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.
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.
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 May 2026/20.26.05 release that were added to our system this month:
1) Assignments – Improved Assignments Submissions layout with accessibility enhancements
D2L refined the Assignments Submissions page by improving the layout in both standard and wide views, reducing the need for horizontal scrolling, and creating a cleaner, more consistent experience. All recent accessibility improvements remain in place.
This change improves the visibility of key information, such as submission dates and learner names, making the page easier to review.
Previously, the page layout with a long file could make it difficult to view key information without scrolling, especially when additional columns, such as Turnitin Similarity Report, were enabled.
The assignment submission page after this update.
This feature implements the following PIE item:
D13434 (Remove unnecessary scrolling from the Assignment submission page where Turnitin is enabled)
This update improves the consistency and usability of the Import options in Browse Question Library.
Available import options vary depending on whether the quiz contains sections:
The main Import action remains a button for quizzes with no sections.
The Import to Section option is now a separate button for quizzes with sections.
This change makes actions more visible and easier to access. Previously, the Import option appeared as a split button with multiple actions in a dropdown.
Before state of the Browse Question Library Import dialog, where instructors select questions and use the Import to choose placement in the quiz (top, bottom, or a specific section) from the dropdown.New state of the Browse Question Library Import dialog for a quiz with no sections, displaying the import placement options.New state of the Browse Question Library Import dialog, where the Import to Section button allows placement into specific sections.
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.
Instructors can grant quiz accommodations to learners through the Classlist tool. Instructors can assign accommodations to specific learners that apply across ALL quizzes instead of applying them on a quiz-by-quiz basis. The accommodations option allows the instructor to give the learner more time to complete quizzes at the course level.
The Edit Accommodations option in the ClasslistThe Edit Accommodations dialog box
Once granted, the accommodations apply to all quiz activities in a course for that learner. The additional time can be applied in terms of quiz time multipliers (for example, 1.5 x quiz time) or +minutes (for example, an additional 30 minutes) on every quiz in a course.
Accommodations for Instructors:
An icon appears next to the learner’s name in the Classlist to indicate that the learner has an accommodation.
Instructors can filter the Classlist by Accommodations.
Instructors can also Print or Email a list of users with accommodations by adding the filter to those pages.
Accommodations for learners:
An icon appears next to learners’ own names in the Classlist to indicate they have an accommodation. To view accommodation details, learners can click My Accommodations from their learner context menu.
When commencing a quiz, the accommodation icon appears next to a learner’s quiz time to indicate that their accommodation has been applied. If a learner’s time accommodation has been overridden by a quiz-specific special access, this icon does not appear.
Classlist page highlighting the Learner has Accommodations iconLearners can see accommodations reflected in the time allowed when taking quiz
Quiz-specific special access can overwrite an accommodation for any user on a quiz-by-quiz basis. When you overwrite an accommodation and then click Save, a warning describing the impact of overwriting the accommodation appears. Accommodations set for learners in Classlist are displayed in the Special Access for the quiz.
An example of how Accommodations set for a learner in Classlist will show up in the Special Access for a quiz
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.
Did you know Special Access is an option available in the Quizzes tool that allows the instructor to grant learners special accommodations?
Special Access allows the instructor to assign specific learners a different set of quiz availability dates, late submission properties, and/or time limits. The instructor can change Start, End, and Due dates; the "Recommended Time Limit" and "Enforced Time Limit" timing settings; and the number of attempts allowed for a quiz to provide allowances for different needs of learners.
Add Special Access in the Quiz Creation Experience
Special Access options in Quizzes
Select Allow selected users special access to this quiz if you want to give certain students different submission options from the rest of the class.
Select Allow only users with special access to see this quiz if only certain students are allowed to see this quiz.
Click Add Users to Special Access to select students who will get the special access.
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.
Thursday, May 21st, is Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD). GAAD aims to get you talking, thinking, and learning about digital access/inclusion and people with different abilities and talents.
Accessibility is about everyone. It is extremely important for students with disabilities to have access to accessible course content.
Video Notes is a built-in media recording tool in Brightspace that allows instructors and learners to record short videos with a webcam. This makes it easy to personalize the learning experience with short, video-based feedback, comments, or instructions. Video Notes can be added where video attachments are supported and when the Brightspace Editor’s Insert Stuff option is available.
People who are deaf or hard of hearing rely on captions and subtitles to understand video content. But there are a lot of other great reasons for using captions. For example, you may have some learners who choose not to use the sound or they cannot use it without disturbing those around them. You may have some learners who are not native in your language or who have trouble understanding you. Closed captions and subtitles will allow these individuals to receive your message and understand it.
Did you know you can generate automatic closed captions for newly created Video Notes AND you have the ability to manually add or edit closed captions for all previously recorded Video Notes?
Always verify your automatic captions. Automatically generated text often lacks punctuation and struggles with technical jargon, resulting in a "wall of text" that is difficult to follow. Inaccurate captions don't just hinder accessibility; they create a confusing experience for all viewers. Before you share your video, do a quick pass to correct misspellings and add basic sentence structure—it makes a world of difference for viewer comprehension.
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.
Thursday, May 21st, is Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD). GAAD aims to get you talking, thinking, and learning about digital access/inclusion and people with different abilities and talents.
Accessibility is about everyone. It is extremely important for students with disabilities to have access to accessible course content. This includes having access to accessible email.
In a series of accessibility related blog posts, I provide suggestions on how you can make small changes to make your materials accessible. This is the eighth tip in my series of accessibility related blog posts and it focuses on email.
Accessible emails ensure that everyone, including people using assistive technologies like screen readers or visual aids, can read and interact with your messages. Many of the same accessibility principles for content creation also apply to email.
Key Accessibility Best Practices
To make sure your emails are fully inclusive, follow these design and formatting rules:
Formatting: Break content into short paragraphs and use built-in heading styles (Heading 1, Heading 2) to help users scan your email.
Font and Size: Use legible, sans-serif fonts (like Arial, Calibri, or Helvetica) at 12pt or larger. Avoid using italics or complex decorative fonts.
Use Color Mindfully: Ensure there is high contrast between your text color and background. Never rely solely on color to convey information.
Hyperlinks: Write descriptive link text (e.g., use "Read the Accessible Email Guide" instead of "Click Here").
Avoid Tables for Layout: Tables should be avoided when you want to simply format other content (i.e., just to line things up neatly.)
Alt Text for Images: Always add descriptive alternative text for any images so screen readers can describe the visuals. Avoid sending "image-only" attachments, as they are unreadable to assistive software.
Send Email Within Brightspace
Email sent within Brightspace is sent using the Email tool. Within the Brightspace Email tool, you will use the Brightspace Editor to compose the body of your email. The Brightspace Editor has a built-in accessibility checker that makes it easy to check for issues or offer suggestions to fix identified accessibility issues.
Email with the Brightspace Editor's Accessibility Checker icon highlighted.The Brightspace Editor's Accessibility Checker icon is highlighted in this Intelligent Agent's email message with a pop up window showing no accessibility issues detected.
You will remove significant barriers for users of assistive technology if you take these suggestions into consideration when creating email. An added bonus is that if you create your emails with accessibility in mind you will be ahead of the game in the event you do have a student who requires the use of assistive technology.
Thursday, May 21st, is Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD). GAAD aims to get you talking, thinking, and learning about digital access/inclusion and people with different abilities and talents.
Accessibility is about everyone. It is extremely important for students with disabilities to have access to accessible course content.
The Brightspace Editor has a built-in accessibility checker that makes it easy to check for issues or offer suggestions to fix identified accessibility issues.
Follow these steps to do it.
To check for accessibility issues:
After you add content to the Brightspace Editor, click the accessibility checker icon.
The checker indicates if the content is free of accessibility issues, or offers suggestions to fix them.
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.
