When the time came for faculty at SUNY Canton to prepare their “old” Blackboard course shells for their first semester teaching in Brightspace, several instructors were curious as to how their courses should or could be cleaned up or re-designed for the new environment. In Q&A sessions and individual meetings with members of the Center for Learning Design, Innovation, and Online Instruction (CLDIOI) staff, instructors were asking to see examples of “exemplary” courses in Brightspace, utilizing the tools available to them in the platform and showcasing what could be done.

The CLDIOI Instructional Design team investigated courses from instructors they had worked with during the migration and decided on three courses – one from each school at SUNY Canton. The courses were selected based on their adaptation to Brightspace, adherence to best practices in instructional design, accessibility, and copyright, variety of content and learning activities, and level of learner engagement.

With permission from the instructors, the Fall 2022 versions of these courses were copied into new, discoverable shells that were then reviewed by the instructional designers. Any necessary revisions and recommended changes were made following approval from the instructors. Once the shells became available to users, any SUNY Canton instructor could self-enroll into them.

In the courses, an announcement on the homepage welcomes users to the course, details who the instructor is, and includes a brief description on why it is considered exemplary. A detailed summary of its exemplary status is located in the Course Content area under the Table of Contents.

To make self-enrollment easier, a custom widget titled “Need Inspiration?” was created and placed on the SUNY Canton Brightspace
institutional homepage. The widget has links to the courses, is set to be available only to instructors, and it includes the {firstname} replace strings in the text for personalization. There is also a link to an “Instructor Resources” shell, developed by CLDIOI, to provide instructors with course development materials, webinar recordings, Brightspace walkthroughs and handouts, and other content that can be easily accessed by the faculty.

The exemplary courses and “Need Inspiration?” widget have been well received by the faculty at SUNY Canton. In future semesters, the addition of new exemplary courses will be explored to provide faculty with additional opportunities to showcase their work to their peers, as well as inspire others to utilize Brightspace to its fullest within their courses.

25 SUNY Canton instructors are enrolled in the exemplary courses, and feedback from faculty includes, “This is AWESOME!! Thank you very much.”