Instructor Support for Educational Systems

How can I view my course as a student?

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In this article you can read how you can see your course as a student and how to view and try a quiz as a student.

Brightspace allows teachers to preview the course from the point of view of a student. This enables you to see what students see when they look at your course. Use this tool to check if your course content comes across clearly or to test whether or not you would understand the way grade calculation works, based on the information presented to you as a student in the Gradebook for example.

The View as Student option only gives you an overview of the way students see your course: your own user role can affect what you are able to do in the student display. For example, it is not possible to fill in a quiz or hand in an assignment in this mode.

  • In the minibar, click your name and then View as Student
  • You will be directed back to the Course Homepage. You can tell by the double-arrow icon that you are now viewing the course as a Student. This also means that the editing tools that you normally have in your regular role are gone. 
  • Navigate to the course components (Content, Course Tools, Grades) that you would like to view as a student.
  • If you would like to close the View as Student mode, click on your name and click the 'X'. You will be redirected to the Course Homepage again. 

Only items set to Visible are shown in the View as Student mode. Items set to Hidden are not visible in the View as Student mode. This corresponds with the actual visibility of the content. 

If a (sub)module has been set to Visible, with a release date is in the future, students will be able to see the module's name, but they will not yet have access to it. You can use this deliberately: you can give students a hint of what is coming without actually giving them access to the course content just yet. Items with a release condition are also not visible in the View as Student mode.

How do I view Quizzes as a student?

You can view quizzes as if you were a student in two ways:

  1. by using the aforementioned 'View as Student mode'
  2. by using the Preview function in the Quick Quiz Menu.
    • Tick Bypass Restrictions at the top of your page, if you want to bypass any restrictions (for example the maximum amount of attempts) which you set up for (certain) users. 
    • Click Start Quiz! at the bottom of the page to start the quiz. 
    • After having completed the quiz, tick at the bottom of the page whether you want this trial attempt to be evaluated or not. (Please note: Trial attempts do not count for the class statistics of the quiz).
    • Lastly, click Exit Preview. 

For more information on Quizzes, see How do I use Quizzes?

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