The Course Life Cycle entails the stages a Brightspace Course Offering goes through. The stages control when you as a student can access the course.
This article will cover:
The different stages
The default stages are:
1. Future Course: course is active, the start date is set in the future.
- In this stage the course is being prepared for education. The course is inaccessable for students, but instructors can access the course.
2. Open Course: course is active and the start date has passed.
- In this stage education takes place, both instructors and students can access the course.
3. Past Course: course is active, but the end date has passed.
- In this stage the education has stopped. The course is inaccessable for students, but instructors can access the course.
4. Inactive Course: course is set to inactive by your faculty.
- In this stage the course is also no longer visible nor accessable for instructors.
- Only Faculty Admins or Central Admins can access the course.
How can I differentiate the course stages?
Users with a Student / Student Observer role in a course can only access open courses.
- Future Courses: Will be grayed out, will have a start date, a course name and a course code.
- Open Courses: Will only have a course name and course code
- Unpinned Past Courses: Are "hidden" under View All Courses.
- Click to go to the next screen
Past Courses will be grayed out and will have a "closed" label.
How do I get rid of the past courses from My Courses widget?
In case you have pinned a course with a closed label, you can unpin it to remove it from your My Courses widget.
What should I do when...?
The start date of course is still in the future, although education has already started.
No worries! Your instructor is still preparing the course and he/she will open the course as soon everything is set. When you really feel the course should be accessable by now, feel free to ask your instructor about is, next time you see her/him (online).
The start date of a course is so far in the future, that it can't be correct
Again, no worries! Your instructor is still preparing the course and he/she will open the course as soon everything is set. When you really feel the course should be accessable by now, feel free to ask your instructor about is, next time you see her/him (online).
A course is already closed, although I still need to access the course.
By default all courses of an academic year will be closed on 30 September of the following academic year. e.g. In case your course took place in Semester 1 of the academic year 2019-2020, you can't access the course from 30 September 2020.
In some cases your instructor might close the courses earlier, if education has stopped and all the examinations and resits have taken place as well. On the other hand, in case a course's education has not finished on 30 September, the instructor won't close the course so you can still access it.