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What is Brightspace?

Brightspace is UAlbany's enterprise digital learning environment used to deliver courses for degree and certificate programs.  Brightspace has many features which allow faculty to upload files and organize course content, communicate with students via announcements or email, and assign/grade assignments easily through the browser.  Students that have courses that use Brightspace are able to easily access course documents, contact the instructor or TA's, and check their course grades throughout the semester. 

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Access to the Brightspace Learn system is governed by the University at Albany Identity and Access Management Policy and corresponding procedures. A Brightspace account is automatically created for instructors and students enrolled in courses listed in the Schedule of Classes.  Instructors and students are assigned a unique online identity and designated by the associated Albany ID and NetID.  As with most other IT services, The NetID and password are the electronic credentials that provide access to Brightspace.  Access to Brightspace is enabled automatically at the time of enrollment and remains active according to the UAlbany Computer Account Lifecycle. 

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Brightspace Course Creation, Access, Copy, and Retention

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Semester SIS Integration Schedule:

Combining Sections

Class sections can be combined into a single Brightspace course offering through two different processes managed in the following ways.

Combining Sections through the Registrar's Office

Sections that are cross-listed or designated as shared resource by the academic department will be designated as a combined section in PeopleSoft.  These sections will be automatically combined into a single Brightspace course offering.  This destination is under the authority of academic departments who have the sole discretion and authority to change a combined section status. 

Cross Listed

Courses that are cross listed in the bulletin will be automatically merged as a single Brightspace course. 

Shared Resource Courses

Shared resource courses, approved by an academic department (according to policy), will be automatically merged as a single Brightspace course. 

Course Merge by Instructor Request

Instructors-of-record may wish to merge class rosters of their sections into a single Brightspace course offering.  Requests shall be submitted to the ITS Service Desk (see request form link below).  For sections combined in this manner, the instructor-of-record has the responsibility to ensure that student privacy is protected.  It is critical that instructors to adhere to guidance on FERPA compliance provided below.   

Auditing of Merged Sections

The campus will perform periodic audits of combined Brightspace courses to monitor use of tools that could potentially enable improper sharing of FERPA protected student information.

Federal Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)

When enrolling in a section, students have a reasonable expectation that only the instructor and other students enrolled in the same section can see that they are enrolled in the class. This enrollment status is considered protected information under FERPA. While it is considered appropriate, and legal within the FERPA regulations, for students to know about other students in their own class sections, it is not considered appropriate for that to happen across sections that meet at different times. Students may know each other personally and share their enrollment status, but by combining sections enrollment information could potentially be shared, which would violate the regulation. 

Required Brightspace Features and Settings for Instructor-Merged Courses

To ensure compliance with FERPA in circumstances of sections merged by the instructor-of-record, the following Brightspace course features/settings must be used:

Discussion Topic Settings

In an Instructor-merged course, Instructors must restrict each Discussion Topic to a single section of the course.  Otherwise, students enrolled in different sections could become aware of each other’s enrollment status by seeing each other's discussion posts.  To set this restriction while creating your Discussion Topics:

1. 1. 1. 1. On the Discussions List page, click New → New Topic.

         2. Drop down Availability Dates & Conditions.

         3. Under Group and Section Restrictions, click Manage Restrictions.

         4. Choose the second option to Restrict topic and separate the threads.

         5. In the Group Category or Section dropdown, choose Sections.

         6. Click Add.

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This restriction can also be set by clicking Edit in an existing Topic's context menu (Image Modified button next to the Topic name) and following steps 2-6 above.

Student Groups Features 

The Groups feature in Brightspace enables interaction between students and this must not be used to enable interaction between students enrolled in different sections.

Request to Combine Sections

Instructors who wish to combine sections in Brightspace that are not already combined in PeopleSoft can submit a request to the ITS Service Desk using the form below.

• • Submit Request to Combine Sections in Brightspace

Course and Section Titles and Identifiers

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Brightspace course title and ID align with the data about each course and section in the course catalog and schedule of classes as recorded in PeopleSoft. 

Default Course Attributes for Stand-Alone Course Offerings/Sections

A single course has an offering and a section; two items are being created with corresponding code as explained below. The offerings and sections have a one-to-one relationship and cannot share identical information.

Course Offering Code (or Course ID)

The Brightspace Course Offering ID is comprised of the following attributes from the course catalog and scheduled of classes in PeopleSoft:

Attributes: Term code + Subject code + Catalog number + Class number
Example: 2233-AANT-201-1633

Course Offering Name

The Brightspace Course Offering Name is comprised of the following attributes from the course catalog and schedule of classes in PeopleSoft:

Attributes: Subject code + Catalog Number + Course title + (class number)
Example: AANT201-Critical Thinking Skepticism (1633)

Course Section Code (or Section ID)

The Course Section Code is comprised of the following attributes from the course catalog and schedule of classes in PeopleSoft:

Attributes: Section prefix + Term code + Subject code + Catalog number + Class number
Example: sec_2233-AANT-201-1633

Course Section Name

The Course Section Name is comprised of the following attributes from the course catalog and schedule of classes in PeopleSoft.  This is the same as for Course Offering Name:

Attributes: Subject code + Catalog Number + Course title + (Class number)
Example: AANT201-Critical Thinking Skepticism (1633)

Default Course Attributes for Combined Course Offerings/Sections

Registrar-combined and instructor-merged courses have a specialized title and ID that are also based on course and instructor data record in PeopleSoft.  

Course Offering Code (or Course ID)

The Brightspace Course Offering ID is comprised of the following concatenation of attributes from the course catalog and scheduled of classes in PeopleSoft:

Attributes: Term code + Session info + “XLIST_COURSE”
Example: 2233-0002-SESS-4W3-XLIST_COURSE

Course Offering Name

The Brightspace Course Offering ID is comprised of the following concatenation of attributes from the course catalog and scheduled of classes in PeopleSoft:

Attributes: SUBJ 01/SUBJ 02 + CATALOG NUM - (CLASS#;CLASS#)
Example: AHIS/AANT320 - (9856;9857)

Course Section Code (or Section ID)

The Course Section Code is comprised of the same attributes as detailed above for stand-alone courses.

Course Section Name

The Course Section Name is comprised of the same attributes as detailed above for stand-alone courses. 

Modification of Course Attributes

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Students can access their Active Brightspace courses until four weeks after the end of classes.

• Make your course available and active (instructors)

Course Development Shell

Instructors who need a space to build a course intended to be offered in the future can request a “development shell.”  Once the course content and structure has been built out in a development shell, it can be copied into a scheduled Brightspace course.  Course Development shells will be removed from the system one year after they are created.

• Request Course Development Shell (instructors)

Development Shell Course Attributes

Course Offering Code (or Course ID)

Attributes: Future Semester + Subject code + Catalog number
Example: Fall 2026-AANT-201

Course Offering Name

Attrbutes: Subject code + Catalog Number + Course title + DEV
Example: AANT201-Critical Thinking Skepticism DEV

Course Section Code (or Section ID)

Attributes: Section prefix + Future Semester + Subject code + Catalog number + DEV
Example: sec_Fall 2026-AANT-201-DEV

Course Section Name

This is the same as for Course Offering Name:

Attributes: Subject code + Catalog Number + Course title + DEV
Example: AANT201-Critical Thinking Skepticism DEV

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Instructors who wish to copy or import course materials and learning activities from another Brightspace course, including a previous semester course, will use the Import/Export/Copy feature.  Using these processes, the instructor can copy/import an entire course or selected parts of a course as desired (enrollment should NOT be copied).

• About Import/Export/Copy

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Instructors may create a backup/archive of their course at any time to save for their records, but only the Brightspace system administrator is able to restore an Archive to include student interactions, submissions, and grades to the UAlbany Brightspace system.  A course Archive can be Imported to another Brightspace course.

• Learn about how to export course components

Course Back Up Policy

The Brightspace software company and hosting provider, Desire to Learn (D2L), maintains system and data redundancy to ensure continuity of course data.

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When a class section is cancelled by the department and this status is updated in the schedule of classes by the Registrar's Office, the existing associated Brightspace course will be automatically disabled and inaccessible to the instructor and students. Re-enabling the course for the instructor to move/copy materials to a new shell is time consuming and will delay student access and impact productivity in their course work.

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Course Enrollment

Automated Enrollment

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Individuals assigned to the course in PeopleSoft as Primary, Secondary Instructor, or Teaching Assistant will be enrolled in the Brightspace course. Individuals assigned as Primary or Secondary Instructor will be enrolled in the Brightspace course with the course role of Instructor.   Individuals assigned to the course in PeopleSoft as Teaching Assistant will be enrolled in the Brightspace course with the course role of Facilitator. The Instructor of a Brightspace course is granted permission to enroll other user accounts in the following roles: Facilitator (TA), Designer (course builders), Instructor (Guest), and Read Only.  User enrollment is managed via the Course Admin → Classlist page of a Brightspace course.  ITS will not manually enroll accounts in Brightspace courses except in cases of emergency intervention to ensure continuity.

Directions for Instructors:

• Add a user to your course

• To change a user's role in your course, follow the same instructions to add a user to your course, and choose the appropriate role when prompted.

  • You'll only be able to change users from and to one of the following roles:

    Facilitator (TA),

    Designer (course builders), Instructor (Guest), and Read Only.  E.g. you will not be able to edit a Learner's role, and you won't be able to change

    a Facilitator (TA) or Designer to a

    a anyone’s role to a Learner.

• To unenroll someone from your course that you manually enrolled, please contact the ITS Service Desk.

Course Roles

Brightspace user accounts are enrolled in courses and assigned a role.  Each role is provided with a set of permissions intended to enable the role-designated user to perform tasks in the course that are relevant to their role.

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Expand each role below to learn more.

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 Designer

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 Learner

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Instructor Responsibilities about Manual Enrollments

Due to the heightened level of access to student records given to Teaching Assistants, secondary Instructors, etc., Instructors should take care when manually adding accounts in the Brightspace course.  Instructors are expected to comply with the Access and Compliance Agreement when enrolling people in their courses with elevated privileges that might enable access to student information protected under FERPA and other SUNY, state, or federal regulations governing the use of educational records.

Federal Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)

When enrolling in a section, students have a reasonable expectation that only the instructor and other students enrolled in the same section can see that they are enrolled in the class. This enrollment status is considered protected information under FERPA. While it is considered appropriate, and legal within the FERPA regulations, for students to know about other students in their own class sections, it is not considered appropriate for that to happen across sections that meet at different times. Students may know each other personally and share their enrollment status, but by combining sections enrollment information could potentially be shared, which would violate the regulation. 

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Non-Standard Courses

A non-standard Brightspace course can be requested by contacting the ITS Service Desk, to support scenarios in which student progress toward degree/certificate completion is not facilitated through an officially scheduled course section.  Such “academic completion” scenarios will be considered on a case-by-case basis and are not guaranteed to be approved.

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The course owner and any other designated individuals will be enrolled with the Leader role.  The Leader role of a non-standard course is responsible for managing enrollment and participation.

• Add an existing user to the classlist

• Batch Enroll Users

Retrieve Net IDs

Two PeopleSoft queries have been created to retrieve NetIDs, if needed. Contact your department administrator/manager to access or run a query.

1. Retrieve Net IDs by Program

2. Retrieve Net IDs by Student Group

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