Once you are logged into Brightspace, you will land on the homepage. At the top of the screen, you have several buttons that you can use; this is called the minibar

1. The house icon and the Hanze logo ensure that no matter where you are in Brightspace, you can always return to your personal homepage.
2. Under the 'waffle' menu, you will see the list of courses you are enrolled in. You can search for a course, select it, and pin it to your homepage.
3. Subscription alerts: Under Discussions, you can set whether you want to receive notifications for new replies to discussion posts. Click on the speech bubble to view the replies. A new notification is indicated by an orange dot.
4. Update alerts: With update alerts, you can quickly stay informed about things like new announcements or upcoming deadlines. Click on the bell icon to view them. A new notification is indicated by an orange dot.
5. Under your name, initials, or profile photo, you can view settings related to your profile, notifications, and account.
6. Currently, only your own Media Library is listed here. All documents you upload to Brightspace will appear here.

The homepage you land on when you log in to Brightspace has the same layout for everyone.

1. You will see an overview of your twelve most recently visited courses. Note: Brightspace fills the number of courses on your personal homepage up to twelve, even if you haven't pinned twelve courses.
2. In some courses, you may see icons with a number in an orange frame. These icons represent Activities (Assignments, Discussions, and Quizzes). The number in the orange frame indicates how many unread items you have in that Activity.

• Click on the name of a course to open it.
• Click on "View All Courses" at the bottom to see all your courses.
• Click on "Pinned" to see an overview of your pinned courses.

3. Under "Announcements," you will see central announcements, such as maintenance updates (not course-specific announcements). You can remove (and archive) an announcement by clicking the "X" in the top-right corner of the announcement. Click on "Announcements" or "Show All Announcements" to view all active and archived (dismissed) announcements.
4. Through this search bar, you can find content or information within all the courses you are enrolled in.
5. The "Work To Do" widget gives an overview of all activities you still need to complete on your personal homepage, such as assignment deadlines.

You navigate to a course by:

• Clicking on a course under My Courses on the homepage.
• Clicking on the name of the desired course under the 'waffle'.

When working in your course, you can always click Course Home in the navbar or click on the course name at the top to return to Course Home.

1. Under Announcements, you will find all announcements posted in this specific course.
2. Here, you will find all content posted in this course. By clicking on a box, you open the content.
3. Through the search bar, you can search for information and content within this specific course.
4. The Work To Do widget shows you which activities you still need to complete within this course.

In addition to the widgets on the course homepage, you also have the navbar at the top, which has the same layout for every course.

• Content: Here, you will find all the information and assignments added to this course.
• Course Tools: Here, you will find the Assignments, Quizzes, and Discussions for this course.
• Users: Below, you will find Class Progress and Groups.
• Grades: When grades have been assigned for an assignment, you will find them here.
• Portflow: This redirects you to Portflow.
• Media Gallery: Here, you can find all the files you have added to the course.
• Search: The search option works the same as the widget under Course Home.