CETL Blog – Page 41 – Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning

How do I see all my students in the Dropbox Submissions area?

Here’s a topic from the D2L’s Assignment Dropbox in all its Glory! workshop: Seeing all students listed in the Submissions area, even if they haven’t submitted an assignment yet.

Are you wondering why you don’t see all your students in your submissions area for your Dropbox? Well, that’s because the default is to only list the students who have actually submitted assignments! But, there is a way to view a complete list of students – but there’s a trick to it, so let’s explore that now!

Go to the Dropbox tool in your course.
Click on the title of the Dropbox activity you want to view submissions for.
In the folder Submissions area, select Show everyone from the Submissions drop-down menu.
This is the trick: Click on the magnifying glass next to the Search For box (above the Submissions drop-down menu).
Now you will be able to see a list of ALL your students in the Folder Submissions area!

Note that when you return to the Folder Submissions area, the Submissions drop-down menu will be set back again to its default view: Users with submissions.

Want to know more? Contact desupport@camosun.ca to book an appointment with an instructional designer!

D2L Tool Tip of the Week: Creating Forums and Topics in the Discussion Tool in D2L

This tutorial is designed for faculty who have previous experience using D2L and will cover the steps involved when you wish to create forums and topics in the Discussion tool in D2L. The Discussion tool allows for asynchronous discussions of topics, and sharing of information, between students and groups of students. But first, you need to know the difference between Forums, Topics, and Threads/Replies.

A Forum is a container for Topics.
A Topic contains the discussion itself.
A Thread contains an individual student’s post to the Topic, along with others’ replies to that post.

So, a Topic contains multiple Threads, and a Forum contains (often) multiple Topics. You could, for example, have a Forum called “Module 1 Discussions”, and within that Forum, have a series of Topics called “Week 1 Discussion”, “Week 2 Discussion”, “Module 1 Group Discussions”, etc.

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

Steps

Go to the Discussions tool in your course.

To create a Forum

Click on the New button, and select New Forum. Note that you need to create a Forum before you can create a Topic, even if there is only going to be one Topic in that Forum.
Give your Forum a Title. You can also give your forum a Description if you like. This description will appear under the Forum’s title in the main Discussion area.
The Options you select for the Forum will apply to any Topics within it. These options include:
- Allow anonymous posts (this means students can choose to post anonymously)
- A moderator must approve individual posts before they display in the forum (this means that YOU need to approve posts before students can see them)
- Users must start a thread before they can read and reply to other threads in each topic (this means that a student has to post to a topic BEFORE they can see other student’s posts)
- Display forum description in topics (this will repeat the forum description under the title of all the topics within it)
Visibility controls whether or not (and when) students can see the Forum.
Locking Options allow students to SEE the Forum, but control whether or not (and when) they can POST to it. Click Save and Close when you are done.

To create a Topic

Click on the New button and select New Topic.
From the Forum drop-down menu, select the Forum you want the Topic to be part of. Note that this is mandatory – every Topic must belong to a Forum.
Under Topic Type, choose:
- Open topic (meaning that all students can see the topic and post to any and all threads posted to it).
- Group of section topic (meaning that all students can see the topic, but they will only see threads created by other students in their group –that this means that you need to have Groups set up in D2L in order to use this Topic Type).
Give your Topic a title, and the rest of the options are similar to those of the Forum (as described above). Click Save and Close.

To create a Thread to start the discussion

Click on the title of the Topic you wish to post to.
Click Start a New Thread.
Give your post a Subject and add the body of your post. You can add attachments if you like. You can also change the Topic you are posting to (in case you have gone into the wrong Topic). Click Post.

To Reply to a Thread

Click on the title of the Topic you wish to post to.
Click on the title of the Thread you wish to reply to.
Click Reply to Thread.
Add your reply to the HTML editor, and click Post.

Things to Remember

You cannot create a Topic without putting it into a Forum – every Topic must belong to a Forum!

You and your students CANNOT post to a Forum. You need to have a Topic in order to post threads and replies.

One Forum can contain multiple Topics. You don’t need to have a separate Forum for each discussion, only separate Topics or Threads.

If you have Locking Options set up for a Forum or Topic, and you copy your discussion Forums and Topics from one course to another, remember to revise these settings for the next course, otherwise the original settings will control whether students can post to that Forum or Topic. So, for example, if you locked your Week 1 Discussion Topic on October 31, 2016, that date will copy along with all the other Discussion settings!

How do I keep my Final Calculated Grades updated as I add grades?

Here’s a topic from the The Amazing D2L Gradebook workshop: Keeping final grades updated so you don’t have to calculate them all at the end of the term.

Are you wondering why you don’t see the Final Calculated Grade appearing as you add grades for students? Does it look like this?

Wonder no more!

In order to see the Final Calculated Grade changing in the Enter Grades area as you add grades for students, you need to adjust a Setting. So, here’s how you do that!

Go to the Grades tool in your course
Go to Enter Grades
Click on Settings (in the upper, right-hand corner)
Click on the Calculations Options tab.
Scroll down, and under Auto Update, select Automatically keep final grade updated. Note that this will keep the Final Calculated Grades column updated for you, but students will NOT see their final grades until you release them. Then click Save.
Click Close to return to Enter Grades.
You will now see that your Final Calculated Grade column is updated. This column will now be updated every time you enter new grades.

Want to know more? Contact desupport@camosun.ca to book an appointment with an instructional designer!

D2L Monthly Upgrades – What’s new in March 2017!

Welcome to our monthly Camosun D2L Upgrade Report.

Grades – Exempting a Learner from Multiple Grade Items

If you remember from December, D2L added a feature where you could exempt a grade item for individual students (from the grading area for a Grade Item). You can read about it at D2L Monthly Upgrades – What’s new in December!

This month, we are seeing an improvement to this feature. Now you can go straight to a student’s gradebook, and exempt that one student from multiple grade items. If you’re looking for options around dropping different grade items for different students that aren’t covered by dropping the lowest grades in an equally weighted category, this may be an option for you!

Here’s how to do it:

Go to the Grades tool.
Go to Enter Grades.
Click on the name of the student who you want to exempt from some grade items.
Click on the down arrow next to the student’s name and select Bulk edit exemptions.
Select the grade items you wish the student to be exempted from, and click Save and Close.

Those exempted grade items will then be automatically excluded from the final grade calculation for that student.

UDL SLAM 2016 Stories | SLAM Story #4: Dan Reeve (Political Science)

(Our final Slam Story in this series!)

In October 2016, the eLearning unit in CETL hosted Camosun’s first “UDL Slam.” Faculty and staff were invited to share stories about practical applications of UDL (Universal Design for Learning) Principles they have implemented in their courses or programs. The “Slam” format required that these stories include the following details and be told in 5 minutes or less:

The specific barrier to learning;
The solution applied to address this barrier;
Some assessment of the solution to date.

In this fourth and final in a special series of posts, we give you this effective and adaptable example of UDL in practice, which was shared at UDL Slam 2016 by Dan Reeve from Political Science.

At the bottom of this post, we have included our own mini-analysis of which UDL Principles & Guidelines underpin Dan’s solution to a learning barrier.

Barrier: Getting quiet people to contribute ideas in class

In his 1^st and 2^nd-year Political Science classes, Dan actively encourages discussion and feedback from students. However, he’s well aware that not all of his students are comfortable putting up their hands and speaking out in front of their peers or telling him if they are struggling with course concepts. Knowing that this discomfort can equate to missed learning opportunities for everyone and wanting to hear from more voices in his classes, Dan was looking for a way to coax ideas and feedback from the quieter or more introverted students in a way that would not also generate stress or anxiety.

Solution

After a conference workshop introduced him to the web-based tool, Poll Everywhere, Dan looked into whether he could incorporate it as a low-risk method of supporting communication in his classes.

Poll Everywhere allows an instructor to pose questions to students during a class and while the collective responses are shared for the full class to see, students’ responses are anonymous. The collected responses can then serve as a springboard for deeper class discussions on the topic, or give the instructor a quick read on the students’ grasp of concepts at that point in the course. Students can use their mobile phones or web browsers to respond to a range of question types (open-ended, multiple-choice, short text, etc.), and an instructor has options about how and when to reveal a class’s responses to the full group.

One of the reasons the Poll Everywhere tool appealed to Dan was because he could incorporate contextual questions for students into his in-class PowerPoint presentations and then display their collected responses within the same PowerPoint slides and context. Additionally, since most students in his classes already had cellphones, no additional technologies were required. If there were any students without a cellphone or laptop in the class, Dan simply paired them up with a classmate who did have the hardware. That said, students were not required to participate and were not assessed on their responses; if students still were not comfortable or willing to respond to questions, they could opt out.

And finally, as far as privacy concerns go, students did not need to provide any personally-identifying information to participate in the Poll Everywhere activities: they did not need to create an account on Poll Everywhere to respond to Dan’s questions, and they could also access the Internet through the college’s EDUROAM service and not their own data plans.

[For more information about Poll Everywhere and useful applications of the tool, see http://www.polleverywhere.com/blog/great-ways-to-use-poll-everywhere-in-the-classroom/]

Benefits

In his pilot use of Poll Everywhere, Dan found that he could pose open-ended questions to his class and generate more responses than he would typically get through the traditional “hands-up, vocal responses in front of the class” approach. In other words and as per his original goal, he did end up hearing more from the quieter introverts in his classes.

A tertiary benefit to the Poll Everywhere-based questions was that Dan was able to save some in-class time. Rather than posing a question and going around the room one student at a time to collect responses, all of the responses to a question would appear on the screen at the same time and could be reviewed and discussed further from there. This not only made “pair-and-share” activities more efficient, but also permitted more opportunities to pursue a wider array of questions.

Lessons Learned

In addition to being mindful about students having access to a cellphone or laptop in his classroom, Dan found that students’ enthusiasm for responding to Poll Everywhere questions waned if he posed too many questions per class; he could easily end up losing the participation he had just gained. His recommendation is to avoid overloading a class with questions; use Poll Everywhere thoughtfully and not too much.

Examples

The following screenshots illustrate examples of some of Dan’s Poll Everywhere-based, in-class activities and how the collected responses are displayed to everyone in a class:

Sample of student feedback to the open-ended, short-answer question: “What’s one thing that could be improved with this class?”
Sample of responses to this question associated with critical course concepts: “What is a conservative?”
Sample of a word-cloud display of one-word responses to the question: “If a nation is an imagined community, what – in a single word – binds a nation together?”

UDL Breakdown & Analysis

We think this story is a great example of a practical application of these UDL Principles:

UDL Principle #2: Provide Multiple Means of Action & Expression

By embedding in-class opportunities to check-in with his students regularly and providing an option to participate anonymously, Dan’s solution to a learning barrier supports both of Principle #2’s guidelines for “Physical Action” and “Executive Functions” by:

Optimizing access for assistive technologies by allowing/supporting use of interactive web tools [that have been designed to meet accessibility standards] and supporting problem-solving using variety of strategies;
Using multiple tools for problem-solving by using web-based applications [that meet accessibility standards];
Supporting planning and strategy development by embedding prompts to “stop & think before doing”;
Enhancing capacity for monitoring progress by prompting learners to identify the type of feedback they are seeking and asking questions to guide self-monitoring and reflection.

Learners differ in the ways that they navigate a learning environment and express what they know. There isn’t one means of action and expression that will be optimal for ALL learners; providing options is essential.

UDL Principle #3: Provide Multiple Means of Engagement

Dan’s approach and use of the Poll Everywhere tool also supports Principle #3’s guideline for “Recruiting Interest” by:

Increasing individual choice and autonomy by providing choices in tools used for info gathering and production;
Optimizing relevance and authenticity by providing tasks that allow for active participation;
Minimizing threats and distractions by varying the “social demands” required of the learner (e.g. requirements for public display & evaluation).

Learners differ in the ways in which they can be engaged or motivated to learn. Some learners are highly engaged by spontaneity and novelty while other are disengaged, even frightened, by those aspects, preferring strict routine. Some learners might like to work alone, while others prefer to work with their peers. There isn’t one means of engagement that will be optimal for ALL learners; providing is essential.

How do I make sure files I add to a Module are saved in the right place in Manage Files?

Here’s a topic from the Getting the Most out of the Content Tool in D2L workshop: Did you know that you can set a Module in Content so that any file you upload to it automatically is saved in the same folder in the Manage Files area?

Yes. You can set a Module so that all files uploaded to that Module are automatically saved in a specific folder in Manage Files. Why is this important? Well, managing your files in D2L is important to ensuring that you can find files that you upload and link in Content. So, in this post we will look at the steps involved when you wish to set a Default Path to a specific Manage Files folder for a Module in the Content tool.

Steps

Go to the Content tool in your course.
In the Table of Contents box, click on the title of the Module you want to work with.
Click on the down arrow next to the title of the Module and select Set Default Path.
In the pop-up box, click on Change Path. You will then see a list of the folders you have available in the Manage Files area.
Select the title of the folder you want to connect to your Module. If you don’t see the folder you want, either use the + signs to open the folders to check for sub-folders, or click on New Folder at the tops to create a new folder.
Once you have selected a folder, click Select Path.
Then click Save. All files you upload to the Module will now be automatically saved in the folder you selected.

Things to Remember

Remember to set up your Default Paths at the same time as you create your Modules. This will save you from having to reorganize your files in Manage Files later.

Want to know more? Contact desupport@camosun.ca to book an appointment with an instructional designer!

How do I create groups students can self enrol into?

Here’s a topic from the Working with Groups in D2L workshop: Did you know that you can have students self-select into groups?

Why might you want to do this?

Well, imagine a scenario where you had a variety of possible topics for group discussion and/or group presentation or assignment submission, but you wanted to give students the option of choosing which topic they wanted to contribute to and work with. Use one of the self-enrolment options to create a set of groups, one for each topic, and let students choose which one to enrol in!

The group self-enrolment options you have in D2L are:

Groups of # – Self Enrolment
# of Groups – Self Enrolment
# of Groups, Capacity of # – Self Enrolment

Note that after they self-enrol in a groups, students will have the option of leaving one group and enrolling in another if they change their mind about which group they want to work with.

Also note that in each case, you can set a self-enrolment expiry date and ask D2L to enrol any student who has not self-enrolled into a group into a group automatically (select Set Self Enrollment Expiry Date, and Allocate unenrolled users after Self Enrollment Expiry Date). In addition, once this date has passed, students can no longer leave one group and enrol in another.

Let’s look at each of these in turn.

Groups of # – Self Enrolment

With this option, you would be telling D2L how many students should be in each group. How this works is that students will enrol themselves in the group they want, and when it is full it will no longer be open for enrolment. The number of groups initially created will be the number of students in the course divided by the maximum number of students each group can contain (you can add additional groups later if you like) This is a good option for when you want to control the maximum number of students in each group.

*Note: If students are not enrolled in your course site yet, then only one group is initially created. You can use the Edit Category page to add additional groups. You might want to add additional groups even if students are already enrolled to ensure all students have options when forming groups.

# of Groups – Self Enrolment

With this option, you would be telling D2L how many group you want in this category. How this works is that students will enrol themselves in the group they want. Remember that this option is based on an established number of groups, so you may end up in a situation where more students enrol in one group than in the others.

# of Groups, Capacity of # – Self Enrolment

With this option, you would be telling D2L both how many groups there should be AND how many students should be in each group. How this works is that students will enrol themselves in the group they want, and when it is full it will no longer be open for enrolment. You will need to make sure that you have the right number of groups for the number of students in your class (given the group number limit you have assigned).

Here is what these self-enrolment options look like to students:

Want to know more? Contact desupport@camosun.ca to book an appointment with an instructional designer!

How do I create a Contact Information Widget for my D2L Homepage?

Here’s a topic from the Customizing Your Homepages and Widgets workshop: did you know that you can create a widget on your homepage with your contact information in it?

Need a place to let students know when, how, and where they can contact you with questions? Afraid that they may have lost the information you handed out to them in class? Why not create a Contact Information Widget on the homepage of your D2L course site!

A widget is a box that appears on the Homepage of your D2L course site. It can be a box for a tool, like the News or the Calendar widgets, or a box containing information, like a Contact Information widget.

Creating a Contact Information widget is easy – so let me walk you through the steps here! Note that this is not a complete tutorial, and it presumes you have some familiarity with D2L. If you have any questions about this process, or get lost at any point, contact eLearning (desupport@camosun.ca) to arrange to meet with one of our instructional designers.

The first thing you need to do is click on the Edit Course link on your D2L course Homepage.

Then click on Widgets.

Click Create Widget.

You will need to give your new Widget a name, perhaps something like “Contact Information”? Then click on the Content tab. Note that information added to the Description box on this Properties tab will NOT be seen in the Widget. It is the Content tab that contains the information you wish students to see.

Once you are on the Content tab, you can enter the information you wish students to see in your Contact Information widget. Since you are entering informaiton in the HTML editor, you also have the option of adding a picture, as well as links to another website. When you are finished entering your information, click Save and Close.

You will then need to add your widget to your D2L course Homepage so students can see it. To do this, click Homepages.

Click on the title of your active Homepage. If you can’t click on the title, you will need to copy the default, activate it, and then edit the copy. You can find out how, but reading this blog post: D2L Tool Tip of the Week: Customizing your Homepages and Widgets.

Once you are on the editing page for your active Homepage, you can add your widget to one of the widget areas (see below) click Save and Close.

When you go back to your Course Homepage, you will see your Contact Information widget.

To edit it, click on the down arrow and select Edit this Widget.

To move it to another location on your Homepage, go back to Edit Course –> Homepages and edit your active Homepage.

An there you have it – a Contact Information widget that you can copy to any course you have access to, and change as you need!

More questions about D2L and customizing your homepages and widgets? Contact eLearning (desupport@camosun.ca) to arrange a meeting with an instructional designer at Interurban or Lansdowne!

UDL SLAM 2016 Stories | SLAM Story #3: School of Nursing

The specific barrier to learning;
The solution applied to address this barrier;
Some assessment of the solution to date.

In this third in a special series of posts, we give you a resourceful example of UDL in practice at a program level. This initiative out of the School of Nursing was spear-headed by Darlaine Jantzen (Program Chair), implemented with the assistance of Karen Foxall (Program Assistant), and was presented at UDL Slam 2016 by Joan Humphries (Associate Program Chair).

At the bottom of this post, we have included our own mini-analysis of which UDL Principles & Guidelines underpin the School of Nursing’s solution to a barrier that presented risks to accessing applied learning opportunities throughout the program.

Barrier: Intuitive, Consistent & Sustainable Orientation for New Students

Each fall, the BSN Program welcomes around 160 new students, all of whom need to become immediately oriented to not only the program itself but also to some fundamental expectations of professional Nursing practice. Those expectations include 13 different documents (certifications, credentials, etc.) that each student is required to complete and submit in order to be eligible for the practicum placements that are the cornerstone of the program; students who do not provide the required documentation cannot work in practicum locations.

In the past, the faculty teaching first-term courses were made the point-people for collecting the hundreds of pieces of required documentation from their students and tracking outstanding pieces – while also managing responsibilities inherent to delivering first-term curriculum. The communication about these requirements also largely fell to the 1^st-term teaching-faculty to manage, so attendant issues included inconsistencies between each faculty member’s approach to messaging and managing the process. Finally, the previous process did not allow students to access and submit all documentation electronically, creating additional challenges for the tracking of these required documents and presenting constant concerns about lost forms and repercussions for student learning opportunities.

In sum: the previous process made it difficult for students to get consistent information about fundamental program requirements, lacked a central point of contact for them to get clarification and support, was entirely paper-based, and added an enormous administrative workload on top of the teaching responsibilities of 1^st-term faculty.

Solution

In an effort to minimize student confusion about expectations and goals, avoid losing essential documents, and relieve 1^st-term faculty of administrative responsibilities on top of their existing teaching load, the BSN Program decided to centralize the program orientation (now known as the “BSN Primer”) into a dedicated module in all first-term course D2L sites. Program Assistant, Karen Foxall, was made the primary point-person for the BSN Primer; she became the consistent point of contact for questions students had about the orientation and also took over tracking their successful completion of the BSN Primer requirements.

By integrating the BSN Primer into D2L course sites, new students have the additional benefit of becoming familiar on Day 1 with common D2L functions that they will encounter throughout the program (e.g. Dropboxes, Quizzes, Content, etc.)

And finally: the old paper-based process that was both clunky and risky, was replaced by a fully digital process. All forms were converted into electronic format and students now submit their materials online via task-specific Dropboxes in D2L. This allows the Program Assistant to easily retrieve all completed documents and confirm student completion at a glance.

Example Sections from the New BSN Primer

The BSN Primer is organized around 4 primary themes that orient students to both the expectations of the program and their professional practice:

Presenting & Preparing Yourself for Classes
Preparing Yourself for Registered Nursing Practices
Consent Forms
Confidentiality: Yours and Others.

Below are screen-shots of two of these sections. These sections include: instructions for students, electronic copies of required forms, Dropboxes for form submissions, and short “quizzes” or checklists used to confirm that students have completed all of the requirements for that section.

Benefits

Primary benefits:

Consistent messaging and support; accountability. With Program Assistant, Karen, as the central manager of this process and with all of the forms being submitted online and in a centralized location, the process of tracking outstanding documentation is much easier and follow-up is timelier. Students who have not completed all of the required documentation or whose documentation includes errors are less likely to fall into an administrative gap and find themselves ineligible for practicum placements.
Intuitive and user-friendly. The BSN Primer introduces students to program goals, expectations and schedules on Day 1 of their program. By Karen’s estimation, in the Fall 2016 trial run of the BSN Primer, approximately 75% of the new student intake had no difficulty completing the requirements and/or read all of the instructions and completed all of their requirements by the deadlines.
Orientation to LMS (D2L) prior to formal course work. By integrating the BSN Primer orientation into the same LMS used to deliver course curriculum, students are given immediate familiarity to D2L functions and navigation.
Timeliness. Based on the program’s experience in previous years, the digitization and centralization of the orientation moved the typical schedule for collecting students’ documentation up by about 10 weeks.

Additional benefits:

More sustainable practice for Faculty. Instructors who teach the first-term courses expressed appreciation for having the administrative responsibility for collecting and tracking all of the required forms taken out of their hands.
More environmentally sustainable too! By moving this orientation online into D2L, the sheer volume of paper used collected by the program has gone down tremendously.

UDL Breakdown & Analysis

We think this story positively illustrates the practical application of two UDL Principles:

First:

UDL Principle #1: Provide Multiple Methods of Representation

By digitizing the documentation component of the Nursing Orientation and incorporating the same LMS (D2L) students will use throughout their program, the BSN Primer supports at least two of Principle #1’s guidelines (“Perception” and “Comprehension”). Through the BSN Primer, the program is:

Offering learners ways to customize their display of information: the BSN Primer provides digital formats of all the required documentation that give students options for accessing and viewing materials.
Providing background knowledge. The BSN Primer centralizes essential program and professional expectations of the students that they need to know and practice throughout the program; students access the BSN Primer on Day 1 of their program.
Supporting transfer of learning across the program; the BSN Primer incorporates explicit opportunities for students to review program expectations and requirements & practice navigating through D2L functions

There isn’t one means of representation that will be optimal for ALL learners; providing options for representation is essential

And second:

UDL Principle #2: Provide Multiple Methods of Action & Expressions

By providing new students with an essential orientation to program and professional expectations with consistent and centralized support, the School of Nursing’s BSN Primer illustrates Principle #2’s Guideline 6: Executive Functions*.

*“Executive functions” allow us to set long-term goals and plan effective strategies for reaching those goals. CAST

The BSN Primer underpins this guideline as it:

Guides appropriate goal-setting by posting goals, objectives & schedules in an obvious place, and providing cues to help learners identify resources required – including time.
Supports planning and strategy development by providing checklists and setting up prioritization and sequences of tasks for students;
Facilitates managing information and resources by providing templates for data collection & organizing information;

Learners differ in the ways that they navigate a learning environment and express what they know. There isn’t one means of action and expression that will be optimal for ALL learners; providing options is essential.

Do you know when you and your students have access to D2L courses at Camosun?

This term I thought I would begin writing a series of posts based on our eLearning workshops – both for those of you who can’t attend, as well as to remind those who did of some of the amazing things you learned at the workshops!

Today, from the workshop Getting Started with D2L, I am answering the question: “Do you know when you and your students have access to D2L courses at Camosun?”

D2L at Camosun is connected to our registration system (Colleague). That means that faculty and students are automatically added to live D2L course sites through that connection.

What this means for faculty, is that if your course is “flagged” for D2L in the registration system, you will see a blank shell for that course appear in your D2L course listing approximately 30 days before the course start date. Then, 7 days before the course start date, you will see your students appear in the D2L course Classlist. This is also the point at which your students will have access to D2L in general – but NOT to your course site. Your student will not have access to your course site until the day it starts (the official start date in Colleague). Note that this is all controlled through Colleague – we in eLearning cannot give your students access to your D2L course materials earlier than the official start date.

You may also be wondering how long students have access to your D2L course site after the course ends. Well, they will have access to the course site for 20 days past the end date as it appears in Colleague.

Sometimes faculty want to work on a course D2L site before their live course appears in their course list (for example, when planning/developing a September course in May/June for Scheduled Development). If this is the case, you can ask eLearning to create a DEV site for your course. This is a static D2L course site (meaning that it is not dependent on start and end dates) containing NO students (meaning you can use it to create, experiment, etc. without worrying that students may see what you’re doing). If you would like a DEV site for a course (and I recommend having one), contact desupport@camosun.ca.

More questions about D2L and getting started? Contact eLearning (desupport@camosun.ca) to arrange a meeting with an instructional designer at Interurban or Lansdowne!