This Fall at UW-Whitewater, faculty and staff WebEx users will notice some changes from the current on-premises version of WebEx. We will be transitioning to a newer and more cost-effective version that is also cloud based. This newer version will allow you to join and schedule meetings from within Desire2Learn. Meetings can also have up to 1,000 participants and compared to the previous on-premises version of WebEx, it has increased recording space. The cloud-hosted version is available at: https://uww.webex.com.  The old on-premises version will be discontinued before the Spring 2016 semester.

Students can now schedule and setup meetings for up to 8 participants at https://uwwstudents.webex.com.  Students are only able to use computer/VoIP (voice over IP) audio when connecting and are unable to record meetings.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding this, please contact the Learning Technology Center.

We would like to announce that Cisco WebEx is now integrated directly into your Desire2Learn course.  Inside of your course, you can find the “WebEx” tool located in “More Tools” on the Navigation bar.

This integration allows instructors to create WebEx meetings right from within D2L.  Students cannot create meetings through this integration, but they can join and participate in class meetings.

Instructors who are new to WebEx must first login to uww.webex.com prior to scheduling a meeting via the D2L integration.  This only has to be done one time, so if you have already done this in the past, you are already setup.

We have created a number of tutorial pages and short videos explaining the process:

• Access Pre-Recorded Meetings
• Delete a WebEx Meeting
• Join a WebEx Meeting
• Schedule a WebEx Meeting
• View Attendance

If you have any questions regarding this, please contact UW-W Desire2Learn Support.

On Friday, July 17th from 9:00 AM to Noon, the Technology Showcase Tour will be stopping at UW-Whitewater.  The Technology Showcase Tour, sponsored by BP Marketing Group, features the latest and greatest A/V and educational technology available from industry-leading manufacturers.

The traveling exhibit will be located in Lot 12a, which is the metered parking lot between the University Center, McGraw Hall and Heide Hall.

The event is free and open to everyone to attend. Please register at: https://geturl.uww.edu/20n

The Technology Showcase Tour will feature the latest and greatest technology available.  The equipment featured may not be available in UW-Whitewater classrooms and is just here for demonstration purposes.

More information on the tour can be found at: http://www.techshowtour.com/

If you have any questions regarding this event, please contact the Learning Technology Center at ltc@uww.edu or 262.472.1004.

On Thursday, June 25, Desire2Learn deployed Service Pack 20 to our D2L Learning Environment. In this latest update, the following fixes and enhancements were included:

Classlist

• Fix: In some cases, when using the Classlist tool to print a list of users, a blank page is printed instead of the list. Users can now successfully print a list from their browser.

Content

• Fix: In some cases, when you view a content topic in a new window without the navigation pane, you might not be able to use the vertical scroll bar to scroll to content further down the page. Content viewed in a new window now can use the vertical scroll bar as expected.
• Fix: In some cases, Adobe SCORM content displayed significantly smaller than expected. Content now displays as expected.
• Fix: In some cases, content topics made in Adobe Captivate appeared to flicker as a result of changes in the rendering height and width. Content topics made in Adobe Captivate now display without any rendering issues and without any flicker.

Copy Components

• Fix: Some SCORM objects lost their association to a grade object during Copy Course Components. SCORM objects no longer lose that association.
• Fix: Some release conditions based on learning objective achievements were not correctly copied as a part of course components; however, the course copy status indicated that the copy was successful. You can now successfully copy these release conditions to other courses.

Discussions

• Fix: In some cases, images successfully saved to discussion posts appeared as broken links. Images are now saved to a separate course files directory rather than the temp directory.
• Fix: If you created a new Group Category in the Groups tool with the discussion or forum visibility set to hidden, you were still able to configure the group to auto-create discussion topics. The links no longer cause a group error if group discussions are hidden.
• Fix: In some cases, it was possible to create discussion posts without a subject. These posts without a subject were not accessible from the Reading View because there was no link. These posts now appear as <No Subject> in the Reading View with a valid link you can click to open the discussion.

Email

• Fix: If Quicklinks were used in emails, these links are relative and do not work for users receiving emails in external accounts. These relative links are replaced with full links so that users receiving email to external accounts are able to click the links as expected.

Quizzes

• Fix: When an Internet Explorer 11 user entered a lengthy answer in a quiz, a horizontal scroll bar appeared on the text field. Lengthy answers now wrap several lines without the horizontal scroll bar.

If you have any questions or concerns about the service pack updates, please contact UW-W D2L Support.

On Thursday, June 4, Desire2Learn deployed Service Packs 18 and 19 to our D2L Learning Environment. In this latest update, the following fixes and enhancements were included:

Calendar

• Fix: In the Upcoming Events area in the Content tool, future events no longer appear in the Today section.

Competencies

• Fix: Improvements have been made to the copy process for Competencies to prevent database deadlocks.

Content

• Fix: Dropboxes in Content were fixed so that learners’ rubric assessments are no longer visible to them before their assessment is published. The rubric link will show the preview of the rubric levels and criteria until the assessment is published.
• Fix: Performance improvements were made to the copy course process when copying Content to new courses to prevent database deadlocks.

Copy Components

• Fix: Final grade formulas are now successfully copied through the batch course copy process.
• Fix: Performance improvements were added for the process of copying all release conditions in a course.

Discussions

• Fix: If users have saved drafts of discussion posts, they are now accessible when the topic has the “Users must start a thread before they can read and reply to other threads” option enabled. Previously, users could not access saved drafts until they had posted to the topic successfully and unlocked the restrictions.
• Fix: Images inserted into discussion posts in the Reading View are successfully stored with the course and will persist. Previously, these images may have been stored in temporary folders.

Dropbox

• Fix: When using the “Add Feedback files” button to upload multiple feedback files at once, feedback files can now successfully be added to multiple users’ submissions. Previously, files were not successfully attached even when the workflow appeared to complete.
• Fix: When users view dropbox feedback from the Content tool, the feedback is successfully saved as read and instructors can see the date and time the feedback was first read from the Dropbox tool.
• Fix: Silent errors are no longer logged when Notifications for dropboxes with due dates are rendered.
• Fix: Users no longer receive an error in the Groups tool when navigating to a group dropbox folder. Previously, if a submission existed in the dropbox folder, but had not yet been evaluated, navigating to this page caused an error.

Homepage

• Fix: When creating a homepage, the Custom Header field now correctly handles unicode characters and displays them on the homepage.

Manage Files

• Fix: When a user unzips a large file in the Manage Files area for a course, a message now notifies them that the operation is happening in the background and that they will be notified when it is complete. This allows the user to perform other tasks while waiting for the operation to complete. Previously, unzipping a large file was unsuccessful, requiring the user watch the operation time out after approximately two minutes.

News

• Fix: Improvements have been made to the copy process for News items to prevent database deadlocks.

Question Library

• Fix: In the Question Library, questions imported from another collection now retain their original sort order.
• Fix: Improvements were made to the Question Library when importing questions from another collection. Questions within sections will now maintain their section parent.

Quizzing

• Fix: Improvements have been made to the course copy (and bulk course copy) service to alleviate deadlocks when copying quizzes and question libraries.
• Fix: Improvements were made to the Question Library import functions for importing sections and subsections of questions from existing quizzes or collections.

User Profile

• Fix: The “Tagline” field no longer displays HTML to users editing their profile. All users now see the same text after the profile is saved. To provide users with the ability to add a web page link to their profile card, they can use the Homepage field.

User Progress

• Fix: Users can now correctly view User Progress (such as scores or feedback given) for Dropboxes that are not currently open to students. Previously, an error would prevent uploading of the Dropbox section in User Progress.
• Fix: User Progress was modified to make use of all available space when displaying a user’s full name, reducing the frequency in which a long first and/or last name is truncated.
• Fix: When using a Weighted System for Grades, the “Student View Display Options” configured through the Grades “Org Unit Display Options” are now respected when accessing User Progress for a course from the Course and Organization.
• Fix: When using a Points System for Grades, the “Student View Display Options” configured through “Org Unit Display Options” are now respected when accessing User Progress for a course from the Organization level.
• Fix: The setting of “Display how final grade was calculated to users” from “Grades > Settings > Org Unit Display Options” is now respected when accessing User Progress from the Organization level.
• Fix: Grade Color Indicators configured in User Progress when “Grade Scheme Color” is enabled from “Grades > Settings” are now respected when accessing User Progress for a course from the Organization level.
• Fix: When using a weighted system for grades, grade display option overrides for grade weight are now respected when viewing user progress from the course and org level. These settings override the settings set at the org unit level. When weight calculation is selected, the points override is displayed in Grade Category and Final Grade.
• Fix: For courses with a Weighted grading system, Formula and Calculated grade types no longer include a weight percentage within User Progress.
• Fix: For courses with a Weighted grading system, Final Adjusted/Final Calculated Grades no longer include a weight of 0% within User Progress.

Widget

• Fix: The “Search My Courses” page now shows the “Semester” and “Department” filters for searching.
• Fix: Users are no longer kicked out of their Role Switch action when encountering some hidden errors.

If you have any questions or concerns about the service pack updates, please contact UW-W D2L Support.