LMS FAQ

The University of Scranton uses Brightspace as its Learning Management System (LMS). The following FAQs are provided to answer some of the most common questions about Brightspace: 

Q: When do users have access to Brightspace courses?

A: Instructors have access to their courses when the courses are loaded in the system 45 days prior to the official start date of the semester. Students have access 21 days prior to the start date of the semester and for 21 days after the end date of the semester. The first access date for students will be shown under the course name in the courses widget and appear as; "Note: Course access starts month day, year 12:00 AM"

Q: How can instructors merge their courses in Brightspace?

A: From my.scranton.edu, instructors will find the link to merge courses under the Faculty tab and then the Academic Links channel. This link is only used to request merging of MULTIPLE sections of similar Brightspace courses into one course. You must be the assigned instructor for these courses in order to submit a merge request and the merge will only be in effect for one semester. The request form is open from four weeks prior to the start of a semester until two weeks after a semester starts. The merge process runs at 12 Noon and again at 3:00AM. Contact Center for Teaching  Excellence (CTE) at (570) 941-4038 if you have any questions regarding the merging of courses.

Q: Who provides support for instructors using Brightspace?

A: As always, the CTE and ITDA will be available to help with your online learning needs. Please do not hesitate to call upon us at any time at (570) 941-4038.

Q: What Lecture Capture Systems are supported on campus for use with Brightspace, and where can I find guidelines for their use?

A: Visit our Lecture Capture Page for more information

Q: How do faculty retrieve individual student work when a student is no longer enrolled in a course (Active and In-Active Courses)?

*The student must be re-enrolled by an administrator in order to retrieve the content items.

*This includes students who have been unenrolled or who withdrew from the course.

ACTIVE COURSES:
    1. Submit a Footprints ticket requesting that an administrator re-enroll the student. This request should include all student names, student ID numbers, course names, CRN numbers and time period required for student access.

    2. After enrolling the student back into the course with the student role, their submissions to dropboxes, posts to discussion forums, and quiz attempts will be restored to the following areas:
        i. Proper Content Areas
        ii. User Progress

IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT RE-ENROLLMENT TIME FRAME: When an Administrator re-enrolls a student, if the student was initially enrolled in the course in Banner and then drops the course in Banner, the Brightspace Holding Tank will always remove the student from the course when the systems sync, even if it was an administrator who enrolled the student manually.

Therefore, the faculty member only has until the next sync period to review the student’s work before the student will be automatically be unenrolled again.

IN-ACTIVE COURSES:
    1. Submit a Footprints ticket requesting that an administrator re-enroll the student. This request should include all student names, student ID numbers, course names, CRN numbers and time period required for student access.

    2. After enrolling the student back into the course with the student role, their submissions to dropboxes, posts to discussion forums, and quiz attempts will be restored to the following areas:
        i. Proper Content Areas

        ii. NOTE: Student work IS NOT accessible through USER PROGRESS if the course is “In-Active”.

IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT RE-ENROLLMENT TIME FRAME: Since the course is in-active, and the system syncs do not effect inactive courses, the students who are re-enrolled manually by the administrator will remain in the course. So the faculty member can access the student’s work without a time limit.

Once the instructor has retrieved the individual student’s work, they should contact the administrator to have the student un-enrolled, so that the course is back to its original enrollment state.

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