Quick Start for New Courses

Write the Syllabus

Seriously. It will help. Writing is thinking. If you are really anxious, just stick to getting the essentials down, like the types of assessments in the course and the breakdown of how much they are worth.  As you work on this, think about the specific skills and knowledge you wish to measure that are relevant to the course. The sequence of topics for the semester will also be helpful. With core pieces figured out, you can use them to start building the course in Brightspace. If you want a head start on your syllabus, we strongly recommend the USM Syllabus Template which includes the most up-to-date student services and policy boilerplate, along with guidance on writing the course-specific sections of your syllabus.

Find your upcoming semester’s course shell(s)

Look in the left-hand column of USM’s Brightspace landing page for your courses. Contact help@maine.edu if you can’t find them. Once you've found them, be sure to Pin them so they appear at the top of you courses list (and unpin any old courses you aren't actively working with).

Optional: Import a CTEL Jumpstart Package into your Course

To cut down on all the pointing-and-clicking you are about to do, CTEL provides a Jumpstart Course Package which includes pre-made empty weekly modules, weekly assignments, discussions, and an already set up Grades tool! Simply import the package into your course, rename the existing items, remove the things you don't need and add your course lectures, readings, etc. Read this page for details on downloading and importing a CTEL Jumpstart Package into your course.

Set up the Grades tool

The most important, and sometime tricky area of your course is the Grades tool. It's worth it to get the setup out of the way early, and will save you a lot of clicking and fumbling around later. Once it's all set up, you should only ever have to use it to grade student work. And if you run this course again in another semester, the grade items setup gets copied over when you copy the contents of a course from one semester to another, so you are good to go next time! Here is our Brightspace Guide's detailed chapter on setting up the Grades Tool.

Create your assignments, discussions and other activities

With the Grades tool set up, the next step is to create the things that students will do for course credit, such as assignments, quizzes, discussions, etc. As you create them, connect them to the Grade Items you created in Step 3. For details, read our chapter on Creating Course Assessments or Activities. Once you've created your activities, you can create links for them in your Brightspace Content modules. See Sequencing Course Activities into Modules for more information.

Add instructional materials to the Content area

You've got a great foundation for measuring how well your students are learning your content... Now it's finally time to add the content! USM has a number of tools and services available to help you create this content:

• Use Zoom for live video meetings on the web. You can even set up a meeting with just yourself and turn on Cloud Recording to record lectures.

• Use Kaltura to store recorded video and then embed them in your course. Zoom Cloud Recordings automatically appear in your Kaltura My Media page. 

• Our friends at USM libraries can help you get electronically reserved library materials into your course.  

• Read our chapter, Fleshing-out Modules with Instructional Content for more information on adding materials to your course.

Test your course to make sure everything works

Every course has a special "Preview Learner" enrolled in it that allows you to test out your course as if you were a student. You can see the way your course looks to students and even submit assignments to make sure assignment, quiz and grading workflows work as you intended. Be sure to check your course videos, web links, and any third-party add-ons to Brightspace, like Ares Course Reserves, GoReact, and publisher integrations. Here are instructions on how to use the Preview Learner account.

Enroll other instructors, TAs, etc. into course

Do you have a co-instructor? If you do,  here are instructions on how to add them to your course. 

Important: Neither you, nor CTEL have the ability to add students, including Teaching Assistants (TAs) to a course in Brightspace. Students must enroll in the course via the Office of Student Registration. Faculty can contact the registrar's office to enroll TAs. They will then be automatically added to your course in Brightspace shortly after.

Enable Special Access for students receiving accommodations through the Disability Services Center

Brightspace has the ability to give specific students different time limits and due-dates for assignments and quizzes or exams. There are two ways of doing this depending upon the situation:

• Setting up a student's special time limits for all Quizzes/Exams in the course.

• Setting up a student's special time limits for a Single quiz or exam.

• Finally, you can also configure Special Access rules for students who need them under the Availability Dates & Conditions tab shown when you edit an Assignment or Discussion.

Make Your Course Active!

This is perhaps the most important step of all! Students can't see your course until you've set it to Active status. To do this:

1. In your course, click on Course Admin in the Navbar

2. Select Course Offering Information

3. Scroll down and check "Course is active"

4. Click the blue Save button at bottom of the screen

Don't wait until the last minute to do this. Students will be looking for your course before the semester starts and they will get anxious if they don't see your course. We recommend making courses active two-weeks prior to the start of the course. You can hide all the individual parts you don't want them to see until you are ready, but please make sure to have your Gradebook and Assignments in place before making the course active.

Send a Welcome Announcement

You can post announcements to your students via the Announcements tool. Announcements are displayed on your course's landing page and are also emailed to the students enrolled in your course.

• IMPORTANT: Brightspace does not send an announcement via email if your course has not been set to Active (see Step 9)! If you created your welcome announcement BEFORE making your course active, you can force Brightspace to send it out again via email by editing the announcement and selecting the Major Edit checkbox and saving the announcement.

• Read more about the Announcements tool.