Overview
There are two (2) ways people can be added to a course in Brightspace:
Option 1: Official enrollment via the University’s student information system (SIS). When a student officially registers or drops your class, or when an instructor, teaching assistant, or grader is assigned to teach or support a class, they are automatically added or removed to/from your Brightspace course from the SIS during one of several enrollment syncs that occur throughout the day. Instructors, TAs, and graders are assigned to a course by their department Course Scheduling Coordinators — please contact them if you do not see a course you are supposed to be teaching.
Whenever possible, this is the preferred method we recommend for all enrollments because it is the least likely to cause unintended registration errors and access issues.
Option 2: Manual (Unofficial) add using the Add Users tool within Brightspace. This method is primarily used for non-SIS non-academic courses. This method is not recommended for SIS course enrollments unless you are an instructor who needs to add another instructor or a TA to your course if enrollment through the SIS was not possible. Manual adds may also be used if you need to add a guest student when enrollment through the SIS is not possible (such as when financial aid disbursement prevents registration). Note that in the case of guest student enrollment, the student must eventually enroll as a student through the SIS to be considered an official student in the course and receive credit/grades.
CAUTION: Do not manually add a student to a SIS course, per the Registrar’s policy. Please add them via SIS if you intend to give them the TA or Grader role or have them officially register for the course. Manually adding students can cause access issues, especially if they drop and try to regain access.
Course Roles
| Role Name | Description |
| Instructor or Assistant Lecturer* | Instructors and assistant lecturers have access to all areas in the course’s control panel. These roles are generally given to the person developing, teaching, or facilitating the class. If a course is unavailable to students, instructors, and assistant lecturers may still access it. |
| Overseer* | Overseers, like instructors and assistant lecturers, have access to the course’s control panel. These roles are given to department heads, deans, or other staff that will not participate in course instruction but may need to oversee course development. This role is currently under development for broader campus use and is expected to be widely available in late Spring 2025. |
| Teaching Assistant* | Teaching Assistants can access nearly everything in the course’s control panel, including copying course content from one course to another. If the course is unavailable to students, teaching assistants may still access the course and make it active. Unlike the instructor, the teaching assistant: – will not be listed in the course catalog listing for the course, or – cannot change a user’s role in a course (e.g., make another user a TA or instructor) |
| Course Builder* | The Course Builder role has nearly identical permissions to the instructor role when it comes creating and setting up a course, including copying course content from one course to another, modifying the course homepage, managing the gradebook format, and creating quizzes and discussion topics. However, course builders have almost no permissions related to running a course. Only instructors can moderate forum posts, assign or access grades, view quiz statistics, and see student data. The Course Builder role should only be assigned if this person is needed to assist an instructor in creating a course. For instance, a Course Builder can develop and activate a course, but does not have the capability to facilitate a course. Note: The Course Builder cannot use the Create a Test Student widget |
| Grader* | The Grader role has limited access to the course’s control panel. A grader would assist the instructor in creating, managing, delivering, and grading student work and surveys. A grader may also assist the instructor with adding manual entries to the course’s grade center. |
| ADA* | ADAs have view only permissions to ensure compliance with ADA standards. |
| Student/Learner* | The student is the default course user role and the user with the role of Student has no access to any areas on the Course Control Panel. |
| Guest Student/Learner* | A guest student/learner has access to the same functions as a traditional student/learner. However, this role is generally used when a student needs access to a SIS course but is not yet officially enrolled in the course or receives an incomplete and needs access to previous coursework. |
| Student Auditor* | A student auditor can view course activities and interactions without actively engaging with the content (participating in discussion, etc.). |
Enrollment Guides
Enroll Users One at a Time
Prerequisites
- You must have a Brightspace account with the appropriate permissions to manage the classlist.
- The user you want to enroll must already have an existing Brightspace account.
- You are only enrolling users into a non-SIS course, unless they are course builders, guest learners, or in certain situations a TA or grader.
The following roles have permission to enroll:
- Super Admin
- Domain Admin
- Instructor (Non-SIS)
Follow the below steps to enroll users using classlist:
- Go to the course homepage and select ‘Classlist’ from Course Tools.
- Select ‘Add existing users’ as shown below.
- Search for the user you wish to add to the course by typing their email into the search box.
- Select the user from the list and select their role within the dropdown. Click ‘Enroll Selected User’ to complete enrollment.
Bulk Enroll Using Classlist
The following roles have permission to enroll:
- Super Admin
- Domain Admin
Unenroll Users in Brightspace
The following roles have permission to unenroll users:
- Super Admin
- Domain Admin
Follow the below steps to unenroll users using classlist:
- Go to course homepage and select ‘Classlist’ from Course Tools.
- Select user that requires unenrollment and select ‘Unenroll.’
- Select ‘Yes’ when a prompt appears to confirm unenrollment
FAQs
Can I Add Instructors, TAs, or Graders to my course?
Official enrollment (automatic, via the Student Information System [SIS])
When an instructor (or teaching assistant or grader) is officially assigned to a course by a Course Scheduling Coordinator, they are automatically added to the course in Brightspace. You do not need to manually enroll instructors if they were officially assigned to teach the course.
Unofficially added (manually, via Brightspace)
Manual adds should be reserved for non-SIS courses. Please note that if you manually add a co-instructor to your course, they will NOT receive the link to the end-of-semester assessment from the Office of the Provost.
If you are adding another instructor to your course, please use the enrollment instructions provided above.
Can I Add Students to my course?
You do not need to manually enroll students in your Brightspace courses.
Brightspace’s student enrollment data comes directly from the University’s Student Information System (SIS) and is updated several times each day. When students officially register for or drop your course, they are automatically added to or dropped from your Brightspace course roster. The guest student role can be used in specific circumstances where a student needs access to the course content for a SIS course but is not yet officially enrolled in the course.
Manually adding students to your Brightspace course can result in problems accessing the course. Therefore, we strongly urge instructors to have students register for the course to access your course materials.
Adding Students to Non-SIS Courses
Instructors can add individual students to non-SIS courses manually, however, to request bulk student enrollment for a non-SIS non-academic course, instructors should engage their department/unit Domain Admin. If your unit does not have a Domain Admin or if you would like to request bulk enrollment for non-SIS academic courses, please email brightspace@usc.edu with the USC IDs and emails for students to be enrolled.
Enrolling a dropped student
Once a student drops your course, the University automatically blocks that student from accessing your course’s Brightspace site as a student, guest, auditor, teaching assistant, grader, or course builder. This block is made not by Brightspace but rather by the University.
The block cannot be removed or changed by the course’s instructor or the University’s Brightspace administrator. The only way to remove this block is to request that the student who dropped your course re-enroll in your course as a student through USC’s registration system.
Can I Add an External User (Guest) to my course?
To protect our students and professors’ privacy, people who are not affiliated with USC are unable to access Brightspace. However, USC does offer a mechanism for instructors to request a temporary NetID account through the iVIP user account program.
To request an iVIP account, please contact your school’s or department’s iVIP administrator [https://itservices.usc.edu/iam/ivip/administrators/] and request that your school or department sponsor an iVIP account for your guest with Brightspace access. You should also let the iVIP administrator know which Brightspace course you would like your guest to be added.
For more information about USC’s iVIP program, visit https://itservices.usc.edu/iam/ivip/.
Can I add a Dropped Student as a TA?
Once a student drops your course, this student will no longer be able to access your course’s Brightspace site as a student, auditor, teaching assistant, grader, or course builder. If you would like to have this student added to your course as a TA or grader, please contact your department’s Course Scheduling Coordinator to have them added through the Student Information System.
If you have processed such a change through your department’s Course Scheduling Coordinator and are still experiencing issues, please contact Brightspace Support. To request that a manually added user be completely removed from a course, please follow the instructions above or send an email to Brightspace@usc.edu with the following information:
- Your username
- The course ID and name (e.g. 20213_comm_204_12345: Public Speaking)
- The username and name of the user you would like to remove
- A statement about why you need to remove this user
Please note that Brightspace’s user data including instructor assignments comes directly from USC’s Student Information System (SIS). If the co-instructor is still assigned to teach the course in SIS, they will automatically be re-enrolled in your course within a few hours. To prevent this from happening, please contact your department’s Course Scheduling Coordinator and request that they remove the instructor in SIS.