Instructors who have access to the Course Admin tool in their Brightspace course site can add individual users with NetIDs to their course by assigning them a role (roles provide the level of permissions within a Brightspace course). 

For credit courses, when students officially add or drop a course, their access to the Brightspace course site will update by the following day.

You can only add one user at a time, so to add many users, provide a spreadsheet (that includes: Course ID and section, first name, last name, and SOLAR ID number) and create a service ticket at service.stonybrook.edu

Brightspace Roles

Instructor

The Instructor role has full administrative and content rights within a course.

This role can add, edit, and delete any:

• Announcements
• Assignments
• Attendance registers
• Awards, badges, and certificates
• Checklists
• Competencies
• Content
• Discussions
• Exams / Quizzes
• External Learning Tool links
• Gradebook items and calculations
• Groups
• Rubrics
• Surveys

This role can also:

• activate tools in a course
• configure accommodations, release conditions, and special access restrictions
• configure intelligent agents
• copy, import, or export course materials
• enroll / unenroll users at any role
• modify the course theme, homepage, and navigation bar
• release / retract final grades
• save and publish grades / feedback for all submissions from students
• send emails using the course address book
• set course availability (active or inactive status)
• view all content (including hidden items)

Teaching Assistant

The Teaching Assistant role was updated based on feedback from the campus community to represent the variety of students in TA positions with varying responsibilities. The Teaching Assistant role can perform virtually all of the same functions as an Instructor

Note: Graduate TAs enrolled from SOLAR are automatically enrolled at this level in Brightspace. Users enrolled with this role in Brightspace should be FERPA Trained. 

This role has all the same permissions as an Instructor EXCEPT:

• Teaching Assistants cannot enroll / unenroll users with the Instructor role in a course

Course Builder

The Course Builder role was updated based on feedback from the campus community to represent the variety of students in TA positions with varying responsibilities. The Course Builder role can perform virtually all of the same content-related functions as an Instructor but cannot view student submissions or grades.

This role has all the same permissions as an Instructor EXCEPT Course Builders cannot:

• enroll / unenroll users of any role
• copy, import, or export course materials
• modify the course theme, homepage, and navigation bar
• set course availability (active or inactive status)
• view student submissions
• view student grades / feedback
• view the gradebook or grade calculations

Grader

The Grader role was added by request from the campus community and gives Instructors and TAs access to add users to their course for the sole purpose of grading submissions from students.

Note: Users enrolled with this role in Brightspace should be FERPA Trained. 

This role can:

• add / edit / delete announcements
• release / retract final grades
• save and publish grades / feedback for all submissions from students
• see all student submissions
• view all content (including hidden items)

This role cannot:

• edit / delete any gradable item (assignments, discussions, exams / quizzes) 
• edit / delete any content
• enroll / unenroll users of any role

Learner (student)

The Learner role is the traditional student role in Brightspace. This role can view and interact with content and gradable items that are visible to them, and submit items for grades.

Read Only

The Read Only role is a limited student role in Brightspace. This role can only view content that is visible to Learners, but cannot submit items for grades. 

Requirements

To add users to a Brightspace course, you must be an instructor in the course. You'll also need the Stony Brook ID (Solar ID) and/or NetID of the user you want to add (you can search by name, but it is best to add users by their unique IDs to be sure you add the correct users.

In this article you, will learn about:

• Adding users to your course
• Changing the Role (Permissions) of a user

Adding Users to Your Course

Video:

1. Navigate into a course to add users
2. On the Stony Brook red navigation bar, i.e. the Navbar, click Course Admin (or select More then click Course Admin)
   
3. Click Classlist
4. Select the Add Participants drop down and select Add existing users
   
5. In Add Existing Users, if you see it, click Show Search Options
   
6. Then under Search In, check the boxes to search for ☑︎ First Name, ☑︎ Last Name, ☑︎ Org Defined ID (i.e., Stony Brook ID/SOLAR ID), ☑︎ Username (i.e., NetID)
   
7. In the Search For... box under Add Existing Users, type your search terms, e.g., Bob, Smith, Bob Smith, B Smith, bsmith, 123456789, etc. Tap Enter on your keyboard or click ? to search
   Tip: You cannot search by email address nor first.last. Search for NetID, SolarID, First Last, Last First instead
   
8. Scroll to the bottom of the page to see the results
9. In the Search Results, check the box next to the user you'd like to add 
10. On the right under Role, select the role you want to assign the user (e.g., Teaching Assistant)
11. Click Enroll Selected Users
    
12. In the Confirmation of Enrollment, click Done or Add More Participants
    

Changing the Role (Permissions) of Someone Already in Your Course

1. Navigate into a course to change user roles
2. On the Stony Brook red navigation bar,, i.e. the Navbar, click Course Admin (or select More then click Course Admin if your window isn't maximized)
   
3. Click Classlist 
4. Check off name of the individual whose role you would like to change and click Enrollment
   
5. Under New Role, choose from the drop down menu
6. Click Save when finished

Your Brightspace course sites are not available to students by default as soon as they are created. Be sure to make your course active (available to students) so your students can access course materials and syllabi.

Your Brightspace course sites are usually available for you to begin adding course materials during:

• early November for  Winter and Spring semesters
• early April for Fall and  Summer semesters

Making a Course Active or Inactive

1. Hover over a course tile in the My Course list and click on the 3-dots that appear and then click on Course Offering Information
   
   *You can also find the Course Offering Information page in Course Admin
   
2. Under Active, Check off  "Course is Active" to make the course visible to students.  Or uncheck it to hide it from student view.
   
3. Click Save.

When a course is inactive, on the Stony Brook Brightspace home page, the instructor will see an INACTIVE sticker on the course (the Inactive sticker has a slight delay; it will appear a few minutes after you have made a course inactive and will stay for a few minutes after you make a course active).

To create a signature for Brightspace communications, watch this video:

Or follow these steps:

1. Select the envelope icon at the top of your Brightspace screen
2. Click "Email"
   
3. Choose "Settings"
   
4. Type out your signature
5. Hit "Save"
   

Communications from Brightspace will be sent directly to the recipient's @stonybrook.edu email address. Replies to an email will also be copied to the sender's @stonybrook.edu address. You can send email from the Classlist or the Email tool in Brightspace

In this article, you will learn how to

• Email from Classlist (option 1)
• Send Messages from the Email Tool (option 2)

How is this different from Blackboard?

How can students receive notifications for course updates?

Alternatively, you can get a list of student email addresses in SOLAR 

Option 1: Email from Classlist

Following these instructions ensures that all students receive an email.  

1. In Course Admin, click Classlist:

2.  Near the top, select the Email Classlist button.
*Be sure to use Email Classlist and not the Email button below that.  Using the Email Classlist ensures all students (especially in large classes >200 receive the email).  The Email button below that only sends messages to students listed on that page.

3.  At the bottom of the Email Classlist page, click Send Email.

4.  Select all or some of the students and then click Email.

5. Type your message and click the Send button

Please note that this option will place the message recipients in the BCC field by default.

Option 2: Send Messages from the Email Tool

This option is only recommended to email individual, or small groups of students. To email a large class of students, use the Email Classlist button described in Option 1 above. 

1. While in your course, select the envelope icon at the top of your screen
2. Click Email
   
3. Select the Address Book button
   
4. Choose the students you wish to email
5. Select the To, Cc, or Bcc buttons to add them to the corresponding fields
6. Select the Add Recipients button
   
7. Type your message to the students
8. Click the Send button
   

How is this different from Blackboard?

Brightspace's emailing system functions the same way that Blackboard's did with an added benefit: Brightspace also has a sent button in the email tool, which allows you to view any email you sent from Brightspace. To access this, follow these steps:

1. Select the envelope icon at the top of the screen
2. Click Email
   
3. Choose the Sent Mail button
   

How can students receive notifications for course updates?

To learn how students can receive notifications for course updates, check out this article!

In Brightspace, you have the ability to create private groups with restricted discussion areas where learners are able to keep a journal.  These journals are only viewable to each individual student, and the instructors of the course.

Creating Journal Areas

1. Go into the Course Admin menu
2. Select Groups
   
3. Select New Category
   
4. Enter in a Category Name (and optionally a description)
5. For Enrollment Type, select Single user, member-specific groups
   
6. Under Additional Options, select Set up discussion areas
7. Under Forum, use the drop down selector to choose a forum you would like to assign this journal to, or select New Forum to create a new forum.  The forum will be present in the Discussions area of your course. 
8. Then select Create new topic
9. Select Save.  Once selected, your groups will be created in the background (this process may take a few minutes). 
   
10. You will then be prompted to create a restricted topic.  This topic will be the journal area where your students can type in their own personal journals. 
11. When creating a topic, you can choose to either Create one topic per group or Create one topic with threads separated by group. 
    

Each option does the following:

• Create one topic per group (not recommended if you plan on grading journals): This will create a topic for each student in the discussion forum.  These topics will only be viewable to each individual student, and the instructor. 
  
• Create one topic with threads separated by group (recommended if you plan on grading journals): This will make one topic in the discussion forum.  Students can add a thread to the topic that will only be viewable to themselves, and the instructor. 
  

Setting Up Journals as Graded Items

To make your students journals into a graded item, follow the steps in this article. Please note that if you want to grade journals, it's recommended that your journal topic be set up to Create one topic with threads separated by group.

The Intelligent Agent tool allows instructors to set up criteria to create a report of students who completed or did not complete an action within the course. Once the instructor sets up the criteria, s/he can enable automatic emails to students who met the criteria or just use the report.

Examples of criteria that can be set up include, but are not limited to the following:

• Login Activity: If the student has or has not logged into Brightspace
• Course Activity: If the student has or has not accessed the course
• Assignments: If a student has or has not submitted an assignment
• Discussions: If a student has, or has not posted to a discussion topic
• Quizzes: If a student has achieved a specific score, if they have completed a quiz attempt, or if they haven't completed a quiz attempt
• Content: If a student has completed, not completed, viewed, or did not view a content topic
• Grades: If a student received a specific score on a grade item or if they haven't completed a graded item

Access the Intelligent Agents tool

1. Go to Course Admin from the Navbar
2. Select Intelligent Agents

Creating an Agent

1. Select New Agent
2. Type in your Agent Name and optionally add a description
   
3. Optional - Select or add a Category for this agent. (Categories allow you to sort your intelligent agents.)
   
4. Decide if you would like to enable the agent once created by selecting the "Agent is enabled" checkbox. If you don't want this enabled, leave the checkbox unselected.
5. Decide the schedule for the agent, your options are:

• One-Time Run
• Hourly
• Daily
• Weekly
• Monthly
• Annually
  

6. Choose if you would like this agent to apply to all within the class, or to users with specified roles (e.g., Learners, Undergraduate TAs, Graduate TAs, etc.)
   
7. Choose what criteria you would like to identify, options include:

• Login Activity: If the user has or has not logged into Brightspace during the last set amount of days
• Course Activity: If the user has or has not accessed your course during the last set amount of days
• Release Conditions: Identify if a student did or did not complete a specific action within your course. Options include but are not limited to discussions, assignments, quizzes, content, and grades.
  

8. Decide if you would like to take action only the first time the criteria is satisfied for the user, or every time it is satisfied. 
   
9. Decide if you would like to send an automated email for those who meet the set criteria.

• To make sure student(s) who met the criteria receives the email, in the To, Cc, or Bcc field, type in the replacement string {InitiatingUser}. (This will be replaced with students' email addresses.)
• Include the name of your course in the subject field so students recognize where the email is coming from. You can either type the name of the course or use the replacement string {OrgUnitName} to have it automatically appear. 
• Type out the message that the student will see in the body of the email when they meet the set criteria.
• Decide if you would like to add an attachment to the email
  
  
  

Please note! If you do not want to send a message to students, and you instead would like to notify yourself that a student has met the criteria of your agent, you can enter your own email address.

10. Select Save and Close
    

Once your agents are created, in the intelligent agent menu, you can view your agents, the results of it's last run, the last run date, and the next run date. By clicking on the results of the last run, you can view the students who met the criteria of the run. 

You can also decide if you would like to enable, disable, delete, or bulk update your agents.

And you can edit categories or select More Actions to restore deleted agents, or export a .csv file containing the results of agents that were previously run. 

By selecting Settings, you can view the Name that emails come from and you can also view the Reply-To address for responses. By default, Name that email comes from will be Stony Brook's Brightspace and the default Reply-To address is noreply@stonybrook.edu, however these can be customized. 

Note, Name that emails come from cannot be set to your personal email address due to how spam filters operate. However, the Reply-To address can be a personal email address.

To create an Announcement in Brightspace, follow the steps below:

1. When in your course, go to the Course Admin menu and select Announcements
   
   
   
2. Select the New Announcement button
   
3. Type your Headline and Content for your Announcement
   
4. Choose a Start Date and Time. You have the option to show this start date to students.
5. Optionally, you can choose an End Date and Time. Once this date and time happens,  your announcement will no longer be available to students. 
6. If you would like to add an attachment to your Announcement, you can do the following:

• Upload a file from your computer or Google Drive
• Record Audio to attach to the Announcement
• Record yourself on Video to attach to the Announcement

7. If you would like to have your announcement sent after certain conditions have been met by your students, then you can create a release condition for your Announcement
8. Select Publish
   

In Brightspace, you can link directly to your course content - including Announcements- directly from Brightspace communications. Send these directly from the Classlist tool to easily reach your whole class.

Video Demo

1. Sign into your course in Brightspace
2. In the nav bar, select Course Admin (if you don't see Course Admin, select More and then Course Admin)
   
3. Select Classlist
4. Select the checkbox near the top left of the Classlist to select everyone, or individually check the box(es) next to the people you would like to email; Then, select Email
   
5. A new message opens in a new window with the select recipients' Brightspace email addresses in the BCC field.
6. Fill in the Subject (when emailing from a class, the Subject will have the prefix of your course name (e.g., ENG 101 >) 
7. Type the body of the message, and wherever you want a link to content from your course (e.g., an announcement, assignment, content), select the text and click the link icon ? in the toolbar at the top (don't select the "floating" link icon as it doesn't have the same options as the link icon in the toolbar)
   
8. Click on the type of content you want to add (e.g., Announcements, Assignments, Calendar, Checklist, Content, Discussions) , navigate to the specific item, and select it to create the link as default
   
   1. OR click the pencil icon to change how the link works (change the link Title and/or Target--open in-- Whole Window; Same Frame; or the default, New Window)
      
9. When your email is done, click Send

When a Brightspace Course's Course Offerings Information has a start date and that start date is in the future, users in the course will not get notifications when changes are made to the course prior to that date. That means if the instructor creates an announcement before the course's start date, students will not get an email about that announcement. The same applies to end dates: If the course has an end date, any changes made to the course or announcement created in it after that end date will not send notifications.

If, as an instructor, you want to communicate with students before the set start date or after the end on a Brightspace Course, either change/remove the start/end date or use the Classlist tool to email everyone currently enrolled in the course.

Contents

• Understand what students see when a course is active but a start/end date
• Instructors: See if your course has a start or end date and change/remove it

How an Active Course with a Future Start Date Looks to Students

When a course is active but has a future start date, students will see the course in their Brightspace Home Page My Courses, but it will be grayed out, so they cannot click into the class.

Also, if an instructor emails the classlist a link to content in the course, students will not be able to access the content:

Tip: If a course is inactive, the course will not show in students' Brightspace Home Page My Courses. 

Instructors: See If a Course Has a Start Date and Change/Remove it

Instructors: You can check if your course has a start date in Course Offerings Information:

1. When in your course, in the Navbar at the top, click Course Admin (or click More and then Course Admin) and select Course Offering Information
   
   
2. Scroll down to Start Date and End Date. If ☑︎Course start date is checked, your course's start date is the date in the box. If ☑︎Course end date is checked, your course's end date is the date in the box. 
   Changes made or announcements added to the course before the start date will not send notifications; changes made or announcements added to the course after the end date will not send notifications either.
3. To remove a start or end date, uncheck the ⃞ Course start date and/or ⃞ Course end date box(es) or change the start/end date(s)
4. At the bottom of the page, click Save, and then you can safely navigate away from the page

Announcements work a little differently in Brightspace compared to Blackboard. There is no option to Send an Email inside the Announcements tool. The work around is to send an email to students and link to an announcement. Or encourage your students to install the Brightspace Pulse App to receive instant feedback and notifications on their phone. 

Students may choose to receive information as

• Push Notifications - These are popup notifications that come from the app 
• SMS (Text) messages - These count towards your phone's plan and appear in the Text message app
• and / or Email - These messages go to your official Stony Brook email address

In this article you will learn about

• Getting the Brightspace Pulse App
• How Students Will Know There is New Information

Getting the Brightspace Pulse App

The Pulse app will send announcements, published grades and due dates as push notifications immediately to students' phones. They can read course content on their phones as a side-guide while doing their coursework!
Encourage your students to install the Brightspace Pulse app by logging into Brightspace from their phones (brightspace.stonybrook.edu), and click on their Name and then click Notifications. 

Then click on the App Store or Google Play button depending on the device.

While on the Notifications page, they can check off which emails and SMS (text) to receive.

How Will Students Know There is New Information? 

When you send an email, chat or have an announcement, post content or a grade, the Pulse app will send out a push notification to all students (on their phones), and on the web, the Bell icon will have an indication that there is something new to read or look at. 

Discussion Order

Discussion Forums:

When creating Discussions, your Discussion Forum must be created first. Discussion Forums allow instructors to organize their Discussion Topics however the instructor wishes. For example, an instructor could organize their Forums by each week or unit of the course. Instructors are also able to add descriptions to Forums for students to reference as well. 

Forums are able to be copied from one course to another. 

Discussion Topics

Discussion Topics are assigned to Discussion Forums. Topics should be used by instructors to add in questions/instructions for students to reply to. Simply add a title to your topic and provide instructions in it's description. 

If you would like to associate your Discussion to your Grades, it must be done through the Discussion Topic. For more information on linking your Discussion Topics to Grades, check out this article. 

Topics are able to be copied from one course to another. 

Discussion Threads

Discussion Threads are used to reply to Discussion Topics. When a student clicks on the title to a Discussion Topic, they will see a button where they can start a new Thread to reply to the Topic. 

Please note! Instructors are also able to create Threads, however these Threads are not able to be linked to Grades. Only Discussion Topics can link directly to the Grade Book.

When evaluating your student's work, you can grade the Thread they submitted, and you can also respond to their thread directly by clicking on it's title to continue the conversation. 

Because  Discussion Threads are used to reply to Topics, they will not copy from one course to the other. 

As of May 18th, 2023, we have transitioned to the New Discussion Experience in Brightspace. This new experience has changed the appearance of the Discussion creation area to be uniform with the area to create an Assignment. While this Discussion creation area may look different, this new experience will not effect the following:

• Discussion Settings
• Replying to Discussions
• Grading Discussions
• Creating Forums from the main Discussion menu. 

Overview:

What Has Changed?

• The Design
• Creating a Forum in a Discussion Topic
• Creating a Grade Item
• Categorizing a Grade Item
• Linking a Topic to an Existing Grade Item
• Hiding Discussion Topics

What has Moved?

What Has Changed?

The Design

When creating a Discussion, the creation area will now resemble how it appears when creating an Assignment in Brightspace. The old experience had various tabs at the top of the screen that would allow instructors to customize their Discussions; these have now moved to the right of the screen in the new experience and they are given new titles.

Creating a Forum in a Discussion Topic

In the old experience, when creating a Discussion Topic you had to either assign the topic to an existing forum, or create a new forum in the Discussion creation area. In the new experience, by default, a forum will be created automatically. This forum will have the same name as the topic. 

To assign a topic to a specific forum, select the Change Forum link, then choose to either Create a Forum or Choose an Existing Forum to assign the topic to a forum that was already created.

Creating a Grade Item

In the old experience, when creating a topic, you would have to go to the Assessment tab and either link the Discussion to an existing grade item, or click a link to create a new grade item. In the new experience, this works differently. Instead of going to a separate tab, you will have access to a box that says Grade Out Of from the main topic creation area.

This area will allow you to type a value to score a discussion topic out of. Once a number is typed, it will automatically create a grade item for this discussion in Grades. Please note that this grade item will not be categorized. If you have a weighted gradebook, you will not be able to set the weight of the grade item from here, this must be done in Grades. 

Categorizing a Grade Item

To assign a Grade Item you created from the Discussion Topic creation area to a Grade Category, select the button that says In Grade Book, and then choose Edit or Link to Existing.

Once clicked, make sure you have the option Create and Link to a New Grade Item selected, and then you can then click a button titled Choose Grade Category.

Once selected, you can choose the applicable category to assign this grade item to. 

Linking a Topic to an Existing Grade Item

In the new Discussion experience, if you would like to link your topic to an existing Grade Item, you can do so by selecting the In Grade Book button, and then choose Edit or Link to Existing. 

Once clicked, you can choose the option titled Link to an Existing Grade Item. Then choose the drop down selector to find the grade item you wish to link the topic to. 

Hiding Discussion Topics

When creating or editing a topic, you are now able to hide the topic from learners at the bottom of the screen by selecting the eye icon.

What Has Moved?

All customization options that existed in the old Discussion experience still exist in the new one. These features have been moved to three new areas in the topic creation screen:

• Availability Dates & Conditions
• Post & Completion
• Evaluation & Feedback

Availability Dates & Conditions

In the Availability Dates & Conditions section, you can find the following:

• The option to include the start or end dates for a Discussion Topic
• Release Conditions
• Group and Section Restrictions for the Topic

These options were previously available in the restrictions tab of the old experience.

Post & Completion

In the Post & Completion section, you can find the following options:

• Default participation (default discussion setting)
• Allow learners to hide their name from other learners (previously titled: allow anonymous posts)
• Learners must start a thread before they can view or reply to other threads
• Posts must be approved before they display in the topic

These options were previously available in the properties tab in the old experience.

Evaluation & Feedback

In the Evaluation & Feedback section, you can find the following options which were located in several different areas of the old experience:

• Adding a rubric (formally in the assessment tab)
• Allow evaluation of individual posts (formally in the assessment tab)
• Mange learning objectives (formally in the objectives tab)
• Allow learners to rate posts (formally found in the properties tab)

You can export Brightspace grades to work on them offline and them import them again. 

Helpful Tips!

1. We recommend having your grade items created in Brightspace BEFORE you export your grades, instead of manually creating the grade items in a spreadsheet. When grade items are created in a spreadsheet, they have to be manually formatted in a very particular way in order for them to be successfully uploaded to Grades. Creating grade items beforehand will allow them to be formatted correctly when exported. 

2. It is not currently recommended to select "Export To Excel" when exporting.  Instead it is recommended that you select "Export to CSV". 

If a file is exported using the "Export To Excel" option, then a user will receive an error notice when they are attempting to import the file into Grades. 

If you want to delete items from your Grades, perhaps because you imported content-including grades-to your Brightspace course, use these steps to do so. Note: Before deleting a grade item associate with a quiz, assignment, or discussion, you must first disassociate it.

Video Demo

Deleting a Grade Item

Before deleting any grade items, be sure to verify that this is the correct option for you. Deleting items includes deleting all associated grades, removal from calculations, and removal from other tool associations. Consider hiding the items instead. If you have decided that you would like to delete, be sure that you have selected the intended grade items and that there are no associated grades that are needed.

To delete a Grade Item from your Grade Book, follow these steps:

1. In your Grade Book, go to the Manage Grades tab
2. Choose More Actions
3. Select Delete
   
4. Choose the grade items you wish to remove
5. Click the Delete button
   

Disassociating a Grade Item

If you are unable to select a Grade Item to delete from the Grade Book, it is most likely because the Grade Item is associated with a Discussion, Assignment, or Exam/Quiz. In the Association column in the Manage Grades tab, you will see which association the Grade Item has. 

Once you have disassociated the Grade Item from the Discussions, Assignments, or Exam/Quizzes tools, they can be deleted using the instructions above. 

Disassociating an Assignment

To disassociate an Assignment, follow these steps:

1. Go to the Assignments tab from the Navbar or the Course Admin menu
2. Select the downward facing arrow next to the assignment you wish to disassociate
3. Click Edit Assignment
   
4. Choose the drop down option that says In Grade Book
5. Select Not in Grade Book
6. To finish, choose the Save and Close button
   

Disassociating a Discussion

To disassociate a Discussion, follow these steps:

1. Go to the Discussions tab from the Navbar or the Course Admin menu
2. Select the downward facing arrow next to the discussion topic you wish to disassociate
3. Choose Edit Topic
   
4. Choose the drop down option that says In Grade Book
5. Select Not in Grade Book
6. To finish, choose the Save and Close button
   

Disassociating an Exam/Quiz

1. Go to the Exams/Quizzes tab from the Navbar or the Course Admin menu
2. Select the downward facing arrow next to the exam/quiz you wish to disassociate
3. Choose Edit
   
4. Choose the drop down option that says In Grade Book
5. Select Not in Grade Book
6. To finish, choose the Save and Close button
   

If you would like to exempt specific students on grade items so that it does not affect their final grade calculation, follow the steps below:

In this example, I'll allow one of my students to be exempted from the final exam. 

1. Go to the Grades tool, and select Enter Grades

Image

2. Find the grade item you wish to exempt a student from, and select the arrow next to it
3. Choose Enter Grades

Image

4. Select the checkboxes next to the students who you wish to exempt
5. Above the table, choose exempt, once you do this, the word "Exempt" will appear in the Scheme column
6. Select Save and Close

Image

Unexempting Students

If you accidentally exempted a student who shouldn't be exempted, you can unexempt them using these steps:

1. Select the arrow next to the grade item that you want to unexempt a student from
2. Select Enter Grades

Image

3. Select the student you wish to unexempt
4. Choose Unexempt
5. Select Save and Close

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To find grades for students who were removed from your course in Brightspace, follow these steps:

1. Access your Classlist
   
2. Click "Enrollment Statistics"
   
3. Scroll down to the bottom of the page until you see the Withdrawals section
4. Click the downward facing arrow next to the name of the student you wish to view
5. Click "View Grades"
   
6. Then you can see final grade information, and information of individual grade items
   

In Brightspace, you can make any grade item worth extra credit by turning it into a bonus grade item using the steps below:

1. Go to the Manage Grades tab of your Gradebook
2. Select the arrow next to the grade item you wish to turn into a bonus item, and select Edit

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3. Select the checkbox that says Bonus

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4. Choose Save and Close to finish

When creating bonus grade items, there are some important things to consider:

Weighted Gradebooks

• My bonus items are going in a category, what should the weight of the bonus grade item be?
• Can I allow my students to achieve a score that is higher than the highest possible score in the category?
• My bonus item is outside a category, what should the weight of the bonus grade item be?
• Can I allow my students to achieve a score for their final grade that is higher than 100%?

Points Gradebooks

• How many points should my bonus item be worth? Does it matter that the bonus item is in a category?
• Can I allow my students to achieve a score that is higher than the max amount of points for the course?

Weighted Gradebooks

My bonus items are going in a category, what should the weight of the bonus grade item be?

For weighted gradebooks, if you place a bonus grade item in a category, then students who complete the bonus item will have their score go towards the overall category's weight. However, you still need to determine how much this bonus grade item will assist by assigning a weight for the bonus grade item itself. 

In this example, I have a discussion category worth 15% of my final grade. Within this category I have five discussions, each with a weight of 20 (meaning 20% of the category).

If I add a bonus grade item to the category, I can decide how much this grade item will assist students by adjusting it's weight. For example, if I gave the bonus grade item a weight of 20, then it would be equal in weight to all of the other discussions within the category. So if a student did not complete one of the discussions and received a score of 0, they could still complete the bonus grade item, which would make up for their missing work without penalizing their overall score for the category. 

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This is just one example of assigning a bonus item to a category in a weighted gradebook. When deciding the weight of a bonus grade item, make sure to take the weight of the other grade items in the category into consideration. This will assist in determining how much the bonus grade item will effect the students grade for the category. 

Can I allow my students to achieve a score that is higher than the highest possible score in the category?

Bonus grade items can assist students by giving them an opportunity to make up for lower scores on grade items, or missing work which resulted in a score of 0. However, some instructors may consider allowing students to complete bonus grade items, even if they already achieved higher scores. If you are considering this, you may run into the possibility of your students scoring higher than the max amount set for a category or final grade.

If you wish to allow for your students to exceed the max score for a category, follow these steps:

1. Edit the category
2. Select Allow category grade to exceed category weight

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3. Select Save and Close to finish

My bonus item is outside a category, what should the weight of the bonus grade item be?

If you have a bonus grade item outside of a category, and a student completes it, then the score will go towards the final overall grade for the course. But how much should that bonus grade item be worth? 

The answer depends on the purpose of the bonus grade item. For example, are you are creating a bonus item to make up for low scores on a particular grade item? If so, then you should take into consideration the weight of the grade item with low scores. In this example, multiple students did not do well on a midterm that was worth 15% of their final grade. 

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If I want to create a bonus item in the gradebook to make up for this low score, I would have to take the 15% the midterm was worth towards the final grade into consideration to determine the weight of the bonus item and how it can assist students. For example, I can make the weight of the bonus item 3%, which would give students an opportunity to make up 1/5 of the original weight of the midterm. 

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If your bonus item is not making up for scores on a particular grade item, and you just wish to give students an opportunity to increase their final overall grade, then choose the weight based on how much you would like to increase their final score by. For example, you could set the weight to the bonus item to 2 so they could make up 2% towards their final overall grade. 

Can I allow my students to achieve a score for their final grade that is higher than 100%?

If a student who is already achieving high marks in your gradebook completes bonus items, it is possible for them to receive a score higher than 100% for their final grade. In order to allow this, you would complete these steps:

1. Edit the final grade column

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2. Under Grading, select the Can Exceed checkbox

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3. Select Save and Close

Points Gradebooks

How many points should my bonus item be worth? Does it matter that the bonus item is in a category?

A bonus item in a points style gradebook can be worth any amount the instructor wishes. Points style gradebooks do not separate points by category. So any bonus items within a category will go directly towards the final overall grade of the course. Please note however that if a bonus item is in a category, and you wish for students to achieve a score higher than the max amount of points of other items in the category, you must follow these steps:

1. Edit the category

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2. Under Grading select Can Exceed

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3. Select Save and Close

Otherwise, the bonus points will not apply to the final grade.

Can I allow my students to achieve a score that is higher than the max amount of points for the course?

To allow students to achieve a score higher than the max amount of points for the final grade, follow these steps:

1. Edit the final grade column

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2. Under Grading, select the Can Exceed checkbox

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3. Select Save and Close

Checklist:

• Check Weighted Grade Items and Categories
• Verify All Grades Are Entered
• Create and Apply a Grade Scheme
• Make Grade Scheme Symbol Visible to Students
• Verify Your Final Grade Release Settings
  • Enter Grades in the Final Adjusted Grade Column
• Release Final Grades in Brightspace

Check Weighted Grade Items and Categories

For those using a Weighted Gradebook, are your grade items and categories each reflecting the correct weight? If you are receiving messages like below, you will have to make adjustments for your course to equal 100%.

For more information on how to setup the weighting of your grade items and categories, please view this article. 

Verify All Grades Are Entered

Check your gradebook to verify that all grades have been entered correctly before importing final grades to Solar. 

Create and Apply a Grade Scheme

Have you applied a letter grade scheme for your course? This allows you to apply a letter grade automatically for students who achieved a score within a specific range that instructors can set manually. To create a scheme, please read the instructions in this article.

After your scheme is completed, please make sure it is applied to either the Final Calculated Grade or Final Adjusted Grade column of your gradebook (please verify which column you are using in the step below). Whichever column is enabled is where the results are pulled from to go into Solar. The scheme can be applied to either column by selecting the arrow next to it and choosing Edit.

Then for the Grade Scheme, choose the scheme that you created and save your changes. 

Make Grade Scheme Symbol Visible to Students

In your Gradebook settings, go to Org Unit Display Options and verify in the Grade Details section that Grade Scheme Symbol is enabled. If this is not enabled, students will not be able to see their letter grade in Brightspace and the import of grades into Solar will not work. 

Verify Your Final Grade Release Settings

In Brightspace, there are two final grade columns, Final Calculated Grade and Final Adjusted Grade. While both columns will appear to instructors in the gradebook, only one can be enabled to be released to students. Whichever column is enabled will also be where Solar pulls the final grade from. To see which column is enabled, look for an eye icon (this icon means the grade is released to students) or an eye icon with a slash through it (this icon means the grade is not released to students) under each column. If either icon is present under a column, that is where the final grades will be pulled from. 

If the wrong column is enabled, you can adjust this setting by using the setup wizard (Instructions on how to use the setup wizard can be found in this article), or by going into the calculation options section of your gradebook settings.

Enter Grades in the Final Adjusted Grade Column

If the Final Adjusted Grade column is enabled, you will need to manually enter grades in the column using the instructions provided for either of the options below:

Option 1 (Transfer and Adjust Grades in Brightspace)

1. Select the header titled Final Grades and select Transfer All.
   
2. This will move all the student's grades from the Final Calculated Column to the Final Adjusted Column. If you would like to override grades for specific students, please type the grade you wish to give them in the Final Adjusted Column. 
   
3. Once the grades are ready, make sure to save what you entered. If you wish for these grades to be visible, you can release the grades. 
   

Option 2 (Export and Enter Final Grades):

For larger class sizes, it's recommended to enter the final adjusted grade, by exporting your gradebook into a .csv file.

1. Export your grades into a .csv file
2. In the exported .csv file, copy the grades from the final calculated grade column and paste them into the final adjusted grade column. (If necessary, you can type in a different grade in the column for students who you wish to provide extra points to.)
3. When all grades have been entered in the .csv, you can import the .csv file back into your gradebook.

Release Final Grades in Brightspace

If you would like for your students to see their final grade in Brightspace before being made available in Solar, you can do so by following the steps in this article. 

Use the Preview option to see exactly how a student sees his/her grades. (If a grade is missing in the student grade preview, check the Grade Item to see if it has a restriction.)

Video Demo

1. In Brightspace, click the course selector near the top center and select the course
2. Once in the course, in the Navbar select Grades
3. Near the top left, select Enter Grades
4. Scroll down (or use the View By or search tools) to find the student whose grades you want to preview grades for and select the dropdown next to the student's name and select Preview
   
5. The student's grade preview will open in a new window. Scroll down to view all the grades and select Close when done.
   

You need to manually link a Brightspace Exam / Quiz to Grades either by linking it to an existing grade item or by creating a new one.

You can tell if a quiz is linked to grades directly from Exams / Quizzes. You can also tell if a Grade Item is linked to a quiz from Grades.

If you would like to learn how to publish your students' exam/quiz attempts, check out this article.

Link an Exam / Quiz to a Grade Item

Creating a Grade Item 

1. When creating or editing your exam/quiz, find the Grade Out Of area
2. Select the Not in Grade Book button and choose Edit or Link to Existing (You can also choose Add to Grade Book, however if you do this, it will add the exam/quiz to Grades uncategorized)
   
3. If you would like to add your grade item to a category, select the Choose Grade Category button
   
4. Select the Category from the drop down selector
   
5. Select OK
6. Type the amount of points this will be graded out of in the Grade Out Of area
   
7. Select Save and Close

Linking to an Existing Grade Item 

1. When creating or editing your exam/quiz, find the Grade Out Of area
2. Select the Not in Grade Book button and choose Edit or Link to Existing
   
3. Select the option labeled Link to an existing grade item
4. In the drop down selector, choose the grade item to link this to
   
5. Select OK
6. By default, the amount of points the grade item was originally worth will populate in the Grade Out Of field, this can be overridden
   
7. Select Save and Close

How To Know if a Quiz is Linked to Grades (from the Exam / Quizzes tool)

1. Back in the list of Exams / Quizzes, you'll know a quiz is linked to Grades when it shows a ribbon next to the name
    
2. If you see the linked to grade item ribbon but the results still don't show up in Grades, make sure to check ☑︎ ​​​​Automatically update evaluations in grade book when published in the Assessment tab

How To Know if a Grade Item is Linked to/Associated with a Quiz (from Grades)

1. In Grades, you'll know a grade item is linked to an Exam / Quiz from the Association column: Any grade item linked to an Exam / Quiz will show Quizzes ? in the Association column. Click the ? to see which quiz the grade item is linked to:
   

By default, the Brightspace Enter Grades view for instructors shows 20 students. To show more students, at the bottom select to show up to 200 per page. 

If the course has a lot of grade items/columns, you might not be able to show more per page. Instead, you can hide some grade items/categories (columns), which may allow you to show more students per page (Brightspace can only show so many "cells" in Enter Grades, so if your course has a lot of displayed grade items/columns, you might not be able to show more students per page).

Select to see up to 200 students per page in Enter Grades

1. Sign into your Brightspace course as an instructor
2. Near the top, select Grades and then Enter Grades
3. Scroll to the bottom of the page and near the left select the 20 per page dropdown and select to show 50, 100, or 200 per page
    
4. If you don't have the option select more per page, there are likely many grade items/categories or "columns" showing on the page. Collapse or hide columns to be able to show more per page:

Collapse or Hide Grade Item/Category Columns to be able to show more per page

Brightspace can only show so many Grade Objects (i.e., grade items and categories) on the screen in Enter Grades, so if your course has a lot of displayed grade items/columns, you might not be able to show more students per page. You can either collapse grade category columns or hide some grade items/categories to be able to show more students per page:

1. Collapse Category columns:
   1. If your Grades use Categories, you can collapse category columns by selecting the category - minus button at the top (e.g., - Quizzes will collapse quizzes and only show the Quizzes subtotal column)
      
   2. If you collapse a column, you will only see the Subtotal column for that category. Click + to expand the category again
      
2. Hide grade items/categories:
   1. You can temporarily hide grade items/categories. In Enter Grades, select More Actions and then Hide/Show Columns
   2. Check and uncheck the boxes for the columns you want to show and hide. Click Save
      
   3. When you have hidden grade items/categories in the Enter Grades view, the top will show a Note indicating there are hidden columns: Some grade items/categories are not displayed, click More Actions - Hide/Show Columns to change which items are visible.
      
   4. Once you've hidden some columns, try selecting to see more students per page 

A grade scheme enables you to organize learners performance on grade items into levels of achievement. For example, you can apply a scheme to show letter grades on all, or individual grade items.

To learn how to create a scheme, please view these slides. Or, you can watch this video:

When an instructor creates assignments, discussions, quizzes/exams in Brightspace, they don't automatically appear in grades; the instructor has to link them. See these links for how to link each type of gradable activity to grades:

Linking a Brightspace Assignment to Grades

Linking a Brightspace Discussion Topic to Grades

Linking a Brightspace Exam / Quiz to Grades

Even if an Assignment, Exam / Quiz, or Discussion grade is published and linked to Grades, students won't always see a grade if the Grade Item has a Restriction.

As an instructor, you'll know a Grade Item has a restriction if, in Manage Grades, you see a stopwatch icon or hidden icon next to the Grade item OR in in the Grade Item's Restrictions, the Grade Item shows ☑︎ Hide from Users,  ☑︎ Has Start Date, or  ☑︎ Has End Date.

Tip: For how to release final grades, see Releasing Final Grades in Brightspace

Remove or Add Restrictions on Grade Items

Use restrictions (e.g., Hide or apply a start/end date) on Grade Items if you want to restrict when/if students can see that Grade Item in Grades. Alternatively, remove restrictions so that students can see the grade item without restriction.

1. In Brightspace, *click the course selector near the top center and select the course 
   *only Instructors and Graduate TAs can add/remove grade item restrictions
2. Once in the course, in the Navbar click Grades
3. Near the top left, click Manage Grades
4. Click the dropdown ⌄ next to the Grade Item you want to change and select Edit
   
5. Near the top, click the Restrictions tab
6. To hide/show the Grade Item from students, check or uncheck Hide from Users
7. To make the Grade Item visible to students only after or before a certain date, select Has Start Date and/or Has End Date and enter a time and time
8. Optionally, if you add a start and/or end date, select the box for Display In Calendar
   Note: If you also display the dates for Assignment, Exam/Quiz, or Discussion in Calendar, also displaying in calendar the date for the grade item could be confusing
9. Optionally, for Release Conditions, Attach Existing or Create and Attach a new release condition to only show this grade item if certain conditions are met (e.g., if the student has a score on a quiz, has viewed specific content, is in a certain group, etc.). Or, click Remove All Conditions to remove release conditions.
10. Click Save and Close
    
11. To see exactly how grades appear for a specific student, use the Preview option in Enter Grades.

The Class Progress tool helps track your student's progress in a course by measuring the completion of different progress indicators. To access the class progress tool, select Class Progress in the Navbar of your course:

This will direct you to the Class Progress dashboard. By default the dashboard will display four dashboard indicators which include:

• Content Completion Summary: This shows how many required content topics each student has completed.
• Objectives Completion Summary: Illustrates each student's progression through the assigned objectives.
• Login History (Last 30 Days): Displays the number of logins to the system (not the course) for the last 30 days.
• Grades Performance Summary: Presents the current final grade for the student, as well as a visualization of the scores of the last 15 grade items. Hovering over each bar provides additional details for the grades.

You can choose to add any of these additional dashboard indicators in lieu of a default indicator:

• Assignments Performance Summary: Indicates the current average on all submission folders as well as a visualization of the scores of the last 15 items. Hover over each bar for additional details about the folders. 
• Checklist Completion Summary: Displays how the learner is progressing through the assigned course checklists. Highlighted items indicate items that are due within the next 7 days. 
• Content Visited Summary: Shows how many content topics each student has accessed by navigating within the Content tool. If users navigate to an activity outside of the Content tool (for instance, by using the navbar), it does not count as a visit. 
• Discussions Participation Summary: Presents user statistics for reading, posting, and responding to discussions. 
• Quiz Performance Summary: Presents the current average on all quizzes as well as a visualization of the scores of the last 15 items. Hovering over each bar provides additional details for the quiz. 
• Survey Completion Summary: Displays the learner's progression through the assigned surveys in the course (anonymous surveys will display no result)
• System Access (Last 30 Days): Indicates each time the learner accesses Brightspace using a web browser or the app. System access begins when the user logs in, launches the app, or returns after 30 minutes of inactivity. It ends after 30 minutes of inactivity within the website or app. 

You can also click on a student's name to view all indicators for that student, including Course Access, for how often the student has accessed your course.

Change or reorder the four progress indicators in the Class Progress dashboard

1. Select "Settings" while in the Class Progress tool
   
2. Select the downward facing arrow next to the performance indicator you want to remove or reorder
   
3. Select "Move Up" or "Move Down" to reorder the progress indicators, or "Replace" to change this progress indicator with another
   
4. If you selected "Replace", choose the progress indicator that you want to appear in the Class Progress dashboard
   

View all progress indicators for each student at once (including Course Access)

Clicking into an individual student shows the Class Progress Summary for that student (the same view that student will see when accessing Class Progress). Instructors can also modify which indicators and additional options appear in this view (learn how to adjust the individual student progress summary settings here)

1. Click on a student's name
   
2. Select the progress indicator you wish to view on the left side of the page.
   Tip: An additional progress indicator available in this section is the Course Access indicator. This will show you how often a student is logging into your course. 
   

If you would like to see statistics on which of your students viewed each module in your course, follow these steps:

1. Go to the "Content" area of your course
2. Select the module titled "Table of Contents"
3. Click the dropdown for "Related Tools" and choose "View Reports" to view the report table
   
4. In the "Content" tab of the report table, you will see how many users the modules are available to, the amount of users who visited each module, and the average time spent viewing each module. To export this data, click the "Export Statistics" button above the content tab. Additionally, if you click the number under the "Available To" or "Users Visited" column, you'll see reports on which of your students has access to the module, and who has accessed it. 
   
5. In the "User" tab of the report table, you will see how many content topics are available and how many were visited by specific students. If you would like specific data for each student, click the students name. Once clicked, you will have the ability to export this data above the users tab by clicking the "Export Statistics" button. 
   
   
   
   

Class Progress shows various indicators on how students are progressing in a course. As an instructor, you can change which indicators and additional information you and students can see in their own view of Class Progress.

• Instructors can see progress for all learners in the class for whichever progress indicators the course instructor has enabled
• Students only see their own scores for whichever progress indicators the course instructor has enabled

As an instructor, you can change which indicators and additional information you and students can see in their own view of Class Progress. Possible progress indicators include these (all are enabled by default):

• Assignments
• Checklist
• Content
• Course Access
• Discussions
• Grades
• Login History
• Objectives
• Quizzes
• Surveys
• System Access History

Instructors can also choose to include this additional information (both are enabled by default):

• Display box plots of the class grade distribution for graded items
  
• Display potential final grade range as minimum and maximum final grade
  

Instructors: Change Which Progress Indicators You (as Instructor) and Students See in Class Progress

1. In a course you are instructor of, in the Navbar select Class Progress (or select Course Admin and then Class Progress)
2. On the left, select a learner's name
   
3. On an individual student's Progress Summary, near the top right select Settings
   
4. Check the progress indicators you want to see and you want students to see; uncheck those you don't want to see/students to see (you and students will see the same indicators)
5. Scroll down and check/uncheck Progress Report Information Settings as desired and/or change the % that will show as On Track (blue) and Some Concerns (yellow)
   
6. Click Save and Close