Brightspace Essentials for Students

This documentation will direct you to Brightspace Community resources that will guide you through navigating and using Brightspace.

Brightspace Resources

Getting Started

Students can easily make changes to their settings for notifications and account preferences. This can be done within their Personal Settings.

Change Notification Settings

If students need support while using Brightspace, they can easily access the Brightspace Virtual Assistant. This tool allows them to ask questions that will be answered by an AI-based tool that is always available to them.

Accessing Support in Brightspace.

Course Navigation

Students can use the Course Selector or the My Courses widget to navigate between courses.

Find Your Courses Through the Course Selector

Find Your Course Through the My Courses Widget

If old courses from previous semesters are still visible on the Homepage, they can be removed.

Access and Remove Old Courses from Previous Semesters

Overview of Tools

Students have access to various tools to complete assignments, check their progress, and keep up with course content.

Brightspace Pulse App Navigation

Students can use the Brightspace Pulse app to keep up with their courses on a mobile device. This app can be used by both iOS and Android users.

Brightspace Pulse Interface Overview for iOS

Brightspace Pulse Interface Overview for Android

Blackboard to Brightspace Tools

For students who are familiar with Blackboard, as we transition to Brightspace, it may be helpful to take a look at a comparison of tools.

In Blackboard	In Brightspace
Achievements	Awards
Activity Stream	Update Alerts
Content Item (inside a Content Area or Folder)	Content Topic (inside a Content Module or Sub-Module)
Content Menu	Navbar
Course Content Area	Table of Contents, Contents tab on Navbar, Modules and Sub-Modules
Discussion Board	Discussions Discussion Forum (Forums are not gradable – only the topics within the forums are gradable. This does not exist in Blackboard. The use of forums is meant to help organize categories for discussion and then broken down into topics.)
Discussion Forum	Discussion Topic (within a forum) is the equivalent. This is normally where the “question” or “gradable” component lives as the topic is associated with a grade item.
Discussion Thread (within a forum)	Discussion thread (within a topic) where participants can post and reply
Email	Email Tool, Email from Classlist
Global Notifications	Announcements
My Grades	Grades
Journals	Not available in Brightspace. Alternative option: single-person "group" discussions
Learning Modules	Modules/Lessons
Messages	Instant Messages
SafeAssign	Turnitin
Sign up list	Self-Enrollment Groups
Tests	Quizzes
To Do	Calendar and Work To Do Modules
Navigation Menu	Navbar
Users	Classlist

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