Brightspace Course Access Policies

Instructor/Teaching Team Access Policy

Instructors will have access to a Brightspace course site only if the course's offering department has listed them as a Primary Instructor in UAccess. Instructors must still request a Brightspace course site as Brightspace course sites are only built upon request. Once the request has been submitted and the Brightspace course site has been created, all people listed in UAccess as Primary Instructors for that course will be automatically added to the Brightspace course site with Instructor access.

If additional members of the Teaching Team require access to a Brightspace course site, they will need to be manually added by someone that currently has Instructor access to that site. Anyone with Instructor access has the appropriate permissions to manually add someone to a Brightspace course site.

Student Access Policy

Only students that are officially registered for a section that is connected to a Brightspace course site will be added to that Brightspace course site with the role of Student. Student enrollments are updated at scheduled intervals throughout the day; Brightspace enrollments are NOT real time.

On a case-by-case basis, requests from Instructors for manual enrollment of students in a Brightspace course site will be considered only for:

  • Groups conducting work that is not associated with credit-bearing courses
  • Students finishing work in a current Brightspace course site to satisfy the requirements for an Incomplete grade earned during their prior enrollment in the course.

Brightspace course sites are made active to students one week before a semester/session starts and inactive five weeks into the next regular semester. This means that student access to Fall and Winter Brightspace course sites will be removed after the 5th week of the Spring semester. Access to Spring and Summer Brightspace course sites will be removed after the 5th week of the Fall semester. This timeline is in compliance with the Grade Appeal Policy (opens in new tab) as outlined by the UA Registrar's Office.

Additional Course Site Access

The following groups of people have access to Brightspace course sites, but they do not appear in any Classlist. Their access is automatic and does not require Instructor approval.

  • Brightspace Administrators: Members of the Instructional Technology Team are able to access and edit ALL Brightspace course sites. They do not intervene in a course unless circumstances require it and only if approved by a member of the Teaching Team.
  • UCATT's Online Instructional Consultants and Instructional Designers : UCATT's Consultants and Instructional Designers have access and can edit ALL Brightspace course sites. They do not intervene in a course unless they are specifically working with an instructor on a course.
  • Disability Resource Center (DRC) Staff: Members of the DRC Staff have access to Brightspace course sites that have one or more students registered for document conversion accommodations.
  • Department Administrators: Certain departments on campus have staff members who help faculty maintain their course sites. Their abilities to access and edit the course sites within their departments may vary.