Bulk Edit: Save Time with Course-Wide Adjustments

The Bulk Edit feature within a course’s Table of Contents allows instructors to quickly make changes to multiple content items at once—a major timesaver during course setup or mid-semester adjustments.

What You Can Do:

• Rename multiple topics or modules.
• Add or update due dates and availability settings.
• Change visibility (e.g., hide/publish multiple items at once).

This is especially helpful after copying course content from previous terms and needing to quickly reset dates or update naming conventions.

Pro Tip: Use Bulk Edit in conjunction with Manage Dates (next section) for efficient pre-semester setup.

Go to Guide: Bulk Edit Modules & Topics

Manage Dates: Keep Your Course Schedule in Sync

When transitioning your course from one semester to another, the Manage Dates tool is your go-to resource. It gives you a centralized view of all start, due, and end dates across:

• Assignments
• Quizzes
• Discussions
• Content modules & topics

You can easily shift all dates forward or backward using the Bulk Offset feature, or selectively adjust individual deadlines.

Go to Guide: Bulk Editing Dates using Manage Dates 

Notifications: Stay Informed, Keep Students Engaged

Brightspace’s Notification System helps both instructors and students stay updated on important course activities. All new user accounts are configured to receive course announcement emails by default. Users may opt out of these notifications if they choose to.

Alerts Include:

• Assignment submissions
• Discussion activity
• New content or announcements
• Grade updates

You can choose to receive notifications via email, SMS, or both.

🎯 Instructor Insight: Instructors, please encourage your students to adjust notifications at the beginning of the semester. This significantly improves student engagement, reduces missed deadlines, and supports proactive learning habits.

Go to Guide:  Managing Brightspace Notifications

Assignment Categories: Organize and Simplify Grading

Assignment Categories allow instructors to group related assignments under specific headings in the Assignments tool. While they don’t impact grading calculations (unlike gradebook categories), they provide:

• Clearer structure for students
• Easier navigation
• Better course organization for instructors

Example: Group weekly reflections under a “Journals” category or segment quizzes by unit.

Note: Assignment categories are distinct and separate from gradebook categories. Assignment categories are purely for aesthetic purposes while gradebook categories serve a function.

Go to Guide: Assignment Categories

Enabling Final Grades for Students: Ensure Visibility

By default, final grades in Brightspace are not visible to students. Final Grades do not have to be just for the end of the term, it can be a useful tool to show students where they stand in the course as the term progresses. To share them, you need to both calculate and release the final grade explicitly. 

Why It’s Useful:

• Encourages self-monitoring: Students can track their progress in real time.
• Reduces grade-related anxiety: No surprises at the end of the term.
• Improves transparency: Shows how each activity contributes to the overall grade.
• Supports formative feedback: Helps students understand where to improve.

Pros and Cons of Treating Ungraded Items:

• Drop ungraded items:
  • Pro: Allows students to see a more realistic representation of their performance as ungraded items don’t artificially lower their grade.
  • Con: Instructors must manually enter zeros for incomplete items to ensure accurate final grade calculations.
• Treat ungraded items as 0: 
  • Pro: Ungraded items are automatically treated as zeros which eliminates the need for manual input by instructors.
  • Con: Any item that isn’t completed or has yet to be assigned will make the final grade inaccurately lower than the true performance of the student.

Go to Guide: Releasing Final Grades to Students