Managing Notifications in Brightspace

Overview

This guide will help users manage notifications in Brightspace, ensuring they stay informed about important course activities. Notifications can be customized to suit individual preferences, making tracking of new announcements, discussions, and other course-related events easier. Click each tab below to expand and learn more.

1. Email Notification Defaults

Email notifications from Brightspace are sent to a user’s system email account, including their email account associated with Brightspace. At CUNY, that will be whichever email account is associated with your @login.cuny.edu single-sign-on account, or your main campus email account, if you are affiliated with multiple campuses. You will want to confirm that you are receiving notifications after adjusting your settings, and you can do that by sending yourself an email from Brightspace.

By default*, the following email notifications are enabled for Brightspace users:

*Note: Instructors may not have the email notification defaults listed below if their accounts were created before the implementation of these defaults

Announcements: Announcement updated, new announcement available.

Assignments: Assignment due date or end date is 2 days away.

Discussions: New posts in a forum, topic, or thread you’ve subscribed to in instant notifications. [See Section 4 Discussions You’ve Subscribed To for how to subscribe to discussions]

Quizzes: Quiz due date or end date is 2 days away.

2. How to Change Notification Settings

Users can customize their notifications based on their preferences. To access notification settings in Brightspace, click on your profile icon in the top-right corner and select Notifications from the dropdown menu.

On the Notification page, adjust your preferences on the following items:

Summary of Activity: Click the dropdown menu to set up a daily or weekly activity summary within the course and enter your preferred time of receiving the summary.

Instant Notifications: Click on the checkboxes to choose which notifications you want to receive immediately via email.

Customize Notifications:
- Include my grade value in notifications from Grades Courses: Check this box if you want your grade values to be included in notifications.
- Allow future courses to send me notifications: Check this box to allow notifications from courses you enroll in later.

Exclude Notifications from Select Classes: At the bottom of the page, you can choose to exclude notifications from specific courses by clicking Manage my course exclusions.

In the list of courses, click the X to stop notifications from individual courses.

OR, if you are enrolled in many sites and would like to exclude most courses, choose ”Exclude All Courses” and then re-enable notifications for any single course(s).

3. New Announcements and Announcement Modifications

Brightspace can notify students when a new announcement is posted or modified, but no feature allows instructors to push announcements directly to students’ emails from the announcement post itself. To ensure students receive these notifications, instruct them to enable the relevant settings on their Notifications page. You can share this tutorial: Enable Notifications in Announcements with them to assist in this process, and you may also want to place this tutorial in the Getting Started or the first module of your course.

4. Discussions You’ve Subscribed To

Stay informed about ongoing conversations in your course by subscribing to discussion threads and receiving notifications for subscribed discussions.

Navigate to the Discussions area of your course and click on the chevron icon next to the discussion forum or topic that you’d like to subscribe to.
Select Subscribe from the dropdown menu.

To receive an email notification, you will have to select the Notification Method, Send me an instant notification, when you subscribe to the forum or topic.

After subscribing, ensure you enable the instant notification Discussions – new post in a forum, topic, or thread that I subscribed to in instant notifications. This setting ensures you are notified via email whenever new posts are made in the discussions you’re following.

5. Notifications on the Minibar

The Minibar is located at the top of the Brightspace interface and provides quick access to important notifications. It includes three primary icons:

Message Alerts (Envelope Icon): This icon notifies you of new messages from students or other Brightspace users. Clicking on it will take you directly to your inbox to view and respond to messages.
Subscription Alerts (Chat Bubble Icon): This icon alerts you to updates in discussions, assignments, and other activities you’ve subscribed to. Click on the bell icon to view recent activity and manage your subscriptions.
Update Alerts (Bell Icon): This icon shows updates on course content, such as new announcements, upcoming deadlines, and changes to course materials. Clicking on the flag icon will display a list of recent updates.

6. Understanding Brightspace Email

It’s important to note that Brightspace’s email system is send-only, meaning there is no inbox within Brightspace to receive emails. Users will only be able to view their “sent” emails within Brightspace.

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