Third-party application integration in Brightspace
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REVISION IN PROGRESS: This article contains useful information, but is being revised to reflect recent updates. Direct questions to TLT (tlt@winona.edu). |
Third-party application integration in Brightspace allows instructors to add functionality to Brightspace courses using special connectors to external resources and services (e.g., online textbook resources). These integrations support everything from single sign-on to Brightspace Grades Tool synchronization, reducing instructor workload and providing students with a more unified user experience.
Simple versus deep integration
Third-party integrations fall into two categories: simple and deep. Simple integration includes single sign-on to the third-party application through Brightspace and links in Brightsapce that take students to external resources and services. Deep integration exposes more of the application's functionality in Brightspace and typically involves sharing data with Brightspace tools (e.g., Grades). Integration between learning management systems like Brightspace and third-party applications is made possible through the use of a set of shared interoperability standards. The current version of these standards is Learning Tools Interoperability Core Specification Version 1.3, released in 2019.
Full list of available integrations
Minnesota State maintains a complete list of all third-party applications approved for activation by system schools. Because different schools use different applications, the decision to activate a specific integration rests with each school. If you are interested in activating an integration on this list that's not already enabled at WSU, contact TLT (tlt@winona.edu). If you are interested in integrating a new application into Brightspace that's not on Minnesota State's list, contact TLT (tlt@winona.edu). We work with the system office to review and approve all new third-party integrations. Because some of these integrations involve sharing private student data with other vendors, this review process includes reviews by WSU and system office data governance groups and can take some time to complete, so plan accordingly.
Currently installed third-party integrations
CogBooks (CogBooks)
CogBooks courseware is a complete course solution purposely built for personalized learning and ideal for instructor-led courses taught online or on campus.
Course Tools (MacMillan Learning)
KA #1636
Evolve (Elsevier)
Elsevier supplies e-textbooks for nursing students. Documentation for the Evolve integration with Brightspace can be found in the KA 1919 document below.
- KA #1919
Films on Demand (Info Base Publishing)
Films on Demand is a collect of tens-of-thousands of videos and hundreds-of-thousands of video clips. The Krueger Library maintains a subscription to Films on Demand.
First Day (Barnes & Noble College)
First Day is a program offered by Barnes & Noble College (BNC), owners of our campus Bookstore, designed to reduce the cost to students of access to publisher-provided online resources. Working with publishers, BNC is able to offer students short-term access to publishers' online resources for less than if students were to purchase the same access from the publisher directly.
H5P (Joule)
H5P creates HTML5 interactive modules that can be included directly into a Brightspace course. H5P content engages the student in low-stakes activities that can be used to assess mastery with grades imported directly into the Brightspace gradebook.
Hypothes.is (Hypothes.is)
Hypothesis enables students to annotate online readings. Digital annotation offers new affordances, enabling students to respond to text using different media and empowering them to collaborate on understanding and developing ideas about their readings.
LinkedIn Learning (Microsoft)
LinkedIn Learning has over 15,000 courses that focus on many different topics. This integration allows you to load any of these resources (i.e. from an individual video, entire course, or playlist you create) into your classes and allow students to view these seamlessly.
MH ALEKS (McGraw Hill)
MH Connect - Deep Integration (McGraw Hill)
Note: When McGraw Hill Connect adds grade items to the course gradebook, they are set to "Exclude from Final Grade Calculation" by default. If you wish to include the grade items in the final grade calculation, you need to visit each of the grade items and clear the checkbox that excludes the score.
Microsoft Teams (D2L)
You can create meetings in Microsoft Teams from inside your Brightspace course and insert the links directly into the course content. The meeting is created in the same HTML editor you use to define the content of the page that will ultimately hold the meeting link.
There are instructions for creating Microsoft Teams meetings at:
Mindtap (Cengage)
MindTap is the online learning platform that gives instructors complete course control. Craft personalized, engaging experiences that boost performance and deliver access to eTextbooks, study tools and more.
My Media (Kaltura)
The Kaltura MediaSpace integration allows for the easy inclusion of videos from MediaSpace in a Brightspace course. This can happen by either posting a link to the video or embedding the video directly into the course content.
MyLab and Mastering (Pearson)
KA #1518
Office 365 (D2L)
KA #1685
OneNote (Microsoft)
The OneNote integration is designed to provide access to the power of OneNote Class Notebook features (i.e. Content Library, Collaborative Notes, and Individual Notes) to your Content within BrightSpace.
Open Learning Initiative (Carnegie Mellon University)
Opendora (PALS)
Opendora is a collection of Open Educational Resources maintained by Minnesota State. You are welcome to use any of these OER is your courses with no fees charged to you or your students. To access Opendora, enter any of your courses in Brightspace, click on the Resources menu item and select Opendora from the dropdown menu.
Oxford Insight (Oxford University Press)
KA #2496
Packback Questions (Packback, Inc.)
KA #2225
Poll Everywhere (Poll Everywhere)
KA #2169
Pulse (D2L)
Brightspace Pulse is a mobile application that helps your students stay connected to your Brightspace courses with one easy view of course calendars, readings, assignments, evaluations, grades, and announcements. Students use Pulse to quickly check in with all the courses in which they are enrolled from their phone.
Respondus LockDown Browser (Respondus)
LDB is a special web browser that can only be used to navigate to Brightspace for the purpose of taking a test or quiz. When you select Start on a quiz that has been configured by your instructor to use LDB, it launches LDB automatically and you will have limited access to your computer until you submit the quiz.
Sage
The Sage Publishing Vantage is integrated with the following KA #2320 integration resource.
KA #2320
Tevera Academic (Tevera)
Tevera is designed to support field work as part of curricular activities. Teachers use Tevera to manage field placements, track hours and progress, deliver documents to the students, automate workflows, and track learning objectives.
Turnitin (Turnitin)
The Turnitin tool is designed to scan student work for potential plagiarism.
Vantage (SAGE Publishing)
KA #2320
VoiceThread (VoiceThread)
The VoiceThred integration is designed to fully integrate your VoiceThreds into the content areas of your course and take advantage of the many capabilities this tool has to offer.
WebAssign (WebAssign)
WebAssign allows faculty to create and deploy assignments and assess individual or entire class performance.
WileyPlus (Wiley)
Within a course, an instructor will use the Wiley integration to insert links in the Brightspace Content tool pointing to Wiley assignments or resources. Students will use those External Learning Tool links to access Wiley resources without the need for signing in. Grades will be sent back to Brightspace upon a student's completion of that activity.
W.W. Norton (W.W. Norton)
W.W. Norton has several products that can be integrated with D2L Brightspace, including InQuizitive, The Norton Ebook Reader, SmartWork, and ZAPS 2.0. The integration allows single-sign-on (SSO) and grade synching.
More information
Except where otherwise noted, text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
For further information on whom to contact at each of the vendors, refer to [ Brightspace integrations vendor list].