Eligibility Requirements

Requirements for Migrating Project Sites and Creating New Supplementary Courses in OWL Brightspace

OWL Brightspace is Western’s new Learning Management System, serving as a central hub for managing and/or hosting content such as academic courses, prototype courses (e.g., sandboxes, reference courses, templates, etc.), training courses, and supplementary academic content. All content is hosted as a ‘course’ in OWL Brightspace.

To migrate OWL Sakai project site content to OWL Brightspace or to create a ‘course’ to host supplementary academic content in Brightspace, there are three key requirement categories:

1. Technical requirements:

  • The 'course' is used by Western users with a Western or Western Continuing Studies account. Guest users will need to obtain a Western account to use OWL Brightspace AND
  • Tools used in the OWL Sakai project site have an equivalent tool or feature in OWL Brightspace AND
  • A current Western or Affiliate employee needs to be assigned the Maintain role in the OWL Sakai Project Site for it to migrate to a ‘course’ in OWL Brightspace.

 2. Content requirements:

  • The content is aligned with the academic mission and relevant to Western’s academic goals, values, and strategic priorities AND
  • The ‘course’ is not an officially recognized academic course[1] AND
  • The ‘course’ serves as a structured[2] resource for academic or professional development, such as training or skill-based modules tied to academic programs or academic courses AND
  • Registration and/or completion of the ‘course’ needs to be documented or tracked.
3. Other requirements:
  • Participants of supplementary ‘courses’ are active Western students, staff, or faculty, or otherwise have access to a Western account AND
  • There is no alternative solution or tool that offers a better user experience AND
  • The project site is currently active [3].

 Examples of supplementary academic content:

  • Indigenous Learning Bundles—digital curriculum resource designed to support instructors in culturally and ethically responsive ways to include local Indigenous knowledges, perspectives, and voices in their courses.
  • Academic Integrity Tutorial—joinable tutorial designed to help students understand the meaning of academic integrity and develop the skills necessary to avoid academic offence.

Note: All requests to migrate project sites to OWL Brightspace are subject to review by a team with representation from WTS, CTL, and faculty/administrative units.

Requirements for supplementary academic content will evolve as use cases emerge.

[1] Academic courses at Western (Undergrad, Graduate, Professional) typically include the following features: credit value, course code, delivery mode defined, assessments and learning objectives.
[2] “Structured”—content is intended to be delivered in a prescribed manner that guides the learner through the content and not just a file storage solution. For example, sites with predominantly text in Lessons pages or files in Resources do not meet the requirements.
[3] Active is defined as currently in use by Western staff, faculty, or students. The content and/or users have been updated within the past year.