FAQ

See Teaching and Learning Services webpage on Supported Educational Technology for a complete list of all the supported tools at Carleton.

Carleton University selected Brightspace by Desire2Learn as its new Learning Management System (LMS) following a comprehensive review of LMS platforms and extensive consultations and evaluations with the teaching and learning community.

The comprehensive review included campus-wide 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 of all avaialble information.

D2L’s Brightspace was selected as the winning LMS. Carleton implemented Brightspace in May 2021.

Read about the advantages of Brightspace here.

cuLearn will remain available to instructors for reference 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 cuLearn course content at any time and can keep back up files on to their own systems. Procedures to complete a backup are provided here: https://carleton.ca/brightspace/instructors/accessing-archived-culearn-content/#backupcourse1.

Support for Brightspace at Carleton is provided by D2L and Teaching and Learning Services.

All Brightspace users can access technical support within Brightspace through the Brightspace Service Desk, where they will find documentation, training videos, live chat support, and more.

Instructors, TAs, staff, and administrators can also complete a Brightspace consultation request form to schedule a one-on-one consultation with Teaching and Learning Services, or visit the TLS Support Portal to submit a technical support request or question.

For more information on Brightspace support, visit Get help with Brightspace.

Brightspace development courses (i.e., sandboxes) will be automatically created for all instructors at Carleton. Access to Brightspace and user sandboxes began 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. 

Teaching and Learning Services offers a range of training opportunities for Brightspace, including

• Events and workshops
• Recordings of video tutorials and training sessions
• Brightspace Basics Online (self-paced course)
• One-on-one course consultations (by request)

TLS Events and Workshops

Teaching and Learning Services hosts regular virtual workshops and events for instructors, TAs, administrators, and staff to learn about Brightspace and Carleton’s other educational technology tools. Visit the TLS Events page to register for upcoming offerings.

Recordings of Video Tutorials and Training Sessions

Virtual workshops and events are usually recorded and uploaded to Mediaspace to provide asynchronous access. Short video tutorials are also posted to allow for quick learning opportunities on key topics. Visit the following TLS Mediaspace channels to see the available recordings. Recordings are added regularly, so check back occasionally.

• TLS Brightspace for Instructors
• TLS Brightspace for Students
• TLS Teaching and Learning Services

Brightspace Training and Sample Courses

TLS staff have created training courses and sample courses for new users to explore in Brightspace. Check out these offerings to see what Brightspace has to offer:

• Brightspace Tools Course (carleton.ca) — a self-enrollment course from Carleton that provides an overview of the tools inside Brightspace

One-on-One Course Consultations

TLS staff are here to support your Brightspace course needs.Go to the TLS Support Portal to submit a question for the team. We’re here to help you learn Brightspace and to answer questions if you get stuck!

Brightspace Support is available via phone/email/chat, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Information about Brightspace Support is available in the support widget in each Brightspace course. Go to your course, click on Help in the navigation bar and select an item from the menu. Alternatively, you can go directly to the the TA Support site. 

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.

Students have a number of avenues for assistance and training with Brightspace.

Technical support for Brightspace is available from the D2L Brightspace Service Desk  via phone/email/chat, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. The D2L Brightspace Service Desk can be accessed directly within a Brightspace course by clicking Help in the navbar > Brightspace Service Desk.

Any Brightspace user can access phone support via the following numbers:

• North America      1-877-325-7778

• Europe                  0-808-234-5323

• Ireland                  1-800-903-294

• TTY Line               226-240-1436

Brightspace users can also complete a Support request form to submit a question/issue.

Extensive information and instructions for most course activities are available on the TLS Brightspace Student Support Site. Visit  the TLS Brightspace Mediaspace channel for short overviews and training videos on common course activities.

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 of choice for University of Ottawa, Algonquin College and La Cité.

Brightspace provides several key advantages to Carleton’s community of educators and learners, including:

• An accessible learning environment with accessibility tools and features
• 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 2023. The delayed transfer will allow Carleton to complete existing contracts with external clients and concentrate on the migration of cuLearn during the 2021-22 calendar years.

All academic courses will be created by ITS, based on the Banner information system. 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.