5 Tips to Increase Your Online
Presence in Brightspace
Kevin Cormier, Brightspace Administrator
New Brunswick Community College

New Brunswick Community College
• 6 Campus Locations and 1 Corporate Office
• 4,500 Regular, 10,000+ continuing studies
• 750 Full-Time and 80 Part-time faculty
• NBCC Offers over 90 regular programs across 18 sectors

Why Presence Is Important In Online Courses
• Helps create an emotional connection with the students.
• Promotes engagement, which in turn helps with student success and retention. Students
feel more connected when the instructor exhibits an active teaching presence.
• Students need to know there’s someone leading them through the educational experience,
otherwise, students will feel isolated, discouraged, and perhaps demotivated.
• A strong online teaching presence makes for a strong online learning experience and a
sense of community for your students.

Why Presence Is Important In Online Courses
“In the face-to-face classroom, we don’t actually have to think too much about being present
because we’re there – it’s a physical thing. In the online space there is no physicality. I’m not
there physically. I don’t see people eye to eye. We may not even be in the same time zone.
So how do I convey to the students that there is somebody who is participating, who is a
leader in this educational experience?”
Larry Ragan – Director of Instructional Design and Development
Penn State World Campus

Tip 1 : Regular Course Announcements
• Create course announcements just prior to important events such as quizzes,
assignments and midterms. Creating these prior to the start of the term gives you one
less thing to worry about and keeps the students well informed.
• Also consider posting announcements highlighting the connections between course
content, activities and assignments. This will help the student understand and match the
learning outcomes for the course.
• When creating the announcement, consider using “Dear {FirstName},” at the beginning
of the notification so it is personally addressed to each student.
• Course Announcements can be created using the “Announcements” or “Activity
Feed” Tool.

Tip 2 : Use Intelligent Agents To Communicate With Students
• The Intelligent agents tool allows instructors to set up automatic notifications to be sent
to themselves, advisors or students when specified course performance criteria are met.
It can be used to recognize student achievement and warn of potential problems.
• Consider setting up an intelligent agent for when students are successful in a quiz
attempt or assignment. They’ll love the encouragement and reassurance.
• Also consider setting up an intelligent agent for when students are not successful in a
quiz or assignment attempt. This will show that you care about the students success in
the course.
• Use the tool to check in on students who’ve been inactive within the course.

Tip 3 : Video Note Tool Is A Great Way To Establish Presence
• Consider using the Video Note tool in announcements or content to introduce modules,
weekly learning outcomes or just to welcome students to the course. These can be
recorded prior to the beginning of the course and can be date released.
• You can also use the Video Note tool to provide the students with feedback on
assignments and in the discussions tool.
• The Audio Note tool will also work if you’d rather not be on video (except in “Content”).
• By using video or audio, it helps bring a human element to the course.
• Don’t feel you need to edit your audio or video. Imperfections bring a human
element to your video.

Tip 4 : Online Office Hours
• Take advantage of virtual spaces such as “Skype”, “Virtual Classroom”, or any other
chat room to offer up weekly or by-weekly online office hours.
• Online office hours can cut down on having to reply to the same questions over and
over again.
• Students can all be active participants, instead of waiting in a line outside your door.
• It also allows the entire class the opportunity to see the questions the other students are
asking.

Tip 5 : Take Advantage Of Online Discussion Forums
• The discussion forums in brightspace are a great place to enhance the instructor-
student connection or even the student-student connection.
• Don’t feel you need to be at the center of every discussion, but provide some thought-
provoking questions and offer guidance if and when necessary so the students know
your present in the discussion.
• By allowing the students to interact with other classmates and build their understanding
through collaboration, they in turn build a sense of community and presence with their
classmates/peers which in turn leads to better student success.
• If you don’t want to facilitate full class discussions, you can set up journals.

Other Suggestions To Increase Presence
• The use of Social Media such as a facebook page, twitter account, Instagram, etc.
• At the beginning of your course, create a video-based or powerpoint introduction. This
lets the students see and know you as a real person.
• Use the virtual classroom tool to bring in a guest lecture.
• Try to foster a personal relationship with each student by sending them a personalized
email or message at the beginning of the course to welcome them.
• Consider making your syllabus more interactive by adding video/audio or images.

Questions?

Kevin.Cormier@nbcc.ca