Learning Management System News & Updates

April 2026 - Summer 2026 courses

Course Creation

Summer 2026 courses have been created in Brightspace. If you are missing a course when logging into Brightspace, please log into CUNYfirst and verify that the course has been assigned to you. If the course has not yet been assigned to you, your department must reach out to the Registrar to have the official course record updated. Enrollment updates are processed from CUNYfirst into Brightspace multiple times a day.

Cross listed courses and manual course merge requests

Course merges within Brightspace for cross-listed Summer 2026 courses will be performed by ODL LMS staff the week of April 6th. If you are teaching a cross-listed course, please do not work in the Brightspace course until the sections have been merged. Instructors wishing to merge multiple sections of the same course (such as LIT 327 section 03 and LIT 327 section 04) must submit requests to ODL LMS Support. After course merges are completed, you will see one course in Brightspace containing all enrolled students, where the course is identified by the course that appears first alphabetically (i.e., LAW 313 and POL 313 will appear in Brightspace as LAW/POL 313). Courses merged in Brightspace remain separate in CUNYfirst. Verification of enrollment and final semester grades must be reported separately in CUNYfirst for their corresponding courses.

March 2026 - Title II of the American with Disabilities Act (ADA)

The Department of Justice has updated Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to require all web-based and mobile assets offered by public institutions comply with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1, Level AA. This includes instructional content posted in courses hosted on Brightspace and goes into effect on April 24, 2026. In addition, New York state requires all digital content comply with WCAG.2.2, Level AA by January 2027.

In practice, this means all digital instructional materials must be accessible. Failure to do so will risk legal action from the federal government or New York State. This includes a variety of Brightspace course content:

Word documents
PowerPoints
PDFs
Spreadsheets
Videos and audio
Images included in courses

The ODL LMS team encourages faculty to consider accessibility when building their Brightspace courses. For more information on Title II of the ADA, accessibility in Brightspace, and tutorials on creating accessible content in many common computer applications, visit the Accessibility subsection of the User Guides and Tutorials section of the ODL LMS website.

Ally

CUNY has licensed Ally, an accessibility tool that helps improve the usability and inclusiveness of digital content by checking digital content for accessibility issues and provides alternative formats to support a wide range of user needs and preferences. Ally is integrated into Brightspace.

In preparation for the changes, an Ally Course Accessibility widget was created in Brightspace to provide easy access to the tool. The Ally Course Accessibility Widget displays the overall accessibility score for your course and is designed to help you identify ways to improve the accessibility of course content posted to Brightspace. The Ally Course Accessibility widget and Ally Course Report is viewable only by instructors.

Accessibility is about removing barriers, not about perfection or redesigning your course. Even simple adjustments, many of which Ally highlights for you, can make a significant difference in how students engage with your materials.

Think of the Ally course accessibility score and the Ally Course Accessibility widget as a starting point, not an evaluation. It is important to note that Ally cannot check for all WCAG standards and a high Ally score does not necessarily mean that the content in your course is fully compliant with Title II of the ADA.

Ally Report opens a breakdown of your course materials, with direct links to content needing remediation.
Guides connect you to resources with step-by-step support.
Provides direct access to accessibility webinars offered by CUNY CIS Training (CUNY Login required).