Life-cycle of a course
Below are the stages a Brightspace course goes through. These stages determine whether you, as a student or instructor, have access to a course.
The different stages are:
- Future course: The course is active, the start date is in the future.
- The course is currently being prepared for teaching. The course is not available to students, but instructors do have access.
- Open course: The course is active and the start date has passed.
- Teaching is currently in progress, and both students and instructors have access to the course.
- Closed course: The course is active and the end date has passed.
- Teaching has ended, and the course is no longer available to students, but is still available to instructors.
- Archived course: The course has been set to inactive.
- Neither students nor instructors can see the course. Instructors can close the course but not archive it.
- Only key users and Application Management still have access.
How do I recognize the stages as a teacher?
Users with an Instructor / Instructor Guest / Teaching Assistant / Course Builder / Observer / Observer-faculty / Educational Supporter role in a course have access to future, open and closed courses.
Below an overview of the stages in the My Courses overview:
- Future courses: have a start date and a course name.
- Open courses: have only a course name.
- Closed courses that are not pinned: have a name and a closed label. They are automatically displayed at the bottom of the list. Courses can be viewed using the View All Courses option.
Visit the Course Visibility page for more information on how to customize the stages.
How do I recognize the stages as a student?
For a student, upcoming and closed courses are grayed out. See the example below:
