On-Demand Brightspace Resources for Instructors
Instructor Guides – Complete List
Jump to a topic:
- Accessibility
- Course Navigation and User Options
- Course Management
- Content
- Assignments
- Quizzes, Surveys, and Self-Assessments
- Grades & Rubrics
- Groups & Discussions
- Using Media in Brightspace: Kaltura and YouTube
- Zoom and Virtual Classrooms
- Pulse Mobile App
- Archived Video Workshops
Course Navigation and User Options
Learn more about how Brightspace tools support inclusive teaching
- How do I share my pronouns with people in my classes?
- How do I set my time zone?
- How do I locate my courses?
- How can I re-order my courses on the dashboard?
- How do I Edit the Navigation Bar (Navbar)?
- How do I view my course from the student view?
- How do I add NameCoach to my course?
- How do I add my photo, edit my profile, and manage account settings?
Course Management
TAs must be added to your course by the Office of the University Registrar. Read more about this process here.
- How can I make my course active, so it is visible to students?
- How can I save copies of important course documents and close out my Brightspace course at the end of a semester?
- How do I combine my courses or sections into one course?
- How can I add TAs or other users to my course?
- How can I add a subject librarian to my course to help students with research? – Vanderbilt Libraries resource
- How do I email my entire class, or individual students?
- How do I create/edit a homepage for my course?
- How do I upload a custom image for my homepage banner?
- How do I change the theme colors for my course?
- How do I delete my homepage and make another tool the first page students see?
- How do I turn off course tools I do not need?
- How can I upload a profile photo to my Brightspace account?
- What is the e-Portfolio?
- How to I Access Materials in the Learning Object Repository (LOR)?
- How do I Place LOR Material into my Course Content?
- How do I track attendance in Brightspace? New!
Content
Copyright
- Copyright and Fair Use – Vanderbilt Libraries resource
- Copyright Policy for Vanderbilt’s Course Management Systems – Vanderbilt Libraries resource
Organizing Content
- VIDEO GUIDE: Introduction to “Lessons View”
- What is the table of contents?
- How do I upload my syllabus?
- How do I move files around in my course?
- How do I insert stuff into my course?
- How do I create a reading list for my students? – Vanderbilt Libraries resource
- How do I create modules and add content to them?
- How do I make content unavailable to students?
- How do I import course materials from another course management system?
- How do I copy an entire Brightspace course to another?
- How can I copy pieces of content from one Brightspace Course to Another?
- How can I release content to Sections or Groups at different times?
Assignments
Creating Assignments
- VIDEO GUIDE: Introduction to the Assignment Tool
- How do I create an Assignment?
- What types of assignments can I create?
- How do I link an assignment to a grade item?
- How do I give select students a different due date (special access)?
Grading Assignments
- How do I grade an Assignment?
- Video: How do I use the Annotation Tool for grading?
- How can I download Assignments?
- How can I download assignments by group?
- How can I contact students who have not submitted an assignment?
- How do I grade and evaluate a student who has not submitted an assignment?
- How do I return grades and papers to students when I collected physical copies of the assignment?
TurnitIn – Mark-up grading and Plagiarism detection
- Introduction to TurnitIn’s Quickmarks – includes video
- How do I enable TurnitIn on an assignment?
- An Overview of TurnitIn Feedback Studio
- How do I use the similarity report tools in TurnitIn?
- How do I provide feedback using TurnitIn?
- How do I manually enter grades using TurnitIn?
- How do I use a rubric in the TurnitIn Feedback Studio?
Video Assignments/Bongo
- Getting Started with Bongo/Video Assignments
- How do I create a video assignment?
- How do I view student submissions?
- How do I leave feedback on the submissions?
- How do I view peer feedback on the submissions?
- How do I grade video assignment submissions?
Quizzes, Surveys, and self-assessments
Introduction to Assessments in Brightspace
Surveys
New Brightspace Quiz Experience – introduced in Fall 2022
- VIDEO GUIDE: Introduction to the New Brightspace Quiz Interface
Creating a Quiz
- What are the steps to create a quiz? (A 9 step quiz walkthrough)
- How do I create and add questions to a quiz?
- How do I link my quiz to the gradebook?
- How do I establish restrictions such as: Dates, Time limits, Password, and Respondus Lockdown Browser?
- How do I provide special access for select students to a single quiz?
- How do I provide time accommodations for a student on all quizzes?
- How do I determine what the student sees upon completion of the quiz (Quiz Results Displays)?
- How do I use the Question Library?
- How do I place an image in a quiz question?
- Can I integrate quiz questions into a video? (the answer is yes!)
- How can release a quiz to Sections or Groups at different times?
Grading a Quiz
Lockdown Browser is a tool to facilitate online test-taking in a more secure environment. The company that provides the tool offers webinars to train faculty in using the Lockdown Browser. You can find their schedule here
- How do I edit a quiz or question after students have already taken it?
- How do I view specific quiz questions after the quiz is submitted?
Respondus Lockdown Browser
- Video: What is Respondus Lockdown Browser?
- How do I implement Respondus Lockdown Browser for a quiz?
*These guides use the older version of the Quizzes tool and will soon be updated. To learn about how to switch between the old and new editors, watch this short video.
Grades & Rubrics
- VIDEO GUIDE: Introduction to Grades
- Step 1: How do I set up my gradebook?
- Step 2: How do I create grade categories and items?
- Example of a Weighted Gradebook
- Example of a Points Gradebook
- Where do my students see their grades?
- How do I release final grades in Brightspace?
- How do I associate an assignment with a grade item?
- How do I exclude a grade category or item from the final grade calculation?
- How do I create a rubric?
- How do I enter all grades for a specific Grade Item?
- How do I import a custom grade scheme from another course?
- How do I Export my Gradebook into Excel?
- How do I award extra credit? Extra credit, bonus items, and exceeding 100%
- How do I drop the lowest grade from a Grade Category?
Groups & Discussions
Discussions
- Getting started with the Discussion tool
- How do I create a discussion Topic? – updated May 2023
- How can I create private discussions for student journaling and one-on-one communication?
- How do I create group discussion topics?
Groups
Chat – (archived tool)
USING MEDIA IN BRIGHTSPACE: KALTURA AND YOUTUBE
An Introduction to Media on Brightspace – the Kaltura app
Is there a guide you’d like to see, but it isn’t here? Let us know! We are always looking for ways to improve our documentation.
- What is Kaltura? – read first!
- How do I access Kaltura? What if I’m getting an error?
- Kaltura Quick Start Guide – a printable guide to Kaltura and Kaltura Capture
Uploading video files to Kaltura
- How do I upload videos to Brightspace? (How to use Kaltura)
- How do I upload a video in My Media?
- How do I use the Media Gallery in my course?
- How do I add a Kaltura video to a Content module?
- How do I control access to videos I’ve uploaded?
- Help! My Kaltura Capture video has been uploading for a long time!
Record, edit, and caption videos
- How do I record a video with Kaltura Capture?
- How can I turn my lecture slides into a Kaltura Capture video?
- How do I make edits to an existing Kaltura video?
- How do I add and edit captions in a Kaltura video?
Kaltura Video Quizzes
- How can I create a video quiz using a video in My Media?
- How can I grade student responses to a Kaltura Video Quiz?
Sharing Kaltura Videos
- How can I share my Kaltura video with a specific person or with an entire class?
- How can I download Kaltura videos?
Using YouTube videos in your course
Embed videos that you have stored in Vanderbilt Box
- VIDEO GUIDE: Upload a video to box, and embed it in Brightspace
- How can I add a video or other file from Vanderbilt Box into Content?
Video Conferencing: Zoom and Virtual Classrooms
VIDEO GUIDE: How to create a whiteboard demo video using Zoom and a tablet – a tutorial video by Owen faculty member Jesse Blocher
- Everything you need to know about Zoom – Vanderbilt Hustler article, March 2020
- Zoom Best Practices – VUIT resource
- Should I record my live class meeting?
- How can I record and share my class meetings with my students?
- How can I record and share my class meetings with future students or people outside of the course?
- How can I prevent students from sharing videos outside of class?
Creating a Zoom Meeting in your course for live remote class meetings
- How do I create a Zoom Meeting for my course? Should I create it in Brightspace?
- How do I activate the Zoom tool in my course?
- Zoom Quick Start Guide
- An Overview of Zoom Meetings
- How do I host a Zoom Meeting?
- How do I create Breakout Rooms in Zoom?
- How do I create Zoom Polls?
- How can I record my Zoom Meeting?
- How do I change my Zoom background?
- How to I prevent and respond to Zoombombings?
- How do I enable Live Transcriptions for my Zoom meeting?
Creating a Virtual Classroom in your course for live remote class meetings
- How do I activate the Virtual Classroom tool in my course?
- How do I create a Virtual Classroom session?
- How do I host a Virtual Classroom session?
- Hosting a Virtual Classroom – Quick Start Guide
- How do I access my recorded Virtual Classroom sessions?
Pulse Mobile App
Archived Video Workshops