Upgrading Our LMS, Enhancing Your Experience
The Brightspace Next initiative is a strategic project aimed at modernizing the D2L Brightspace Learning Management System (LMS) to better meet the evolving needs of students, faculty, and staff.
By focusing on improving the user experience, updating courses, and providing comprehensive training, Brightspace Next strives to deliver a consistent, intuitive, and easy-to-use learning environment for the entire university community.
Projects
In Progress
Course Redesigns
Summer 2025-Spring 2027
Instructors will receive guidance to update existing courses to support student learning. Student survey results will be used to identify courses for redesign, and corresponding instructors or course developers will be invited to partake in the redesign process.
Excellence in Course Design Award
Spring 2026
Establish an award to honor instructors and staff who demonstrate commitment and excellence in online course design. By recognizing outstanding courses, we aim to encourage and promote effective approaches to online learning across the university.
Fall 2026 Brightspace Modernization
Spring 2026-Fall 2026
We will implement a set of coordinated changes to Brightspace that are directly informed by student feedback, institutional data, and D2L’s product roadmap.
Final Calculated Grade: Set the Final Calculated Grade as the default in all courses. This ensures transparency for students about their academic standing while reducing the workload required for instructors to ensure grades are visible.
Standard Navigation Bar: Establish a standard navbar to be used across all Brightspace course sites and remove custom navbars.
New Content Experience: Activate D2L’s New Content Experience, a modernized interface designed for intuitive course creation and navigation. Currently, the institution is using D2L Classic for its Brightspace interface. D2L has communicated that they will phase out the Classic experience in 2027.
The updates are designed to:
- Improve student transparency and understanding of academic standing
- Reduce unnecessary cognitive load and navigation friction
- Increase instructional efficiency and consistency
- Prepare the institution for upcoming vendor-mandated platform changes
Course Building Style Guide
Spring 2026
Establish a Course Building Style Guide to provide consistency in suggestions and training for faculty and instructional support staff. The key priorities of this style guide are accessibility, functionality, sustainable design, and navigation, ensuring that courses are user-friendly, effective, and easy to maintain.
Brightspace Institute
Spring 2025-Summer 2026
The Brightspace Institute offers instructors a hands-on, supportive environment to enhance course design and instruction skills in the LMS. This immersive program is designed to boost confidence and proficiency in using Brightspace, empowering faculty to create engaging online learning experiences.
Completed
Course Site Deletion Policy
Ongoing
The University is implementing a new Course Site Deletion Policy for D2L Brightspace, beginning Spring 2025. This policy aims to enhance system performance, contain storage costs, and align with other student data retention policies on campus. The policy will establish a standard deletion procedure for course sites, ensuring efficient use of our Learning Management System.
D2L Brightspace EDGE Trainings
Summer 2024-Spring 2025
New faculty training on D2L Brightspace will be available through the EDGE Learning platform. These courses offer various learning paths to enhance instructors' skills in using the LMS effectively. Participants can earn certifications while expanding their knowledge, helping them to better leverage Brightspace in their teaching.
Rebrand from D2L to Brightspace
Summer 2024-Spring 2025
In 2014, D2L changed the name of the Learning Management System to Brightspace, however, the U of A never updated our naming conventions and branding. With the new contract, we are ready to fully adopt Brightspace branding across all of our websites and documentation.
RFP for the Learning Management System
Spring 2023-Fall 2023
The RFP Committee reviewed all vendor submissions, and with consideration and discussion, the committee recommended D2L Brightspace due to its high scores across all evaluation criteria.
D2L Brightspace Student Survey
Fall 2024
A collaborative effort between UCATT and Assessment and Research will conduct a campus-wide survey in Fall 2024 to gather student feedback on D2L Brightspace usage and effective instructional practices. The results will provide valuable insights into student preferences and needs, helping instructors optimize their use of the Learning Management System and improve teaching methods to better support learning outcomes.
D2L Brightspace Health Check
Fall 2024-Spring 2025
UCATT is partnering with D2L to conduct a comprehensive review of how we use Brightspace institutionally. Through this review, we are identifying and implementing changes that will improve our use of Brightspace.
- Survey Development- Spring 2024
- Pilot Survey- Summer 2024
- Survey Active- September 23-October 25
- Data Analysis and Report- Fall 2024
- New Content Experience Pilot - Spring 2026
- Modernization Projects- Fall 2026
This institutional assessment project reports findings from 6,998 student responses to the D2L/Brightspace survey delivered in Fall 2024. It also summarizes findings from 25 students who were interviewed to gain insight into the University of Arizona student’s experience using the D2L Brightspace Learning Management System.