Question
What is a grouped D2L Brightspace course? Why might I combine sections together into one course?
Overview
There are two ways courses can be created in D2L Brightspace:
- Individual: Courses are automatically added as individual courses.
- Merged: You can request to combine multiple courses/sections together into one course.
Example:
- You teach three sections of BIOL 105. The three sections will automatically be added as individual courses to D2L Brightspace. Three sections, three D2L Brightspace courses.
- You have the option to merge the three sections together in one D2L Brightspace course. Three sections, one D2L Brightspace course.
- Note: Merge/group requests should be completed before student submissions are added to a course.
Why merge courses?
Combining multiple sections into one course:
- Will save you the time of copying content over to sections that use the same materials.
- Helps you communicate efficiently to all students taking different sections of a course.
- Is useful when you teach a 400/500 course to facilitate sharing materials and communication.
How will I know what students are in what Section?
D2L Brightspace will automatically create Sections for you within the merged course for easy viewing and sharing of content with specific sections.
View By filter: You have the option to filter your students by Section in Classlist, Assignments, Grades, etc. for easier communication and feedback by section.
What do I need to know about Section restrictions in a merged course?
Here are a few key points about Sections and merged courses:
- Classlist: Students and Teacher's Assistants will only be able to see other students in the Classlist from their own respective Section in grouped classes.
- Discussions: Discussions Topics default to everyone seeing everyone else in the course offering, regardless of section.
- You can also choose to set Discussions so only people in the same Section can see each others' threads.
- Learn more about the Groups versus Sections tool.
- Grades: Once you group courses/sections together, all students will be placed into one gradebook and be graded on the same criteria.
- You can use the Exempt feature in the grade item menu to differentiate the gradebook by section.
- Exemptions allow you to removes specific grade item from selected students' grade calculation.