All posts by Diana Voss
Instructors …..do you have a learning tool that you would like to connect to Brightspace?
Learning Tools can be connected to Brightspace to extend the core functionality and features of our digital learning environment.
Before submitting a request for a tool, instructors are encouraged to reach out to Academic Technologies to see if it’s the right tool for them.
Brightspace is an AGILE system, meaning changes are taking place all the time!
Brightspace is a cloud systems that is constantly being developed and changes are happening all the time. I encourage everyone to join the Brightspace community so that you will have the latest information available directly from D2L.
Stony Brook’s new LMS after 24 years…
After impacting the educational experiences of thousands of students since January 1999, Blackboard Learn is sunsetting during Fall 2023.
When it was initially implemented, we were looking for a tool that would allow instructors the ability to post their content online. We were the first SUNY school to use Blackboard and never, did I imagine at the time, how much our campus would depend on the system years later.
Spring 2023 is the final semester .
As we transition from Blackboard to Brightspace, please know that the team is here to help.
Brightspace Grade Check
Over the weekend, I received a few emails from some of my students stating that Week 10 reflection in grades showed they had a 0 but on the assignment, they saw they received all 10 points.
I checked the Assignment and saw that I had attached it to the wrong grade item and resolved the issue
But then curiosity got the best of me and I wondered if there was a place that showed all my grade items and how they are connected.
In Grades / Manage Grades, you can see the Grade Items and which areas they are attached to but , it does not display the specific items. Clicking on the ? mark next to the association will show the item.
So I submitted an Idea to the Brightspace Community asking to add a column to Manage Grades that identifies the specific item at a glance
If you would like the same, please vote it up**: https://desire2learn.brightidea.com/ideas/D9813
** Brightspace Community account required…this is not the same as your Stony Brook log in …we encourage all members of SBU to join the Brightspace Community!
Copies of Blackboard courses are now in Brightspace from Fall 2021-Summer 2022
For Spring 2023, all courses are encouraged to use Brightspace!
Blackboard will no longer be an option after Spring 2023. The system is retiring in October: https://it.stonybrook.edu/news/articles/blackboard-access-ends-1042023
DoIT’s Brightspace team is here to help !
- Visit the events page on DoIT’s website for upcoming Brightspace Minibytes and Webinars!
- Invite DoIT’s Brightspace team to a department meeting
- Use our syllabi statements to provide technical information for your students
- Request a consultation with CELT/DoIT
- Self help materials are being added & updated to our service page: https://brightspace.stonybrook.edu
Attendance Tool in Brightspace?
Some Instructors are asking about the Brightspace Attendance Tool.
After exploring this tool, I have constructed the following If…Then statements:
If attendance is part of your grading criteria, Then do not use this tool. Instead post attendance in the Grades area so it’s part of the automatic calculation. Mine looks like this:
Interested in learning more about Grades in Brightspace? Check out DoIT Training’s Minibyte slideshow/videos
If you aren’t concerned about incorporating it into grades, then read on!
Brightspace Attendance
The attendance is a tool that you will find in Course Admin
Directions on how to set it up can be found here.
I could not find any directions on how the students can view it but I did figure out that you can add it to your Nav bar. if you want the students to see the available Attendance data.
Note that this tool will work fine without the students having access to view it. The students do not check themselves into class, this is a manual process that the instructor must enter, one by one. (This is a large reason why simply using the Grades area and marking off any absences may be less time consuming.)
This shows the pull down process for marking each learner present or absent:
It is easy to see how a long class roster would be a burden.
… and If you choose to enter this into the Course Nav Bar, this is what a student sees:
While it does not connect to the grade center, you can export the information out if you would like into a csv file.
The file looks like this:
IT support for Fall 2022 instructors
This morning an email was sent to all Fall 2022 West Campus, HSC and Southampton Instructors. To view it online , click here
3rd Party Tools being added to Brightspace
Thank you to all who have reached out asking about 3rd party tools
The following list will be updated as more tools become available in the system.
Tools that are working:
- Echo360
- Lumen
- McGraw Hill Connect
- Respondus
- Turn It In (this is the replacement for SafeAssign in Blackboard)
- VoiceThread
- Wiley
- Zoom
Tools that are still being configured:
- Ally
- Cengage
- Digital Desk
- Jones & Bartlett Learning
- Macmillan Learning
- MindLinks
- MyLab & Mastering
- Vital Source
- W.W. Norton & Company
KB articles for tools that are in production are available on the Brightspace service page : https://brightspace.stonybrook.edu