For several years now, each fall I've taught two sections of XCOR 1000, and every fall I've done the same tidy thing: merged the two sections in Brightspace. If you've never done it, merging combines two course sections into a single course so you only have one set of content to maintain. For two identical classes, it's a small act of self-preservation — one gradebook, one set of modules, one place to post an announcement.
I still recommend it. But last fall I learned that merging comes with a catch now that the College of Arts & Sciences has begn requiring the use of Simple Syllabus.
In the 1986 film Highlander, the Quickening is a powerful mystical energy surge that happens when one Immortal beheads another. The victor absorbs the life force, knowledge, and power of the defeated.
Here's the thing about how we merge sections on our campus. Brightspace doesn't blend two classes into some neutral third space. It picks a winner. Every student from one section gets poured into the other — the "primary" — and the primary's identity takes over. My sections were 9 and 16. Brightspace moved everyone from 16 into 9. Section 9 lived. Section 16, for all practical purposes, lost.
Which is where the Highlander problem starts. There can be only one.
Simple Syllabus links a specific syllabus to a specific section based on the CRN (Course Record Number), so students get exactly the version built for their class, and as a result, the instructor can see who has opened it and how far they have read. In a course where "did you read the syllabus?" is a real question and not a rhetorical one, that's data I actually want.
But after the merge, there could be only one syllabus, and it belonged to section 9. So my section 16 students opened their syllabus and found someone else's schedule waiting for them: Monday at 11 instead of Monday at 1. Same course, same content, wrong meeting time.
The second cut was quieter. My section 16 students were never recorded as reading section 16's syllabus, because section 16's syllabus was no longer theirs to read. They read the syllabus for section 9, and my Simple Syllabus dashboard told me that a big chunk of the class had skipped the assignment.
None of this makes merging a bad idea. The efficiency is real, and I'm not giving it up. But you need to plan for this conflict between Brightspace and Simple Syllabus, and you need to give up that built in tracking that Simple Syllabus offers.
Merge away. Just know going in that when two sections become one, there can be only one syllabus.
I usually get a lot of questions from faculty related to setting up their Brightspace courses. In the spirit of starting the academic year with less stress, I offer the following infographic with course design suggestions to reduce your course setup and management stress:
Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.
Faculty can request to have two or more of their courses combined into a single course. Combining courses can be useful when you are teaching multiple sections of the same course or when you are teaching a course that is cross-listed. Merging courses allows you to have all the students in a single Brightspace course which can be useful for collaborative work. Merging courses reduces the number of courses an instructor has to manage within Brightspace, especially when each section has identical content.
Once your courses are merged, you can upload your course content and assignments into the merged course; communicate with the students in the merged course; setup collaborative course work; and have one Grade Book for the merged course. You can create groups within your merged course that correspond to the original course sections. This way you can target a particular course section (group) of students for specific things (e.g. send email to a specific group, make content available to specific group, enter/view Grade Book entries for a specific group, etc.)
NOTE: Merging of courses is typically done at the start of the semester before content is added and before students submit course work. You should wait to request your courses be merged if there is a possibility that there will be last minute changes to instructor course section assignments. You can request a Master Course Shell to build your course and then transfer the content into your merged course.
You should carefully consider whether merging courses is right for you. Some things to consider are:
There are Simple Syllabus considerations for merged courses:
If there is one instructor for the merged courses, no additional action is necessary.
If there are multiple instructors for the merged courses, the Brightspace Administrator will have to add all the instructors to the merged course. Doing so will give them edit access to the Simple Syllabus for the merged course.
Dr. Jason S. Todd provides additional Simple Syllabus considerations in his There Can Be Only One blog post.
Course enrollments for the merged courses will be combined which can make grading student work a challenge. If you create groups for the different sections, you will be able to view your Grade Book by groups to make grading easier.
Only one due date and start/end date can be assigned to an assignment, discussion, quiz, etc. Therefore you will not be able to assign different due dates and start/end dates to the activity (e.g., assignment, quiz, discussion, etc.).
If you decide you want to unmerge courses after students have submitted course work, student work and grades will be lost. Only student enrollments are retained when courses are unmerged.
Follow these steps to do it.
A system administrator will have to merge your courses. Send an email to Karen Nichols (knichola@xula.edu) if you want to merge courses. You should include the course ID (including CRN) for all the courses you want merged together.
NOTE: When courses are merged, one of the existing courses will serve as the "merged" course. If all the course sections are empty, it won't matter which one is used as the "merged" course. If you have already created content in a course, you should request that the course with the content be the "merged" course. This will reduce the need to copy content.
Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.
Image credit: "why merge" by jflorent is dedicated to the public domain under CC0 and is a derivative of merging by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay
Our Information Technology Center (ITC) has created the fall courses in Brightspace.
NOTE: You should see your fall courses in the My Courses widget. If you do not see your fall courses in your My Courses widget, you should click on the link to "View All Courses" (located at the bottom of the My Courses widget). Verify that you are listed as the instructor for the course in Banner. You can find more information about the updated My Courses Widget sort logic at this link.
As you prepare to teach this fall, you can get started setting up your Brightspace courses. To get started, you can post your syllabus, course documents, announcements, and setup your Grade Book in your Brightspace courses. You can also customize your course homepage and/or course image/banner.
If you teach a course that is cross listed you will have a Brightspace course for each cross listing. You can combine the cross listed courses into one Brightspace course so that you can post course materials and grades to one combined Brightspace course. Combining courses may also work for you if you are teaching different sections of the same course and would like to have the different sections combined into one Brightspace course so that you can post course documents and grades in the one combined course. The beginning of the semester is the best time to submit a request to merge your Brightspace courses before you add course materials or grades to the courses.
Additionally, if the fall course you are teaching is the same as one of your previous courses you can copy the entire course (or copy components) into your "empty" Brightspace fall course.
NOTE: ITC will enroll students in Brightspace courses after the first deregistration (dereg) of students who are not fiscally cleared. The dereg process usually occurs Friday after registration. The registrar informs ITC of when the dereg process is complete. While students are not initially enrolled in in Brightspace courses, instructors can still email students. This can be done by sending email to students in Banner or email the students through EAB.
Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.
D2L (the company that owns Brightspace) uses Continuous Delivery to update our Brightspace system. The Continuous Delivery model gives us regular monthly updates allowing for incremental and easily integrated changes with no downtime required for our Brightspace system.
Our Continuous Delivery update occurs on the 4th Thursday of each month. D2L provides release notes to help users stay up-to-date with the changes.
Here are some of the updates in the July 2026/20.26.07 release were added to our system:
1) Assignments – Publisher selection dropdown locks after learners begin an activity
After learner submissions begin, instructors can no longer change the Publishers setting on the assignment creation page. Locking the Publishers setting after submissions begin ensures that publishing rules remain clear and predictable during evaluation and publishing workflows. Changing publisher rules after activity is underway can affect who can publish evaluations and may result in conflicts that require additional intervention. This update provides a smoother, more reliable evaluation and publishing experience.
The "Select Evaluators" window.
The Publishers options in the Evaluation & Feedback settings.
Important: To change the publisher selection after the dropdown locks, instructors must recreate the assignment and ask learners to resubmit. To avoid this scenario, review publisher selections during course setup and before the assignment is available to learners. For assignments that use Advanced Assessment, confirm which publishers can publish evaluator evaluations before submissions or evaluations begin.
Instructors can use start dates or hide assignments until the required configuration is complete. After submissions or evaluations begin, instructors can still add, update, enroll, or unenroll publishers. Only the publisher selection dropdown is locked.
Previously, instructors could change the Publishers configuration after receiving submissions.
2) Discussions – Anonymous Discussion posts are visible when assessing learners and viewing statistics
With this update, instructors with the See Anonymous Post Author permission can view anonymous posts when assessing individual learners in Discussions. Anonymous posts display an Anonymous post label to indicate that the learner posted anonymously.
Previously, instructors with the See Anonymous Post Author permission could reveal a learner's name on an anonymous discussion post, but they could not see anonymous posts when assessing learners or view discussion statistics that included anonymous posts.
Instructor view of an anonymous discussion post, showing that the learner’s name is visible to the instructor but hidden from other learners.
Instructors without the See Anonymous Post Author permission continue to be unable to assess anonymous posts.
Discussion statistics now include anonymous post counts for roles with permission to see anonymous post author information. Statistics include counts only for anonymous posts created after this feature is introduced.
3) Groups – Increased limit for groups per category (200 to 1000)
Categories that allow instructors to specify the number of groups now support up to 1,000 groups. Single-user, member-specific enrollment type groups also support up to 1,000 groups per category.
This update makes it easier to create larger group sets in high-enrollment courses.
The 1000-group limit applies to all group creation methods and cannot be exceeded. This includes creating groups on the Manage Groups page, creating groups using the API, and automatically creating groups when enrollment capacity increases.
Previously, instructors could create up to 200 groups per category.
This feature implements the following PIE items:
D888 (Ability to create more than 200 groups in one Group Category)
Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.
As you move forward with using Brightspace in your teaching and learning, you may have some Brightspace questions. Here is a list of Brightspace help resources you can use to get answers to your questions:
Also, did you know there is a virtual assistant that is integrated directly into Brightspace? If this is news to you, refer to Brightspace Tip #589: Lumi Chat to find out more about it.
Additionally, if you are having difficulties using any of the course tools, you can get help from D2L. This help is available 24/7 via Email and Live Chat. You will find options to request Email Support and Live Chat Support in Lumi Chat. You must be logged into Brightspace to access Lumi Chat.
Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.
Image credit: Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay
Lumi Chat is an AI-based help tool that is integrated directly into Brightspace. Lumi Chat appears as a pop-up from the speech bubble button in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen.
Click the Lumi Chat icon to ask a question
After typing in a question, Lumi Chat uses generative AI responses to provide answers. Generated answers take the user query, identify the user's intent, and create a freeform text answer with information from D2L's knowledge bases while also linking to related documentation resources where applicable. By accessing support documentation, you can find workflows, articles, and videos that help you to complete your task.
Lumi Chat dialog box
All users have the option for further assistance. Lumi Chat contains an option to contact Support for further assistance by submitting a ticket or chatting with a live agent.
After closing Lumi Chat, you are prompted with a CSAT (Customer Satisfaction) Survey to gather your feedback. The survey is prompted automatically when you close the chat window and is accessible any time through the star icon in the chat. Participation in the survey is optional.
Lumi Chat is available in all four EUS-supported languages: English (CA), French (CA), Spanish, and Brazilian Portuguese. The user’s chosen Language and Locale settings in their profile determine the language of the Lumi Chat output messages, the language of the support articles provided, and the language of the support received by email, or chat.
Note: If a user’s chosen Language and Locale setting is not supported, the default language is English.
Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.
D2L (the company that owns Brightspace) uses Continuous Delivery to update our Brightspace system. The Continuous Delivery model gives us regular monthly updates allowing for incremental and easily integrated changes with no downtime required for our Brightspace system.
Our Continuous Delivery update occurs on the 4th Thursday of each month. D2L provides release notes to help users stay up-to-date with the changes.
This update from the June 2026/20.26.06 release was added to our system:
1) Brightspace – Rubric Icon in Assignments, Discussions, and Quizzes
Instructors can now identify which Assignments, Discussions, and Quizzes include attached rubrics directly from list pages, helping instructors and administrators quickly audit assessments, confirm rubric setup, and reduce configuration errors.
When a rubric is attached to an activity, a rubric icon appears beside the item in the Assignments, Discussions, and Quizzes list pages. Written response questions in the Quiz Creation page also display a rubric indicator when a rubric is attached. Activities that include both rubrics and learning outcomes continue to display the rubric icon.
Rubric icon displayed beside assignment in Assignments list.
The rubric icon is informational only and does not link to the rubric, consistent with other informational icons such as release conditions and anonymous marking.
This feature implements the following PIE item:
D5453 (Rubric Used on Assignment or Discussion Indicator Symbol)
Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.
We opened this year's planning retreat the way I'd been turning it over in my head for weeks beforehand: not with the calendar, not with the budget, but with a question. Before we reviewed a single program or sketched out a single offering for next year, I asked everyone around the table to share one specific moment from the past year when they felt our mission was most present in their own corner of the work.
I'll admit I wasn't sure what I'd get. It's the kind of prompt that can produce a polite generality — I think we really lived the mission this year — and leave it there. But that isn't what happened. What came back were stories. Particular ones. A moment with a particular person, on a particular afternoon, that someone had clearly been carrying around for a while without quite having had the occasion to say it out loud.
I've been doing this work long enough that I didn't expect to be surprised by what I heard. And in a sense I wasn't. The three things I took away from that hour aren't new. I could have written them on a notecard two years ago. What was different was how clearly they came into focus when they arrived attached to real moments instead of stated as principles. So I want to set them down here, less as discoveries than as reminders.
The first is that we are a safe space. Our values statement has said as much since 2015: we commit to "a nonjudgmental, safe, collaborative, and supportive environment for faculty to think, experiment, work, and thrive." But hearing it in the stories reminded me how much of that safety is unglamorous. Sometimes the safety we offer is the safety to try a new assignment and have it flop. Sometimes it's the safety to admit you don't understand the new gradebook. And sometimes it's just the safety to close the door and vent for fifteen minutes before going back out to do the work. None of that shows up in an annual report. All of it matters.
The second is that this work is reciprocal. It's easy, in a center like ours, to slip into the posture of the people who know things helping the people who need to know them. The stories cut against that. We are not a one-way valve. The faculty member working through a teaching challenge with one of us is, at the same time, teaching us how teaching actually goes in their classroom. I find that worth holding onto, because it changes the spirit of the encounter. We're not dispensing. We're in it together.
The third is the one that points outward, and the one I keep coming back to. We can do more — and I think we should do more — to support educators across our region. Our mission is bound up in Xavier's larger commitment to a more just and humane society, and that commitment doesn't observe our building's walls. There are faculty at schools near us doing this work with far less support than we're fortunate to have, and the dissemination of what we learn is already written into our values. I don't have a fully formed plan yet. But I left the retreat convinced that the next chapter of our work is at least partly about the people we haven't met.
None of this required a retreat to know. But it did, apparently, require a room full of people willing to say here is the moment it felt real to me. I'm grateful they did. As we prepare for the coming year, I want to keep those three things close, not as a poster on the wall, but as a set of questions we keep asking ourselves: Are we still safe? Are we still learning? And are we reaching far enough?
Brightspace includes an email messaging tool that allows instructors to compose and send messages to individual students, groups, and to the entire Classlist. Brightspace does not receive email.
Within Brightspace, you can email students in your classes from the Classlist or by using the Email Tool. The primary difference is that the Email tool is a general composition interface, while emailing from the Classlist is a course-specific filtering tool. Clicking "Email" anywhere in Brightspace launches the Email tool. Sending email from the Classlist provides faster class roster population and has student privacy features.
Email Settings
You can update your Email Settings to automatically get a backup of your sent mail delivered to your personal email. From the Email Options you can:
Automatically send a copy of all outgoing email messages to yourself
Add an email signature to all email messages
The Account Settings option.
Email Options on the Email Settings page.
NOTE: Our University Communications Department has an email signature template you can use to create an email signature that has the University seal.
Sent Mail
Email you send within Brightspace goes to your Sent Mail folder. To view email you sent in Brightspace, simply click the Message Alerts (envelope) icon in the minibar, select Email, and click the Sent Mail button located above or to the right of the compose new message area.
The Email option of the Message Alerts icon.
The Compose New Message page of the Email tool, with the Sent Mail button highlighted.
NOTE: The Sent Mail folder allows you to confirm email was sent. Additionally, you can update your email settings and have Brightspace automatically send a copy of all outgoing email messages to you.
Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.
