Frequently Asked Questions

If your question is not there, contact the WTS helpdesk OR visit the Brightspace Community.

Note: The Community is maintained by D2L, Brightspace's parent company, which means that the examples and some of the processes or steps will look different from Western's version of OWL Brightspace. 

If you are interested in getting a comprehensive understanding of how to use Brightspace, including the key differences between OWL Sakai and OWL Brightspace as well as using course tools, you can log into Western’s OWL Brightspace Self-Guided Student Training.

Content

I am unable to see a course I have registered for. Why is this?

Registration rosters are updated daily, so please allow up to 24 hours for your course to appear on OWL Brightspace after registering. 

If you registered for the course more than 24 hours ago, the course may be inactive. Instructors need to activate the course for you to see it in OWL Brightspace.

I am not seeing the right course section number I registered in. What is wrong?

If you are unable to view the section number of the course you registered for, it might be because you are supposed to see the primary course section instead of your particular section.

In Brightspace, the primary course section is generally the lecture course number that you should be able to see.

To confirm which section you are enrolled in, please reach out to your instructor for assistance. If you believe that there is an error in your registration, please contact the Office of the Registrar.

When I click on a hyperlinked text, it does not work, what do I do?

If the link is not opening or displays an error message such as 'refused to connect', please try right-clicking on the link and selecting "open in a new tab". This could be happening because the link is external and may not allow opening within the current OWL Brightspace page.

Also, consider letting your instructor know so they can fix the link.

I am using Chrome, and my content pdf keeps downloading instead of opening within the course. How do I fix it?

If you are having trouble opening PDFs automatically as an embedded file in Brightspace on Chrome and they are downloading instead of opening, it may be because Chrome PDF viewer is turned off. To fix this issue, follow these steps:

1. Open Chrome on your computer.
2. Click on the Settings icon located at the top right corner.
3. Under "Privacy and security," go to Site Settings.
4. Scroll down and click on 'Additional content settings', then select PDF documents.
5. Turn off the option that says "Download PDF files instead of automatically opening them in Chrome".
6. Once you complete the above steps, Chrome will automatically open PDFs when you click on them within Brightspace.

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I am unable to scroll through the content of a PDF on my iPad. Why is this happening?

This is a known issue that is currently being worked on. The issue is likely due to how your instructor has set up the file. Please consider asking your instructor to either fix it themselves or reach out to WTS for assistance.

I selected "View as Text" while viewing a slide deck/PDF in my course content, and now the appearance has changed. How can I undo this?

To return to the original slide view, simply scroll down using the outer frame scroll bar. Then, on the bottom left, click "View as Page".

Which browser will provide the best experience with Brightspace?

Brightspace functions fairly well across different browsers; however, D2L has specific recommendations. Please refer to this link for more details:https://community.d2l.com/brightspace/kb/articles/5663

Assessment

I completed a graded-upon-completion content item, but it didn't show as complete or didn't grade me. Why?

When completing a graded module, ensure that you do not click directly on the link. Instead, launch the unit or module and go all the way through to the end. Once you reach the last part of the unit, a completion message will appear. After a minute or so, the grade notification should pop up as well.

It's important to go through the entire module to generate the completion message and receive an immediate grade.

Published on  and maintained in Cascade.