This morning, Thursday, April 25th, Desire2Learn Inc. deployed Service Pack 9 to our D2L learning environment.

Along with some tool fixes (as outlined below), D2L has made a much-requested change to the interface. The course navigation bar no longer disappears when users are viewing full-screen pages, such as the “Enter Grades” tool. Issues with downloading files in the Dropbox and Content tools’ file attachments through Internet Explorer 8 have also been resolved.

In addition, these are some tool specific fixes from the Service Pack:

• Discussions:
  1. On the Group Restrictions page for a discussion topic, returned results now work properly when you select All Forums in the Forum drop-down list when previously no results were returned.
  2. After users perform a Role Switch and then access Discussions, they can now perform actions only allowed by the switched role permissions, and no longer possess the original role permissions.
• Grades:
  1. Lengthy grade category descriptions now wrap correctly; this eliminates the need for horizontal scrolling.
  2. Formulas for Calculated Final Grade and Adjusted Final Grade now copy correctly when Grades are copied in Copy Course Components.
  3. In Grades’ Enter Grades page, each grade item’s Properties information no longer displays “Weight” properties if the grading system is not a Weighted system.
• Dropbox:
  1. The Dropbox Folders page and Folder Submissions page now correctly indicate the number of submissions that are “Unread” and “read” after file submissions are viewed online or downloaded.
  2. In Dropbox folders with Turnitin OriginalityCheck enabled, an error no longer occurs when a GradeMark Available to Students date is set in the past. This error occurred most frequently in OrginialityCheck-enabled Dropbox folders that were copied from another org unit.
• Chat: Previously, chat messages had a maximum limit of 400 characters. This limit has been removed.
• Content:
  1. The Content Browser widget did not update release conditions when conditions were met. Release conditions are now computed when the widget loads so students can see content that becomes available.
  2. Inserting a quicklink no longer updates the topic title if it is not empty.
• User Progress: User visits to Content topics and modules and navigation through them with the Next or Previous buttons are now correctly tracked.
• HTML Editor: Image resizing is now supported in Firefox for both instances.
• Homepages: Duplicated instances of a custom widget can now be styled independently without affecting all instance of that widget.

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

This morning, Thursday, April 4th, Desire2Learn Inc. deployed Service Pack 8 and a few hotfixes to our D2L learning environment.

A bug that made instructors unable to copy gradebook items and/or categories from any previous offering of the course using the Copy Components tool has been fixed. Also, a fix has been applied that corrects an issue with the “New Survey” function not working in some courses under the Surveys tool. Issues with downloading files through Internet Explorer 8 are now resolved. News and other tools’ file attachments are now downloadable from IE8.

In addition, these are some tool specific fixes from the Service Pack:

• ePortfolio: Invitation messages that are longer than 150 characters when entered, but are less than 150 characters after formatting, no longer results in an error when viewed.
• Grades: When copying a course with an attached grade scheme using the Import / Export / Copy Course Components tool, the default grade scheme selection is now retained. Several database performance issues were corrected to improve or reduce load issues.
• Dropbox: If a dropbox folder has a date availability restrictions, its folder instructions no longer appear in the calendar to users without proper permissions until the available start date. Also, when users evaluate the last dropbox folder submissions on the Evaluate Submission page, the “Finish” button is now replaced with a “Done” button and no longer publishes the last submission listed. “Done” instead redirects back to the Folder Submissions page.
• Widgets: The links widget did not allow users to add links within it even if users have proper permissions. This has been corrected.

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

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.

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.

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.

While we were all enjoying the Thanksgiving vacation, Desire2Learn (D2L) was hard at work deploying Service Pack 5 (SP5).  This update brings some important bug fixes to our D2L system!

Most importantly, some of the annoying bugs users were experiencing with dropbox submissions running through TurnItIn. All dropbox submissions since January 2012 will be reviewed and automatically processed if they are still in queue for TurnItIn.

In addition, some other important changes to note are:

• Gradebook: Logging now tracks who creates, deletes, and restores grade items.  Instructors can restore, review and recover all deleted items and student grades from the Event Log, accessible through “Manage Grades.”  Also, a confirmation dialog box now displayed when a user clicks “Clear” from the Grade Item page to avoid accidental clearing and saving of grades.
• TurnItIn Submissions: Two bugs that have prevented some Dropbox submissions from processing through TurnItIn appear to be fixed in SP5. Some submissions not processing because of a third error are still being investigated by Desire2Learn support.

Winterim Instructors:  D2L is scheduled to be unavailable on the first day of Winterim classes beginning at 9:30pm on Wednesday, January 2nd 2013 until 10:30am on Thursday, January 3rd 2013 for file server storage migration.  Please plan your work accordingly.  There will be more information and a formal campus announcement are in the works for the coming weeks.

Course Request Application:  We have overhauled the course request application and a number of new features are available.  For more information see: D2L Course Request Enhancements Now Available.

Winterim & Spring 2013 course requests are now available.  To request for your courses, go to: D2L Course Request Application.

Streaming Video Updates:  We have updated the underlying code that powers the streaming videos produced by the Learning Technology Center to now support playback on iOS devices.  For more information see: Streaming Video Support for iOS.

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