Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences (Hogeschool Rotterdam) has entered an important phase for the implementation of Brightspace as of September 2023. The use of Brightspace is in full swing and we are getting closer and closer to the point when all institutes and programmes will be working with Brightspace. What are the experiences so far? And what is still necessary on the way to September?
Experiences with Brightspace
Both students and lecturers indicate that Brightspace is clear and user-friendly. One student says: “Brightspace’s calendar function is very practical. The division into weeks and lessons is also convenient and clear.
User-friendliness scores high among a variety of students. ”The course material is easy to access. Brightspace is more user-friendly than Cumlaude,” says another student.
One point of interest is the structure of Brightspace. For example, it was indicated that a standard layout of Brightspace for students is desirable: ”That ensures that we as students do not have to search for functionalities. That saves us time.”
What will happen in the coming months?
The past period was mainly devoted to getting acquainted with Brightspace, going live with the first courses, providing training and setting up Brightspace. As of February, more than 200 courses built by lecturers are live. Students are already utilising them. Hogeschool Rotterdam is now ready to scale up. Plenty of training courses are being offered at the institutes. In addition, material is available for lecturers to get started, such as an E-learning, roadmap and BrightCheck.
Setting up courses
A number of institutes are already preparing the set-up of courses for the 2023-2024 academic year. To achieve this, courses have been created in Osiris which are automatically available in Brightspace. Teachers are being trained so that they can design their own courses in Brightspace. Other institutes will follow at some point in the next two months.
Would you like to know what the planning is within your institute? Then visit the website.
A teacher says: ”Brightspace is easy to use; take setting up a course as an example. The roadmap developed earlier helped me a lot with that. The steps in the roadmap are immensely valuable for setting up education – and thus your course – properly.”
Meeting HR Blended Learning and WOLT
Recently, a meeting was organised by HR Blended Learning and WOLT at which best practices were shared about Brightspace as well as discussing proper digital didactic support. Participants were enthusiastic about the content of the meeting. Valuable information was shared about designing and setting up Brightspace during the meeting. It is really nice that there is material available for inspiration that teachers can use”, said a teacher.
There is also a podcast available from Blokkie Blended Learning, in which two colleagues from HR Blended Learning and WOLT speak. Episode 8 of the podcast is about the start-up phase of a learning management system and episode 11 about Brightspace. Great to listen to! (The language is Dutch).
Review of Education Parade
On Thursday, March 23, a delegation of the LMS project team attended the Education Parade. Here we were inspired by colleagues in various workshops and attended the information market to talk about Brightspace. It was an enriching day with great conversations and encounters!
More information?
Several tools are available that provide information about Brightspace, such as the roadmap, E-learning and BrightCheck. Besides the website, Screensteps has also been updated with articles for students and teachers. These articles are available in Dutch and English.