Term Start Course Checklist

21 Important Checks to Ensure your Course is Ready!

Sched­ule a con­sul­ta­tion with the Cen­tre for Teach­ing and Learn­ing Inno­va­tion (CTLI) or do-it-your­self and check off all com­plet­ed items to ensure you have a suc­cess­ful term start. Fol­low Resource links to learn more, watch a video or read instruc­tions.

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Item
Details
COURSE SET UP ITEMS
1 Con­firm Class List • Com­pare your class list on MyN­IC Fac­ul­ty Self-Serve area to your class list on Bright­space – if any miss­ing stu­dents in Bright­space sub­mit a *Ser­vice Desk tick­et (rarely hap­pens but if you find dis­crep­an­cies do let us know)
2 Add Oth­er Instruc­tors and Sup­port Roles to Course • If you need to add oth­er instructors/support staff to your course you have choic­es: you can add them as a learn­er role (like stu­dents), read-only role (which means you can’t engage in any­thing, not vis­i­ble in classlist) role or an instruc­tor role (can edit things in course). Go to Classlist > Add Par­tic­i­pants > Add Exist­ing Users  *Resource (Note: not all NIC employ­ees have a Bright­space account, if you can’t locate them in the Add Exist­ing Users search please sub­mit a Ser­vice Desk tick­et to get help)
3 Check Course Start and End Dates • In the Course Admin area under “Course Offer­ing Infor­ma­tion” note that the start date is list­ed as 30 days pri­or to the offi­cial start date so you can pre-release your course up to 30 days before it starts. The end date is 100 days after the end of your course to allow stu­dents time to com­plete miss­ing com­po­nents of the course. *Resource
COURSE CONTENT ITEMS
4 Copy Course Con­tent into Reg­is­tra­tion-Linked Course Shell • If you are not build­ing / edit­ing course in the reg­is­tra­tion-linked course shell, copy your con­tent from a mas­ter course or pre­vi­ous offer­ing into your course. If you have cross-list­ed sec­tions, be sure to use the merged enrol­ment course. *Resource
5 Remove Unnec­es­sary Items • If you have copied over your course from anoth­er instruc­tor,  non-required items includ­ing extra grade items are removed from the course for opti­mal func­tion­al­i­ty.
6 Ensure Course Con­tent is Orga­nized in both Man­age Files and Con­tent Areas • Ensure your course con­tent (HTML pages, PDFs, etc.) is orga­nized sim­i­lar­ly in both your Man­age Files area and your Con­tent area so there is ease in updat­ing and enhanc­ing your course in future, ease for IT sup­port to fix issues, ease in copy­ing from term to term and ease in updat­ing new con­tent. *Resource
7 Use PDF doc­u­ments vs Word docs for Quick­er View­ing  • Bright­space is able to present PDF doc­u­ments (PDFs of Pow­er­Point slides, of Word doc­u­ments, of images etc.) in the con­tent area as a full view­able and scrol­lable doc­u­ment if you add the PDF (by itself) not linked on a page. Use PDFs when pos­si­ble for ease in the view­ing for stu­dents and also to pre­vent lag time in con­vert­ing Word or PPT doc­u­ments to a PDF. You can still upload Word or PPT doc­u­ments but they will take a bit longer to con­vert. *Resource
8 Import NIC Stu­dent Sup­ports Mod­ule & Indige­nous Ter­ri­to­ry Videos • Import the required NIC Stu­dent Sup­ports Mod­ule (most recent ver­sion) into each of your cours­es for stu­dents to access embed­ded sup­port infor­ma­tion and links. *Resource and also the Indige­nous Ter­ri­to­ry Video(s) *Resource
9 Add and/or Update Course Dates • If not done already, add due dates, start, and end dates, dates to dis­play in cal­en­dar, etc. Use the Man­age Dates tool in Course Admin area to do all at once. *Resource
10 Ensure Course Out­line is Updat­ed and Eas­i­ly Locat­ed • Ensure your course out­line is up to date, has all the appro­pri­ate cat­e­gories (per Course Out­line Pol­i­cy 3–35) and is uploaded as a PDF vis­i­ble in Con­tent area or as a link.
11 Ensure Grade­book is Set Up Accu­rate­ly and Grade Items Asso­ci­at­ed  • Ensure all grade items = 100%, cor­rect NIC Grade Scale is cho­sen, set­tings allow stu­dents to view grades etc. Ensure grade items are asso­ci­at­ed with the appro­pri­ate grad­ed items or if not, linked to a text­book site or will have man­u­al entry. *Resource
12 Ensure Vis­i­bil­i­ty or Hid­den State of Course Com­po­nents • Hide con­tent, quizzes, assign­ments, grades, and oth­er items that you don’t want stu­dents to see when the course opens, or ensure the item is vis­i­ble before you set a start date. *Resource
STUDENT COMMUNICATION ITEMS
13 Enhance Visu­al Table of Con­tents for Stu­dents • Add ban­ners to your modules/units and intro­duc­to­ry text to com­plete Visu­al Table of Con­tents to aid stu­dents in nav­i­ga­tion. *Resource
14 Enable the Wel­come Win­dow Wid­get pop-up on Course Home Page • Cre­ate a module/unit with the word “Wel­come” in it and cre­ate one or two HTML pages with­in it and use for week­ly wel­come mes­sages or intro­duc­tions to units. Add a wel­com­ing mes­sage and/or video in this tool the first week. *Resource
15 Com­plete Instruc­tor Pro­file Wid­get • On course home page com­plete the Instruc­tor Pro­file wid­get with a few lines about your­self. Upload an image if you wish. *Resource
16 Col­lapse any Course Home Page Wid­gets You Do Not Use • Click on the lit­tle down arrow beside any of the course home page wid­gets to “col­lapse them”. This only works for your view­ing, not your stu­dents. Tell them to do the same if you are not using a wid­get (win­dow on home page). *Resource
17 Write a Wel­come Email to Stu­dents and Send with Help­ful Info • In your wel­com­ing email point out the Stu­dent Sup­ports Mod­ule in your course, the NIC Learn Any­where web­site and Stu­dent Tech­ni­cal Ser­vices for help with tech­nol­o­gy. Pos­si­bly cre­ate a short ori­en­ta­tion video high­light­ing the key com­po­nents of your course, how you have designed it etc and add to email. *Resource
COURSE READINESS ITEMS
18 Make Sure Every­thing is Work­ing • Check all links, all videos, all attach­ments, all course com­po­nents to make sure they are work­ing. Do this in “learn­er” mode to ensure you are see­ing what stu­dents see. *Resource
19 Export Your Course • If you are not using a “mas­ter” course (or even if you are), make a back-up copy of your course by Export­ing your course as a Bright­space Pack­age. This will give you peace of mind that you have your hard work backed up for future use. *Resource
20 Make Your Course Active • Ensure your course is active (vis­i­ble) to stu­dents when you wish it to be. By default, all Bright­space cours­es are set to “inac­tive” mean­ing stu­dents can­not seen them. *Resource
21 Pin Course for Ease in Access­ing • Pin your course so you can eas­i­ly access it under the “Pinned” Cat­e­go­ry in your My Cours­es wid­get or through the waf­fle icon – this is the fastest way to see only the cours­es you need *Resource