Brightspace Transition Updates

Desire2Learn’s Brightspace is a learning management system. Brightspace will replace Blackboard as our campus learning management system in 2023.

Desire2Learn (D2L) is the name of the company. Brightspace is the name of the Learning Management System.

Brightspace is the Learning Management System (LMS), which is the foundation of a larger unified DLE that SUNY is seeking to build. A coordinated integration of an LMS, related tools, and architecture comprise a DLE.  

Join the Brightspace Community to get support, answers, tips, and proven ideas from thousands of Brightspace users. This community is not affiliated with UAlbany and requires you to create a separate login.

Most of the features that are commonly used in Blackboard will be available in Brightspace, including the following:

• Announcements
• Assignments
• Content – files, pages, links
• Discussions
• Folders/Modules
• Grades
• Group management
• Quizzes/Tests

This list of Brightspace Core Features includes additional details. Please note that blogs will not be available in our instance of Brightspace. 

Yes, additional tools will be integrated into the Brightspace platform, but some may not be available right away. More detailed information will be forthcoming about the timeline for adding these tools to the system.

Courses that were offered from Summer 2021 to Fall 2022 will be copied into development courses in the Brightspace system and made available to faculty in late Spring 2023. Courses taught in Spring 2023 will be copied into development courses in the Brightspace system and made available to faculty in Summer 2023.

There is no communities feature in Brightspace, but there are several alternative solutions that organizations can use for communication and collaboration purposes.

The Brightspace Implementation Team is working closely with several student-facing units on campus to develop a wide-ranging strategy for getting the word out to students about Brightspace. A Resources for Students page will be made available soon.

With the SUNY-wide migration to Brightspace, the University Libraries will shift from the current electronic reserves service to a digitization service for course materials, effective Summer 2023.

Electronic course reserves content will be available for faculty to download from the Libraries and then upload to their corresponding Brightspace courses. Electronic reserves content will be available for download in early-April. An email message will go out to all electronic reserves users at that time with instructions for migrating content to Brightspace.

Library staff will continue to offer digitization services to support teaching and learning. Faculty can request PDF copies of book chapters and journal articles using our online request forms in ILLiad or the Libraries’ search tool. Requested materials will be scanned and delivered electronically, so faculty members can upload these materials directly to Brightspace. Librarians and staff  are also able to provide assistance with direct links to electronic books and journal articles–please contact eres@albany.edu or your subject librarian for assistance.

A small number of pilot courses will be hosted in Brightspace in Spring 2023. All courses will be offered in Brightspace starting in Summer 2023.

Blackboard will no longer be available to users after the end of Spring semester 2023. ITS plans to decommission Blackboard in Fall 2023.

Faculty users will have access to sandbox courses in Brightspace in February 2023.

Students will have access to courses in Brightspace at least two weeks before their first Brightspace course begins.

A series of communications will be sent from the brightspace@albany.edu mailbox during the Fall 2022 and Spring 2023 semesters.

There are many training resources for faculty.

1. Brightspace offers a series of live and recorded Guided Training Webinars.
2. The UAlbany Brightspace Functional Review Team is offering a series of Training Webinars throughout 2023.
3. Brightspace offers a series of short video tutorials for specific instructor tasks.
4. A set of resources will be made available in Brightspace. Instructors will receive more information about these resources when they have access to the system.
5. SUNY has a series of recorded training webinars on the DLE website. To access these webinars, log in with your university credentials and select Trainings > Recordings from the top.

Educational Technology Resources in ITS provides support for teaching effectively with technology.

All users will have access to 24/7 support directly from the experts at D2L. Users can ask questions in live chat, by email, or by phone.