Faculty often teach multiple identical course sections, which can be merged into one Brightspace course shell for convenience. This merging process consolidates students from different sections into a single Brightspace course shell. Keep in mind that if your course content significantly varies, merging may not be suitable.

Course Merge

Merging two or more sections into a single Brightspace class centralizes your course management, increases content consistency, and eliminates the need to juggle multiple classes. The primary objective behind section merging in Brightspace is to reduce redundancy, saving valuable time and minimizing the potential for errors.

In most cases, instructors will be responsible for merging their own course sections. To initiate the merge, you must be the course instructor or the admin of record for all the courses you wish to combine. Please only build course content in the section you intend to keep, as any content in the other sections will be lost after the merge.

It’s important to note that even though sections are merged immediately in Brightspace, individual student enrollment data may take up to 24 hours to synchronize and show up in your merged Brightspace course. Once the merge is complete, faculty are able to access the combined classlist and can use filtering tools to easily restrict the classlist to one section or the other. Faculty can also assign Teaching Assistants to specific sections as necessary.

When conducting course merges, it’s essential to consider the constraints set by academic regulations and student privacy laws, allowing you to make informed choices regarding the optimal utilization of this functionality within your courses. It’s important to note that sections instructed by different faculty members cannot be combined. This limitation is in place to protect the rights and privacy of both students and faculty. Additionally, it is suggested that instructors avoid merging sections when external tools are in use, as this may lead to issues.

The process of merging course sections can be more complex than expected. In such scenarios, faculty can always seek assistance from the Teaching and Learning Services (TLS) team through a Support Desk ticket via IT Service Portal at https://uriprod.service-now.com/sp.

Merges conducted by TLS may require up to two business days to finalize. While this process is underway, your course may not appear as active in the system for students.

Guide to Course Merging

Link to KB Guide

 

Note:

  • In the event you require the addition of a second faculty member to your course, you have a few options. You may request your department chair to include them as a second faculty member or designate them as an ‘admin of record’ for the specific course section within e-Campus. Alternatively, you can manually include them in your course as a ‘collaborator’ with content editing privileges or assign them a ‘guest’ role, providing read-only access.
  • Course section merging should not be confused with copying course content. To copy content from one section to another, such as from a previous semester to an upcoming one, faculty can use the Import/Export/Copy tool in Brightspace. Refer to this tutorial for detailed instructions on copying course content. View the guide on copying content in Brightspace.

Brightspace Integrations: LTI 1.1, 1.3 & Me

URI faculty may apply to have 3rd party and external tools integrated into Brightspace. Here is the process.

URI IT provides robust connections between third-party tools and Brightspace so your courses can provide novel and engaging learning experiences.

Note that most LTI integrations in Brightspace are now version 1.3, so the below message relates to that version.

Faculty wishing to integrate a tool into Brightspace may view the process, the step-by-step guide, and can access the application at this link: https://its.uri.edu/services/94530c3f5458461a0009654227972125b3e8f9abd6/brightspace-integrations/

Each application is reviewed by a committee of faculty and staff. Some of the factors in that review are (though not limited to these):

  1. Copyright protection of faculty and student content
  2. Student/faculty privacy
  3. Protection of private data
  4. ADA compliance and accessibility
  5. System usability, constraints, and limitations
  6. Similarity to existing integrations or Brightspace functionality

Upon approval, IT will implement and integrate the tool into the LMS for faculty and student use. This won’t affect current tools which will continue to function as normal. Note that depending on the queue of tools already approved and the complexity of each tool, the implementation time of a new tool can take anywhere from 6-weeks to 6 months.

All questions, inquiries and requests for help can be submitted as a service desk ticket, and someone will reach out to speak with you: https://uriprod.service-now.com/sp

About LTIs

Integrating third party applications into URI’s learning management system (LMS), Brightspace, provides faculty and students with new and exciting ways to engage with their learning.  These integrations are often accomplished using the Learning Tools Interoperability, more commonly called LTI, standard.

LTI integrations offer enhanced security, streamlined administration, and valuable data sharing between Brightspace and a third party application.  For a number of years, LTI has used a standard called 1.1.  This standard allowed for a basic set of functions…streamlined student logins, links to content, grade pass-back…and a baseline level of security.  LTI’s newest standard is called 1.3.  This upgraded standard builds upon the strengths of LTI 1.1, but offers a significantly more modern security framework, protecting student and faculty data as it passes between systems.  On top of LTI 1.3 are a set of tools called LTI Advantage.  LTI Advantage leverages all of the security capabilities of LTI 1.3 but adds functional improvements such as:

  • Automated roster creation. Not only will you be able to see which students are in your class, but you’ll be able to see who has registered with the third party tool.
  • Enhanced assignments and grades.  Instead of passing a single numeric grade back to Brightspace, LTI Advantage lets faculty see the status of an assignment.
  • Deep Linking.  This allows faculty to set up links to specific parts of a third party tool (a chapter in a book for example), where LTI 1.1 only allowed links to the tool as a whole.

It’s important to note that not every third party application supports every function described here.  Some only offer LTI 1.1 connections, others LTI 1.3, and some offer a combination of LTI Advantage enhancements.  After a requested integration is approved, the IT Teaching and Learning Services (TLS) team will collaborate with the vendor and configure the integration to leverage all available tools. 

Please connect with the TLS team via a Service Desk ticket to begin your conversation about enhancing your courses with LTI integrations.

Brightspace Integrations

TLS manages the integration of 3rd party tools, plugins, LTIs and software integrations into Brightspace.
In order to protect students, faculty, and our institution and to ensure the integrity of the learning management system and compliance with federal regulations, URI thus performs a standard review of all third party tools prior to integration.

Create and submit a Brightspace integration application

Sources:

Clark, J. (2023, September 1). What is LTI advantage? – edlink. Edlink Community. https://ed.link/community/lti-advantage/#:~:text=LTI%20Advantage%20is%20a%20set,Deep%20Linking.

Clark, J. (2023a, March 8). LTI advantage explained – Edlink. Edlink Community. https://ed.link/community/eli5-lti-advantage/

Learning tools interoperability. Learning Tools Interoperability | IMS Global Learning Consortium. (n.d.). https://www.imsglobal.org/activity/learning-tools-interoperability