Submitted by: Jessica Underwood, jessicau@uca.edu on 01/19/2026
A Faculty Guide to a Smooth(ish) Transition to D2L Brightspace
The great Blackboard-to-Brightspace migration is officially underway! Starting late-February, the LMS admin team will begin migrating courses to our new platform. Here’s what’s making the move:
- Recent course offerings (AY 25-26) are automatically coming along for the ride
- Earlier courses will be archived (translation: packed away for safe keeping)
- Rotation courses can join the migration party too—stay tuned for details
The Pre-Migration Audit (And Why Now?)
To ensure a smooth and efficient transition, we’re asking faculty to conduct a course audit before migration begins. Here’s why this matters:
Years of course copies, file updates, and “I’ll organize this later” moments have a way of accumulating. We’re talking duplicated files hiding in mysterious folders, content from 2017 that you swear you deleted, and links that lead absolutely nowhere. Left unchecked, all of this digital archaeology will migrate right along with your current content.
A course audit now means only your current, intentional materials make the trip to Brightspace. Translation: no post-migration scrambling and no hindsight regrets.
The Course Audit: Bite-Sized and Manageable
We get it—auditing an entire course sounds overwhelming. That’s why CETAL has broken it down into a four-week plan. Think of it as a gentle spring cleaning, one drawer at a time:
- Phase 1: Toss the old stuff (outdated materials, announcements from 2019)
- Phase 2: Review assessments and gradebook (do you really need three copies of Quiz 7?)
- Phase 3: Organize your content (future-you will be so grateful)
- Phase 4: Check accessibility compliance (make sure everyone can access your materials)
Each week, we’ll send detailed steps and resources to guide you through the process. You’ve got this, and we’ve got you.
The Easy Part (for You)
You won’t be doing the actual migration yourself—we’re handling that part! Your job is just tidying things up. Consider us your moving company; you’re just deciding what makes the trip.
Questions? Concerns? Existential dread about change? We’re here to help every step of the way. Let’s make this transition as painless as possible—together!
