How to connect Brightspace to ChatGPT

If you've tried studying with ChatGPT, you know the routine. Open Brightspace, dig through the week 6 module, download the slides, drag them into a chat, and do it all again for the next lecture. By midterms you're juggling a dozen PDFs, and ChatGPT still has no idea your prof moved the quiz to Friday.

You only have to set this up once. After that, ChatGPT can look through every file in your courses by itself, and new lectures show up without you doing anything. The whole thing takes about five minutes.

Why uploading files doesn't cut it

Uploading works fine for one reading. It falls apart over a semester. A typical course has 40 to 80 files spread across weekly modules, and the one you need is usually the one you didn't upload. ChatGPT also can't see announcements or due dates, which is where half the important stuff lives.

Connecting your courses fixes both problems. ChatGPT searches everything at once, and it always has the newest slides.

What you need

• A Brightspace account. Plenty of schools put their own name on Brightspace, so if your course site says "Powered by D2L" anywhere, it counts.
• Chrome on a laptop or desktop for the first sync.
• A ChatGPT plan with developer mode. OpenAI includes it on paid plans, and you set it up on the web.

Step 1: Sync your courses to Chat2L

Chat2L is what sits in the middle. It pulls your course files out of Brightspace and gives ChatGPT a safe, read-only way to search them.

1. Create a Chat2L account and pick your school.
2. Install the Chat2L Sync extension for Chrome when it asks.
3. Open Brightspace in the same browser and make sure you're logged in.

Your first files are ready in a few minutes: slides, PDFs, Word files, readings, announcements, assignments and quizzes. After that it re-syncs every 30 minutes while Chrome is open, so new slides land on their own.

Step 2: Turn on developer mode in ChatGPT

Custom connectors live behind a setting. In ChatGPT on the web, open Settings, go to Apps & Connectors, then Advanced, and switch on Developer mode.

Step 3: Add Chat2L as a connector

Back in Apps & Connectors, choose Create and fill it in like this:

Save it, then sign in to Chat2L in the window that opens and allow access.

What to ask it

Start a new chat, turn on Chat2L from the tools menu, and ask about a course by name or code. These are the kinds of questions students ask most:

• "What's due this week across all my courses?"
• "What's on the ECON 210 midterm? Use the review slides and the practice questions."
• "I missed Tuesday's lecture. What did we cover?"
• "Make me a 10 question practice test from the chapter 4 slides."

ChatGPT reads the files it needs and answers from them, with a link back to the file in Brightspace. If a question depends on a graph or diagram, it can look at the slide itself instead of guessing from the text.

What ChatGPT can and can't see

Once it's connected, ChatGPT can list your courses, search and read your course files (whole documents or specific pages), read announcements, and check lectures, deadlines and your quiz results. It only ever sees your own courses.

It can't post, submit, or change anything. If you want to cut it off, remove the connector in ChatGPT or disconnect it in Chat2L under Settings.

Using Claude instead? The same connector works there too. Here's how to connect Brightspace to Claude.

Frequently asked questions