When you log in to Brightspace, you will land on the homepage. At the top of the screen, you have various buttons that you can use.

1. The house icon and the Hanze logo ensure that no matter where you are in Brightspace, you can always return to your personal homepage.

2. Under the 'waffle' icon, you will see the list of courses you are enrolled in. You can search for, select, and pin a course to your homepage.

3. Subscription alerts: In Discussions, you can set whether you want to receive notifications of new replies to discussion posts. Click on the speech bubble to view the replies. A new notification is indicated by an orange dot.

4. Update alerts: With update alerts, you can quickly see, for example, uploaded files and submitted assignments. Click on the bell icon for this. A new notification is indicated by an orange dot.

5. Under your name or initials/profile picture, you can view the settings related to your profile, notifications, and account.

6. Currently, only your own Media Library is visible here. All documents you upload to Brightspace will appear here.

The homepage you land on when you log in to Brightspace is the same layout for everyone.

The navbar on the homepage contains several buttons.

• Help: The Help button refers to all instructional material available on Screensteps.
• Quick Eval: Refers to the Quick Eval tool. More information is provided below.
• Portflow: This is the integrated portfolio tool. More information can be found on Portflow teacher
• My Media: This is the place where you can find all your personal media uploaded to Brightspace.
• Search: This button allows you to search within the courses you are enrolled in on Brightspace.
• Discover: Under this button, you can find courses available for Self-Enrollment.

Within the My Courses widget, you have the following options:

1. You will see an overview of your twelve most recently visited courses. Note: Brightspace fills up your personal homepage with up to twelve courses, even if you haven’t pinned twelve courses.

• In some courses, there are icons with a number inside an orange frame. These icons represent Activities (Assignments, Discussions, and Quizzes). The number in the orange frame indicates how many unread items you have within that Activity. For example, the number next to the document bin icon shows how many unread submitted files from students you have.
• Click on the name of a course to open it.
• Click on View All Courses to see all courses.

2. You can use various filters to make it easier to search for a course. Pinned shows you the courses you have pinned, 2024/2025 displays the courses for this academic year, and the BB Converted filter shows you the courses where Blackboard material has been added. These filters can be useful during the implementation process to more easily find migration courses and target courses

3. Under Announcements, you will see central announcements, such as maintenance updates (not announcements specific to individual courses). You can remove (and archive) an announcement by clicking the cross in the top-right corner of the announcement. Click on Announcements or Show All Announcements to see all active and archived (dismissed) announcements.

4. Quick Eval is a tool to evaluate your students' work in a clear way. Quick Eval shows work that needs to be evaluated based on assignments, discussions, and/or quizzes. Work that needs to be evaluated through other tools will NOT appear in the Quick Eval list. On your homepage, you will see a collection of all the courses you are enrolled in.

5. This search bar can be used to search information or content throughout all the courses you are enrolled in.

You navigate to a course by:

• Clicking on a course under My Courses on the homepage.
• Clicking on the name of the desired course under the 'waffle' icon.
• When you're working within a course, you can always click on Course Home in the navbar or on the course name at the top to return to Course Home.

1. In the Course banner, you can see the course title. By clicking on the three dots, you can edit the Course banner.

2. Under Announcements, you will see the announcements specific to the course. Through announcements, you communicate with students before and during the course.

3. Here, the Units created under Content are visible.

4. In this search bar you can search for content and information that is in the course you are in.

5. In this widget, you will find work that needs to be evaluated within the course you are in.

6. The Group Management widget can be used for bulk creation of groups. More information can be found under How do I create groups?

In addition to the widgets on the course homepage, you have a navbar at the top that has the same layout for every course.

• Content: Here you organize your course into modules and upload your course materials.
• Course Tools: Below, you'll find Assignments, Discussions, and Quizzes.
• Users: Here, you can access Classlist, Class Progress, and Groups.
• Grades: Here, you can set up the Gradebook and grade assignments.
• Portflow: This will redirect you to Portflow.
• Media Libary: All documents you upload to Brightspace will appear here.
• Through Course Admin, you can open a page from which you can navigate to all the features that Brightspace offers.
• Search: This takes you to the same functionality that is also displayed in de search widget, mentioned by number 4 above.