Dear Faculty,
It’s getting close to the end of the semester and we hope it has been smooth for you. After a full year of teaching in Brightspace, we’re wiser, more efficient, but still discovering new things! With this in mind, join us for Brightspace Day to learn and share alongside your colleagues on May 15 (see below for details). As we close out the semester, the OFDIT team shares a call from the Improving the Teaching and Learning Experience Strategic Planning Committee to provide input on a CUNY SPS Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL). With the end of the term approaching, read on for some general grading advice and a new grading option coming soon. For our ePortfolio users, you’ll find a round-up of useful end-of-term resources for you and your students. And we wrap up this issue with a tip on how to connect with colleagues through OpenLab and an invitation for your submissions for our Faculty Corner. Looking forward to seeing you on campus or virtually on Brightspace Day!
Brightspace Day
Brightspace Day is on Thursday, May 15! We invite you to attend any part of the program and want to highlight a few sessions for you:
(In-person) Prepare your summer or fall course site in person in the morning, starting at 9:45 ET. Come and join us for breakfast and a hands-on working session in the computer lab in room 216. The OFDIT team will answer your specific questions and offer sessions providing general tips on Communications, Dates, and Grades.
(Hybrid) Join the hybrid UDL Collaborative session (see below for more info!) 12-1 EST
(Virtual) Come to the virtual afternoon session starting at 2PM EST. Join us virtually to work on your dev sites and get general tips about communications, dates, and grades.
(Virtual) Finish the day by sharing and learning at a virtual “Unsession” at 3:30 pm EST:
Join to share and hear your colleagues’ favorite Brightspace tips, tricks, or hacks! Whether it’s an efficiency hack you’ve discovered or a creative way of using Brightspace in your teaching, we encourage you to sign up on our registration form and bring your insights! We look forward to seeing you and collaborating together to enhance the teaching and learning experience!
Hybrid BYOL Session
UDL Collaborative Meeting
12-1pm ET
Room 104 (119 W 31st St, 1st floor) or via Zoom [Register Here]
We’re excited to invite you for the final UDL Collaborative meeting of this academic year (and our first in hybrid format)! Come celebrate our collective achievements and share insights as we wrap up the semester. We’ll explore the Ally tool and discuss how LMS features can enhance accessibility and support UDL principles in our courses. We hope to see many of you in person, if you can – bring your brown bag lunch!
Share Your Thoughts on a Center for Teaching and Learning at CUNY SPS!
The Strategic Planning Committee on Improving the Teaching and Learning Experience (ITLE) invites your input on a Center for Teaching, Learning, and Scholarship at SPS. A center of this nature would support faculty collaboration, pedagogical initiatives, and inclusive online learning practices. How could this be done? What is the priority for SPS? Tell the committee what you’d like to see in a CTL by taking a brief survey.
Your feedback is invaluable and will shape the future of teaching, learning, and scholarship at the college. Please return the survey by June 1, 2025 and feel free to email any questions or comments to ITLE@sps.cuny.edu.
Getting Ready to
Calculate Final Grades
As the term is winding down, it’s important to make sure things in your Brightspace Gradebook are in order for correct calculation of student final grades. You can refer to our Teaching Guides for steps to do the following:
- Check to make sure all gradebook items are linked to the related activities in your course, and if you have moved items or edited any item names during the semester, it’s good to verify that names of related Gradebook item and Content items.
- Review settings for any extra credit you may have offered during the semester.
- Apply the “Drop Lowest” setting once due dates for all items in the related category have passed.
Guides for Managing
Special Grading Cases in Brightspace
We also have Teaching Guides for special grading situations you might encounter:
- As the semester wraps up, in certain instances, you may want to set a gradebook exemption for an item for a student.
- Grading a Group Project and students have not all earned the same points? Here’s how to adjust grades for individual students within a group assignment in Brightspace.
- Have a student who turned in something late or did a revision and has earned a higher grade? One way to update the point total is to override the reported points in Gradebook’s Spreadsheet View.
Coming Soon:
Importing Grades from
Brightspace to CUNYfirst
A new optional feature will be available in CUNYfirst to import grades from the Final Calculated Grade column in the corresponding Brightspace course site. This feature is being offered for the first time this semester, and while you are free to test it out, you should carefully review the imported grades and adjust them if necessary, before you submit the grades to the Registrar. Watch for an email from the Registrar around May 20 with more details and instructions!
ePortfolio (Digication) Resources for
Students and Faculty
As we approach the end of the term, the ePortfolio Team is offering resources to help users complete all pending tasks in ePortfolio (Digication).
Students can join an ePortfolio Support Lab in the next two weeks to work with a member of the ePortfolio team to upload signature assignments or finish pending tasks in ePortfolio. If students would like to meet with the team one-on-one, they can schedule an ePortfolio Support Session, a 30-minute ZOOM call, with one of our team members, to discuss any questions they have about ePortfolio.
Faculty can email Karen Avila, ePortfolio Specialist, at karen.avila@cuny.edu, or schedule an ePortfolio Support Session to address any questions they have about signature assignments.
Did You Know?
An important reminder as you determine final grades is that, just like Blackboard, Brightspace letter grade schemas do not round up. For example, given that an A is 93 or above, Brightspace will translate a numerical grade of 92.99 as an A-. If you want to credit a student on the threshold of a letter grade with the higher grade, you can make that adjustment on your Grade Roster in CUNYfirst. You can leave the student individual feedback on their final grade by selecting Enter Grades from the dropdown menu for the Final Calculated Grade.
Explore the OpenLab!
Whether you’re teaching, supporting students, or working on a new initiative, the CUNY SPS OpenLab is your space to connect, collaborate, and create. Faculty and staff can sign in easily using CUNY Login (SSO) to join existing groups—from campus resources to student organizations—or start something new with your own project or portfolio site.
This is the perfect time to dive in, explore what others are building, and share your own work. The OpenLab is built by CUNY, for CUNY—come be part of the community!
How to Sign Up for an OpenLab Account
How to Join a Group
Groups you can join today:
Ready to get started? Log in to the OpenLab and start exploring today!
Faculty Corner: Call for Submissions
Each newsletter we publish a segment called Faculty Corner. It’s an opportunity for faculty to learn from faculty. With a year of Brightspace under our belt and the end of the term around the corner, we wanted to highlight two opportunities for you to share and learn from each other.
First, you can register for Brightspace Day’s “Unsession.” Share a teaching tip in 3-minutes or less and then learn some tips from your colleagues! The Unsession will be held in the afternoon on Brightspace Day (May 15 @ 3:30pm). Register for the event and drop your name in the hat to share a tip!
Second, we invite you to submit to the Faculty Corner itself. If you have a teaching tip (in 200 words or less) that you think will help others, we would love to hear from you! Add your tip to our Faculty Corner Submission Form and we’ll publish it in our next newsletter!
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