Dear Faculty,
We hope you’ll join us for next month’s Brightspace Day event on May 15th! A year in: What have you learned from your experience using Brightspace? What would you still like to know more about? Sign up to share in one of our “Unsession” slots, or to attend a morning (in-person) or afternoon (virtual) session for training on an array of Brightspace topics. You’ll find registration and session descriptions in this month’s newsletter, along with links to learn more about the upcoming SPS Transformative Learning and Development Conference and the Bronx EdTech Showcase, too. We wanted to alert you to updates about the Brightspace email tool, and to share information about accessing CUNY’s Enterprise Copilot AI chatbot and a tip about creating a Practice Quiz in your course. We’re looking forward to seeing you at one of our spring training sessions and to hearing your discoveries and questions during Brightspace Day!
Brightspace Day is May 15!
Join us in-person in the morning or virtually in the afternoon. When you sign up, you can choose either the in-person session, the virtual session, or both. Here’s the day’s program:
Brightspace Day In-Person from 10:00am – Noon
119 W 31st Building (2nd Floor- Room 216)
- 9:45am Breakfast/light refreshments served
- 10:00am Session 1: Announcements, Notifications, Activity Feed, and Email
- 10:30am Session 2: Availability Dates, Due Dates, and Date Management
- 11:00am Session 3: Setting up Grades
- 11:30am Session 4: Ask Us Anything – open session
UDL Collaborative Meeting
- Noon – 1:00pm Hybrid session hosted by the UDL Community: Register Here
1:00pm – 2:00pm Break
Brightspace Day Virtual Session from 2:00pm – 4:00pm
- 2:00pm Session 1: Announcements, Notifications, Activity Feed, and Email
- 2:30pm Session 2: Availability Dates, Due Dates, and Date Management
- 3:00pm Session 3: Setting up Grades
- 3:30pm Unsession: Share your Brightspace tips with SPS
The Unsession is dedicated time for faculty members to share their best Brightspace advice with the community. Show, demo, or talk about a tip, trick, or workflow you’ve used in Brightspace! It could be an efficiency hack you’ve discovered for yourself or for students, or a way of using Brightspace in your teaching that your colleagues might like to try. On Brightspace Day, Unsession participants will share their tip in 3-minutes or less. Sign up when you register in Zoom, or you can also sign up for and view the Unsession info on this page: CUNY SPS Brightspace Day Unsession
Brightspace Updates and Notes
You may have noticed that the Email tool no longer appears in the Brightspace minibar. That’s because that minibar tool allowed users to send messages beyond their course rosters, which raised concerns about privacy, FERPA compliance, and the potential for misuse—like mass emails to unintended recipients. As of April 11, 2025, CUNY has removed the Email tool from the minibar for all users, including faculty, staff, students, and admins. Don’t worry—course communication via email is still fully supported through the Classlist, so you can continue messaging students as usual within your courses. Check out our Sending Email in a Brightspace Course teaching guide to learn how to email individual students, groups of students, or your whole class, and steps for changing your email signature and for reviewing Sent Mail.
Events for SPS Faculty
CUNY SPS
Transformative Learning & Development Conference
Take part in the conversation about transformation at SPS! The inaugural Transformative Learning & Development Conference invites to you a collaborative community and supportive space to share activities, ideas, and best practices for creating transformative teaching and learning experiences at CUNY SPS. Come together to hear about the professional development and projects your colleagues found interesting and impactful.
All sessions will be offered online via Zoom on Wednesday, April 30 from 12-3pm
12th Annual Bronx EdTech Showcase
On Friday, May 2, 2025, from 9 am- 4pm at Lehman College, you can explore the theme “Human-AI Synergy: Shaping Education to Promote Digital Equity and Inclusion” at the Bronx EdTech Showcase. The keynote speaker will be Ina Wanca, Chief Academic AI Officer at CUNY, to discuss insights on AI’s transformative role in education. There will be over 20 concurrent presentations on innovative methods and modalities, as well as a student panel featuring a candid discussion about how AI impacts learning and experience.
UDL Collaborative: April Meeting
Join us for our upcoming UDL Collaborative meeting on “UDL and Accommodations” on Wednesday, April 23 from 2-3pm ET. where we’re thrilled to welcome staff from the Office of Student Disability Services (OSDS) as our special guests! This is your opportunity to learn directly from the experts who support our diverse student population daily. OSDS staff will share insights about their work and common student requests, and answer all those questions you’ve been wondering about but haven’t had the chance to ask.
OpenLab
The CUNY SPS OpenLab is open!
We’re excited to introduce The Open Road, a site maintained by the OpenLab team to highlight the exciting projects, collaborations, and community-building happening on the CUNY SPS OpenLab.
By joining, you can stay in the loop with updates from student organizations, follow OpenLab news, and explore our growing collection of blogs.
Think of The Open Road as your go-to hub for OpenLab announcements, events, and helpful guides whether you’re new to WordPress, exploring Creative Commons licenses, or looking to get the most out of OpenLab’s features. Built by CUNY, for CUNY, since 2011.
Did You Know?
Did you know that CUNY faculty, staff and students have access to the Microsoft Copilot AI chatbot?
Why use Copilot? Copilot Chat is built on the same engine as ChatGPT, and includes features such as image generation, the ability to upload files, and citations for each response. It is available to all faculty, staff and students. You might ask:
How is this different from the free version of Copilot chat? CUNY’s Enterprise version includes data protection: chat data is private and secure, and is not used to train the model or shared with third parties.
Is this Copilot built into Word or other Office products? No, this version is for the standalone chatbot only. Integration with Office applications is a separate license and fee.
How do I access the Enterprise version of Copilot Chat? Go to office.com/chat and log in with your CUNYLogin (the same as you use for Brightspace).
Faculty Corner
Create a Practice Quiz without a Gradebook Column
Submitted by Curtis Izen, Online Business Program
Recently, I wanted my students to practice taking a quiz to make sure they were comfortable with the process. Therefore, I needed a Brightspace quiz that would NOT have an associated column in the gradebook. If you’d like to try this in your course, here’s how to set it up:
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- Go to your course and click on Quizzes under the Activities menu
- Click New Quiz
- In the “Grade Out Of” section, be sure to leave the selection as “Not in Grade Book”
- Add questions to the quiz and set up your other options based on your criteria (i.e. Availability Dates and Conditions, Timing & Display, Attempts & Completion and Evaluation & Feedback)
- Be sure to make the quiz visible to students and then click “Save and Close” when done
You can refer to the OFDIT page on Quizzes in Brightspace for details.
Now that your quiz is set to be “Not in Grade Book,” let your students know they can attempt the quiz for practice only — no grade book column involved!
OFDIT Spring 2025 Trainings
OFDIT’s spring trainings can help you learn more about how you can use Brightspace tools and features to support efficient, accessible course delivery and foster student engagement. We look forward to seeing you at some of our upcoming sessions! Refer to our trainings page on the SPS Faculty Community Hub site or use links below to register.
Using ePortfolio in your Course
In this session, you will explore the structure of ePortfolio and learn how to use the platform from the instructor view. You will learn how to navigate the Digication in Brightspace, review your students’ signature assignment submissions, and share the various support resources available for both students and instructors. There will also be time to answer any questions you might have about ePortfolios at CUNY SPS.
- Tuesday, April 22 at 12:00PM Register Here
Advanced Gradebook Topics for SPS Faculty
In this training, we will discuss setting up your gradebook for the semester, how to add items for extra credit, using grade schema for items requiring special circumstances, and more!
- Wednesday, April 23, 4-5 pm Register Here
- Friday, April 25th, 8-9 am Register Here
Brightspace: Navigating and Grading Discussions
Learn to navigate the Discussions area seamlessly and to efficiently grade student participation in Discussion Boards in your course!
- Tuesday, April 22 from 10am-11am Register here
As always, OFDIT is here to help! We are available for one-on-one support and are also happy to schedule a Zoom call to discuss any questions you may have. Don’t hesitate to reach out to us at facultysupport@sps.cuny.edu
All the Best,
Your OFDIT Team
