Teaching, Learning, and Technology Center

Brightspace by D2L is Purchase College’s learning management system (LMS).

Beginning with the Fall 2023 semester, we will be using Brightspace to support all courses. No new courses will be created in Moodle. 

Login to Brightspace using your Purchase College credentials at https://brightspace.purchase.edu.

If you need to activate your account or reset your password, you can do so at the Purchase College Online Account Activation/Password Reset site.

Make sure you have the Duo Multi-Factor Authentication app downloaded to your device and that you have followed the Enrollment Steps.

If you cannot login to Brightspace or need assistance with Duo, please create a work order with CTS.

If you have questions about using Brightspace, please contact the SUNY Online Help Desk for assistance.

Link to this FAQ: What is Brightspace and how do I login?

The SUNY Online Help Desk should be your first point of contact to get help with all aspects of the Brightspace learning management system (LMS). The SUNY Online Help Desk is staffed with experts who can assist with:

• creating course content (e.g. assignments, quizzes, discussions forums, attendance, etc.)
• answering questions pertaining to course delivery (e.g. navigating discussions, grading assignments, adjusting release settings, working with the grade book, etc.)
• help students navigate and work with the system
• and more!

You can contact the SUNY Online Help Desk during their extensive service hours, including evenings and weekends. Updated hours are posted to their website and available at the “SUNY Online Support Services” widget in Brightspace.

• Main Website for the SUNY Online Help Desk
  • at the LMS Support Request page, click on the “Request Service” button
• SUNY Online Help Desk phone number for Brightspace assistance: 1-844-673-6786

Please visit their website for more information and check out the SUNY Online Support and Resources site for additional support.

New Instructional Design Support Service Available!
All Purchase College faculty have access to SUNY Online Instructional Design Services Drop-In Support!
To request an appointment with a SUNY Instructional Designer, please contact the SUNY Online Help Desk  at 1 (844) 673-6786 or 1 (518) 320-1300 or create a support ticket and specify that you would like to schedule a consultation with an Instructional Designer.

Link to FAQ: How do I get help with D2L Brightspace?

You may notice that your Fall 2023 Brightspace course Grade Book looks strange and that many students are not seeing their grades reflected properly. This is because of previous Grade Book default settings.

Brightspace Grade Book Defaults for Fall 2023

Faculty / Instructors

If you notice inconsistencies between your class lists / registration in MyHeliotrope and your enrollments in Brightspace, you will need to create a ticket using the CTS Helpdesk Work Order Tracking System (WOT) to request that data be synced between the two systems. Be sure to include the course’s CRN and Title in the Work Order details.

If your courses do not show up in Course Search, or you do not show up as the instructor on those courses, please contact the Office of the Registrar to resolve the discrepancy. Once you are officially tagged as the instructor on your courses in Banner/MyHeliotrope, you will see your courses reflected in Moodle shortly thereafter.

All Brightspace course creation, faculty assignments, and student enrollments come from Banner/MyHeliotrope and are funneled directly into the LMS. Matriculated students who are officially registered for courses will automatically be enrolled into those courses in Brightspace. TLTC staff and instructors no longer have the ability to manually add/remove officially registered students into/from Brightspace courses.

If CTS cannot resolve your account issue, please create a ticket with the SUNY Online Help Desk. 

If you are an instructor and have requested a data sync from CTS and notice that your course(s) still do not appear in Brightspace, please contact the Registrar to confirm that your course is set up to generate a Brightspace shell.

Students

Brightspace course spaces automatically become available to students four (4) days prior to the course’s official start date. Your instructors may choose to make them available before this time frame or close them at any time. If needed, login to MyHeliotrope to confirm that your intended registration is accurate.

If you notice inconsistencies between your registration in MyHeliotrope and your enrollments in Brightspace, you will need to create a ticket using the CTS Helpdesk Work Order Tracking System (WOT) to request that data be synced between the two systems. Be sure to include the course’s CRN, Title, and Instructor in the Work Order details.

If CTS cannot resolve your account issue, please create a ticket with the SUNY Online Help Desk.

If the semester has officially already begun and you do not see your course(s) listed within the current semester category, first, check with your instructor. The course may not yet be visible to students. The visibility of Moodle course spaces is up to your instructors. If you’ve contacted your instructor but still don’t see what you expect to see in Brightspace, you must request that CTS sync your registration data with Brightspace. Please note that the TLTC cannot remedy enrollment issues.

My Brightspace courses have disappeared. What should I do?

If you notice that all of your Brightspace course enrollments disappear suddenly, you must contact the Office of the Registrar to determine what is causing the issue with your registration. Once the issue is resolved with the Registrar, your Brightspace courses will reappear shortly thereafter, as will any work you have already submitted in the course. Please note that the TLTC cannot remedy these issues.

Link to this FAQ: My class lists on MyHeliotrope and Brightspace don’t match. What should I do?

The College will be transitioning from our current LMS, Moodle, to D2L Brightspace over the course of the 2022-2023 academic year.

We will go live with all courses on D2L Brightspace for the Fall 2023 semester.

Our current Moodle instance will remain available as an archives server while faculty transition to and become acquainted with Brightspace.  Please consider creating backups of all of your existing Moodle courses. Directions can be found at the Creating a Moodle Course Backup page as well as at the official Moodle help documentation for creating a Course backup.

You can also download all of your course files using the “Download instructor files” link within the Course administration area of each of your Moodle course spaces.

Please visit the Moodle to Brightspace Migration and Moving Courses from Moodle to Brightspace pages for details including information about the SUNY Digital Learning Environment initiative.

Get started with the Brightspace LMS by checking out the SUNY DLE Brightspace Fundamentals Asynchronous Modules (login required).

If you need assistance with using Brightspace, please create a support ticket with the SUNY Online Help Desk.

Link to this FAQ: I’ve heard talk about a migration to D2L Brightspace. What do I need to do?

Moodle-to-Brightspace Course Import

If you are trying to move materials from Moodle to Brightspace, please see the Moving Courses from Moodle to Brightspace page.

Link to this FAQ: How do I import/copy materials from a previous Moodle course into a new Brightspace course?

The TLTC is typically open Monday-Friday, 9:00am-5:00pm. Due to staffing, we suggest you send your questions to us at TLTC@purchase.edu.

If you have questions about using Brightspace, please create a support ticket with the SUNY Online Help Desk.

Link to this FAQ: What are the TLTC’s Hours?

Brightspace courses are set to automatically become available four (4) days prior to the course’s official start date. There is no need to manually open your course to student view unless you would like it to be available to students earlier than four days before the start of the semester / Summer/Winter session. Please refer to the Academic Calendar for specific dates. For assistance with changing the availability of your courses, please contact the SUNY Online Help Desk.

Making a Brightspace Course Active or Inactive

• Hover over a course tile in the “My Course” widget and click on the three dots that appear and then click on “Course Offering Information”
• Under the “Active” option, check “Course is Active” to make the course visible to students or uncheck it to hide it from student view
• Click the “Save” button
• Please note that when a course is inactive, on the Purchase College Brightspace home page, the instructor will see an INACTIVE sticker on the course (the Inactive sticker has a slight delay; it will appear a few minutes after you have made a course inactive and will stay for a few minutes after you make a course active)

If needed, login to MyHeliotrope to confirm your enrollments/registration.

Link to this FAQ: How do I make my Brightspace course visible / available to my students?

Zoom

Campus Technology Services (CTS) is offering access to Zoom, a video web conferencing application where many individuals can join the same meeting and share audio and video. It also allows for screen sharing and presentation mode.

Migration of existing Zoom accounts to Single sign-on (SSO) has been completed by CTS. Going forward, when you access Zoom from a web browser, visit https://purchase.zoom.us.

From there you can Join or Host a meeting or Sign in to Zoom through the “Sign in” option using your Purchase College credentials.

Step-by-step directions are at the CTS website. Instructors can also schedule an in-depth Zoom Training Session with CTS Support Staff. Please contact CTS for more information.

Directions for making a Zoom recording available via the Brightspace can be found at How do I make a Zoom recording available to my students via the LMS?

If you have questions or need assistance with Zoom, please contact the CTS Helpdesk or create a Work Order.

Virtual Classroom in Brightspace

In Brightspace, all instructors have access to “PUR - Virtual Classroom,” which is our campus’ version of the Virtual Classroom tool by Bongo Learn. You can access Virtual Classroom from the course Navbar > Course Tools > PUR - Virtual Classroom.

Instructors can schedule course-specific Virtual Classroom meetings right within your Brightspace courses using the directions at the Bongo Help Center.

Please note that maximum possible number of users in a Virtual Classroom meeting is 50 and sessions are limited to 60 minutes.

Link to this FAQ: How do I hold a synchronous online meeting / live classroom session?

Make sure you’re logged in at your Purchase-authenticated Zoom account at https://purchase.zoom.us

Record your Zoom meeting locally to your computer or device (please do not record to Zoom Cloud) and upload the video file to your YouTube account. If you do not have a YouTube channel, see Create YouTube Channel for a tutorial.

Upload your Zoom recording MP4 file to YouTube Studio and choose to make the video either Public or Unlisted (Public if you want others to be able to view your video; Unlisted if you want the video to only be available to those who have access to the link).

If you have a video longer than 15 minutes, you will need to verify your YouTube account which just takes a few minutes and involves getting a code via text message that you then enter on your account page. See Upload Video Longer than 15 Minutes. 

Brightspace: you can embed your YouTube videos into your Brightspace course by:

• copying the YouTube video URL. You do not need the embed code.
• In the desired module, click on the “Upload/Create” menu > “Video or Audio”
• A pop-up window will open where you can paste the URL you’ve copied. The video title and a preview will automatically appear. Edit the title if needed. Click the Save button
• You will now see the YouTube player embedded in your content module

For assistance with Zoom, please contact Campus Technology Services (CTS).

Link to this FAQ: How do I make a Zoom recording available to my students via Brightspace?

You can create a course announcement a few different ways:

• From the Announcements widget, click on the “Create an announcement” link to begin composing a New Announcement.
• From the course Navbar, click on “Course Tools” > “Announcements” and click on the “New Announcement” button.

Please note that each student and instructor can manage their own Brightspace notification settings. To do this, click on your name in the upper right corner and click “Notifications.” By default, you will receive an email notification when a new Announcement is made or updated. Check the appropriate box to receive notifications for those actions. Remember to click on the “Save” button when you’re done. More about Notifications can be found at the “Change personal settings in Brightspace” official Brightspace Community documentation.

More information about how to create a welcome message using the Announcements widget can be found at Brightspace’s official help documentation.

Link to this FAQ: How do I send an email to the entire class using the Announcements feature forum in Brightspace?

To add a Learning Assistant, Non-Editing Instructor, or Course Librarian to your Brightspace course:

• from your course Navbar, click on Course Management > Roster
• click on the chevron next to the “Add Participants” button > select “Add existing users”
• under the “Add Existing Users” heading, search for your learning assistant / course librarian / non-editing instructor by last name and click on the magnifying glass icon to run the search
• scroll down to the search results and check the box associated with your learning assistant, course librarian, or non-editing instructor; to the right, choose “PUR - Learning Assistant (Non-Cascading)” as the role [or “PUR - Non-Editing Instructor (Non-Cascading”) or “PUR - Course Librarian (Non-Cascading”)]
• click on the “Enroll selected users” button to add the student at the Learning Assistant (or Course Librarian or Non-Editing Instructor) role to your Brightspace course

Learning Assistants can upload files, manage course calendar, set up student groups, send out course announcements, manage course attendance, add assignments, and create question banks and quizzes. LAs cannot grade assignments or view the gradebook.

Note that users in the Learning Assistant role can now:

• access “inactive” courses
• access past courses
• access future courses

If your learning assistant does not show up using these steps, please create a work order with the CTS Helpdesk or the SUNY Online Help Desk. Please note that the TLTC can not address Brightspace account issues.

If you want your Learning Assistant to have enhanced privileges in your course, please consider adding them to the space at the Instructor role.

Link to this FAQ: How do I add a learning assistant to my Brightspace course?

Students: though there are other reasons why you may have been suddenly dropped from your courses on Brightspace, one of the most common culprits is that your Mandatory Immunization Requirements may not be filed properly with the College. Please contact the Registrar and/or Health Services if you have any questions.

Please note that any activities you have completed or work submitted in your courses will be restored upon resolution of immunization records and re-enrollment in current Brightspace course spaces.

Link to this FAQ: Why have I suddenly been unenrolled/dropped from my courses on Brightspace?

Instructors no longer need to add the ThinkingStorm connection to individual courses. A link to ThinkingStorm is available to all students via the Purchase College Brightspace Navbar.

ThinkingStorm is an online/virtual tutoring platform utilized by many colleges. It provides 24/7 access to professional tutors online for many subject areas. 

Link to this FAQ: How do I add the ThinkingStorm Online Tutoring connection to my Brightspace Moodle course?

Please create a course merge request help ticket with the SUNY Online Help Desk.

Link to this FAQ: How do I tie together multiple sections of my courses on Brightspace to use one combined course?

Directions for creating a Moodle course backup and restoring the backup into another Moodle space / importing into Brightspace (or downloading and saving it to your computer) can be found at the the TLTC website.

Please see the Moving Courses from Moodle to Brightspace page for more information about moving your courses to the new LMS.

Yes, you can watch all recent TLTC workshop sessions at the TLTC’s YouTube channel!

Link to this FAQ: I missed a recent TLTC workshop that was offered via Zoom. Can I watch the recording?