Access in Brightspace

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
   
   1. OR select Course Admin and select Course Offering Information there
      
2. Under Active, select/check ☑︎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, students will not see the course at all. 

For the instructor, 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).

In Brightspace, instructors have the ability to create groups to facilitate collaboration amongst their students. Once groups are created, instructors can use the groups for various purposes. Examples include, assignments, discussions, and file sharing amongst group members.

Instructors can

• Create and populate their groups in Brightspace

OR

• Create a spreadsheet of which students go in which groups for our Admins to populate the groups

Instructor Create and Populate Groups

The Groups Tool/Basic Settings

1. From the Navbar, select Course Admin

2. Choose the Groups tool from the Course Admin menu

3. Select the New Category button in the Manage Groups menu
4. Type in the Category Name for your group. You can also optionally type in a description of this group below the Category Name. 
5. Choose the Enrollment Type, see below for each option:

• # of Groups - No Auto Enrollments: Selecting this option creates a specified number of groups, for which you can add any number of users using the Enroll Users page
• Groups of #: Selecting this option creates the minimum number of groups needed to place users in groups of a specified maximum size. If this option is selected, you have the ability to decide if you would like to auto enroll users into groups, or randomize users in groups.
• # of Groups: Selecting this option creates a specified number of groups. If this option is selected, you have the ability to decide if you would like to auto enroll users into groups, or randomize users in groups.
• Groups of # - Self Enrollment: Selecting this option creates the minimum number of groups needed to accommodate users in groups of a specified maximum size automatically. Users choose the group they want to enroll in from the Groups page.
• # of Groups - Self Enrollment: Selecting this option creates a specified number of groups, which users enroll in from the Groups page.
• # of Groups, Capacity of # - Self Enrollment: Selecting this option creates a specified number of groups with a specified number of enrollments per group. Users choose the group they want to enroll in from the Groups page. 
• Single user, member specific groups: Using this option creates a group with a single user where the first name and last name of the learner is the name of the group. When a new learner is enrolled in the course, a group is automatically created for them. 

6. Depending on which Enrollment Type you chose, you will be prompted to type in either the Number of Groups, or Number of Users (or both).
7. Optionally, you can type a Group Prefix which will name your groups something specific. IE: A prefix that says "Discussion Group" will make groups that say "Discussion Group 1", "Discussion Group 2", etc. 

8. Select Save to finish

Advanced Settings

Depending on which Enrollment Type you selected, you have access to the following advanced settings:

If you chose # of Groups - No Auto Enrollments or Single User, Member-Specific Groups

• You have the option available to you to make category and group descriptions visible to group members.

If you chose Groups of # or # of Groups

You are able to:

• Auto-enroll new users into groups
• Randomize existing users in groups
• Make category and group descriptions visible to group members

If you chose any Self Enrollment options

You are able to:

• Set start dates to allow students to begin self enrolling
• Set expiration dates that students have to enroll by
• Allocate unenrolled users after self enrollment expiration date (auto enroll users to did not enroll by the expiration date)

Additional Options

When creating or editing your groups, you can do any of the following:

• Set up discussion areas. This allows instructors to create a new discussion topic, or link to an existing discussion topic, making it a group discussion directly from the groups tool.
• Set up lockers. Lockers allow group members to share files with each other within the groups tool. These files are only available to those enrolled in the group, and the instructor. 
• Set up assignments. This allows you to create an assignment for the group to complete directly from the groups tool. 

Locating Groups

Once your groups have been created, you can view them in the Manage Groups menu. Here you can see a table with the following information:

• The name of each group
• The amount of members in each group (clicking on this number will show the individual students assigned to the group)
• The amount of assignments assigned to each group (clicking on this number will show the names of each group assignment)
• The amount of discussions assigned to each group (clicking on this number will show the names of each group discussion)
• A link to each groups locker (clicking on the link that says Group Files will show the files uploaded to the locker by each team member)

Populate Groups by Spreadsheet

I. Create the groups

1. In your course Navbar, select Course Admin (or select More and then Course Admin), select Groups and select New Category
2. For Category name, type whatever name will help you know the group category
3. For Enrollment type, select # of Groups - No Auto Enrollment
4. For Number of Groups select whatever number of groups you need
5. For Restrict Enrollment to select No restrictions
6. For Group Prefix, choose what you want each group name to begin with (e.g., Subgroup)
7. click Save
   
    

II. Find the Group Code

1. Click on the first group within the category (e.g., Subgroup 1) to see edit view for the group
2. Find the Group Code field - write down/copy out the Group Code
   For example, for Subgroup_6937_1, '6937' is the org unit ID for the course; Groups IDs therefore follow a pattern, in this case:
   Subgroup_6937_1
   Subgroup_6937_2
   Subgroup_6937_3
   Subgroup_6937_4
   ...
   
3. Keep the noted Group ID -you'll need it for the spreadsheet (you don't need to copy every one out as they follow the above pattern)

III Create csv file

1. Create a csv file with 5 columns (no headings) for
   Enroll, NetID, Stony Brook ID (aka OrgDefined ID), Learner, GroupID
2. Be sure the list is only Learners (no Instructors or Teaching Assistants, for example)
3. In the column for GroupID, paste in the group name using the GroupID format described above (e.g., subgroup_6769_1, subgroup_6769_2, subgroup_6769_3,)
   It'll look something like this:
   
4. Save the file as a .csv file
5. Create a help ticket requesting we populate your groups and attach the csv. Be sure to specify which course the groups are in