Common Solutions

Problem: Group Locker File Naming

When a group member uploads a file with the same name as another group member’s file that is already in the Group Locker, Brightspace will give a warning that the file already exists. The student can then choose to overwrite the file or cancel the upload. If the student chooses to overwrite the file Brightspace will replace the existing file with the new one and all record of the file upload from the previous student will be lost.

Solution:

  1. Ask students to rename files before uploading to the Group Locker. You can suggest that they include their first and last name within the file name to avoid any file name duplication between group members.
  2. Have each student create their own folder in the Group Locker and upload their files to that folder.

Problem: ‘From’ Email Address When Sent From Brightspace (noreply@algonquincollege.com)

A solution has been implemented that addresses the problem of invalid email addresses populating Outlook when emails are sent through Brightspace. For example, John Smith’s Algonquin email address is “smithj@algonquincollege.com,” not “smithj@algonquincollege.brightspace.com.” The second version is the Brightspace internal email address format that is automated within Brightspace when an email is sent through that system, but it is not used by our learners and teachers at Algonquin. Therefore, when users search for past email threads to locate an email address, they may be finding and using the automated, invalid address instead of the correct one.

Solution:

All emails sent by users through Brightspace will now have the sender displayed as “noreply@algonquincollege.brightspace.com” in Outlook. If a user replies to an email sent from Brightspace, it will still go to the correct email address. The “noreply” address solution avoids the problem of having users erroneously searching for past threads with invalid email addresses. If a user tries to send a new email to a “noreply” address from their college account, they will receive an automatic response that the email has been blocked as the account does not exist.

Note that the combination of the class code listed in the email subject and the sender’s signature in the email body will continue to make it easy to identify the email sender.

Problem: Errors with uploading files to Brightspace from a Mac

When naming a file you plan to upload to your course Dropbox, Discussions, Course Files or Content area, there are certain characters that should never be used. The presence of just one of these characters in your files name causes errors and unexpected problems in Brightspace.

Fortunately, most Microsoft Windows computers do not even allow filenames containing any of these “illegal characters” (shown below) to be created or saved in the first place:

\ / : * ? ” < > | ~ # % & + { } –

However, most Apple/Mac computers ALLOW filenames containing these characters. Brightspace may allow “illegally” named files to be uploaded, but trying to access that file will throw an error. Examples include, but are not limited to:

  • Any file whose name contains illegal characters, attached to a Discussion, will produce an error whenever that particular topic/thread is accessed.
  • Any file whose name contains illegal characters, uploaded to a Dropbox, will produce an error whenever that file is accessed.

*IMPORTANT: There is a 255 (maximum) character limit for filenames. This total includes the total number of characters in the file’s path, plus all the characters in the file’s name.

Solution:

When naming files that will be uploaded to Brightspace, ensure that none of the following characters are used:

\ / : * ? ” < > | ~ # % & + { } –

Problem: Rubric attached to a grade item is not updating the numerical grade

Users reported that when they were using a rubric attached to a grade item, the numerical grade was not being transferred from the rubric to the grades column, despite repeat attempts. Following investigation, the issue could only be replicated when the course was set to ‘Inactive’.

Solution:

Go to Course Offering Information (under Tools > Course Admin), set the course as ‘Active’, use the rubric to set the grade, and then if necessary go back to Course Offering Information to make the course inactive again.