Brightspace Transition

» New! Schedule a Consultation with CTL

» See the Trainings page for CTL workshops specifically for migrated courses.

Your Blackboard course has been migrated (copied) to Brightspace. So now what do you do? The course migration process is sometimes compared to moving your belongings from one location to another, using a moving service. Usually all of your stuff arrives at its destination, but sometimes where the movers put things are not where you expect them to be! So too, the migration process should have brought “content” (not student work or grades) from Blackboard, but some things might look a bit different. The resources on this page will help you find your old stuff in your new Brightspace course.

How can I find my migrated Brightspace course?

To find your migrated course, go to http://brightspace.uvm.edu and log in with your UVM NetID and password. This login page uses multi-factor authentication (MFA). If you have not set up MFA yet, please follow these directions [opens new window]. (Note: Migrating means “copying” from Blackboard, however you can still access these courses in Blackboard until September 8th, 2023.)

After you have logged into Brightspace, you will see your courses listed in the course selection waffle (upper navigation bar) and on the My Courses area on the home page. For more detailed information on how to find your courses, please see this article in the ETS Knowledge Base (opens new window)

On the Brightspace landing page, in the My Courses area, click the Migrated tab to find your course. Migrated course titles will include a subject, number, and title which matches the source course in Bb. Course id’s will also be the same as they were in Bb, starting with the term code (i.e. 202209- for Fall 22), and their 5-Digit CRN.

Migration Schedule

What Blackboard courses are being migrated?

• All of 2023
• All of 2022
• Fall of 2021

If you want to save any course material from Summer ’21 or earlier, you will need to create (and download) an export file of that course in Blackboard. Here’s how to export a Blackboard course and import it into a Brightspace course. (Note: both migrated courses or courses you’ve manually imported to Brightspace contain content only. No student data is included.)

• Most Fall 2022 courses have been migrated.
• Most Summer 2022 course have been moved. (Please note, only courses that have received permission from PACE will be offered in Brightspace in Summer 2023.)
• Most Spring 2022 courses have been migrated  
• Most Fall 2021 courses have been migrated.
• Most Spring 2023 courses have been migrated.

Summer 2023: These courses will be migrated at the end of the summer term.

What else will I see in Brightspace? 

You will have a sandbox space you can use to layout your course design and create content. A sandbox has all the same functionality as a “regular” course. You can copy content from a sandbox course into any other Brightspace course. (Click the Sandboxes tab in the My Courses area.)

After the Registrar’s Schedule of Courses is complete for a given term, you will see the “live” course space that will contain student enrollments.  Fall 2023 course spaces will be created in Brightspace after the course catalogue is published online, sometime in March.

What are my options for preparing the Brightspace course I will use in Fall 2023? 

If you want to start getting your Fall 2023 course ready now, you have two options:

1. Edit your course migrated from Blackboard and later copy into your Fall 2023 course.
2. Use your sandbox to create your fall course. You can copy specific course materials, assignments, quizzes, etc. from your migrated course space or create new content directly in your sandbox course.
3. Either way, you will then copy this sandbox or edited migrated course into your Fall 2023 course.

The first thing we suggest is that you simply look at your migrated course and see how it came over. We expect most things from your Blackboard course will be fairly organized. That said, if you copied your Blackboard courses from year to year or if you have had many levels of subfolders in Blackboard, you may find that some things don’t appear as you expect.

You can use two browser windows, or multiple tabs within a browser, to have your Blackboard and Brightspace course versions open at the same time. Simply navigate through the migrated course version, noting what looks good, and what you may have questions about.

And remember, you don’t need to fix or create everything at once. Moving to Brightspace gives you the chance to think anew about how your course space serves you and your students.

What resources are available to guide my review of my migrated course in Brightspace?

Here are some articles on the UVM Knowledge Base to guide your review of migrated Blackboard courses:

General Tips for Checking Courses
Announcements
Check and Clean up the Course Content
Assignments
Discussions
Brightspace Solutions to Missing Tools (Journals, Blogs, and Wikis)
Internal Course Links from Blackboard
Rubrics
Quizzes
Grades (coming soon!)

Brightspace/Blackboard Comparison Chart

This chart is an overview of the primary differences in nomenclature within Brightspace and Blackboard. It also provides links to Brightspace documentation to help you get started.

Download the Chart Here.

Thank you to the University of Maine and SUNY Oswego for allowing us to borrow heavily from their own migration documentation.