User Access: Add users to your D2L shell

There are two categories of users in your Brightspace shells:
- individually-added "members" (like the Instructor, TAs, and others who participate in the course, but are not enrolled)
- users who are added based on their enrollment in a course or program, or another criteria
Find out how to provide your students with access to your course shell, and the various approaches to providing access to the other members of your Brightspace shell.
Find Classlist in the top menu. If it isn't there, review how to enable course tools.
Add your student sections
You can now use Self Service to add any course sections that are assigned to you, to your Brightspace shell.
Individual students cannot be added manually. Students must be enrolled into a course section through the Registrar's office. All official student access must come through the enrollment system.
Make the course shell "active"
Once the students have been loaded into your course shell, are listed in the "Classlist", and you are ready for the students to see the course shell, you need to make it "active".
Add individuals using "Manage Shell Members"
Individual shell members can be added using a self-service tool called "Manage Shell Members".
This will allow you to add individuals, such as a TA, Course Builder or Auditor, but should not be used to add your enrolled students (with a few exceptions).
What is a demo student?
A demo student is a sample user account that an instructor can add as a student to his or her course in order to test/navigate the course from a student’s perspective.
Testing your course using the demo student is a great way to make sure tests and assignments have been made available, as well as to see the process students go through when submitting tests and assignments.
Use a demo student to:
- Submit a quiz or assignment.
- View a quiz attempt or a file submitted to a Dropbox.
- View items with restrictions or release conditions set such as Discussions, Quizzes, or Dropboxes restricted by date, or released by group.
- View actual scores in Grades. (Since there is neither grade data nor an actual user associated with the Role Switch view mode, the instructor will only be able to see the names of the grade items and the denominator (total points) value for each item.)
How do I request a demo student?
If you would like to request a demo student account, email help@ryerson.ca indicating you need a demo student account to use in D2L.
Add your demo student to your course shell
Once you have a demo student account, you can add it to any of your course shells using the Manage Shell Members tool.
Add your demo student username, and select the 'Auditing Participant' role. This will be sufficient for testing content, assessments and grading. If you need to test Discussions or Groups as a student, please contact our support team for an alternative option.
Why use a demo student over role switch?
The "Role Switch" view mode offers a quick and simple way to preview your course as the average student would. This view mode keeps you signed in as the instructor, so you can still make edits.
However, since the Role Switch view mode doesn’t represent a real user, there are certain features that are unavailable in this view mode, including those listed in the recommendations above.
What is Library e-Reserve?
If you have requested electronic articles for your course, through the Library (e-Reserve), their team will require access to your course in order to help support you and your students.
Add the e-Reserve users to your course shell
When you initially request a Brightspace course shell, you have the opportunity to indicate that the Library e-Reserve team should be added.
If you didn't do this in the request form, you can add Library's user accounts using the Manage Shell Members tool.
- Add the user reserve_01 with a role of 'Course Builder.
- Add the user ds_library with a role of 'Content Viewer'.
1. Private student data
Consider whether this user must have access to private student data (think grades, the list of student names, assessment submissions, or even discussions).
Not everyone is eligible to access private student data. People who are provided this level of access should be affiliated with the course in some official capacity. A user's HR role will determine their eligibility - they must be an Instructor, Staff or Academic Assistant.
These roles should only be given to those who require access to the students and their confidential information.
2. Course content
Consider which functions the user must complete, regarding their access to contents and the creation of assessments.
Should they only be able to view, or also be able to modify various areas of the shell?
Roles marked with an asterisk (*) denote roles that have access to private student data, and therefore are restricted to users who are eligible, based on their role in eHr.