If you are new to Brightspace or would benefit from a refresher on instructor tools, please consider completing the asynchronous training available in the Brightspace Learning Hub.

Log into Brightspace HERE. 

To make a course visible to students in Brightspace, navigate to the specific course homepage and click on Course Admin in the navigation bar. From the administration menu, select Course Offering Information; on this page, scroll down to the "Active" section and check the box labeled Course is active. Finally, click Save to apply the changes. Note that even if a course is marked active, students may still be unable to access the content if the "Start Date" listed on the same page is set to a future date, so ensure this date is also current or set to the past.

You can arrange for students to submit their assignments via an assignment link in Brightspace. This guide can help you set up assignments for your class assignments in Brightspace. You can use the various tools available there for providing feedback via text, audio, or video, writing in comments directly on papers via the in-line grading function, or grading by means of a rubric. Additionally, you can use Turnitin, which is also available in Brightspace.  

You can create many types of quizzes or exams in Brightspace and there are many options available such as timed or not timed, multiple attempts, or automated feedback. Learn how to set it up by reviewing the Brightspace Help page. 

While the file size cap for Brightspace is 2 GB, if you want to upload large files such as narrated PowerPoint, or very large doc or PDFs, we recommend that you instead upload those larger files to Microsoft OneDrive. It is available to all active CUNY faculty, staff and students. Faculty and staff have unlimited storage space. Once you upload your file to OneDrive, you can copy a link and upload that link as a web link in Brightspace. Large video files can be uploaded to YouTube rather than directly to Brightspace, then categorized as ‘unlisted’, and their URL shared in the Brightspace class site as web link.

Below are some tools used to online annotation: 

• Manifold A CUNY-supported platform designed for social reading of accessible, long-form texts. It allows users to highlight, comment, and share passages. Instructors can further enrich texts by anchoring audio, video, and web resources directly within the content.

• VoiceThread This tool facilitates multimodal annotation. Instructors can upload documents, and students engage with the text by leaving comments via microphone, webcam, or written text.

• Microsoft Word Effective for traditional text analysis. Students utilize the built-in "Review" tab to highlight passages and add marginal comments. When used via OneDrive, this allows for real-time collaboration.

As we explore and experiment with the HyFlex course design, it is essential to communicate the experimental nature with your students as well. Send a welcome message to students with some key information about your HyFlex course, providing additional course specifics and context.  Furthermore, consider soliciting feedback about student experience throughout the semester. Consider informal ways of gathering information from students such as surveys to further develop your HyFlex course design in subsequent semesters.

Faculty should expect that all students participate remotely and not penalize them if they do so.  There are faculty who might choose to teach from the classroom whether students come to the classroom or connect virtually. You might ask students about their intended participation on a regular basis. Some faculty offer participation credit to students for responding to a weekly poll. This can help with planning each class session to ensure that you account for student choice of participation.

Yes, these courses can work very well as HyFlex if they have a lab, recitation, or some other built-in small group interactions. The lecture component can be recorded and shared to enhance group work. Parsing out asynchronous and synchronous components of the class, as well as scheduling flexibility, in line with facilitating small group interactions can make a larger class particularly well aligned with a multi-modal approach.

You have many choices for presenting or lecturing online, whether you want to use slides, or just create an audio or video presentation. The following are all relatively easy to learn:

• You can present your lecture, with or without slides with students attending in real time or you can record it beforehand and make it available for students to access later, then create a discussion forum to engage with students. You can also record a live session and share with students who were not able to attend live.

• You can use VoiceThread which can be enabled in Brightspace to upload slides and add narration, or just create a short video or audio recording. Students can comment and engage directly with the VoiceThread lecture you created. This page contains tutorials on what it is, how to add and enable it in your Brightspace course site, and information for your students. Also, you might find it helpful to review our webinar on the subject.

It is best for you to use Brightspace to communicate with students and to share course materials.

• You can send an email to students via Brightspace.
• You can also Lehman360 Roster Email Instructor Manual to students via Lehman360.
• You can also send an email to your students through CUNYFirst.

• For tests and quizzes offered online in Brightspace, help ensure academic integrity by creating a large question pool from which you draw your test, randomizing the questions for the test taker, and add other test options like no backtracking, time limits, or password enabling, depending on the nature of the test. To review these options and find those most appropriate for your tests, see Test and Survey Options.

• Plagiarism in writing assignments occur no more frequently for students in online classes than those who attend only in-person classes, because all students have access to the internet. For writing assignments submitted online, consider using Turnitin in Brightspace. This may allow you to reduce the chances of plagiarism by noting similarities of content submitted with other content. You can also use Google to search for specific odd phrases and vocabulary that don’t seem to fall into the student’s usual writing patterns. Consider asking students to review the originality report and resubmit after revising, if need be.

• To discourage students in online discussion from simply repeating or copying what other classmates have said, use the "Post first” settings option in Brightspace discussion. This will prevent students from reading others’ responses before they have posted their own.

Please see below for some options for reproducing these online:

• Zoom has a whiteboard feature which allows you to share a whiteboard that you and other participants (if allowed) can annotate on. 
• Search for YouTube or any other sites for video tutorials which can be used to replace the written content. Links to these videos can then be placed in your course sites.
• You can write out the demonstration by hand and either scan or take a picture of the written work then upload the scan/picture to your course site. If you would like to provide an audio explanation to accompany your written work, record your audio using an Online Voice Recorder tool and upload to the course site.
• Similarly you can upload your written work to VoiceThread. Visit Lehman’s VoiceThread for tutorials on what it is, how to add and enable it in your Brightspace course site, and information for your students.
• If you do not have a smart tablet or touch screen computer, you can use your mobile device or a webcam attached to your computer to focus directly on the paper as you write during the Zoom session.

Method 1: The Quickest Way (Classlist)

If you just want to see the last time every student entered your specific course, use the Classlist.

1. Click on Classlist in your course navbar (often found under Tools, Course Admin, or Communication depending on your institution's layout).
2. Look for the column labeled Last Accessed.
3. This date/time stamp indicates the last time the student actually entered your specific course shell. 

• Tip: You can click the "Last Accessed" column header to sort the list. This brings students who have never accessed the course (or accessed it longest ago) to the top. 

Method 2: The Detailed Way (Class Progress)

If you need to see a history of logins or verify if a student has been active over a period of time, use the Class Progress tool. 

1. Go to Course Admin and select Class Progress (or click Class Progress if it is on your navbar).

You will see a dashboard of your students. Warning: The default "Logins" column here often tracks System Logins (logging into Brightspace generally), not necessarily logins to your specific course.

1. To see course-specific access, click on a student's name.
2. On the left-hand sidebar of their profile, select Course Access.
3. This will show you a graph and a log of every time that specific student entered your course.

No, you do not have to be online 24/7. It is important at the beginning of course to outline your communication protocol. Let your students know the length of time when they would expect a response to their email, questions in a dedicated Q&A forum in Brightspace, etc. For example if you create a dedicated Q&A forum in the discussion area in Brightspace (highly recommended to cut down on email), you can tell students you will respond to all questions within 24 hours or 24-48 hours on weekends, whatever the case may be.

If you use email as a main method of communication, it can become overwhelming. To help decrease the amount you might receive from students, create a Q&A or Ask the Instructor discussion forum in Brightspace and have the students post course related questions to the forum, reserving email for the personal questions. Let them know when to expect a response, and for private questions they should send via email. Also encourage the students to subscribe to the forum so they can receive email alerts when questions/responses have been posted and to respond to each other’s questions if they can. 

The Announcements tool in Brightspace is another feature to help decrease the amount of emails. You can post periodic announcements in your course providing students with important updates and deadlines, clarify any misconceptions, provide general feedback, etc. When you create your announcements you can check the option to send the announcement immediately as an email to the students. Announcements and responses to Q&A forum questions remain  in the course and can serve as a reference for students throughout the course.

It is important to establish a consistent pattern of communication for students. In order to manage student expectations, consider establishing a regular pattern of posting announcements--for example, at the beginning and end of each week. Or you might want to post a midweek announcement if there is an upcoming deadline. For email...you will respond within 24 hours to an email or question posted in the Q&A forum in Brightspace, or you will respond within 24 hours M-F, and within 48 hours on weekends (whatever the case may be).

Please see below for some options for conducting student presentations online:

Asynchronous option: students can view each others’ presentation during a period of time, they don’t have to be online at the same time which allows them to actually spend more time and focus better. VoiceThread is ideal for student presentations, with students being able to add their own slides along with video or audio. Such presentations also afford the ability for other students in the class to comment on those presentations. You can have students create their own VoiceThread presentation and post the URL to the Discussion Board.  

To take attendance in Zoom, you can have the students register for the session. When you set-up a meeting in Zoom, you have the option to enable registration. You can then run a report to see all registrants for the session. Alternatively, you can create a non-anonymous poll where you ask students a question at the beginning of the class, you can then generate a report for the poll and you will be able to see who was present at the time of the poll. You might also want to do another poll midway through the meeting in the event someone joined late. You can also use the chat to capture attendance. Students can type the first and last name in the chat at the beginning of the meeting and you can save the chat with the information.