Build in Brightspace

Before Semester

1. By default, your course is unavailable to your students. Please make your course available before the semester starts.
2. If you are teaching a course with multiple sections and want to only maintain one course site, you can request the sections to be merged by submitting a ticket

• Keep in mind that students from all sections will appear in your Grade Book if we merge your courses.

Course Setup

1. Set up your Grade Book FIRST so that you can easily attach assignments to it as you add them. 

• This will allow grades to be calculated automatically, which makes it easier for Final Grade calculation at the end of the semester.

2. Add content (including your Syllabus). We highly recommend you utilize the Learning Objects Repository (LOR) to add syllabi statements.
3. Add your TA to your class. 
4. Create an Announcement to greet your students (or send an email from the "Classlist" tool).
5. Make sure your students know about the Brightspace Mobile App, Pulse.

Reusing Previous Courses

1. You can reuse course information from a previous semester. 
2. If you have Assignments posted, you DO NOT have to manually update all deadlines.  Use Manage Dates to update quickly.
3. Third Party tools, such as Echo360 & VoiceThread, will need to be re-linked.

• Directions are available here.

3. Make sure you remove any old content from your new Brightspace site.

Useful Tips

• You can use View as Learner to view your course from a Student perspective.
• You can Pin Courses on your Brightspace home page.

SUNY and Academic Technology Services are here to help you!
online.suny.edu/help | service.stonybrook.edu
1-844-673-6786 | 631.632.9800 (option 2)

DoIT provides "technology support statements" that you can add to your Brightspace course. If you would like to add information to your course about general IT help, Respondus, VoiceThread or other Stony Brook IT services, you can do so from the Learning Object Repository. 

1. When adding content, select Create and then Add Object from LOR
   
2. Under the Search For box, select Show Repositories
   
3. Select  Syllabi Statements and then click Search
   
4. Select the statement that you would like to add  (You can only add one item at a time) and then choose Next. Answer questions on your screen to proceed.
   These syllabi statements are Google documents that are maintained by Stony Brook's Brightspace team.  Once you add them, if you select Dynamic Link to Newest Version, they will update in your class(es) every time our team makes a change.

To embed a YouTube video to a Brightspace module, watch this video:

Or follow the steps below:

1. In your course, select the Content tab

2. Then select or create a module

3. Once your module is created, click the area of the module that says "Add a description..."

4. Then click the "Insert Stuff" icon

5. Select "YouTube"

6. Paste the link of a YouTube video that you with to embed and select "Search"

7. Click on the YouTube video you want to insert and select "Next"

8. Select "Insert" to finish embedding the video to your module

1. In Brightspace, go to your course
2. From the navbar, click Content
3. In the Table of Contents on the left, select the module you want to add the Google Drive item to

4. click Existing Activities and select Google File Embed

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5. If prompted to sign in, select Sign in to Google Workspace and sign into your Stony Brook Google account

6. Once signed in, click Select file Add existing files from Google Drive to Content

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7. Find and select the file you want and click Add
8. In the Attach file window, note that attaching the file will change the sharing settings and allow anyone with the link to access it. Click Attach.
9. The file will appear as a content item

Note about File Access: When you (the person who added the file) click to open it in Brightspace, as the file owner you will have edit access to it; when others in the course click to open the file, they will have view access. Also, as noted in step 8, when you select to attach the file, its sharing settings are changed to Anyone with the link can view.

Hierarchy of Content in Brightspace

Brightspace content can be organized into Modules, which are like folders. Modules contain Topics, which  can be created/linked to from Brightspace or uploaded from your computer.

Before adding or creating Topics, first create your modules (e.g., module 1, module 2). An easy way to do this is using Course Builder.

Video Demo

Tip: Your content from recent Blackboard courses is already in a Brightspace conversion course; use Brightspace Course Copy to bring content from them into your new Brightspace courses.

Create Modules

1. On the navbar, select Course Admin (or, if you don't see Course Admin, you may need to first select More or Course Tools) 
2. Select Course Builder
3. From the Build Outline section of the toolbox,
   1. Click and drag the module icon and drop it on the top of the course tree (on the course name, e.g., Julie Test Course)
      
   2. Or single-click on the module icon and select the top-most location from the list (e.g., Julie Test Course)
      
4. Complete the module details
5. Click Create
   Tip: At the top of your course (above Module 1), add another Module called Syllabus for your syllabus

Add Topics as Content Or Create Placeholders

Once you have added Modules in Course Builder, you can add your syllabus, placeholders, and content.

1. On the navbar, select Course Admin (or, if you don't see Course Admin, you may need tofirst select More or Course Tools) 
2. Select Course Builder

Add your Syllabus

1. In the Course tree, select the Syllabus module (it will be outlined in orange once selected)
2. While it's selected, upload the file from your computer: To the right, select Upload Files, select Choose File, navigate to and select the file from your computer, and select Upload
   

Add Placeholders

1. Add placeholders to create the structure for your course that you can later fill in with content
   This is helpful especially if you structure each module similarly (e.g., two readings, one quiz, one discussion, one assignment) because you can create that module and structure once and copy it to create your other modules, and then rename/modify them as needed:

   1. From the Build Outline section of the toolbox, click and drag a placeholder icon (link, file, discussion, assignment, quiz;) and drop it into the module/location where you want it (e.g., Module 1). Or single-click a placeholder icon and select the where you want it to go (e.g., Module 1)

       Tip: hover over the icons for more information about them

   2. Repeat to add other placeholders
   3. Copy Module Structure
      1. When you've set up one module with the complete structure, to copy that structure and create another module with the same structure, in the course tree, click the down-pointing arrow ˅ to the right of the module name and select Copy Structure.
      2. Click the down-pointing arrow ˅ to the right of the module and select Paste > Paste After to add a copy of the module directly below it
      3. Select the new Module (it will have the same name as the Module you copied the structure of), and to the right select Edit Module (if you don't see the Edit Module option on the right, refresh your browser page ⟳ and try again) and re-name the Module (e.g., Module 2)
         
      4. Continue Copying Structure and Pasting After to create all your Modules, and then editing them as needed to rename them and/or add other placeholders

Add content to Modules

1. Once you have your Modules created and structured with placeholders, you can add the actual content you want
2. Use Browse Tools to add content you've already created 
   Tip: It is easiest to first create assignments/quizzes/discussions in each respective area in Brightspace, and then add those to the placeholders in Course builder
   1. For the content type you want to add, click the right-pointing carrot  ͐ for the content type (e.g., to add a quizzes to a quiz placeholder, click the  ͐ next to Quizzes)
   2. Select the content and drag/drop it in the desired location OR click Add to Course and then click the + next to Modules to expand them and select the Module or Placeholder where you want it to go
3. Use Add Content to create new content from Course Builder
   1. From the Add Content section of the toolbox, click and drag a content type (Create a link, HTML file, discussion, assignment, quiz, grade item) to a matching placeholder in the desired Module (e.g., to add content to a Discussion placeholder, click Create a discussion in the Add Content area)

Blackboard content from Fall 2021 - Spring 2023 is available in Brightspace.

1. Use Chrome or Firefox for Copy/Export/Import in Brightspace (Safari doesn't work as expected when copying/exporting/importing)
2. We recommend not copying over Announcements as doing so can trigger many emails to students and might reveal content that you do not want students to see yet
3. Prior to copying over course materials, make the course you're copying into is inactive/unavailable (i.e., not visible to students)

How to copy content from one Brightspace course to another

1. In a web browser sign into Brightspace and click into the course you want to add content into by clicking the course selector icon at the top and selecting the course
   Tip: Use Chrome or Firefox (avoid Safari for copy/export/import)
2. Once in the course you want to move content to, in the top right click on the Gear and select Import/Export/Copy Component
   
3. Under "What would you like to do?", make sure "Copy Components from another Org Unit" is selected and then click Search for offering. This will allow you to search for a course to pull material from. 
   Tip: In Brightspace, Org Unit = course
   
4. In the Select Course Offering window, you can leave the box blank and click Search to see all the courses you have available to copy from OR type in a course ID or keyword from the course name to narrow your results. 
   Tip: Type in STB to find all of your archived course copy courses from Blackboard.
5. Choose a course and then click Add Selected
   
6. Back in the Import/Export/Copy Components screen you will see your course to copy.
   
7. Click Select Components and on the Choose Components to Copy page, then check off  Select all Components except for Announcements (to avoid sending emails to any students enrolled in the destination course) and anything else you wish not to carry over.
8. Click Continue and Finish.

Please note! Voicethread and Echo360 links will not copy over to your new course. Please be sure to relink them manually after you complete your transfer. 

Now you'll want to offset your dates for the new semester. Go to Course Tools > Course Admin > Manage Dates to offset your start-, end- and due-dates. See the video on

Manage Dates in Brightspace

Next, organize your grade book in your course, which may require you to delete grade items that were moved over. To do so, check out this article.