Miscellaneous How-Tos
This section includes a number of common actions in Brightspace that don't fit elsewhere.
Contents
Find a Course’s Offering Code
These steps are optional, but are very helpful if you want to be absolutely sure you are copying from the right course. Note: The Offering Code contains the MaineStreet ID of the course as well.
Navigate to the course that has the content you want to copy.
Click the Course Admin link on the navbar. The Course Administration page will appear.
Click the Course Offering Information link.
Look for the text, Course Offering Code. Beneath that is the course code.
Highlight the course code by holding down the mouse button and dragging the mouse cursor over it.
Copy the text to the clipboard by pressing Ctrl-C (Windows) or Command-C (macOS).
Find a Course’s Brightspace ID
Your course's Brightspace ID is the number at the end of its Homepage's URL
Navigate to a course section that will be part of your review.
Make sure you are on the course Homepage by clicking the Course Home link in the navbar.
Look at your web browser’s address bar and find the number at the very end of the URL after the last forward-slash. This is your course’s Brightspace ID.
Highlight the Brightspace ID by holding down the mouse button and dragging the mouse cursor over it.
Copy the text to the clipboard by pressing Ctrl-C (Windows) or Command-C (macOS).
Paste this into an email by pressing Ctrl-V (Windows) or Command-V (macOS)..
Repeat from Step 1 for each of your course sections that are part of the review and send the email to your department chair.
Import a Content Package
To perform these steps, you must have a .zip file exported from an LMS such as Brightspace or Blackboard, or provided by a publisher, such as quiz questions or other pre-generated content.
Click the Content link on the Navbar.
Click Table of Contents.
Click the Import Course button.
The Import Course Package pop-up will appear. Click the Upload button.
Select the .zip file on your computer containing the content you want to import.
Once the package has finished uploading, click the Import All Components button.
View Your Course as a Student
Go to the Course Resources menu and select Classlist.
Click the Action Button next to "Learner, Preview" and select Impersonate.
To exit Preview Learner mode, click the orange profile badge in the upper-right corner of the screen and click the x next to Impersonating: Preview Learner.
To exit Learner Preview mode, click the orange profile badge in the upper right corner of the page and click the X next to Impersonating: Preview Learner.
View Grades and Usage of Students Who Dropped your Course
There will be times where the Financial Aid office will need you to provide activity information on students who have dropped your course You can obtain this information using the following steps.
Go to the Course Resources menu and select Classlist.
Click the Enrollment Statistics button.
On the next page, scroll all the way to the bottom of the screen to find the Withdrawals section.
Click the Menu Button next to one of the students and select either View Grades or View Attendance. You can use your web browsers Print command to print the information on these screens to a hard copy or PDF file.
Finally, if you use Discussions in your course, threads and posts persist even after a student has dropped a course.
NOTE: Either of the options in Step 4 will only be of use if you've been using the Brightspace Grades tool or Attendance tool.
Linking to ARES eReserves
If you previously used ARES eReserves in your course, add a link to it in your course modules from the Content tool using Existing Activities > External Learning Tools > Ares Course Reserves. Please contact Bill Sargent, william.sargent@maine.edu, to properly connect the course to Ares.
Adding In-Text Hyperlinks to Other Parts of your Course
You can add links to other parts of your course using the Quicklinks button in the Brightspace Editor:
Type some text, such as “Join the Discussion.”
Highlight the text you want to be a clickable hyperlink.
Click the Quicklinks button on the Brightspace Editor toolbar.
A pop-up with a list of options will appear. Select what you would like to link to from the list.
Select URL to create a link to an external website.
Select Content to create a link to something in the Content tool.
Select Discussions to create a link to one of your Discussion Forums or Topics.
Select Assignments to create a link to one of your Assignments,
Etc...
Depending on what you chose, there may be an additional step, such as selecting the thing in your course to link to, or entering a website address.
The highlighted text will now be a clickable hyperlink. When students click it, they will be taken directly to whatever you designated in the previous steps.
Note: These types of in-course hyperlinks will not break after the course is copied like they did in Blackboard.
Print or Copy Quiz Questions
This ability is not built into Brightspace and requires the following workaround:
Ensure your quiz is set to show all the questions on a single page: In the Quiz Tool (Assessments > Quizzes), click the down arrow next to the quiz and choose Edit. The "Questions per page" field should be empty.
Click Save and Close, click the down arrow next to the quiz again, and choose Preview.
Tick the box next to Bypass Restrictions.
Click Start Quiz!.
Follow these instructions to copy and paste the questions into Word or a Google Doc.
Allow a Student to Complete an Interrupted, Timed Quiz
Use the following steps if a student's attempt at an exam is interrupted due to a power or internet outage.
In the Manage Quizzes tool, click on the down arrow/action button to the right of a quiz and choose Edit.
Restrictions tab: Scroll down and click Add Users to Special Access
for the student and change the time limit to Recommended Time Limit
Choose the student, and they can pick up where they left off.
That should bypass the Due/End date because the student started the quiz before that date/time.