Getting Started: Using D2L Brightspace

The following tutorials and information will help you get familiar with D2L Brightspace,
The Art Institute’s LMS

LOG IN

Log in to Find your courses Set up profile, email Get familiar with the
Brightspace by D2L notifications and customize tools in Brightspace
user settings

Digital Textbooks Check your System Know where to go

for help
 Log in to D2L Brightspace
How to log in
1. Go to https://mycampus.artinstitutes.edu/portal/server.pt and log into your student portal
with your username and password.
2. On the right hand side, locate the box that says “Brightspace”.
3. Select “Launch Class”.

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The first page you will come to is our Organizational Homepage. This is the landing
page for our school when the online learning platform is first launched. There are many
great resources found on this page, such as: Announcements, Upcoming Events, and a
Calendar Feature. Please review any announcements posted on this page prior to entering
your course.
 Find Your Courses
The Minibar
The Minbar can be found at the top of your Brightspace Page.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

1. Course Selector Tool- Allows you to access your course(s).

2. Message Alerts-This is where you will send emails and instant messages. This will notify
you when you have received an instant message as well.
3. Subscription Alerts- Contains alerts for new blog posts and discussion posts in forums,
topics, and specific threads you subscribed to.
4. Update Alerts- Contains alerts for new and updated news posts, upcoming end dates and
due dates, and new or updated grades.
5. Student Name- Contain the menu to allow you to set up your profile, adjust notification
settings, adjust account setting, and log-out.

* If you have unread alerts an orange circle will appear next to the icon. An example of this can
be seen above next to the “Update Alerts” Icon.

Navigate to Your Course(s)

1. Click on the “Course Selector Tool” on the Minibar.
2. You will see the courses you are enrolled in. You can search or click on “Advanced
Search” to find a specific course.
3. Click on the course to enter.
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Pinning Your Course(s)

You can pin your current course(s) so they are easily accessible on your organizational
homepage.

1. Click on the “Course Selector Tool” on the Minibar.

2. You will see the courses you are enrolled in. You can search or click on “Advanced
Search” to find a specific course.
3. On the right hand side, next to the course, select the pin feature.
4. This will add a course widget to the right hand side of your organizational homepage in
the “My Courses” section so you can simply click on the widget to enter the course.
*To unpin a course when the course ends, simple click on the pin feature again.

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Set up profile, Email Notifications and
Customize User Settings
How to Set Up Your User Profile
1. Click on your name on the Minibar in the top right-hand corner of the Brightspace page.

2. Click on “Profile”.
3. You can upload a profile picture on the left (Or an Avatar if you do not feel comfortable
submitting an image of yourself).
4. Enter your Nickname (If applicable).
5. Enter your hometown.
6. Enter your email.
7. Enter your state.
8. Enter your zip code.
9. Type in any additional information you are comfortable with entering. If you are not
comfortable revealing any additional information, simple leave it blank.
10. Click on “Save” when you are finished.
How to Set Up Email Notifications
Want to be notified by email when there are changes to your courses?

Notifications is a tool that allows you to enable an email alert when there are new items in your
course! You can set up a notification to alert you about new content items, news/announcements,
and even posted grades!

Each user is responsible for setting up email notifications for their courses - it is not something
Instructors will be able to do for them.

Note: You will still be able to receive emails sent from instructors despite any changes made to
your notification settings.

1. Click on your name on the Minibar in the top right-hand corner of the Brightspace page.

2. Click on “Notifications”.
3. Make sure your email address is correct here, and change as needed. (If you change your
email address here, it will only apply to Notifications.)
4. Summary of Activity
 This option will email you a summary of all activity for each course, as opposed
to an instant email for each notification item.
 Select how often you receive an email notification: Never (turns this option off)
or Daily (set an appropriate time).
5. Instant Notifications
 Review and select any area you would like to receive Email notifications
6. Customize Notifications
 Review the options and select any that you would like.
7. Exclude some courses
 You may choose the courses for which you don’t want to receive notifications.
 8. Click “Save” to save your changes.

How to Set Up Text Notifications

Before you can receive text notifications, you must register your mobile phone for this service.
Note that this is an optional feature you can use at your own discretion as you will be entering
your mobile number into D2L Brightspace. (The Art Institutes is not responsible for any
additional fees your mobile carrier may charge for SMS messages.)

1. Click on your name on the Minibar in the top right-hand corner of the Brightspace page.

2. Click on “Notifications”.
3. Under Contact Methods, you will see a link to “Register your mobile”. Enter the required
field, including your phone number.
4. A confirmation code (4 digits) will be sent to your phone.
 You may receive a message stating that you are not subscribed to email to SMS
service. In which case, you will be prompted on your phone to text “yes”. Then,
you need to click “resend your code” in D2L before you follow the instructions on
your phone to be texted a 4 digit code
5. Set the Max number of messages per day you wish to receive per day.
6. Under Instant Notifications, click on the SMS checkbox for any items you wish to
receive an SMS message when there are notifications in D2L.
7. Click “Save” when you are finished.
8. You can delete your mobile number at any time to stop receiving SMS notifications by
clicking the trash bin beside your Mobile Number.
Account Settings
1. Click on your name on the Minibar in the top right-hand corner of the Brightspace page.

2. Click on “Account Settings”.

3. Under the accounts settings tab you can:
 Change font settings
 Change Dialog settings
 Turn off rich text editor and view source
 Select to Do not automatically mark items as read as the page scrolls
 Optimize video presentation for programmatically-driven assistive technologies
 Set Language preferences.
 You may change the default calendar, date, time, and number formats set by your
organization. Some courses may override your selections.
 You can set your preferred time zone, which will show all of your times with
dates in that time zone. You will want to make sure you set this to the correct
time zone so you have the correct dues dates and times.
 Select whether you want to appear online or offline when logged in.
 Select application settings
 And connect or disconnect from Binder.
4. Under the discussions tab you can select discussion preferences.
5. Under the email tab, you can set a few defaults as to how you send your email:
 check to "Save a copy of each outgoing message to the Sent Mail folder"
 check to "Send a copy of each outgoing message to ..." your email address
 set your email signature
 Check to show external email addresses in the Address Book
6. Click on “Save and Close” when you are finished.
 Get familiar with the tools in
Brightspace
Content

Understanding the Navbar Access your Course Content

Learn your way around the navbar, The learning path keeps course files and
which appears near the top of your page learning materials organized in modules.
in your courses.

Bookmark Content Read and Download Content

Bookmark content in Brightspace by D2L Read content with the D2L document
to revisit and review the topic later. viewer or download content to view
offline.

View Your Progress

Track the percentage of content you
visited in each course with the progress
tracking tool.
Communication

Post a Discussion Thread Send an Instant Message

Start a new thread or reply in an existing Chat with your fellow classmates or with
one in the Discussions area of your your faculty member.
course.

Send an Email through D2L

Email your group members from within
Brightspace by using the email group
function or email members of your class.

Assessment

Submit an Assignment
Take a Quiz
Submit an assignment in the assignment
How to start, save and submit your quiz
dropbox and view your (successfully)
responses in Brightspace by D2L.
submitted file

View Your Grades

You can view your grades and final grade
using the grades tool

Use the D2L ePortfolio

You can use this tool to store and share
work from your courses.
Understanding the Navbar
Brightspace has a Navbar on the both the organizational homepage and in your course(s). The
Navbar makes it easy for you to navigate Brightspace and your course(s).

Organization Homepage Navbar

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1. Class Progress- The Class Progess area contains reports of your progress in all areas of
your course(s).
2. Binder- Binder is an application that provides opportunity for users to distribute,
manage, and read documents obtained from courses within The Art Institutes Learning
Environment. The application is an intuitive and integrated digital reader of most
document types. It includes essential annotation tools which allows electronic documents
to be personalized and supplemented by users. For more information on Brightspace
Binder click here:

https://documentation.brightspace.com/EN/-/-/learner/learner_intro_5.htm

When using the D2L Binder app, users can create a persistent authenticated connection to
The Art Institutes Brightspace Learning Environment. After establishing a connection,
users can download and browse course documents, annotate and organize them as often
as necessary.

Binder can be used on various mobile devices and can also be used through a Web
Browser.

3. ePortfolio- this is a digital showcase for the learning journey. It helps you document the
experience, reflect on it, and share ideas and achievements as they happen. For more
information on ePortfolio, click here:

https://documentation.brightspace.com/EN/-/-/learner/learner_intro_3.htm

4. Help-Provides additional resources and help.

Course NavBar
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1. Learning Path- The learning path allows you to access course materials and
naviagate to any area in the classroom.
2. Calendar-The Calendar tool allows you to set reminders and view important dates
and activities that your instructor created.
3. Grades-The Grades tool allows you to view your grade for the course.
4. Roster- The Roster tool provides a list of students and instructors currently enrolled
in a course. You can send emails and chats from here as well.
5. Help- Provides additional resources and help

* You can always navigate back to the organizational homepage by clicking on the home icon in
the upper left hand corner of your course:

Access your Course Content

To Access your course content when you are on your course homepage, click on “Learning Path”
in the navbar.

1. One you are in the learning path, you will want to click on “Overview” on the left hand

side. . This section will provide an overview of the course along

with your instructor’s course syllabus.
2. Under the “Learning Path” on the right hand side click on a module.
 Modules

3. Click on a course item.

4. You can use the forward and backward arrow on the upper right hand corner to navigate.
Selecting the forward arrow will move you forward to the next course material to review
Course Lecture, Assignments, Quizzes, etc.) Selecting the back arrow will move you
back to the previous page you were on.

5. You can click on the module to go back to the module overview at any time.
 6. Content that you have gone through will have a check make next to it in the module
overview. Content that you have not yet viewed will have a dot next to it in the module
overview.

Bookmark Content
The Bookmarks page displays all the Content topics you bookmarked. To add a bookmark, click the Add
Bookmark icon while viewing a Content topic.

This will add the bookmarked item to the Bookmarks area above the learning path in your course so you
can easily access materials.
Read and Download Content

Read Content in Brightspace

D2L can display certain content directly in your browser, allowing for quick online viewing.
Word documents, PDF files, PowerPoint slides and images can be viewed right in D2L. To view
a document directly in D2L:

1. Click on the name of the content topic/file in the open module.

2. The content will display in the browser.

3. Click the pop-up icon to open the viewer in a new window.

4. Click the left and right arrows to navigate through the content in a particular module or
sub-module

Download Content
All content can also be downloaded, including content you can view in your browser. To
download content. Scroll to the bottom of the page with the content and click the download
button.
View Your Progress
The Class Progress tool helps track your progress in a course by measuring the completion of 9
different progress indicators. Instructors can use the Class Progress tool to track your overall
progress in the course and prepare progress reports.

You may want to use the Class Progress tool to keep track of your course-specific assignments
and feedback. Progress reports are available for the following progress indicators:

 Grades
 Objectives
 Content
 Discussions
 Assignment submission folders
 Quizzes
 Checklist
 Surveys
 Login History

To view class progress click on “Class Progress” on the organizational homepage:

Post a Discussion Thread
Some of your courses may have a discussion thread within the module. To post a discussion
thread:

1. Click on the discussion within the module.

2. Click on the Thread:

3. Click on “Reply to Thread”

4. Enter your response and click on “Post”.

Send an Email through D2L
To send an email to your classmates in D2L:
1. Click on “Roster” on your navbar in your course.

2. Locate the user(s) you would like to email and check the box next to their name.

3. Click on “Email”.

4. Enter your email context and click on “Send”.

A few other things to be aware of with emailing in D2L:

 The maximum attachment size is 500 kb.

 The ‘Insert QuickLink’ tool, when composing a new email, only works with the URL
option (when sending a link to an external website). It will not work if you select a link to
content within your D2L course.
 Recipients of your email will see your email address.
 To view sent email, click on the mail icon in the mini bar and click on “Sent Mail”.

Send an Instant Message

1. In the minibar select the envelope icon and click on “Instant Message”.
2.
 – There are three views in the IM window: Inbox, Friends, Roster.
 Inbox stores messages.
 Friends shows the list of friends that you have approved and have approved you.
 Roster shows everyone in each of your classlists. You can select different classlists
by using the View: dropdown list.

3. Click on a contact's name through either the Friends list or the Roster.
4. In the field at the bottom of the IM window, type your message.
5. Click the Send button. If the person is currently online in D2L, they'll receive the
message instantly. If they are offline they'll receive it the next time they log on to D2L
and open the IM tool.

To add a friend to your IM Friends list:

1. In the IM window, click Friends.

2. Click the Add Friends dropdown list.
3. Select to add the friend by username or to search users.

 If you select Add by Username, enter the person's username then click the Add
button.
 If you select Search Users, enter the person's name and click the search button (the
magnifying glass). From the search results, select the checkbox next to the user(s)
you want to add, then click Add as friend.
Submit an Assignment

1. Click on the module for the week.

2. Click on the assignment.

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3. Anytime you see “Submissions” this is an indicator that you will need to
submit your assignment to assignment folder (Aka dropbox).
4. Please read the instructions before submitting.
5. You can either drag or drop files to where it says “Drop file here, or click
below!”
6. Or you can click on “Upload”.
7. You can click on record to record and submit a video or audio.

8. Once file is attached you can type in any comments in the comments section.
9. When you are ready to submit, click on “Submit”.
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10. Once submitted you will get a message stating “Confirmation Email Sent
Successfully”. You will receive an email to the email address that you have
listed in Brightspace as proof of submission.

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Take a Quiz
1. Click on the module for the week.
2. Click on the Quiz

3. Review the Quiz Details.

4. Click on “Start Quiz!”

5. You can click on “Save All Responses” to save quiz answers.

6. When you are ready to submit click on “Go to Submit Quiz”.
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7. Click on “Submit Quiz”.

View Your Grades

1. To view your grades, click Grades in the navbar in your course. Only grades published to
the Grades tool will appear here.

2. Each of your assignments will be graded individually. You can see the grade you
received and feedback in this area.
3. Your final letter grade for the course will be listed under the grade item
“##Final_Posted_Grade##”.
Use the D2L ePortfolio

What is the D2L ePortfolio?

The ePortfolio is a tool that allows you to collect items that interest you ("artifacts"), write about
experiences you have ("reflections") and then choose whether to share them with others (like
Instructors, or even potential employers).

Where do I Find the D2L Brightspace ePortfolio?

On the organizational homepage on the navbar.

Who can see my ePortfolio content?

The things you add to your ePortfolio are only visible to you - unless you choose to share them
with others. Please see the section on sharing your ePortfolio content for the different ways to
share your ePortfolio content.

ePortfolio & your private information

It is important to be selective about the information you share in your ePortfolio. While it may be
necessary to include your name and maybe even contact information (if you are sharing with a
potential employer), it is not advisable to include very confidential information, such as medical
information or financial details. You are responsible for the information that you include in this
tool.

If you are asked to use ePortfolio as a part of a course assignment, and are not comfortable doing
so for privacy reasons, please discuss alternatives with your Instructor.

The ePortfolio interface

For an overview of the D2L ePortfolio interface, please refer to D2L's interface overview
document.
 Digital Textbooks
Locating you Digital Textbook
If you course has a digital textbook there will be a module titled “Digital Textbook” on your
learning path.

Access your Digital Textbook

1. Click on the “Digital Textbook” module in the course offering
learning path.
2. Click on the link to your Digital Textbook. (This will be the title of
the digital textbook).
3. Click on the book link.

4. If this is your first time accessing the digital bookshelf, please enter your email
address and click continue.
5. Enter your first name, last name, create a password, confirm password, select and
provide an answer to a security question, and check to agree to the terms of use
and privacy policy and click on finish.
*Please not that your password must contain at least 8 characters, an uppercase
letter, a lowercase letter, and a special character.

6. You will now be able to view your Digital Textbook.

 7. If you would like to download the application to have a copy on your computer or
mobile device, please visit the following site to download the VitalSource
application. Once downloaded, you will sign in with the user credentials you just
created.
https://support.vitalsource.com/hc/en-us/articles/201344733-Bookshelf-
Download-Page

**Please note the license is only a temporary license until after the add/drop period. You must go
into the course offering and open the book through your course after day 16 to obtain the full
license, which will give you access to your digital textbook for up to 10 years.
 Check your System
Checking Your System
Are there recommended browsers for using D2L?
D2L supports the most common web browsers (Firefox, Safari, Chrome and Microsoft Edge),
that are running on the latest versions. They continue to support previous versions of Microsoft
Internet Explorer, but this will phase out over time (as Microsoft has stopped developing this
software).

For complete details on supported browsers, you can review D2L’s documentation here.

You must also:

 Ensure your browser has JavaScript and Cookies enabled

 For desktop computers, you must have Adobe Flash Player 10.1 or greater

Click here to perform a quick system check.

 Know where to go for help
Student Help
Student Help Desk
The student help desk is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days out of the year (with
some holiday restrictions). Please call 866-642-2711 to contact the student help desk.

In-Person Help
If you are having non-technical issues such as navigating the course, locating course content,
questions about content (including materials, quizzes, assignments and posted grades), etc… you
can reach out to your instructor during their specified office hours.

Self-Guided Online Help

Brightspace has several resources and tutorials online for learners:

https://community.brightspace.com/s/