
- Create an accommodation for an assignment or quiz
- Create quiz accommodations for all quizzes for a student
- Submit an in-progress quiz on behalf of student
- View ungraded quiz submissions
- Trouble shoot using Quiz Attempt Logs
- Changing quiz question after submissions received
- Test Best Practices for Instructors
- How to enable auto-submit
- How to restore a deleted quiz
- Add a YuJa interactive video quiz to your Brightspace course and integrate it with Gradebook
- Setting accommodations via the classlist
- Reset Quiz Attempts
Grades Tool
- Avoiding Gradebook Gaffes
- Quick Tips Sheet
- Intro to the Grades tool
- Set up your Grade Book
- Create Grade categories and items (these make the columns in your Grade Book)
- Grade Book icons and notifications
- Enter grades in the Grades tool
- Show running total to students
- Export your Gradebook
- Import your Gradebook
- Import grades from Scantron file
- Import grades from files other than Scantron
- Creating Grade Items in Excel and Importing to Gradebook
- Adjust Final Grades
- Transfer Final Grades from Brightspace to UWinsite Student
- Learn to use the Grades Tool (video tutorials)
- How to grade with a rubric
- How to know if grades are visible to students
- Overriding group grades
- How to add bonus credit to assignments, quizzes and grade items.
Communicate and Engage with Learners
- Create an Announcement (includes short how-to video)
- View and manage announcements using the widget
- Send an email to your class through Brightspace (emails will be sent to UWindsor Outlook inboxes)
- List of Replace Strings for Announcements and Intelligent Agents
- Create and Copy Announcements
Discussions
- Assess users in discussion threads
- Create and manage discussion forums – (UWindsor's default is the Classic Content experience)
- Grade Discussions
- How to use discussions for Journaling
- Anonymous peer review using the discussion tool
Groups
Self Assessments
- Allow learners to reflect on their learning – Self Assessments
- Best Practices for Self Assessments
- Create a Self Assessment
Awards
- Create and Manage Awards
- Manage Award Icons and Certificate Templates
- About the Awards Leaderboard Widget
ePortolio and Portolio tools
MS Teams as Virtual Classroom
- Create a recurring Teams Meeting
- Add Teams meeting to Nav bar
- Activate your Teams Course team
- A Guide to Teaching in Teams
- IT Services Teams Owner Guide
- Create a form or survey using Microsoft Forms
- Create a poll
- A set of short videos meant to help with teaching with Microsoft Teams (the longest video is 5:46 min!)
- Accessibility features in MS Teams
Turnitin (similarity/plagiarism checker)
- Create an Assignment with Turnitin enabled (where it says "folder" our instance says "assignment")
- Introduction to Turnitin Feedback Studio (video of workshop provided by Turnitin)
- Using Turnitin's Feedback tool (video of workshop provided by Turnitin)
- Turnitin Instructions for D2L Brightspace Instructors
- Setting reasonable expectations for the Turnitin Similarity Score
- Using Turnitin to check a research paper
- Using and Interpreting Turnitin results
Accessibility in Brightspace
- Focus on Accessibility (A starter: the very basics)
- Accessibilty in Brightspace
- Alt text for images
- Panorama (This tool can be added to your course to identify and correct accessibility issues for several digital file types that you may upload to Brightspace. It also provides several alternative formats for users to be able to engage with the content in a more accessible way.)
- Accessibility Academy (Log into the Brightspace Community to learn the many ways to provide an accessible course experience, found in:)
Brightspace Analytics
Brightspace Course-level Analytics for instructors (Using course statistics and reports to support student progress and course evaluation)