Add content to your Brightspace course site.

The Content area is the heart of your Brightspace course site as it can contain the learning material as well as links to assessments and activities. Create folders and populate the folders with various types of learning materials.

Creating units and folders in Content provides the structure of your learning material. Start by creating a container called a unit and then add items to the unit. You can also create sub-containers to establish a hierarchy, if you wish. A sub-container of a Unit is called a Lesson and sub-container of that is called a Folder:

• Units (top layer of folders)
  • Lessons (sub-folders)
    • Folders (the next layer of sub-folders)
      • Folder (all layers hereafter or folders)

The files or items you add to a unit or any of the sub-containers are called topics.

 

Add a Unit

1. On the navbar, select Content.
2. Click +New Unit at the top of the table of contents side navigation bar. A unit is like a folder into which you place learning objects or create sub-folders to further organize your content.  (If you already have a unit in your course site, click the Add button and select Unit, instead.)
3. Enter a Unit Title.
4. (Optional but recommended) Add a Description of what this unit will contains, its purpose, or how students should use it. The full Brightspace editor is available for formatting.  If you add an image to the description, it will appear in the Visual Table of Contents widget on the course homepage.
5. (Optional) Click Availability Dates & Conditions if you would like to add a Start Date or End Date when this unit will be accessible to students.
6. When you create a new unit or any level of folder, it is hidden to students by default. Click the Hidden toggle to make the unit or folder visible to students.
   

7. Once the unit is created, it will appear in the table of contents in the left-hand panel. Notice that the Unit title and description appear on the right panel that takes up most of the screen.
   

Remember: this is just a container, and course content does not belong as part of the description.

Populate a Unit

Once you have a unit, you can populate it.

Click the Add button in the top left. A dialogue box will appear.

Figure: the Add Course Content dialogue box

 

Add a file:

1. Drag and drop a file into the “Drop files, or click to browse” box near the bottom of the dialogue box; or select click and select the file.

2. When you add a new file, it is hidden to students by default. Click the Hidden toggle near the top right to make the topic visible to students.

 

Note: Files with characters such as: \ / : * ? " < > | ~ # % & + { } – or names longer than 120 characters may not upload properly.

 

Create more structure (add sub-folders)

1. To add more structure to a unit in your course, make sure you are in the unit and click the Add button and then Lesson (a sub-folder of a Unit is called a Lesson). The process to set up the lessons is the same as creating a unit.
   
2. To create another layer and create a folder within the lesson, click Add, click Folder (a sub-folder of a Lesson is called a Folder), and complete the form the same way as you did when creating a unit and a lesson.

Create a page in Brightspace

1. To create a webpage within the current unit, lesson, or folder rather than uploading a file, click Add then click Page.
2. Provide a Page Title.
3. Either
   • enter your text in the Page Content text box and use the Brightspace editor to format the page,
     

• or click Select Template, select one of the templates in the drop-down menu, and replace the existing elements with your own text and images, to create your page.
  

5. (Optional) Add availability dates.
6. Click the Hidden toggle to make the link Visible to students.
7. Click Save and Close.

This is an example of using the Basic Page template and replacing the default text.

Create a Web Link

1. To add a link to a unit, lesson or folder, click Add then Web Link.
2. Provide a title or name for the link in the Web Link Title field.
3. In the External Link field, provide the URL, including the “https://”.
4. (Optional) Add a Description, and Availability dates.
5. Click the Hidden toggle to make the link Visible to students.
6. Click Save and Close.

Note: Under Display & Completion, leave the Open in a new tab selected to avoid security issues and a broken link.

Add a link to an assessment in your course

1. To insert a link in a unit, lesson or folder to an assignment, discussion, quiz, checklist, or survey that you have already created in your course, click Add.
2. Click the appropriate name in the Add Course Content list and select Add Existing.
   
3. Select the name of the activity to insert.  You can also use the search box in the top right corner of the Insert an Activity dialogue box to search for the assignment by its name and then click it.
   

The assessment will appear in the left contents list and the details of the assessment will appear in the panel on the right.

Create and add an assessment

1. To create an assignment, quiz, discussion topic, or checklist and add a link to it in the unit, lesson, or folder at the same time, click on the appropriate tool name and select Create New.
   
   
    
   You will be directed to the appropriate tool’s complete editor page. Follow the instructions for the appropriate tool and once you have saved, the link will be available in content as well as the Assignments, Quizzes, Discussions, or Checklist tool.

 

Add a link to a reading list

1. To add a link to the reading list you have created at the Leddy Library, click Add.
2. Click External Learning Tools.
   
3. Click Course Resource List.
   

Edit or Delete in Content

To edit a unit, lesson, folder or any of the material within,

1. Click the appropriate name in the content list to open it.
2. Click the Options (three-dots) icon in the top right.
3. Select Edit or Delete.