Written Support Example:
Populating Content in Brightspace (LMS

What are Units and Lessons?

As a review, when you enter your course in Brightspace, you will notice an area called “Units" that will house the instruction, activities, and assessments for your course. Units are the highest level of organization in your course, and they capture the macro-structure of your course.

If you are creating a catalog course or adding content to your enrolled course, you will need to know how to structure a Lesson. That’s because Lessons are where the instruction for the course actually lives. You can think of a lesson as a container that you’re going to fill with everything your students need to meet the learning outcomes for this Unit. As such, a Lesson will contain all of the materials that you use for instruction (text, documents, web links, video, audio, images) as well as the instruction itself.

Instructional Material

Original Course Content

Previously, we discussed how to create original course content and instructional materials, including text materials, image materials, audio materials, and video materials. Once you have created your materials, you will need to make them available to students in Brightspace.

Curated Course Content

We also reviewed how to curate course content and materials from outside sources. Curated content may come in the form of Open Educational Resources (OER), third-party materials, or other digital content. Just as with professor-created course content, once you have curated your materials, you will need to make them available to students in Brightspace.

How will I make content available?

Once you have created or curated your materials, you will use the tools available in Brightspace to make them available to students. Primarily, you will present your materials by creating a Lesson within a Unit. The Lesson will be a blank HTML file. From here, you will be able to add a page template, add text to the page, embed images, hyperlink to websites, or link or embed audio/video, PDF documents, or other files.

How to Use the HTML Editor in Brightspace

Adding a Lesson to a Unit

Click Units from the Nav Bar.
Click the Unit where you would like to add a Lesson.
Click Upload/Create.
Click File.
(You can alternatively choose to add other forms of new content here as well. Ex. Uploaded files, vidoe, audio, and hyperlinks)
Enter a Title and Click Save.

Where do my files go?

Files are saved in the Manage Files area of Brightspace (you can access this by clicking Course Admin from the Nav Bar and then click Manage Files under Site Resources). This area will contain any files created or uploaded in your Brightspace course.

Adding a Template to a Lesson

Once you have added a title to your lesson, click the grey dropdown called Select a Document Template, located on the right-hand side of the title.
Select the type of page you are creating.
The two most frequently used templates are 02_module_intro_UCB for Unit Overview pages or Basic Page for a Lesson.
Click Save.

Adding Text to the Lesson

Highlight the text on the page and replace it with your text.
We recommend authoring text on a separate Word or Google doc and copying and pasting it into your file in Brightspace. If you have the option, use Ctrl+Shift+V to paste your copied text as plain text to preserve the text formatting on the template page.
We do not recommend changing the font family or font size using the formatting bar. Instead, select the text format dropdown to format paragraph and heading text (Paragraph, Heading 1, Heading 2, Heading 3, etc.). If you are not sure how to use headings to properly format text, review this page on WebAIM.
Click Save frequently as you add and edit text

Adding Video (or other Embedded Media) to the Lesson

Click Insert Stuff.
Select the location of the media you are adding.
If the video is saved on your computer, click My Computer. If it is saved in your Manage Files, click Course Offering Files. If you have an embed code for your video, click Enter Embed Code. If it is a video from a website and there is no embed code, click Insert Link and share the URL. If the video is from YouTube, you can try the YouTube item. If this does not work for you, use the embed code from the YouTube video.
Locate and select your file or enter the required information, then click Next or Add.
If you are prompted to select Next, you may be prompted to add additional information such as the title of your video. Add a clear and descriptive title; the video title helps make the media accessible.
Click Save.

Adding Images Adding Images to the Lesson

Click Insert Image.
Select the location of the image you are adding.
If the image is saved on your computer, click My Computer. If the image is located on a website and does not have an embed code, click URL. If the image is saved in your Manage Files, click Course Offering Files.
Locate and select your file or enter the required information, then click Next or Add.
If you are prompted to select Next, you may be prompted to add additional information such as alt text. Learn to write descriptive alt text.
Step Four: Click Save

Editing a Lesson

If you select Save and Close before you are finished editing a Lesson, or if you need to return to a lesson to edit it, follow these steps.

Click Units from the Nav Bar.
Click the Unit where you would like to edit a Lesson.
Click the action link next to the title of the Lesson and then click Edit HTML.

Reviewing your Lesson

Spell Check.
While in the edit mode, click the A+Checkmark at the bottom of the document.
Accessibility Check.
While in the edit mode, click the Eye+Checkmark at the bottom of the document.

Saving a Lesson

Once you are finished editing your Lesson, click Save and Close. If you want the Lesson to be available to students, double-check to make sure it is marked visible.

You can also use the Role Switch button to view your Lesson from the student point of view.

Written Support Example: Populating Content in Brightspace (LMS

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