Brightspace course shell creation
About Brightspace course shells
Course shells are the empty courses into which teachers load their classes.
There are two types of course shells in Brightspace: for-credit and sandbox. While they are used for very different ways, the shells themselves are very similar in structure and authoring techniques.
Course shell creation
Brightspace course shells are created in one of two ways:
- For-credit courses are added automatically by the system. When new courses are defined in the Integrated Statewide Records System (ISRS) by the registrar, they are automatically added to Brightspace as well. This process generally takes a few minutes to complete.
- Sandbox courses are shells that faculty can use to prototype new course content, work with other faculty on shared courseware, or share program documents with students. There is more information available in the article entitled Use Brightspace sandbox courses. Also, here are instructions for requesting a sandbox course should you want one.
Enrolling individuals in the course shell
Enrolling individuals in for-credit courses
Enrollments in for-credit courses are handled in one of the following ways:
- Instructors are enrolled into the course automatically once their teaching assignments are entered into ISRS.
- Students are enrolled automatically after they register for the course. This applies to both students that enroll before the start of the term as well as students that enter the course late through the "blue card" process.
- Teaching assistants, grading assistants, and tutors are added manually by the instructor or by contacting TLT. Information on what each of these types of users can do within the course can be found in the Brightspace roles article.
Enrollments of extra people in any for-credit course must follow FERPA guidelines. This implies that some manual enrollments may be rejected in the pursuit of security and/or privacy of the individuals already in the course.
Enrolling individuals in sandbox courses
When sandbox courses are created, instructors are added using a special role called Sandbox Instructor. This role has all of the same permissions as a regular instructor but also allows the teacher to manually enroll anyone they wish in the course. There are instruction for adding enrollees here.