BRIGHTSPACE TRANSITION FOR INSTRUCTORS: ADJUSTMENTS Phase
Brightspace is a web-based learning management system (LMS) created to support fully online and face-to-face courses. It is the official LMS use by The City University of New York campuses.
Once instructors review the previous content created in the Brightspace environment, they may proceed with the class's adjustment or adaptation.
List possible issues you found during the Recognition phase.
Review best practices for using Brightspace effectively, including tips for managing course materials, assignments, and communication tools.
The practice site navbar may appear different from the Brooklyn College courses navbar, and we will show how to identify the Brightspace function in both environments.
Include a Brightspace tour on the navigation bars to help instructors familiarize themselves with Brightspace's elemental functions. Explore the differences and similarities with Blackboard.
Demonstrate how to adjust Brightspace basic settings and functions.
Schedule one-hour workshops to focus on specific functions. Dedicate 30 minutes to topics and 30 minutes to Q&As. Offer both in-person and online options.
Schedule weekly Q&A sessions.
Reserve time to schedule one-on-one training with instructors as much as possible.
Present the Brooklyn College community with the names of the AIT and another support team working with each school and department and how to contact them. They will be free to schedule one-on-one sessions with instructors or group sessions with departments or schools.
Adapt the FAQs created for Phase No. 3 with more detailed information about the new settings and functionalities.
In this phase, our goal is for instructors to review the course site, identify potential content changes, and make necessary corrections.
Log in to Brightspace, and enter your CUNYFirst credentials, such as FIRST.LASTNAMEXX@login.cuny.edu, including your username and password. Once logged in, navigate to the My Courses widget and select the Brightspace class. Then, review each section below.
CLASSLIST : Only the course content and the course structure will migrate. Student rosters, activity data, and submissions will not show in Brightspace.
ANNOUNCEMENTS : All announcements from Blackboard are showing on Brightspace. The last post is the first in the list. To reuse them, you must reorganize them and update the Start dates.
CONTENT : Syllabus, Course Documents, Assignments, Content Folders, and Learning Modules will be displayed in Brightspace under the Content tab. Each container will retain the same title and organization within the Brightspace Table of Contents.
Functionalities: Brightspace content and modules will include all tools linked to them in the original Blackboard site, such as Discussions, Assignments, Turnitin Assignments, Quizzes, and Surveys. You will find them within the Exiting Activities dropdown button. To modify the settings for these tools, you must access the specific Brightspace tabs assigned to each of these functions: Assignments, Discussions, and Quizzes.
New Activities: You can also add new activities to each content area or module by pressing the Upload/Create dropdown list within the Content. These links will redirect you to the desired function.
Third-party Content: Book Publishers such as Cengage, McGraw Hill, Pearson, and Wiley must be re-linked. It may include LTIs, such as Turnitin assignments and YuJa.
Links to Media Servers: Links to media files posted on Dropbox and other cloud servers may not work on Brightspace. You must post them on a media server like YuJa and share the files with the course again.
Activities Timeframes: It is crucial to check the Content and the Assessment timeframes to ensure that the information copied is activated and visible to students.
YouTube Videos: The Blackboard YouTube video mashup function is no longer available on Brightspace. However, you can embed videos within the test editor using the Insert Stuff icon, which is available throughout the system.
BANNERS :Course banners are not transferrable. Brightspace provides automatic Banners. Banners are easy to customize in Brightspace.
PROFESSOR PROFILE : Each Brightspace course site provides a Professor Profile on the course homepage. It would be very helpful to your students to have this basic information about you available to them on their course homepage. This feature substitutes the Contact tool available on Blackboard.
DISCUSSIONS : Complex Discussion Board structures cannot be transferred to Brightspace. However, all Forums are retained. In most cases, topics and descriptions remain intact. Links between the content or modules and the Discussion will be functional. Any necessary adjusts will usually be very simple.
GROUPS : Groups created on Blackboard are not transferrable to the Brightspace Group section. However, all previously created groups will show within the Discussion topics.
BLOGS : Blogs content and some settings are transferable to Brightspace; however, in Brightspace, the blogging-style feature is referred to as “Discussions.” Instructors can set up discussion topics as blogging areas for students.
ASSESSMENTS / QUIZZES : Most quizzes created on Blackboard will transfer to Brightspace without any problems. The only exception is the Random Block Questions, which will not transfer to Brightspace. However, you will be able to access all the questions in the Brightspace Quizzes Question Library. Instructors can recreate a new random quiz using the Question Pool function, which is equivalent to the Blackboard Random Block.
RUBRICS : Rubrics transferred from Blackboard will show in Brightspace associated with the assessments. However, it might be prudent to review one of the assessment rubrics to ensure the rubric calculates the score correctly.
GRADES : If you were using the Blackboard Weighted Total feature to calculate course grades in the Gradebook, you must recreate the weighted grade in Brightspace. Grade Categories are available; however, the final calculation requires some extra steps on your part.
MORE / CUNY DEMO STUDENT : Become familiar with the "Viewing as Learner" and "CUNY Student Demo" functions. They will help you to test your course class from the student's perspective.
SAFEASSIGN : SafeAssign will no longer be available on Brightspace. Assignments requiring plagiarism detection tools may need to be recreated using the Turnitin function.
COLLABORATE : Blackboard Collaborate is no longer available on Brightspace. Please save all recording sessions to YuJa and share them with students in Brightspace. The last day to download the recording session from Blackboard Collaborate is DECEMBER 19, 2025.
ADJUSTMENT PHASE: BRIGHTSPACE WORKSHOP SERIES TUTORIALS
Below is a tab for each workshop topic with comprehensible resources on adjusting the Brightspace content transferred from Blackboard. To access the resources, navigate to the workshops tab and click the hyperlinks associated with each section.
You can hide and prioritize the announcements by selecting Dismiss from the widget to hide the announcement from the course homepage widget; however, students can still view it in the Announcements tab. Alternatively, you can choose the Pin to top option to prioritize important announcements, moving them to the top for easier access.
The option to completely hide the announcement from students remains the same as on Blackboard: you must set both the start and end dates in the past. There is also an extreme solution that works for a limited time: deleting the announcement altogether. Brightspace allows you to restore deleted announcements; however, the item will be kept in the recycle bin only for a 30-day window after the deletion.
The Release Conditions function has been extended to announcements in Brightspace. Learners will not see the announcement when a condition is set until they fulfill the associated conditions.
- MESSAGES / EMAILS -
Instructors can send messages by using the Message icon located at the top of the page in the minibar, within the dropdown list under the More tab, or by accessing the Classlist tab.
The most convenient way to send messages is through the Classlist. By default, messages are sent using BCC (blind carbon copy), which means that each student will not see the email addresses of other recipients. This feature eliminates the need for instructors and students to access the Address Book, thus reducing the chances of selecting the wrong recipient.
- GROUP MESSAGES-
Instructors can send messages to specific groups after creating them. They must go to the Classlist tab, set the View By option to Groups, and select the groups they want to message.
The Content tab, accessible from the navigation bar, comprises several areas, including a general Overview, a catalog of selected Bookmarks, and a Course Schedule. It also includes the Table of Contents, the principal place where students will access course materials.
You can access the Bulk Edit button in the modules listed in the Table of Contents. Hover over the Topic Title, Dates, and Restrictions to add or edit them. Additionally, you have the option to Hide a topic from students or Delete it entirely.
This section will explore how to incorporate existing activities into modules and sub-modules while linking them to assignments, quizzes, and discussions. It will also cover integrating key learning tools (LTIs) such as book publishers and Zoom into the Table of Contents.
Brightspace has two tools that enable instructors to see the course from a student's perspective: View as Learner and CUNY Demo Student.
Use the CUNY Demo Student and the View as Learner features to view the course as a student. Before making the course available, evaluate accessibility by reviewing course content, navigation, and functionality to ensure a smooth student experience.
The CUNY Demo Student development tool helps review the class from the student’s perspective. However, the demo does not support all functions. You must use the Learner function instead for some features, such as Blogs.
For more information on the differences between the two tools, please refer to the attached table.
