This page highlights key changes to Brightspace, Engage, and related third‑party tools, including new features, maintenance windows, integrations, and known issues. D2L updates Brightspace monthly, and while many changes are minor, some significantly affect the tools instructors use every day, so this page focuses on the most impactful updates and what they mean for you.
The Brightspace, Engage and third-party tools are operational.
Learn About
Outages & Alerts
| Post Date | Area | Summary | Details | Action for Faculty |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10/29/2005 | Single Sign-On (SSO) | Microsoft SSO Disruption Impacting Brightspace and Engage | During the current Microsoft SSO service disruption, you may encounter trouble accessing Brightspace and other Ed Tech applications. Users who were logged into URI SSO at the time of the outage should remain able to access these tools, but users who were not logged in will not be able to access them. | If you, your colleagues, or students cannot access their URI My Apps portal, then please try using the below URL’s to directly access these systems. Again though, if users were not logged into SSO at the time of the outage, these links will not work. Log on to Brightspace (open in new tab) Log on to Brightspace Engage (open in new tab) Log on to Panopto (open in new tab) |
Brightspace & Engage Updates
| Post Date | Area | What Changed | Action for Faculty |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4/30/2026 | Brightspace | On Thursday, 3/26, D2L will apply our monthly update to Brightspace. The release notes can be found here, and a few highlights from this update are below. If you have any questions or concerns, please submit a ticket via Service Now or attend one of TLS’s daily Zoom drop in sessions. Awards – Support for new replacement strings: Instructors using the Awards functions will find they have increased flexibility during setup due to support for longer name, description, criteria, and evidence fields. | None |
| 1/13/2026 | Brightspace | D2L will apply a hotfix to address bugs in URI’s current Brightspace release. No known bugs have been reported by URI users to date. | None |
| 12/15/2025 | Brightspace Discussions | First Post Due Dates – D2L is introducing the ability for instructors to define first post due dates on discussion topics. This will give instructors an important tool to support course pacing and assess student engagement. Our team is in the process of incorporating this new feature into our online support documentation. | None |
| 12/15/2025 | Brightspace Pulse | Content pages in the Pulse App are being enhanced, to incorporate key scheduling data. This will give students additional information about start, end, and due dates in courses. | None |
| 12/15/2025 | Brightspace Quizzes | Zero Point Questions – Quiz questions can now accommodate a score of 0. This will prevent the need for creative workarounds or manual edits after the fact for instructors needing to use 0 point quiz questions. | None |
Third Party System Notices
| Post Date | Vendor/Tool | Area | What Changed | Action for Faculty |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4/30/2026 | ReadSpeaker | Version Update | Between April 7th and 10th, ReadSpeaker will apply ReadSpeaker will apply a version (4.13.4) update our system. This will consist of mainly bug fixes. | N/A |
| 1/26/2026 | Pearson | Maintenance | On Friday, February 13, 2026 from 21:00 PM through Sunday, February 15th at 1:00 AM EST we will have a scheduled maintenance event. This maintenance event, which involves database work, will only delay order processing during a 9-hour period (on Saturday, February 14th between 4:00 AM and 13:00 PM EST) and will not impact instructors and students who purchased access to Pearson products prior to this window. Those who purchase access during the 9-hour window will likely see a delay in their order processing and will be unable to access their product until 13:00 PM EST. | N/A |
| 01/23/2026 | ReadSpeaker | Version Update | Between February 2nd and 6th, ReadSpeaker will apply a version (3.8.9) update to our system. This will consist of several small enhancements as well as bug fixes. | N/A |
| 12/11/2025 | Course Merchant | Reported Issues | TLS is aware of an issue where course purchases in Course Merchant are not enrolling users in Engage courses. We have engaged the vendor on this issue and will provide updates as available. | N/A |
| 10/24/2025 | Panopto | Reported Issues | Video Playback Issue – Due to the AWS service outage on Monday, October 20, some users may have experienced issues with certain Panopto videos uploaded during that time. This could have included delays in processing or videos not playing correctly. | N/A |
| 09/19/2025 | Pearson | Maintenance | Upcoming maintenance – On Saturday, October 18, 2025 from 1:00 to 9:00 ET, some Pearson products will be unavailable. | N/A |
System Upgrade Time Window
To reduce disruption, IT TLS schedules major system changes only during times when no (or few) classes are in session; for calendar year 2026, these periods are as follows:
Spring: May 15 (Accelerated Online classes are running)
Summer: August 7–September 7
Fall/Winter: December 29–31