Brightspace Frequently Asked Questions
Check out our newly updated Brightspace FAQs! This list runs through the most common questions the Brightspace Support Team gets throughout the year. If you have any questions not listed here, be sure to contact our Support team for assistance.
Support Schedule
The Vanderbilt University Brightspace Instructional Technologists are available for support between 8 AM and 4 PM Monday through Friday. Any emails received after 4 PM will be addressed when our team returns to normal support at 8 AM the following business day. While we’re out, we encourage you to utilize our On-Demand Resources to answer any questions that arise.
As part of the new Creator+ package that is now available in Brightspace, you can now add a variety Elements and Practices to encourage active learning and effectively structure your content. Elements allow you to organize and group content (e.g. accordions), while Practices allow you to create activities for students (e.g. fill in the blanks). This guide describes how to add these Elements and Practices, and it also includes an overview of the types of Elements and Practices available to you in Creator+.
Note: This guide is for the classic/default content view, but if your course uses the New Content Experience (formerly called Lessons View), you can view our guide for that content experience here.
Inserting Elements and Practices
This guide uses Accordions as an example for how to insert an Element, but the steps you will follow are the same for all Elements and Practices. To insert a new Element or Practice into a Content page in your course, follow the instructions below:
1. Go to your course
2. Click Content
3. Click on a module or create a new content module
4. In your content module, click Upload/Create, then click Create a File
5. Once you are on the Create a File page, enter a title for your file/page
6. Click on the 
icon for the Creator+ Authoring Tools menu.
7. Click either Insert Element or Insert Practice.
8. Select the Element or Practice you want to add to your page/course.
9. Complete all the needed information for the Element you selected.
10. Click Preview
11. Once everything looks correct, click Insert
12. Click Save and Close to save changes and return to your page
Types of Elements and Practices
In addition to the Accordion Element, there are several forms of Elements and Practices you can incorporate into your Brightspace environment using Creator+. This section provides an overview of each type of Element and Practice you can use.
Types of Elements
Elements are features used to organize and present information within your Brightspace environment. Examples of elements include:
Tabs
Click and Reveal
Callout
Timeline
Stylized Quote
Flip Cards
Carousel
Hotspot
Types of Practices
While Elements are primarily used to organize and format content, Practices are used to create ungraded, formative assessments. Examples of available practices include:
Dropdown Fill in the Blanks
Fill in the Blanks
Multi-Select
Multiple Choice
Sequencing
Sorting
True or False
