Author Archives: Susan Degen

Upcoming D2L Course Cleanup

Posted on by

In order to maintain optimal storage capacity, and ensure the ongoing smooth operation of D2L, the UW System conducts an annual purge of older courses from the system. This year, we are beginning preparation for courses from Fall 2008 through Summer 2010. Courses that are in this time frame will be purged from the D2L system beginning on May 3, 2013.

Things to keep in mind for the Cleanup process:

  • Only courses from Fall 2008 through Summer 2010 will be affected by this year’s Cleanup. Any courses that don’t fall in that time frame, including courses that are “OTHER” or “ONGOING” designated, are not affected.
  • Course materials or student information in courses can be exported if they’re needed for future courses or analysis. If you need assistance with exporting these items, please review the “How To” section of the D2L Cleanup Resources website.
  • Course components and materials can also be copied to an “OTHER” or “ONGOING” course shell if you plan on using the same materials for future courses. To complete a request for one, use the “Special Course Request” section of the D2L Course Request application.
  • If a special circumstance exists where a course that is slated for cleanup needs to be maintained as is (this is usually for reasons other than retaining course materials or student information), please complete and submit the Course Cleanup Retention form before April 26, 2013.

If you have any questions about the D2L Course Cleanup process, please review the Frequently Asked Questions section of the D2L Cleanup Resources site as your question may already be addressed there. If you still have questions or need assistance, please contact UW-W D2L Support.

2013 OPID Spring Conference Registration Available

Posted on by

Registration is now open for the 2013 OPID Spring Conference: The Value of Inquiry into Student Learning in the 21st Century being held on April 18th through 19th.

The 2013 OPID Spring Conference will bring together over 200 faculty and staff across many disciplines to demonstrate the UW System’s commitment to excellence in teaching and student learning.   The conference will provide a forum to recognize, acknowledge, and share the expertise of faculty and academic staff who excel at teaching, value learning, and are committed to sharing their experience, knowledge, practice, and scholarship with colleagues.  The intentional relationships among teaching, learning, and making excellence inclusive will be a foundation of this event.

The OPID Spring Conference will feature the following keynote presentations:

  • Learning matters: Reflections on valuing inquiry in Wisconsin (1999-2013) by Tony Ciccone, Professor of French and director of the Center for Instructional and Professional Development (CIPD) at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
  • Stereotype Threat and The Psychology of Achievement Gaps: Causes and Solutions to Student Underperformance by Valerie Purdie-Vaughns, Assistant Professor of Psychology at Columbia University

For more information about the conference at-a-glance, please visit http://www.uwsa.edu/opid/conf/springconf13.htm.  The final program and detailed conference agenda is being created now and will be sent to you via email and posted on OPID’s website.

To register for the conference, please go to: http://www.jotform.com/?formID=30433439588966.  To make hotel reservations for the conference, please call the Concourse directly at 800-356-8293. Please register and make your reservations by March 29th.

If you have any questions about the registration process or the conference in general, please contact at: opid@uwsa.edu

FUSION 2013 – D2L Users’ Conference

Posted on by

Instructional faculty and staff are invited to register and attend FUSION 2013, Desire2Learn Inc.’s annual users’ conference.

The FUSION conference is attended by individuals in various roles and there are multiple tracks for many presentations that are designed specifically for each role. Sessions are largely classroom style and are presented by attendees as well as Desire2Learn staff. There are also poster sessions, hands-on sessions for attendees to actively participate in learning, focus groups, and in-depth roundtable discussions.

This year’s FUSION is being held in Boston, Massachusetts on July 15th through the 17th. For more information and to register, please visit the Desire2Learn FUSION conference website.

Summer 2013 D2L Course Requests Open

Posted on by

Summer 2013 D2L course requests are now available in the D2L Course Request application.

As a reminder, course requests for a semester become available on the first day of priority registration for students, and course shells for D2L need to be requested for every semester you plan on using D2L.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact UW-W D2L Support.

Desire2Learn Service Update (January 2013)

Posted on by

On Thursday, January 31st, Desire2Learn Inc. deployed the two latest Service Packs to our D2L learning environment. Unfortunately, along with the deploying the Service Packs, Learn@UW has reported a new issue that affects copying grade items. Instructors cannot copy gradebook items and/or categories from any previous offering of the course using Copy Components. Currently, the workaround is to use Export and Import Components functions instead. Learn@UW is pushing for a fix to have the Copy functionality restored for Gradebook items. However, these Service Packs included several fixes to existing issues with two prominent issues being resolved:

  • ePortfolio: Users no longer encounter an error when they push a presentation to a course. Presentations can be successfully pushed to a course without having to create a Sharing Group.
  • Minibar: Users can now receive and access alerts. Minibar alerts should no longer be blocked by unsubmitted quizzes after a quiz is no longer accessible to a user.

In addition to those fixes, there are several others in various tools as follows:

  • Calendar: Due dates displayed in Calendar for Checklist items no longer display as UTC time. The time now correctly converts and displays in the user’s time zone. Offsetting dates in Calendar now calculates times correctly when the offset spans a daylight savings time shift.The Calendar widget and the Upcoming view in Calendar now only show events for the current day if they are still occurring. Previously, current-day events that ended were still displayed.
  • Classlist: Online status in Classlist now displays correctly across different time zones.
  • Competencies: After copying a Learning Objective with a Manual Rubric activity without receiving errors.
  • Content: Content user progress was not updating when viewing sequenced SCORM 2004 packages. Visits to these topics are now correctly tracked.
  • Dropbox: The notification now correctly displays the number of submissions to the assignment folder in Dropbox. Word wrap is now working correctly for Feedback in Dropbox.
  • ePortfolio: News feed load time is now improved, users with a large amount of shared activities will notice a faster load time.
  • Grades: In a student view, when users click on the calculator icon for a calculated grade item, they can view the results of what grade items were included. They will no longer encounter an error.
  • Homepages: Shared widgets now properly display on new homepages that have been copied via Copy Course Components.
  • HTML Editor: If a custom widget contains a <form> tag it will now be wrapped in an iFrame. This prevents the <form> from getting stripped out of the custom widget.
  • Minibar: When a user has visited 50 courses or more, the course selector now correctly displays the order of the results when sorted by last accessed course.
  • Quizzes/Question Library: If a random section is deleted from a quiz, it will allow users to successfully import questions from that random section back into the quiz. The Quiz Attempt Log now records any changes, saves, and submissions made by the user. Users can now access the Edit and Preview actions from the context menu of a question within a random folder without receiving an error.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact UW-W D2L Support.

TurnItIn Submissions Not Processing in D2L

Posted on by

Learn@UW has notified us of a reported bug in D2L involving TurnItIn (TII) Dropboxes that are copied/imported from another course. When Dropboxes are copied from a previous course where TII was already enabled, the new Dropbox will not be created on the TII side and submissions will not process.

Until we have a fix, all Dropboxes should be created NEW in courses, unless the source Dropbox does not have TII enabled. Learn@UW is working with D2L to get existing submissions processed.

If you have any questions or concerns about this issue, please contact UW-W D2L Support.

Clicker Reminders for the Upcoming Semester

Posted on by

If you plan to use student response system (aka “clickers”) technology in your summer course, please contact the LTC to register. Classes using clickers must be added to the Clicker Registration application so that your students can register their clickers and you can retrieve a class participant list for use in TurningPoint.

If you have courses you would like added to the Clicker Registration application, please provide the LTC with your course name and number. If you have multiple sections, please also specify if you prefer to have your course sections combined or separate.

UW-Whitewater also offers ResponseWare, an “app” that allows students to use their smartphones, laptops, and other Internet-connected devices rather than a clicker keypad. The reduced cost for students to use an app versus purchasing a clicker keypad can be significant. If you are interested in using ResponseWare in addition to using clickers, but you do not yet have a ResponseWare account, please contact the LTC for setup.