Navigating OWL Brightspace

The My Home page provides seamless access to tools for a successful learning experience. Here, you'll find an overview of your enrolled courses, OWL Brightspace-related announcements, your calendar populated with events from your OWL Brightspace courses, helpful resources, and a convenient to-do list for pending assignments. 

Return to My Home using the OWL Brightspace icon or the My Home button.

Upon logging in, locate your OWL courses using either the My Courses panel or the Course selector (Waffle-icon menu). 

Note: If you do not see any courses after logging in, you may not be enrolled in any courses yet. You can contact your instructor or WTS Help Desk for further assistance if you have any questions. If your course is shown as available but cannot be accessed or clicked, the course might not have started yet. 

The bell icon alerts you to significant activities occurring on both the home page and within your courses.

Utilize Personal Settings Icon to maintain current and personalized settings. Update your Profile, Notifications, Account Settings (including accessibility settings), and preferred language within OWL Brightspace.

Access all relevant Western announcements within this section on OWL. Pay close attention to these updates, as information shared in them may impact your learning experience. 

The calendar presents due dates, past and upcoming dates, and other events from your courses. You can actively manage your calendar too, providing greater control over your schedule.

On the Course Home page, you can easily access all course-related information such as announcements, calendar, content, assignments, grades, and quizzes.

You can access the course home page by clicking on either the course home button or the course name.

The Quizzes tool in OWL Brightspace allows assessment in a series of questions that may be multiple-choice, true/false, short answer, or other formats. You can access Quizzes through the course homepage, complete them online, and receive immediate scores or feedback, helping you identify areas that need further study.

To access the quizzes tool, please follow these steps:

1. Log in to OWL Brightspace using your Western ID credentials.
2. Locate your course by either using the My Courses menu or the Course Selector.
3. On the navigation bar, find 'Assessments'.
4. Under the drop-down menu, select 'Quizzes'.

Related Support Document: Quizzes - Brightspace

Discussions in OWL Brightspace are online forums or communication spaces where students can engage in interactive conversations with their peers and instructors regarding course-related topics. The discussion forums provide a platform for asking questions, sharing insights, debating ideas, and collaborating on assignments or projects.

To access the discussions tool, please follow these steps:

1. Log in to OWL Brightspace using your Western ID credentials.
2. Locate your course using the My Courses menu or the Course Selector.
3. On the navigation bar, find 'Communications'.
4. Under the drop-down menu, select 'Discussions'.

Related Support Document: Discussions - Brightspace

Grades in OWL Brightspace represent the assessment and evaluation of your performance in a specific course. The tool provides a dedicated section where you can view your grades for individual assignments, quizzes, exams, and other assessments. It often displays your scores or grades, along with any feedback provided by the instructor. 

You can find the Grades tool on the navigation bar of your course, as shown in the image below.

Related Support Document: Grades - Brightspace