Teaching, Learning, and Technology Center

Brightspace by D2L is Purchase College’s learning management system (LMS).

Login to Purchase College Brightspace

• Go to https://brightspace.purchase.edu
• Login with your Purchase College username and password. Do not include “@purchase.edu” in your username. If needed, reset your password.
• Follow the prompts to complete the login process using Duo Multi-Factor Authentication.
• You will be brought to https://mylearning.suny.edu/d2l/home/219851, which is Purchase’s tenant of the larger SUNY Brightspace instance.

Brightspace Orientations for Students and Faculty

• Students can access the Brightspace Student Orientation for an introduction to the Brightspace platform
• Faculty can access the SUNY DLE Brightspace Fundamentals Asynchronous Modules for basic Brightspace training

Help with Accessing Brightspace

If you need to activate your account or reset your password, you can do so at the Purchase College Online Account Activation/Password Reset site.

Make sure you have the Duo Multi-Factor Authentication app downloaded to your device and that you have followed the Enrollment Steps.

If you cannot login to Brightspace or need assistance with Duo, please create a work order with CTS.

If you have questions about using Brightspace, please contact the SUNY Online Help Desk for assistance.

Link to this FAQ: What is Brightspace and how do I login?

The SUNY Online Help Desk should be your first point of contact to get help with all aspects of the Brightspace learning management system (LMS). The SUNY Online Help Desk is staffed with experts who can assist with:

• creating course content (e.g. assignments, quizzes, discussions forums, attendance, etc.)
• answering questions pertaining to course delivery (e.g. navigating discussions, grading assignments, adjusting release settings, working with the grade book, etc.)
• help students navigate and work with the system
• and more!

You can contact the SUNY Online Help Desk during their extensive service hours, including evenings and weekends. Updated hours are posted to their website and available at the “SUNY Online Support Services” widget in Brightspace.

• Main Website for the SUNY Online Help Desk
  • at the LMS Support Request page, click on the “Request Service” button
• SUNY Online Help Desk phone number for Brightspace assistance: 1-844-673-6786

Please visit their website for more information and check out the SUNY Online Support and Resources site for additional support.

Link to FAQ: How do I get help with D2L Brightspace?

Moodle-to-Brightspace Course Import

If you want to move materials from Moodle to Brightspace, please see the Moving Courses from Moodle to Brightspace page.

Brightspace-to-Brightspace Course Import

If you want to move course materials from a previous Brightspace course into a new Brightspace course, directions can be found at the official Brightspace Higher Education Instructor Knowledge Base: “Import, export, or copy course components”

You will usually want to use the “Copy Course Components” option.

Watch the short “How to Copy Course Components” tutorial on YouTube.

Link to this FAQ: How do I import/copy/move materials from a previous Moodle course into a new Brightspace course?

To request that your primary campus affiliation and email address be updated to reflect Purchase College, please contact the SUNY Online Help Desk.

Once logged into Brightspace, above the “My Courses” widget, you will see the “Account Check” widget. Please review your account information.

If you are a full-time Purchase student or faculty member, ensure that your primary campus affiliation is with Purchase and that Brightspace is using your Purchase email address to communicate with you. If it is not, please create a ticket with the SUNY Online Help Desk to request that the information be updated.

Link to this FAQ.

Faculty / Instructors

If you notice inconsistencies between your class lists / registration in MyHeliotrope and your enrollments in Brightspace, you will need to create a ticket using the CTS Helpdesk Work Order Tracking System (WOT) to request that data be synced between the two systems. Be sure to include the course’s CRN and Title in the Work Order details.

If your courses do not show up in Course Search, or you do not show up as the instructor on those courses, please contact the Office of the Registrar to resolve the discrepancy. Once you are officially tagged as the instructor on your courses in Banner/MyHeliotrope, you will see your courses reflected in Moodle shortly thereafter.

All Brightspace course creation, faculty assignments, and student enrollments come from Banner/MyHeliotrope and are funneled directly into the LMS. Matriculated students who are officially registered for courses will automatically be enrolled into those courses in Brightspace. TLTC staff and instructors no longer have the ability to manually add/remove officially registered students into/from Brightspace courses.

If CTS cannot resolve your account issue, please create a ticket with the SUNY Online Help Desk. 

If you are an instructor and have requested a data sync from CTS and notice that your course(s) still do not appear in Brightspace, please contact the Registrar to confirm that your course is set up to generate a Brightspace shell.

Students

Brightspace course spaces automatically become available to students four (4) days prior to the course’s official start date. Your instructors may choose to make them available before this time frame or close them at any time. If needed, login to MyHeliotrope to confirm that your intended registration is accurate.

If you notice inconsistencies between your registration in MyHeliotrope and your enrollments in Brightspace, you will need to create a ticket using the CTS Helpdesk Work Order Tracking System (WOT) to request that data be synced between the two systems. Be sure to include the course’s CRN, Title, and Instructor in the Work Order details.

If CTS cannot resolve your account issue, please create a ticket with the SUNY Online Help Desk.

If the semester has officially already begun and you do not see your course(s) listed within the current semester category, first, check with your instructor. The course may not yet be visible to students. The visibility of Moodle course spaces is up to your instructors. If you’ve contacted your instructor but still don’t see what you expect to see in Brightspace, you must request that CTS sync your registration data with Brightspace. Please note that the TLTC cannot remedy enrollment issues.

My Brightspace courses have disappeared. What should I do?

If you notice that all of your Brightspace course enrollments disappear suddenly, you must contact the Office of the Registrar to determine what is causing the issue with your registration. Once the issue is resolved with the Registrar, your Brightspace courses will reappear shortly thereafter, as will any work you have already submitted in the course. Please note that the TLTC cannot remedy these issues.

Link to this FAQ: My class lists on MyHeliotrope and Brightspace don’t match. What should I do?

Zoom

Campus Technology Services (CTS) is offering access to Zoom, a video web conferencing application where many individuals can join the same meeting and share audio and video. It also allows for screen sharing and presentation mode.

Migration of existing Zoom accounts to Single sign-on (SSO) has been completed by CTS. Going forward, when you access Zoom from a web browser, visit https://purchase.zoom.us.

From there you can Join or Host a meeting or Sign in to Zoom through the “Sign in” option using your Purchase College credentials.

Step-by-step directions are at the CTS website. Instructors can also schedule an in-depth Zoom Training Session with CTS Support Staff. Please contact CTS for more information.

Using the Zoom Integration in Brightspace

You can now connect your Purchase College Zoom account to your Brightspace course(s):

• from the desired course, click on Content > Existing Learning Tools > Zoom
• next, follow the steps for Creating or Scheduling a Zoom meeting within Brightspace

Make a Zoom Recording Available to Students

Directions for making a Zoom recording available via the Brightspace can be found at How do I make a Zoom recording available to my students via the LMS?

If you have questions or need assistance with Zoom, please contact the CTS Helpdesk or create a Work Order.

Virtual Classroom in Brightspace

In Brightspace, all instructors have access to “PUR - Virtual Classroom,” which is our campus’ version of the Virtual Classroom tool by Bongo Learn. You can access Virtual Classroom from the course Navbar > Course Tools > PUR - Virtual Classroom.

Instructors can schedule course-specific Virtual Classroom meetings right within your Brightspace courses using the directions at the Bongo Help Center.

Please note that maximum possible number of users in a Virtual Classroom meeting is 50 and sessions are limited to 60 minutes.

Link to this FAQ: How do I hold a synchronous online meeting / live classroom session?

If your Learning Assistant does not show up using the steps below, please ask them to review their “Account Check” widget to make sure that Purchase is set as their primary campus affiliation. If Purchase is not their primary campus affiliation, they will need to request that information be updated by creating a ticket with the SUNY Online Help Desk.

If they still do not show up, please create a work order with the CTS Helpdesk or the SUNY Online Help Desk.

Please note that the TLTC cannot address Brightspace user account issues.

To add a Learning Assistant, Non-Editing Instructor, Co-Instructor, or Grader to your Brightspace course:

• from your course Navbar, click on Course Management > Roster
• click on the chevron next to the “Add Participants” button > select “Add existing users”
• under the “Add Existing Users” heading, search for your learning assistant / course librarian / non-editing instructor by last name and click on the magnifying glass icon to run the search
• scroll down to the search results and check the box associated with your learning assistant , course librarian, or non-editing instructor; to the right, choose from the following available roles:
  • PUR - Instructor (Non-Cascading)
  • PUR - Course Librarian (Non-Cascading) - to request a course librarian be added to your course, please contact Kim Detterbeck, Coordinator of Instruction.
  • PUR - Instructor Copy Only (Non-Cascading)
  • PUR - Learning Assistant (Non-Cascading)
  • PUR - Grader (Non-Cascading)
  • PUR - Non-Editing Instructor (Non-Cascading)
• click on the “Enroll selected users” button to add the selected individual at the Learning Assistant (or Grader, Non-Editing Instructor, or Instructor Copy Only) role to your Brightspace course

Please do not manually enroll users at the PUR - Student (Non-Cascading) role if they are officially registered for your course. This will break the connection with the student information system (Banner/MyHeliotrope). Please let the integration between systems handle official course enrollments in Brightspace.

Learning Assistants can upload files, manage course calendar, set up student groups, send out course announcements, manage course attendance, add assignments, and create question banks and quizzes. LAs cannot grade assignments or view the course Grade Book.

Graders can do all of the tasks that Learning Assistants can do as well as grade assignments and access the Grade Book.

Note that users in the Learning Assistant & Grader roles can:

• access “inactive” courses
• access past courses
• access future courses

Link to this FAQ: How do I add a learning assistant to my Brightspace course?

The Teaching, Learning, and Technology Center (TLTC), in collaboration with The Office of Disability Resources (ODR), is reaching out to provide support with regard to faculty with regard to the implementation of extended time within Brightspace.

Instructors in Brightspace can allow additional time on quizzes and other activities by using the Accommodations feature at the individual student level and the Special Access option at the individual activity level.

Adding “Accommodations” to a particular student in Brightspace:

• To access a specific student’s “Accommodations” options in Brightspace:
  from the course Navbar, click on Course Management > Roster
• click on the chevron next to the student whose quiz accommodations you want to add/view, and then click “View Accommodations”
• under the “Timing” heading, select “Modify Time Limit” and choose to either increase the original quiz time by a factor, or add extra time in minutes
  click the “Save” button to update that student’s accommodations

More about available Accommodations in Brightspace can be found at their official help documentation.

Special Access:

You can modify the access to a Quiz or Assignment for particular students using the Special Access setting, which you can find under the “Availability Dates & Conditions” section at the Quiz or Assignment’s setup area. The Special Access options allow you to add extra time and/or change the due date for certain students. Please see the following Brightspace help pages for more information:

• Set release conditions and special access in Assignments
• Add special access to an assignment
• Create and configure a Quiz
• Set up Availability Dates & Conditions of a Quiz, including Special Access

For additional support with using Brightspace, please connect with the SUNY Online Help Desk.

For questions regarding accommodations, please contact the Office of Disability Resources.

Thanks so much for your time and attention!

Marie Sciangula, Assistant Director of the Teaching, Learning, and Technology Center
Alyssa McCarthy, Director of the Office of Disability Resources

Brightspace courses are set to automatically become available four (4) days prior to the course’s official start date. There is no need to manually open your course to student view unless you would like it to be available to students earlier than four days before the start of the semester / Summer/Winter session. Please refer to the Academic Calendar for specific dates. For assistance with changing the availability of your courses, please contact the SUNY Online Help Desk.

Making a Brightspace Course Active or Inactive

• Hover over a course tile in the “My Course” widget and click on the three dots that appear and then click on “Course Offering Information”
• Under the “Active” option, check “Course is Active” to make the course visible to students or uncheck it to hide it from student view
• Click the “Save” button
• Please note that when a course is inactive, on the Purchase College Brightspace home page, the instructor will see an INACTIVE sticker on the course (the Inactive sticker has a slight delay; it will appear a few minutes after you have made a course inactive and will stay for a few minutes after you make a course active)

If needed, login to MyHeliotrope to confirm your enrollments/registration.

Link to this FAQ: How do I make my Brightspace course visible / available to my students?

Avoid confusion at the end of the semester by updating your course(s) End Date/Time. Students will always be able to access their courses and submit work beyond the default course end date/time but you can update the course end time to reflect the official end of the course.

To update your course’s End Date/Time:

• From the desired course’s Navbar, click on Course Tools > Course Admin
• Find and select “Course Offering Information”
• Scroll down to the “Start Date and End Date” parameters
• Modify the Course Start and/or End Date and Time, as needed
• Click the “Save” button at the bottom of the page

Instructors can modify the Course Start Date/Time and Course End Date/Time for all courses. This adjustment will also fix the Quick Eval widget so that it displays items that still need instructor attention.

Link to “How do I change my Brightspace course’s End Date / Time”

Make sure you’re logged in at your Purchase-authenticated Zoom account at https://purchase.zoom.us

Record your Zoom meeting locally to your computer or device (please do not record to Zoom Cloud) and upload the video file to your YouTube account. If you do not have a YouTube channel, see Create YouTube Channel for a tutorial.

Upload your Zoom recording MP4 file to YouTube Studio and choose to make the video either Public or Unlisted (Public if you want others to be able to view your video; Unlisted if you want the video to only be available to those who have access to the link).

If you have a video longer than 15 minutes, you will need to verify your YouTube account which just takes a few minutes and involves getting a code via text message that you then enter on your account page. See Upload Video Longer than 15 Minutes. 

Brightspace: you can embed your YouTube videos into your Brightspace course by:

• copying the YouTube video URL. You do not need the embed code.
• In the desired module, click on the “Upload/Create” menu > “Video or Audio”
• A pop-up window will open where you can paste the URL you’ve copied. The video title and a preview will automatically appear. Edit the title if needed. Click the Save button
• You will now see the YouTube player embedded in your content module

For assistance with Zoom, please contact Campus Technology Services (CTS).

Link to this FAQ: How do I make a Zoom recording available to my students via Brightspace?

The TLTC is typically open Monday-Friday, 9:00am-5:00pm. Due to staffing, we suggest you send your questions to us at TLTC@purchase.edu.

If you have questions about using Brightspace, please create a support ticket with the SUNY Online Help Desk.

Link to this FAQ: What are the TLTC’s Hours?

Each student and instructor can manage their own Brightspace notification settings.

To ensure that you receive emails from Purchase College Brightspace, make sure that your primary campus affiliation and email address is set to Purchase by reviewing your “Account Check” widget.

Above the “My Courses” widget, you will see the “Account Check” widget. Please review your account information and if you are a full-time Purchase student, ensure that your primary campus affiliation is with Purchase and that Brightspace is using your Purchase email account to communicate with you. If it is not, please create a ticket with the SUNY Online Help Desk to request that the information be updated.

To manage your Brightspace notifications, click on your name in the upper right corner and click “Notifications.” By default, you will receive an email notification when a new Announcement is made or updated. Check the appropriate box to receive notifications for those actions. Remember to click on the “Save” button when you’re done.

More about Notifications can be found at the “Change personal settings in Brightspace” official Brightspace Community documentation.

Link to “How do I manage my Brightspace notifications?”

You can create a course announcement a few different ways:

• From the Announcements widget, click on the “Create an announcement” link to begin composing a New Announcement.
• From the course Navbar, click on “Course Tools” > “Announcements” and click on the “New Announcement” button.

Please note that each student and instructor can manage their own Brightspace notification settings. To do this, click on your name in the upper right corner and click “Notifications.” By default, you will receive an email notification when a new Announcement is made or updated. Check the appropriate box to receive notifications for those actions. Remember to click on the “Save” button when you’re done. More about Notifications can be found at the “Change personal settings in Brightspace” official Brightspace Community documentation.

More information about how to create a welcome message using the Announcements widget can be found at Brightspace’s official help documentation.

Link to this FAQ: How do I send an email to the entire class using the Announcements feature forum in Brightspace?

Students: though there are other reasons why you may have been suddenly dropped from your courses on Brightspace, one of the most common culprits is that your Mandatory Immunization Requirements may not be filed properly with the College. Please contact the Registrar and/or Health Services if you have any questions.

Please note that any activities you have completed or work submitted in your courses will be restored upon resolution of immunization records and re-enrollment in current Brightspace course spaces.

Link to this FAQ: Why have I suddenly been unenrolled/dropped from my courses on Brightspace?

Multiple official course sections can be merged so that all students access the course and uploaded materials at the same space.

Please send an email to TLTC@purchase.edu and include the CRNs that you want combined as well as the one course space you would like to designate as the ‘parent’ course. Please keep in mind that students will no longer have access to their original course space once combined. All students will access the course in the combined ‘parent’ course.

You can also create a course merge request help ticket with the SUNY Online Help Desk.

Link to this FAQ: How do I tie together multiple sections of my courses on Brightspace to use one combined course?

Turnitin is a plagiarism prevention tool that is available to all Purchase College students and instructors. You must be a current Purchase College student or instructor to access our version of Turnitin via Brightspace (requires current Purchase College login).

Students: Login to Brightspace to access the Turnitin Self-Checker, located in the main Purchase College Brightspace Navbar.

Instructors: Your link to the Turnitin Self-Checker is located in the “More” menu. You can also create Turnitin assignments in your courses using the Turnitin Assignment Guide and the “Assignments and Turnitin” article at the official Brightspace help documentation.

The Turnitin Self-Checker allows Purchase College students to check rough drafts of papers, essays, and assignments for originality and proper citation. You can use the Similarity Report generated by Turnitin to identify paraphrases or citations that need revision before your final draft is due.

Click on the “Add a File“  > “Submit” buttons to upload your document for analysis by Turnitin:

Note: only current Purchase College students can access Purchase College’s Turnitin Self-Checker. You must have a current Brightspace/email account to login. There is no Guest access available.

• Purchase College Brightspace
• Submit and Manage Assignments (Students)
• Turnitin Student Hub
• Assignments and Turnitin (Instructor)
• Instructor guidance for the assignment workflow in D2L LTI 1.3

Direct link to this FAQ: How do I use Turnitin to check my own drafts for originality?

Instructors no longer need to add the ThinkingStorm connection to individual courses. A link to ThinkingStorm is available to all students via the Purchase College Brightspace Navbar.

ThinkingStorm is an online/virtual tutoring platform utilized by many colleges. It provides 24/7 access to professional tutors online for many subject areas. 

Link to this FAQ: How do I add the ThinkingStorm Online Tutoring connection to my Brightspace Moodle course?

Directions for creating a Moodle course backup and restoring the backup into another Moodle space / importing into Brightspace (or downloading and saving it to your computer) can be found at the the TLTC website.

Please see the Moving Courses from Moodle to Brightspace page for more information about moving your courses to the new LMS.

Yes, you can watch all past TLTC webinar sessions at the TLTC’s YouTube channel!

Link to this FAQ: I missed a recent TLTC workshop that was offered via Zoom. Can I watch the recording?