Brightspace

Deze pagina in het Nederlands.

The Faculty of Medicine, like all other faculties at UU, will start using a new Learning Management System (LMS) as of September 2025: Brightspace.

Important websites uitklapper, klik om te openen

The entire UU is switching to Brightspace. University wide information about this project can be found on the UU intranet: intranet.uu.nl/en/switch-to-brightspace (log in with Solis-id). 

The UU support page containing guides and manuals for teachers and students: brightspace-support.sites.uu.nl 

And then Brightspace itself: you can log in at uu.brightspace.com with your Solis-id. 

Faculty implementation uitklapper, klik om te openen

An implementation coordinator has been appointed for each faculty, the so-called FICO. The FICO is responsible for a successful implementation within the faculty. Migration from existing systems, training and support for teachers and maintaining contact with our study programmes and the central UU project organisation are some of the tasks.

For optimisation and to gain experience, a partial implementation of Brightspace was started in academic year 2024-2025. A small number of courses (but with a total of around 1,000 students and dozens of teachers from our faculty) have already started using Brightspace. The first experiences are positive, and evaluation showed a few functions and settings can be improved before the transition of all our university education starting September 2025.

Training uitklapper, klik om te openen

Basic training is provided by our faculty itself. The first training sessions are already planned for you to register for. These sessions are in Dutch. Information about training sessions in English will follow.

Getting to know Brightspace in a surprising way is possible starting in March with the escape room Illuminate. You can visit the Onderwijsfestival on March 6 for a sneak preview and registration for participation in the escape room will start. 

Starting in March, several in-depth training courses will be offered, for teachers who want to get more out of Brightspace or improve their course. More information on the CAT website.

Transferring your course to Brightspace uitklapper, klik om te openen

Important information for course coordinators is available in this document.

Planning 2025 uitklapper, klik om te openen

From February 2025, all UU and UMC employees have access to Brightspace with their Solis-id. Everyone also has access to a personal Sandbox available for learning and experimenting, supported by manuals and the option to follow training sessions.

From March 2025, a university-wide UU template will be available, which we hope will be widely used. This is important because students often indicate that they struggle to find course information and would like more uniformity in the layout of course environments.

Starting in March, instructors can also request a temporary ‘dummy’ course environment to begin setting up their courses for the 2025-2026 academic year while awaiting the final environment, which will be available from May/June. This allows ample time to design the course environment and let teachers familiarize themselves with the new system. This is especially relevant for courses starting in September. If your course starts later in the academic year, it may be more practical to wait for the final/live course environment (see below).

From May/June 2025, the actual course environments in Brightspace, intended for teaching in 2025-2026, will become available. Instructors who have already worked in the dummy course environments can easily transfer their materials, with support from TEL if needed.

From September 2025, all university teaching (except for OvP) will take place on Brightspace. Students and instructors will still have access to Blackboard for the rest of 2025 to retrieve their materials.

From January 2026, Blackboard will no longer be available. However, UU will retain a backup of all content to comply with its legal retention obligations. This backup, however, will no longer be accessible to instructors and students (see below).

The end of Blackboard uitklapper, klik om te openen

Blackboard will remain available to instructors and students until the end of December 2025, but after that, it will be permanently taken offline. It is therefore important that students save any materials they wish to keep for their further studies in time and that teachers transfer their materials on time. UU will continue to comply with legal retention obligations, but this does not mean that (old) course materials will remain accessible to everyone. Additionally, the retention period for these materials is shorter than the duration of most study programs. A university-wide communication campaign will be launched in 2025 to make sure teachers and students know what to do.

Starting from the 2025-2026 academic year and in the following years, course environments will once again be stored on Brightspace, allowing students and instructors to revisit past courses in later years. However, there will be a transition period during which this will not be the case. 

Contact and support uitklapper, klik om te openen

For general questions and assistance with using Brightspace, you can contact the Service Desk at TEL@umcutrecht.nl. They will ensure your question reaches the right person.

For questions about the implementation within the Faculty of Medicine, you can contact the faculty implementation coordinator (FICO): Lars van der Plank, L.O.vanderPlank@umcutrecht.nl.

Each program has a designated contact person for the implementation of Brightspace:

• Biomedical Sciences: Michiel Kroes (courseinformationgsls@umcutrecht.nl)
• Biomedische Wetenschappen: Krijn Vrijsen (beleidsmedewerkersBMW@umcutrecht.nl)
• Geneeskunde CRU: Michelle Nugteren (GNK-beleidsmedewerkers@umcutrecht.nl)
• Geneeskunde SUMMA: Judith Boucher (GNK-beleidsmedewerkers@umcutrecht.nl)
• Klinische Gezondheidswetenschappen: Monique van Rooijen (onderwijszakenkgw@umcutrecht.nl)
• Medical Humanities: Saskia Bultman