It has been a busy month on the VLE front as the start of term approaches and the team have been working hard to ensure a smooth transition for those involved in Phase One of the  Brightspace implementation. 

Brightspace Staff Resources
The Brightspace Staff Resources area now contains further information covering orientation for units (including Homepage, Navigation bars and Content) as well as Unit Roles and using the Accessibility Checker for unit content. These resources are continually being added to and can be accessed via the Help menu on the Brightspace Homepage and some excellent resources are available here.

Assigning Staff to Units
Staff can assign teaching and marking team members to their unit.  Information on the Brightspace unit roles is available here.

Brightspace Drop-ins and Training
There are some further Brightspace drop-in sessions planned where new users can come along to obtain some help and guidance.  More information is available here.  Any staff who will be using Brightspace from September can still attend training.  Please email V4L for more details. 

Programme Support Team Resources Support material for the Programme Support Teams is now available in the Brightspace Staff Resources area. This can be accessed via the Help menu on the Brightspace Homepage.  

Blackboard (myBU) Data Export The article here has now been updated to reflect the date when this bug will be fixed – 25th August 2017 and will be available for use from 26th August 2017.  The facility to export learning materials from myBU and import them to Brightspace is one of the methods by which academic staff can create content in Brightspace.  There are many ways in which staff can structure content in myBU and the import process will do the best it can to replicate the structure in the Brightspace Table of Contents.  

One area where the import can struggle is with content in myBU that is hierarchical and has multiple levels.  Our experience has been that the import process will bring in the information and that the teaching staff will then need to work on the structure and content to present the material effectively in Brightspace.  There are many features of Brightspace that can be used to engage students in the learning so it is advisable to set aside time to exploit these possibilities.  Some academic staff report that it is faster and better to create from scratch than to import and then rework.

VLE Helpdesk Tickets
Some concerns have been raised about the 10 day SLA being indicated for responses to SNOW tickets raised requesting VLE support.  Staff are certainly not waiting this long for responses to the tickets they’re raising and a change request has been put forward to add VLE specific forms which will have a 2 day SLA as standard.