Best Of
Re: Blackboard to D2L Brightspace Migration: Preserving Historical Student Records
Hi Samar,
I’d recommend treating the course migration and historical record retention as two separate tasks.
Brightspace’s standard course import tools can bring across supported course materials, including quiz questions, assignment instructions, rubrics, and gradebook structure. They do not, however, recreate historical student quiz attempts and answers, assignment submissions, individual grades, or instructor feedback. Even when a Blackboard Archive package contains user information, that information is ignored by Brightspace’s standard import process.
For that reason, I’d export and archive the historical records separately before retiring Blackboard. Keep full Blackboard course archives, but also obtain readable exports of the gradebook, available grade history, quiz responses, assignment files, and feedback. A gradebook CSV alone won’t preserve the submissions or detailed feedback behind the scores. It’s especially worth checking how rubric evaluations, inline annotations, feedback attachments, and records held in third-party tools are retained, since export capabilities can vary between Blackboard environments.
Before decommissioning Blackboard, I’d test a few representative courses from start to finish: migrate the content, export the historical records, and confirm that the archived files open correctly and remain linked to the right students, assessments, grades, and feedback. Keep the original archive packages alongside those readable exports in secure institutional storage, following your institution’s retention and privacy requirements.
The key distinction is that successfully importing a course into Brightspace does not mean its historical student records have been also brought into Brightspace..
Hope that helps.
Gabriel
Re: Giving advisors access to student progress of their advisees
Hello @Alexander.K.474, thanks for your question.
I would suggest using the Auditors tool within Brightspace. This tool allows you to assign specific users to check Brightspace usage, progress, and grades for their assigned students.
I'd recommend starting with these pages which have permissions needed:
There's also some config variables that we have documented:
Because the permissions could differ from access your users may need, it might be worthwhile setting up a specific role for those advisors who will be using the audit tool.
Brightspace also has a system widget that can be added to your homepage and allow your advisors to see users they are associated with:
In terms of managing the assignment of user auditors, it can be done manually from the Users tool, through a Bulk Auditor Management file, or through IPSIS Standard CSV (if your institution is using it):
For the IPSIS Standard CSV User file, you're specifically looking at Column 11, where relationships can be added.
Hope that this helps get you started. I'd highly recommend setting up some testing on your test environment to ensure the permissions are how you'd like and the tool works for what your advisors would require.
~Stephen
Re: Analytics Builder Experts
Hi @Tylor.C.104 . Is this a getting started with it curve or a workflow kind of curve? Let me know what the issue is to help me find the appropriate source. In the meantime, I also recommend the Getting Started with Learning Analytics Builder course, if you haven't seen it already, the answer might be there. The Create a Customized Data Set Using an Existing Data Source sub-unit might be helpful as it covers (again, if you haven't already gone through it).
New Layout - what benefits?
Hi,
My D2L space is now fixed to the new view.
When I show a lesson, the space for that is now less than 25 % of the screen's area. I'm finding it very difficult to teach while more than 75 % of the screen is useless.
(Yes, the full screen button is a thing. The first thing I hear after using it is, "how did you get there? Where are you? as the students no longer see the address path.)
Please help me see any benefits of the new view.
Late submission penalty
Thank you,
Lae
Re: brightspace course home page
Hello @ram.R.4433
My name is Mohit, and I am a member of the product support team. When you log in to Brightspace, you arrive at the Organization Homepage, which serves as the main landing page.
There is no direct end-user preference setting within the personal Account Settings that allows an individual user to select a "default landing course" to automatically open upon login.
However, if you would like users to be directed to a specific Org Unit upon login, I would recommend leveraging the Custom Login Logic tool. Please note that this tool needs to be set up and configured by the D2L team.
You can check with your Account Team directly for more information regarding the availability and setup of this functionality.
Best Regards,
Mohit Bhargav
Re: September 2026/20.26.09 Release Notes
We are a New Content Experience user, and we had been avoiding the ETOC (Enhanced Table of Contents) that was being pushed out. As mentioned, with the September release, the ETOC will be forced on for all users, and with that Completion Tracking indicators enabled in "Contents". This was not desirable for us and I am sure we are not alone! One reason why this is a pain point is our discussion board requirements (to meet completion) are often more complex than just adding a post. Yet, there does not seem to be a way to manage completion settings for discussion posts in a way that would NOT be confusing to students and faculty,
We think we have found a workaround ahead of our fall courses starting to disable completion tracking PER COURSE.
1. Go into a course and turn of NCE (New Content Experience).
Note: For us, you go into "Content" and then click the dropdown just below the navbar in the upper right-hand corner. You need permissions to enable or disable NCE, or this dropdown will not show up.
2. Now in the "standard/regular" content experience, you will be on an Overview page. Click "settings" in the upper right to enter "Content Settings. Scroll down to the bottom to "Completion Tracking". Change the "Default Completion Status" to "Not Required". Click Save.
3. Turn NCE back on by going to the dropdown in the upper right again, and choose "Turn It On".
You are now back in the New Content Experience and Completion Tracking will no longer display if using the Enhanced Table of Contents. Hopefully the Sept release doesn't break this….
Re: Brightspace Portfolio Categories Question
Hi there,
Thank you for the detailed description of your setup, this is a great question that comes up when institutions are refining their Portfolio workflow before a semester launch.
What you're experiencing is a known behavior in Brightspace Portfolio. Categories that were previously assigned to artifacts (even during testing) can persist in the system as retained/retired category references, even after the original artifacts, test students, and categories themselves have been removed from Category Management. This is by design to preserve data integrity for any evidence that was ever tagged, but it can cause confusion when the old category names are still surfaced to students.
A few things to check and try:
1. Confirm whether these are "retired" categories
Categories that were once used and then deleted from Category Management are not fully purged; they are effectively retired but still stored in the Portfolio data layer. Students may still see them as selectable options because their association to the org hasn't been fully cleared.
2. Verify at the org/course level
Check whether these orphaned categories appear at the school/org level or the class/course level. School-level categories are managed by Board/Org admins under Category Management, while class-level categories are set by instructors. If any test categories were created at a different org level than expected, they may not be visible in your current Category Management view but still appear to students.
3. Recommended Path Forward: Contact D2L Support
Because these categories appear to be retained at the database level (not surfaced in the UI for deletion), the most reliable resolution before your semester starts is to open a support case with D2L. Provide:
- The names of the orphaned categories students are seeing
- Confirmation that they no longer appear in Category Management
- The org/course context where they appear
D2L Support can investigate whether these are cached, retired, or orphaned category records and initiate a cleanup on your behalf.
4. Interim workaround
If time is critical, consider providing students with clear written instructions on which categories to select, and remind instructors to filter only by the new category names when reviewing submissions. This won't resolve the root cause but will minimize confusion while a support case is being processed.
Given your semester begins next week, I'd recommend opening that support case as soon as possible and flagging it as time-sensitive. You can reach D2L Support at https://community.d2l.com/brightspace/s/.
Hope this helps get you sorted before launch! 🎓
Re: Portfolio and Assignments
Hi @Elaine.C.420,
Thank you for reaching out through the Community!!
Based on the "Add Own Assignment to Portfolio" setting, you should see the "Add to Portfolio" button on the student's View Feedback page or Submission Details page. If I understand correctly, you may be checking the Unevaluated Submissions page.
Please note that this option typically becomes available only after the assignment submission has been evaluated.
I hope this helps clarify the behaviour you are seeing. If you continue to experience issues or have any additional questions, please let us know, and we will be happy to assist further.
Thanks,
Sangeetha
Re: Dynamic question creation in Brightspace
Hi Brittanuy. I believe there are two options your math instructors can explore:
- MyOpenMath via LTI — Rather than importing the course file, set up MyOpenMath as an LTI 1.3 tool in Brightspace (Admin Tools > External Learning Tools). This way MyOpenMath handles the dynamic question generation and passes grades back to Brightspace automatically. Some help setting this up can be found here: https://www.myopenmath.com/help.php?section=lti#ltid2l
- Brightspace's built-in Arithmetic question type. This seems to do what your instructors want natively. They can create a question like "What is {x} + {y}?" and define variable ranges so each student gets different numbers without needing a 3rd-party tool needed. It's found under Quizzes > Question Library > New Question > Arithmetic.
It might be worth trying the Arithmetic question type first since it requires no setup and it's available from the get go.
Hope that helps.
Best regards, Gabriel