FAQ

Brightspace is a cloud-based, software platform for online teaching and learning. Brightspace is owned by D2L (formerly Desire2Learn) and is one of the four major players in the Learning Management System (LMS) higher ed market. Brightspace is Canadian owned and was developed in Waterloo, Ontario.

In the LMS market, Brightspace provides teaching and learning software systems for K-12, Higher Ed, and Corporate training customers. Brightspace has a broad community of users internationally; all users are on the same version.

You can connect with the International and National Brightspace Community to share ideas, information and challenges, or to view training videos, via Brightspace Community.

Most existing educational technology tools licensed at Carleton will be integrated into the new Learning Management System.

The following integrations are either set up already or are planned to be set up prior to the May 2021 launch.

• ARES library reserves
• H5P
• Poll Everywhere
• Office 365/Teams
• Mahara/cuPortfolio
• Kaltura
• Textbook Integrations (i.e. Wiley, Pearson, etc.)

Carleton University selected Brightspace by Desire2Learn as our new Learning Management System (LMS) following a comprehensive review of LMS platforms and extensive consultations and evaluations with our teaching and learning community. The comprehensive review included campus-wise listening sessions, a Learning Management System Review Survey, a formal Request for Proposal process, on-campus sandbox sessions with presentations by LMS vendors, and a robust evaluation process at the end.  Brightspace was selected as the winning LMS. Carleton will move to Brightspace in May 2021.

Read about the advantages of Brightspace here.

Yes, several years of course content from cuLearn is being migrated to Brightspace. Non-migrated cuLearn content will be available by request, and will need to be backed up and imported into the Brightspace course shell. Note that not all tools and activities in cuLearn can migrate to Brightspace. While much of your cuLearn course content will migrate to Brightspace, migrated content may require adjustments to the format and settings.

While cuLearn course content will be migrated, student data (such as discussion posts, assignment submissions, grades, etc.) will not be migrated. Instructors will be able to access student data from cuLearn for a period of time after the migration.

Teaching and Learning Services will be available for consultation and support throughout the transition to the new Learning Management System.

cuLearn will remain available for reference to instructors until the end of 2023. Thereafter, the records will be maintained in accordance with Carleton’s Retention policy for LMS records which states:

Undergraduate and graduate credit courses, and all data in these courses, will be retained in Carleton’s LMS for five years from the course’s enddate. At the end of the five-year period, expiring courses and all the material within the course will be permanently deleted. This five-year period is intended to provide instructors with significant flexibility and access to old course materials, assignments and grades. Deletion of expired LMS course site materials will take place during the Fall academic term. Deletion of these expired course sites is permanent and non-recoverable.

Instructors have the ability to download and copy their LMS course at any time and can back them up on to their own systems. Procedures to complete a backup are provided here: https://carleton.ca/brightspace/instructors/accessing-archived-culearn-content/#backupcourse1.

Campus-wide, technical support by phone, chat, and email will be provided by D2L Brightspace, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year beginning in Winter 2021.

Teaching and Learning Services will be offering extensive workshops on the new LMS and its various tools beginning in February 2021. In addition, TLS will be available for consultations, drop-ins and support sessions to assist with course migration and setup.

Brightspace development courses (i.e., sandboxes) will be automatically created for all instructors at Carleton. Access to Brightspace and user sandboxes begins on Feb. 16, 2021.

Users will be able to request an extra sandbox or non-academic Brightspace course by completing a request form: Non-Academic Course Creation Request Form. 

The Carleton Community will learn Brightspace through a range of training opportunities and options.

Teaching and Learning Services will be hosting a series of online workshops and events beginning in February 2021 to introduce  Brightspace to the Carleton community and to train instructors, TAs, students and staff. Sessions will be recorded and uploaded to Mediaspace to provide asynchronous access.

To view upcoming workshop and register for training, visit the TLS Events page.

In addition to Teaching and Learning Services’ online workshops, asynchronous courses, video tutorials, instructor-led demos, step-by-step instructions, and online consultations are also available to help you learn the new LMS. Visit the new Brightspace Support Site for more information.

D2L Brightspace provides Documentation, self-directed training, and live events with Brightspace experts that can be accessed via the Brightspace Community site under the Learning Centre tab. Visit the Brightspace YouTube channel for self-directed video tutorials on all aspects of course setup and LMS use.

Many resources are available to guide you through this process. Please contact tls@carleton.ca if you would like more information about our support offerings.

Brightspace Support is available via phone/email/chat, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year starting in January 2021. Information about Brightspace Support will be available in the support widget in each Brightspace course.

A Brightspace TA Support website is in development and will be available beginning in winter 2021.

Training workshops and resources will also be available to support TAs via Carleton Central and the TA Central Hub course in Brightspace. For more information regarding TA training, please contact Sam Shortt, Educational Development Coordinator, Teaching and Learning Services.

Brightspace Support is available via phone/email/chat, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year starting in January 2021.

Information about Brightspace Support will be available in a support widget in each Brightspace course.

A Brightspace Student Support website will also be available beginning in winter 2021.

Following a comprehensive learning management system review and extensive consultations and evaluations with our teaching and learning community, Carleton University has selected Brightspace by Desire2Learn as our new Learning Management System (LMS) to replace cuLearn in the spring 2021 term.

Desire2Learn is a Canadian company, headquartered in Waterloo, Ontario, and its Brightspace platform is widely adopted across the province and internationally. In Ottawa, Brightspace is the LMS for University of Ottawa, Algonquin College and La Cité.

The fully accessible and scalable Brightspace platform will provide several key advantages to Carleton’s community of educators and learners, including:

• Substantial improvements in performance, responsiveness and reliability
• A simpler interface and more intuitive gradebook
• 24/7 technical support for faculty, staff and students
• Data visualization tools that help instructors understand how students are interacting with, and performing in, courses
• Updates and new features that are predictably and regularly implemented without outages and without Carleton staff needing to debug and test the changes
• A more simplified and consistent experience for students in joint programs and instructors who collaborate in shared courses with post-secondary institutions in Ottawa

eCarleton is Carleton’s open learning platform that features online courses and resources accessible to anyone inside and outside of the Carleton community.

The eCarleton platform will be moved to Brightspace in stages during 2022. This will allow Carleton to complete existing contracts with external clients and concentrate on the migration of cuLearn during the 2021 calendar year.

All academic courses will be created by ITS, based on the information in the Banner information system. Summer 2021 courses will be available in Brightspace starting February 16. Sandbox access for instructors also begins Feb. 16, 2021. Instructors will find their Sandbox available when they log into Brightspace in their My Courses widget.

Non-academic courses, such as development sites or resource sites for instructors and staff at Carleton, can be requested by completing the Non-Academic Course Request Form on the Brightspace Support Site.