Brightspace Inactivity

Introduction:

To help keep your account secure, D2L Brightspace automatically logs you out after a period of inactivity.

Here's what you need to know to avoid losing your work or getting unexpectedly signed out.

Troubleshooting Tips:

  • • How Long Before You’re Logged Out?
    • By default, Brightspace logs students out after 180 minutes (3 hours) of inactivity. It’s always good to save your work regularly.
  • • What Counts as Activity?
    • Brightspace resets the inactivity timer when you interact with the platform. These actions count as activity:
      • Navigating to a new page or tool  
      • Submitting a quiz or discussion post  
      • Saving a draft or assignment  
      • Clicking anywhere within the platform  
  • • If you’re just reading or watching a video without clicking, Brightspace might still consider you inactive.
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Additional Resources:

FAQ Section:

  • • If I have Brightspace open in multiple windows or multiple browsers, are they counted as independent system accesses?
    • If you have two instances of Brightspace open in different windows or tabs of the same browser, that counts as one system access.
    • If you have two instances of Brightspace open in two different browsers (for example: Firefox and Safari), that counts as two separate system accesses.
  • • What kind of activity keeps my system access from timing out?
    • Navigating to different pages, clicking something that auto-saves, and typing in a Written Response text box are a few examples of actions you can take to keep your system access active. Even if you sit and do nothing for 30 minutes, a popup that reads “ARE YOU STILL THERE?” appears, and you can click anywhere or press any key to renew your session. Moving the cursor or clicking randomly isn’t enough to keep your system access from timing out.
  • • What does it mean when a row in System Access Log for the start of a system access has no corresponding row for the end of the system access?
    • It means the system access timed out and the user took no action before the backend cleanup task deleted the session. This commonly happens when a user closes the tab or browser without logging out, or leaves the browser unattended for several hours.
  • • What does it mean when a row in the Session History data has the exact same date and time in the DateStarted and LastAccessed columns?
    • It means the user logged in to Brightspace, didn’t take any actions to keep the session active, and the session timed out.
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