Category: D2L Tips

What’s New in eLearning?

This post is dedicated to all those faculty with heads down marking and assessing and supporting students who were unable to attend our workshop this week.  Here is a snapshot of what is new, changing, etc. with some of our supported educational technologies here in eLearning!

Team Dynamix (TDX) Support portal

Need help with one of our tools?  Want to have a DEV site set up or arrange for other faculty to have access to a Master course site?  Trying to make an appointment with an Instructional Designer?  You can now reach us through our eLearning TDX support portal.  And don’t worry if you don’t see your issue listed as a specific option – there is a “My Issue is Not Listed” option for you.

Kaltura is taking a trip to the Cloud

Since we first onboarded Kaltura (you may know it as MyMedia in D2L) at Camosun, it has been graciously hosted by UBC.  But now, it is moving to the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud in Montreal this summer.

Benefits of cloud service:

  • Faster to upload, edit, save videos
  • More frequent system updates and access to new features
  • More robust and direct support

When: May 15-July 15

Phase 1: April 20-May 15 

  • Faculty and students to delete unnecessary videos
  • Save time and money

Phase 2: Migration begins 

  • My Media will be fully operational to users
  • No deletions in this period
  • Playlists will not migrate – make sure to contact eLearning Support if you need help re-creating playlists after the migration
  • Embedded content, media galleries and video quizzes will all migrate
We don’t anticipate any issues, but are asking faculty and students to delete any videos they don’t need before we begin migrating videos on June 1st.  Important note: If you delete a video from My Media it will also delete that video from wherever you may have embedded it or from any Course Media Gallery it has been added to or shared with, so be careful. Once the video is deleted it cannot be brought back. Instructions for how to delete videos.
If you think you might need them in the future download videos from My Media to your device before you delete them. Instructions for how to download videos. Students, you can find My Media under My Tools at the top of this page. If you have any questions or need support, go to our Kaltura TDX support portal.

REV captioning service

We know editing video captions can be a long, arduous task, but we have brought in a captioning service, REV, to help.  You can request access to REV through our TDX service portal, but first, ask yourself:

  1. Are these videos reusable learning objects?
  2. Are these videos short instructional videos?
  3. Are these videos full class lectures (for example from Collaborate?)

If you answered yes to 1 and 2, you are good to go – REV is being reserved for videos that have a clear instructional purpose and will be used long-term.  If you answered yes to 3 (or are unsure if your videos fit into any of these purposes), please stop and contact an Instructional Designer to talk more about how REV should be used.

Final Grades Export (D2L to MyCamosun)

As some of you already know, you can now export final grades from D2L to myCamosun.  The main benefits to this for you are saving time, and reducing errors which sometimes happen when transferring grades by hand.

For help:

We are turning off the Message tool – what alternatives are there for student to student communication?

As you know, we have already had to limit email use to between students and instructor only due to privacy implications as a result of the D2L integration with Colleague.  As a result, student to student interaction in D2L was limited to the Message tool, or to Discussion topics or Collaborate sessions which have to be set up by instructors.

Unfortunately, we have also encountered complications with merged sections which has meant that as of May 1 we  are disabling the Message tool.  There are some upsides to the way we will be handling merged sections in D2L moving forward, meaning you will be able to sort your Gradebook by sections directly rather than having to set up Groups to sort your students, which will also make the grade export to MyCamosun go more smoothly.

If you are looking for ways to support student interaction in D2L, you can create group discussion topics, create a Collaborate space for them, or you can enable Chat on your navigation bar.  Review our tutorials Customizing your Navigation Bar and Customizing your MyTools Menu for information on how to add a tool to your navbar.

D2L Rubrics enhancements

I’ll keep this one brief.  You can now add multiple rubrics to an Assignment dropbox.  You can use any of the attached rubrics to assess individual students (using a toggle function), but only ONE can be used for a grade directly.  That being said, you could use both for general assessment and manually override a grade in the grade box.

In addition, you can now export a rubric to a PDF.  For instructors, this is only available in the Rubrics tool and appears as a Print function when Previewing a Rubric.  You can use the print function in your browser to print a graded rubric for an individual student.  And students can print graded rubrics using a Print function when they view Feedback for the assignment.

D2L Discussions Evaluation Experience update

If you are assessing discussion posts, you will notice that the assessment interface now looks like the one in the Assignments tool.  The tutorials Assessing Topics in Discussions shows you the new interface (starting on page 6.)

Reminder:  Set Quiz Accommodations in the Classlist

Finally, we want to remind you that if you have a student requiring quiz accommodations (more time), you can set this up on a student-by-student basis in the Classlist, rather than having to set Special Access for each individual quiz.  See the tutorial Setting a Student’s Quiz Accommodations from the Classlist for more information.

D2L Orientation videos for new students!

While I generally prefer not creating tutorial videos for our eLearning supported tools (mainly because they all change so quickly and I simply don’t have it in me to re-create videos every term), recently a small team of us in eLearning produced three Introduction to D2L videos for new Camosun students.

While these videos were created specifically to support English Language Development and International students, they can be viewed and used by any students who are new to Camosun and our D2L (Brightspace) learning management system.

So, have a look at our Introduction to D2L for Students Videos and if you like what you see, send me a note at schudele@camosun.ca!

Grading Assignment Submissions using Anonymous Marking – D2L Tutorial

This tutorial is for faculty who have previous experience using the Assignments tool in D2L and will cover the steps involved when you wish to grade student submissions for an Assignment using Anonymous Marking.  For further information or assistance, go to our Team Dynamix Support portal and click the appropriate Category to submit a ticket. 

Steps for enabling Anonymous marking 

  1. Go to the Assignments tool in your course.
  2. Either create a new Assignment, or click on the drop-down menu (down arrow) next to the title of the Assignment you want to set for Anonymous Marking and select Edit Folder.

    Click Edit Folder

  3. Give your Assignment a Name if needed, then click Evaluation & Feedback on the right.

    Click Evaluation & Feedback

  4. Under Anonymous Marking, select Hide student names during assessment.  Finish editing the Assignment and click Save and Close.

    Select Hide student names during assessment

  5. You will now see a symbol next to your Assignment title indicating that it has Anonymous Marking enabled.

    Anonymous marking enabled symbol

 Steps for grading using Anonymous marking 

  1. Go to the Submission area for the assignment and click the Evaluate link for an assignment.  Note that student names are anonymized.

    Click Evaluate

  2. You will not see student names in the Submission areas, nor in the names of the submitted files if you choose to download them for offline marking.  Add your feedback, and/or upload your feedback files, and click Save Draft.  You will NOT be able to Publish individual student grades – you will need to Publish All at the same time.

    Add feedback and click Save Draft

  3. Once you have finished saving all Draft feedback, return to the main submission area, select all students and click Publish All Feedback.  In the Confirmation pop-up box, click Yes.  You may need to refresh your browser window to see that the submissions have been published.

    Click Publish All Feedback

Things to Remember 

You can enable and disable Anonymous Marking as you need to, but once it is enabled and you have a submission, you will NOT be able to disable it. 

If you publish some assignments, and not all (for example if you are grading assignments before all students have submitted), after publishing you will be able to see all student names (so you will not be able to grade any new submissions anonymously).

Final Grades in D2L

Well, it’s hard to believe, but here we are at the end of another term.  I know you are all probably exhausted from the past couple of years of uncertainty, but here’s hoping everyone gets a well-deserved break over the holidays.

In the meantime, if you are wondering how to release your final grades to students in D2L, and to export final grades from D2L into myCamosun, here are some links to tutorials that might help!  Remember, if you have questions or run into any trouble, contact eLearning Support – now through our new Team Dynamix Portal.

Downloading Written Response Answers (D2L Quizzes) for Reviewing Offline

Scenario

This tutorial will cover the steps involved with downloading all answers to a Written Response Question in a quiz so they can be reviewed offline.  Note that in order to view ALL responses to a Written Response Question in one place, you will NOT be able to see which student gave which response.  However, if you export the responses in an Excel document (outlined in this document) you will be able to match student and response.

Steps

  1. Go to the Quizzes tool in your course.
  2. Click the down-arrow next to the title of the completed quiz containing the Written Response Question you wish to download responses for, and select Statistics.

  1. Click the Question Details.

    Click Question Details

  2. Find the Written Response Question for which you wish to review all the responses, and click Expand Responses.

    Click Expand Responses

  1. Either copy all the responses and paste them in a WORD file, or scroll to the top and click Export to Excel to download ALL the Quiz responses to your device. Once you have saved the Excel file to your device, you can work with all the questions in the quiz, or delete the ones you don’t need to review, and review the Written Response answers alone.

    Copy and paste responses
    Click Export to Excel

Things to Remember

You can also use the Grade function for a quiz, and grade by Question to assess individual student responses to a Written Response Question.  See the tutorial Grading or Re-grading a Quiz for more information.

Changing your Time Zone in D2L

Teaching or learning using Camosun’s D2L from somewhere other than Victoria, BC, Canada?   You can change your time zone in D2L!  Here’s how.

This tutorial will cover the steps involved when you want to change the default time zone for your course deadlines.  This will automatically adjust due dates, start dates, and end dates in your courses to match with your own location. Your students will need to set this for themselves if they do not live locally, so please point them to this tutorial so they won’t have to worry about missing deadlines.

Steps

  1. After you log on to D2L, click on your name at the top right, and select Account Settings.

    Click on your name and select Account Settings

  2. In the Account Settings area, scroll down to the Time Zone.

    Scroll down to Time Zones

  3. From the Continent drop-down, select your continent.

    Select your continent

  4. From the Time Zone drop-down, select your specific time zone.

    Select your Time Zone

  5. Click Save and Close.

    Click Save and Close

Things to Remember

Each individual in a course, instructor or student, needs to adjust time zones for themselves.

Reminder of where to get help with D2L, Collaborate, and Kaltura

As we gear up for the new school year, I wanted to remind you of some important information related to D2L, and for online teaching/learning, both for faculty and students.

For Students:

For Faculty:

Wondering where to get help?  You can get help from eLearning Support, or book an appointment with an instructional designer, by emailing elearning@camosun.ca.   Check out our list of workshops and the Events Calendar on the CETL website.

Important Things for Faculty to Know about eLearning and D2L at Camosun this Fall!!

Preamble – Who is eLearning?

eLearning is a unit within the Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, with face-to-face offices at Lansdowne and Interurban, and virtual “offices” through Teams or Collaborate. We support the use of Desire2Learn (D2L) Brightspace and other educational technologies available at Camosun College (Kaltura, Camtasia, WordPress, Collaborate). Our eLearning Support team can help you and your students when you have technical issues or questions about D2L or our other technologies. Our instructional designers work with faculty to design and develop online learning opportunities, understand best practices in online pedagogy, set up and manage their D2L courses, explore options for using other online tools to support their teaching, and discuss considerations for integrating those tools into their course design.

Want to know more? Let us know – our contact phone numbers and emails are on page 2!

What is D2L?

  • Desire2Learn (D2L) Brightspace is Camosun College’s learning management D2L enables faculty who are teaching face-to-face, blended, or completely online to deliver content, manage online activities and group collaboration, as well as provide online assessment options for students.
  • Your D2L site can only be accessed by students registered in your course, eLearning staff, and other Camosun employees you request access
  • To get started with D2L, please request a consult with an eLearning instructional You also check the current workshop schedule for upcoming eLearning and D2L learning opportunities.

How are D2L course sites set up?

  • NEW: Every semester, by default, instructors will be provided with a D2L shell for every section of course(s) they teach (regardless of whether they use D2L), as long as they are tagged as the instructor for the course sections in myCamosun. If you are unsure if you are correctly assigned in myCamosun, check with your Chair or the person in your area who is responsible for scheduling. NOTE: If you do not wish to use D2L, you can put a notice up in the course to let students know, or send a request to elearning@camosun.bc.ca listing your courses and sections, and we can hide them.  This request needs to happen each term for each course.
  • Approximately 30 days before the course start of the term, you will have access to your blank D2L course shell (as long as you are listed in myCamosun as the instructor of the course).
  • NEW: As students register for your course, you will see their names appear in your D2L course site Students are added to and dropped from this list as they are registered in, or unenrolled from, the course through myCamosun in real time. Waitlisted students cannot access D2L courses until they are officially registered.
  • Students will have access to D2L course sites they are registered in on the start date of the course (as it appears in myCamosun). Students will then have access to the D2L course site for 20 days after the end date of the course (as it appears in myCamosun).  This is typically the exam period plus a few days.
  • You, as the instructor of the course, will retain access to your D2L course sites unless you arrange with eLearning Support to have them removed from your list of courses in D2L. Permanently deleting a course requires an email from you to eLearning Support (eLearning@camosun.ca) clarifying which courses you wish to have.

If I teach multiple sections in a term but only want one D2L course site (and thus one D2L gradebook) for all my students, what do I need to do?

  • Contact eLearning Support to let them know which sections need to be merged into one course Provide as much notice as possible to eLearning support if you want your course sections merged to ensure they are merged by the first day of class.

What is a DEV (Development) course site, and how do I request one?

  • A D2L DEV course site is a course site that students cannot It is a place where you can build and revise your course site before your live course shells become available to you.
  • A DEV site must be associated with a course you are teaching (for example, if you teach Math 100, you can request a Math 100 DEV site).
  • To request a DEV site for one of your courses, email eLearning Support. To learn more about DEV sites and how they can be used, talk to an eLearning instructional

How do I get access to someone else’s course site?

  • You will need to ask that person to contact eLearning Support and request/give permission for you to be added to their course site, and indicate what level of access you should be given.

Where do I go to get help with D2L?

  • You can ask for help from eLearning Support (eLearning@camosun.ca) or book a one-on-one consult with an eLearning instructional designer (see contact information below).
  • You can come to an eLearning drop-in session or
  • You can also access our D2L On-Demand Training site under My Courses in D2L (when you click on Student) in D2L, or on our eLearning Tutorials site.

How do I log into D2L?

How do I find my courses in D2L?

  • Once you have logged into D2L, you can find a list of all the courses you have access to in the My Courses widget on the main Camosun D2L page, or in the Select a course… menu on the right-hand side of the navigation bar.
  • You can pin courses in the My Courses widget or in the Select a course… menu so that, for example, the courses you are teaching right now always appear at the top of the listings. You can access instructions for this in the On-Demand Training course site, or through eLearning Support.

How do I copy course material from one course to another?

  • Use the Import/Export/Copy Components tool in your D2L course site (under Edit Course). You can access instructions for this in the On-Demand Training course site, or through eLearning Support.

 

Contact Information Role Primary Campus
eLearning Support Elearning@camosun.ca General Support Requests N/A
Wendy McElroy mcelroy@camosun.ca | ext. 3488 D2L Administrator + Support Lansdowne
Bob Preston prestonb@camosun.ca | ext. 3937 Web Analyst + Support Lansdowne
Kailin Gillis gillisk@camosun.ca D2L Support Interurban
Monique Brewer brewerm@camosun.ca Instructional Designer Interurban/Lansdowne
Meghan Campbell campbellm@camosun.ca Instructional Designer Interurban
Sue Doner doners@camosun.ca Instructional Designer Lansdowne
Patricia Larose LaroseP@camosun.bc.ca Instructional Designer Interurban
Emily Schudel schudele@camosun.ca Instructional Designer Lansdowne

 

NEW!! Setting a Student’s Quiz Accommodations from the Classlist in D2L

This tutorial is designed for faculty who have previous experience using the various tools in D2L and will cover the steps involved in setting a student’s Quizzes accommodations through your D2L Classlist.  While you can set accommodations for students from the Quizzes tool using Special Access (to add more time, etc.), you can also set Quizzes time limit accommodations for an individual student so that you don’t have to change this in every quiz.  Note that this feature is ONLY for setting a student’s time limit accommodation for Quizzes at this time (May 2021 – this tutorial will be updated as new accommodation features are added to D2L).

For further information, please contact elearning@camosun.ca for assistance.

Steps

  1. Go to the Classlist in your course.
  2. Click on a student’s drop-down menu (the down arrow) and select Edit Accommodations.Click the drop-down arrow next to a student's name and select Edit Accommodations
  3. In the Edit Accommodations pop-up box, select Modify Time Limit and then either set a Multiplier of original quiz, or the Extra time (in minutes – for example, if the quiz is an hour long and the student needs time and a half, add 30 minutes). You can also select Always Allow Right Click, for example if a student needs to be able to access accessibility tools in order to complete a quiz.  Then click Save.

    Add accommodation settings and click Save

  4. An icon appears next to the student’s name indicating added accommodations. A student will also see this icon in their view of the Classlist and will be able to check their accommodations.

    Instructor View of Classlist Accommodations

    Accommodations icon in instructor view of Classlist

    Student Views of Classlist Accommodations

    Classlist icon and drop-down to View Accommodations

    Student view of icon and drop-down in classlist

    Specific accommodations information

    Accomodations information

Things to Remember

You can still use Special Access in a quiz to overwrite an accommodation on a quiz-by-quiz basis. Note that when you overwrite an accommodation using Special Access, you will get a warning describing the impact of overwriting an accommodation. Further accommodation options and enhancements are planned for this year, so this tutorial will be updated as needed.

NEW!!! Exporting Final Adjusted Letter Grades from D2L to myCamosun

This tutorial is designed for faculty who have previous experience using the Grades tool in D2L. For further information, please contact elearning@camosun.ca for assistance.

Scenario

Colleague is the student information records system at Camosun. As such, all final marks must be entered into Colleague for two reasons:

  1. To formally add final marks to the student’s record in Colleague, and
  2. To make final grades visible in myCamosun.

This can be achieved in two ways:

  • By entering final grades directly in myCamosun, or
  • By exporting final grades from D2L into Colleague.

If you enter your marks in D2L, then you can export your Final Adjusted Letter grades to Colleague. This tutorial covers the steps involved in that process. For help entering grades directly into myCamosun, see the Faculty Learning HUB.

Note:  This tutorial does not provide information on exporting Percentage or Competency Gradebooks.

This tutorial assumes you know how to calculate and release your Final Adjusted Grades in D2L.  See the Releasing Final Adjusted Grades tutorial for information on this process.

First, in order to export your final marks from D2L to Colleague, you need to ensure:

  1. Your marks are calculated using the Final Adjusted Grade item,
  2. The Final Adjusted Grade item has the Camosun Standard Grade Scheme applied, AND
  3. You have Released your Final Adjusted Grades to your students.

If any one of these three steps has not been completed, the export will fail.  Once you have completed these three steps, proceed to the next pages to learn how to export your Final Adjusted Grade to Colleague.

Step 1: From the Enter Grades tab in the Grades tool, click on the button Export to SIS.

Click Export to SIS

Step 2: Do the following on the Export Grades screen (if you have merged or nested sections, see Page 3 for some specific information first):

  1. Verify that the Grade Type selected is Final Grade.
  2. Review the Current Final Grade column of each student for accuracy.
  3. Input an Override Grade for students if needed, for example an I or IP.
  4. Leave the Last Attendance Date as is. It may be blank or have a date in it. Do not edit this field. Also, do not enter any data in the Default Incomplete Grade or Incomplete Extension Expiry Date columns.
  5. Once you are confident all data is accurate, select all your students using the select box at the top of the left-hand column.
  6. Click the Export button at the bottom of the screen.

Export Grades screen setup

 Note: If you have two or more course sections merged together, such as labs, or if you have nested sections, such as courses with reserved seating or international students, you will need to repeat the export process for each section.

You will know if you have a merged or nested course if you see a field titled Scope above the Grade Type field (1).

  1. Click on the down arrow in the Scope field to see the list of merged or nested sections. Select the section you want to export and the select all users for that section.
  2. Once you have selected the relevant students for that section, then continue the Export process following the instructions in Step 2 on page 2.
  3. Repeat the Export process for each section.

Handling merged sections

Step 3: Once you have Exported your grades, the Export Details screen will appear.

  • Check the Status to ensure it states Success. You can also view the number of Successful Exports, which should be equal to the number of students in your section.
  • Under the Results column, you can confirm the result status by student.

    Confirm status

  • If your export was not successful, an Error status will display (1). Check the History column (2) for an explanation of each error.

    Error status

Note: If you have made an error in your grades, you can re-export your Final Adjusted Grades multiple times on the same day or edit the Final Grades manually in myCamosun.

However, you cannot re-export Grades or edit them manually in myCamosun after midnight, when verification occurs. Once marks have been verified, Grade Change Forms will need to be submitted to Student Records with the Dean’s signature.

 

 

 

 

Frequently Asked Questions

  • Will faculty also have an option to manually input final grades into myCamosun?
  • Instructions can be found on the Learning Hub at myCamosun Faculty.
  • When are final grades exported to myCamosun? After the faculty member “releases” the final grade in D2L?
    • Grades will not be sent from D2L to myCamosun until you have calculated and released the Final Adjusted Grades to students in D2L. Then, you must also complete the Export process to transfer your marks from D2L to myCamosun.
  • Once the grades are posted in myCamosun, are they “official”?
    • Yes, but grades can be changed and re-exported until they are “Verified”.
    • “Verification” occurs automatically every night at 11:59pm.
    • Final grades become visible to students in myCamosun once they are verified.
  • How will changes to grades in myCamosun work?
    • The policy has not changed on this; final grades can be appealed according to the Student Appeals Policy; faculty can go through the Grades Change process to correct errors once grades are verified.
  • Can final grades be individually released on myCamosun?
    • Yes, final grades can be released and exported individually from D2L into myCamosun. However, you cannot re-export the same student’s grades the next day.
    • Yes, you can enter individual grades into myCamosun.
  • Can I enter or release mid-term grades.
    • This feature is not yet configured through the D2L grades export to myCamosun.
    • Faculty may choose to enter mid-term grades manually into myCamosun.

 

Visit the Learning HUB at myCamosun Faculty for more information about myCamosun.