Scheduling in Brightspace - Instructor Support

Schedulers in Brightspace
Choosing a Scheduler tool
Instructor Scheduling Meetings and Presentations
Student Scheduling Presentations and Meetings

A Scheduler is a calendar tool that helps with booking meetings/events in a course. Schedulers are most commonly used to block out times in your calendar for meetings, such as office hours or one-on-one conversations with students. Students can sign up for a time slot within the appointment range and join at their allotted time via a link or in person. Both students and instructors can see the scheduled appointments. Schedulers might also be used when asking students to sign up for a specific presentation date, to sign up for a specific presentation topic, to sign up for topics in a course that has optional assignments/discussions, or for students to indicate which weekly assignments/discussions they plan to participate in.

Schedulers in Brightspace

While D2L Brightspace does not have a built-in scheduler tool, there are workarounds that can meet your scheduling needs.

Options for scheduling include:

Self-enrollment Groups
Discussion Forums
Zoom registration
An Excel sheet
MS Bookings

The advantages and disadvantages of each of these workarounds is explored in the table below. More detailed information on each of the tools can be found in the sections titled Instructor Scheduling Meetings and Presentations and Student Scheduling Presentations and Meetings.

Choosing a Scheduler tool

Use Case/Type of Meeting	Tool	Advantages	Drawbacks
Booking instructor office hours Instructor created meeting	Self-enrollment Groups	Easy to setup Information is stored in one convenient location on Brightspace Easy for students to choose a date and for the instructor to check student choices	Group setup can be time consuming for the instructor
Scheduling instructor meetings Instructor created meeting	Shared Excel Document via MS Teams	Very quick and easy to set up for the instructor Teams is integrated into Brightspace	Vulnerable to malicious actors Open to unintentionally bad behaviors from students
	MS Bookings	One calendar for all an instructor’s’ courses Populates calendars automatically for both Instructors and Students	Complicated to setup Students might book into the wrong calendar Deleting one calendar deletes all calendars MS Bookings is not directly integrated into Brightspace (calendars must be added as hyperlinks)
	Zoom with Self-Enrollment Groups	Quick Setup Convenient to have students register in one place Flexibility to limit the number of participants	Many Zoom links to manage
Sign-up for student presentations Student created meeting	Self-enrollment Groups	Easy to setup Information is stored in one convenient location on Brightspace Easy for students to choose a date and for the instructor to check	The Groups do not link to the Brightspace calendar
Sign-up for topics Student created meeting	Discussion Board Post	Easy setup for instructors	Time consuming

Instructor Scheduling Meetings and Presentations

Use Case Examples:

Instructor wants students to sign up for a time slot during their office hours.
Instructor wants students to use the Scheduler to book a time with them to discuss work.

Self Enrollment Groups

Groups are smaller clusters of students within a larger class. Groups allow students to work collaboratively on projects/assignments and to share files. Students can belong to multiple groups within a course and can see all the same content that other learners in the course see. Group members are also visible to all members of the same group. Self-enrollment Groups allow students to choose which group they want to be in.

Self-enrollment groups are easy to setup and all the information is stored in one convenient location on Brightspace. Self-enrollment groups make it easy for students to choose a date, and for the instructor to check that it is a suitable choice.

Drawbacks: The instructor needs to edit every group title in order to give it a date, which creates more work. The Groups do not link to the Brightspace calendar.

Set-up Self-enrollment Groups in Brightspace: https://carleton.ca/brightspace/instructors/creating-groups-and-using-groups-locker/

Enrollment Types: https://carleton.ca/brightspace/instructors/creating-groups-and-using-groups-locker/#sect3

Check which students are enrolled in which group: https://carleton.ca/brightspace/instructors/creating-groups-and-using-groups-locker/#check1

Export group lists: https://carleton.ca/brightspace/instructors/creating-groups-and-using-groups-locker/#send1

Shared Excel Document

An Excel sheet shared on the course Brightspace site. Using an Excel sheet is very quick and easy to set up for the instructor.

Drawbacks: Using a shared Excel Sheet is very open to malicious, or unintentionally bad behaviors. The live Excel document can be edited by anyone at any time, so students may take another person’s time or change the times, etc.

An Excel sheet can be set up via the instructor’s Microsoft Teams account. Copy the Share link from Excel and Insert it as a link into a Module in Brightspace. Students can access the document and make changes to it, and the instructor can then go back and check these changes.

MS Bookings

Using MS Bookings, an instructor is able to have one calendar for all of their courses, and this tool would populate a calendar for both the instructor and student.

Drawbacks : This tool is not very easy to setup, and deleting one calendar deletes them all. Instructors need to take the additional steps of creating the Bookings page and sharing the link on Brightspace. Calendar names cannot be changed once a calendar is created. Instructors may also need to describe how to use it to their students. Calendar/Meeting links cannot be located until the booking has been made, which can create confusion.

Zoom

Zoom with Self-Enrollment Groups, or a Zoom registration link. Setting up Zoom registration is not time-consuming, and it is convenient to have students register in one place. Zoom also allows instructors to limit the number of people who sign up for a certain time.

Drawbacks: The instructor needs to be comfortable with using zoom.us in order for this to work. Also, this method could create many more Zoom meetings in the Instructor’s account, which could be confusing to organize. Instructors also have the additional tasks of creating the registration link and sharing it on Brightspace.

Student Scheduling Presentations and Meetings

Use Case Examples:

Students are required to sign up for a specific date to present their work in class.
Students are required to sign up for a specific topic, which corresponds to a date.

Self-enrollment Groups in Brightspace

Can be set up with end dates, and to auto-enroll after a certain date. This gives the students some flexibility while ensuring that if they do not self enroll by a certain date, they will be automatically enrolled.

Discussion Board Posts

Students comment their topic based on the Date and Title of the discussion. The instructor can easily setup a Discussion Form, naming each topic with date or topic of the presentation. Students can then go in an comment on the date, or topic, that they wish to present.

Drawbacks : This process would be time consuming if there were several topics and it would require the instructor and students to also manually record their dates and topics. Discussions could also be setup for office hours, and have anonymous posts on. Students would have to remember to check the anonymous box when adding their name.

Creating Discussion Forums: https://carleton.ca/brightspace/instructors/creating-discussions/

Managing Discussions: https://carleton.ca/brightspace/instructors/managing-discussion-forums/

If you have any difficulties with the Brightspace tools or Zoom, you can contact TLS Support. If you have any difficulties with Microsoft Bookings or other Microsoft tools, you can contact ITS Help.

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