FAQS

Transition Timeline 

Brightspace is currently being utilized by the Extension Campus.  In Bristol, pilot courses are intended for the Fall of 2025 and Spring of 2026.  A full launch of all academic courses will be Fall of 2026. 

You can access Brightspace using your Microsoft 0365 SSO at https://brightspace.rwu.edu .  

Login to Brightspace

Request a sandbox course by emailing id@rwu.edu and request one.

Bridge will be available until Sept 15, 2026. After that point it will no longer be accessible.  

Please remember to export your Bridges course content for your records

Bridges Course Clean-Up Guide

Instructional Design is planning to migrate the last 3 years of course content only (not student work) backdated from Go-live (Fall 2026).  As a note, even though we are migrating courses that fall in this window, it is a good idea to additionally back up those courses, just in case.

*This means that courses from 2018 to 2022 will remain in Bridges but won’t be transferred.  When Bridges eventually is retired in Fall 2026, so are those courses. So, make sure to back up your courses.  For reference, here is an on-demand workshop recording about backing up your course materials, as well as our knowledge base article.

Limitations on course transfer:
Assignment attachments: When an assignment with an attachment is brought over from Bridges to Brightspace, the attachment does not come with it. The attachment has to be downloaded separately and then uploaded into the assignment.  
Rubrics: As rubrics are not included in the course backup, those will have to be moved over separately.

Instructional Design is planning to migrate the last 3 years of course content only (not student work) backdated from Go-live (Fall 2026).  As a note, even though we are migrating courses that fall in this window, it is a good idea to additionally back up those courses, just in case.

If you would like to bring over content to Brightspace from older courses, you can reference Importing Course Materials. 

Unlike Bridges, Brightspace is not designed to support the wide variety of project sites we currently maintain. This is due to both technical limitations and the platform’s intended purpose. Beyond system constraints, there are also important administrative, security, and storage capacity considerations. 

According to the standard operating procedures for Brightspace retention practices, access to Brightspace sites is limited to a specific time frame. As a result, Brightspace is not suitable for long-term document storage or repository functions such as file storage and transfer, committee work, advising, student clubs, research projects, meeting notes, or form access. For these needs, tools like Microsoft 365 Teams, SharePoint, or Google Drive are more appropriate and make better use of available technology. See below for recommended alternatives for these types of sites. 

That said, there is still potential to support some non-academic course site requests in Brightspace. These may include (but are not limited to): 

• Professional development or training sites for faculty and staff 

• Student orientation sites 

• Departmental sites used for template development 

• Sandbox sites used for template development 

To learn more please visit the Project site policy.

If your videos are linked from an external link, they should come over with the course transer.  If your videos were made in Bridges, they were most likely made using Panopto software.  Your Panopto account and content should be the same in Brightspace and Bridges.

Yes, Zoom and Panopto are integrated into Brightspace. For a full list of tools currently integrated please refer to How to Request LTI's in Bridges & Brightspace.  See our FAQ about 3rd party tools for a comprehensive list of tools integrated into Brightspace.

Yes, rubrics can be directly associated or attached to an assignment in Brightspace.

They can click on the content link on the main course menu, and their content will be loaded vertically.

Yes, exams can be timed in Brightspace.  Additionally, instructors may add student exceptions and release conditions. 

While profile pictures are not currently available in Brightspace, we are actively working to integrate them.

Brightspace does have a video tool built into its Assignments tool, which can help instructors and students to create video submissions and responses.  Brightspace will also have Panopto integrated as a third party tool.

The student user experience allows for students to navigate through the course with a full screen view of each module and element.  Faculty has the option to develop course modules and pages in full screen mode if desired.

Students do not have access to Creator+ which would allow for the creation of interactive elements such as flipcards and timelines.  But the native rich text editor does allow for mathematical equations, insertion of elements like videos and images, and some decorative elements.

No.

No.  Instructional Design is looking to keep enrollment in courses more highly regulated to ensure better system security protocols.  If instructors require the addition of a student to their course, they would need to contact Instructional Design.

Yes. Instructors can set up their tests and quizzes for retakes and student exceptions.

Instructors can create a free account for the D2L Learning Community website, which offers self-guided trainings for instructors.  Instructional Design will develop two pilot cohorts for Fall 2025 and Spring 2026, along with instructor development and training for each cohort.  Global campus training will happen in Spring & Summer of 2026.   

Browser lockdown technology is under review, but will not be fully considered for integration until after the initial implementation and launch of Brightspace is complete.

Here is a list of the third party tools that are available in Brightspace:

• Cengage - Education Publisher

• Hypothes.is 

• KHP Content Deployment

• LinkedIn Learning

• McGraw-Hill Campus - Education Publisher

• MyLab Math

• Panopto

• TestOut

• Tutor.com

• W. W. Norton

• Zoom Meeting 

If you need an LTI installed on Brightspace, please see our policy about LTI Installations.  Please note that all installations will be paused on Brightspace until full campus launch of Brightspace in Fall 2026.

Yes Brightspace is SCORM compatible and will accept SCORM packages.  Here is more information:

Yes,  instructor course content is the sole property of the instructor of record.

Backup your course content.

D2L does not use any client content to train its AI.  Here is more information on their policy:  

Our Approach