Distinctive Design: Branding in Brightspace, JP Dunn and Nicole Davis, Southern Illinois University Carbondale Presentation given on Dec 13, 2019 at DePaul University for the D2L Connection: Chicago Edition.

1. Distinctive Design
Branding in Brightspace

2. Our Path for Today …
• Branding
• Program-Specific Landing Page
• Example
• Benefits
• Challenges
• Program-Specific Course Homepage
• Example
• Benefits
• Challenges

3. ~American Marketing Association
A brand is a name, term, design, symbol, or any other
feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as
distinct from those of other sellers.

4. Program-Specific Landing Page

8. Benefits
• Currently, all SIU program-specific landing pages are for full online programs
• Visually sets your program apart from others
• Students begin to recognize the design in connection to your program
• Allows you to provide program-specific information to your enrolled students
• Instructional designers and faculty can highlight specific tools within
Brightspace

9. Challenges
• Once a student enrolls in a course belonging to a custom program, they
are always redirected to that program's homepage until manually
unenrolled from the program
• If a student belongs to (is enrolled in) more than one custom program ... a
widget must be added to allow a student to switch program landing pages
• Announcements sent to the main SIU landing page do not show up on
program-specific landing pages
• Only students are automatically redirected to custom landing pages;
program managers are not

10. Brightspace View of
“My Programs” Widget

11. Brightspace Admin View
“Custom Program Manager”

12. Program-Specific Course Homepages

15. Course Content Area

16. RSS News
Widget

17. Benefits
• All courses within the program are standardized
• Students begin to recognize the course as part of your program
• The use of an RSS widget provides program/major specific information to
students through course homepage
• Easier to control the functional layout of courses to all for best practices in
instructional design

18. Challenges
• Creating a mechanism for faculty to copy the homepage template to their
own courses
• Ensuring that all faculty teaching in the program utilize the homepage and
update it in each course; many will not
• Not all faculty will utilize the suggested course organizational design unless
it is mandated at some level within the department, college, or university
• General quality control
• RSS feed design and maintenance

19. Any Questions?