W HAT ’ S N EW IN D2L D2L Version 9.0 Highlights Summer 2010 Minnesota State Colleges and Universities D2L Upgrade to Version 9.0

Minnesota State Colleges and Universities D2L Upgrade to Version 9.0

WHAT’S NEW IN D2L

D2L Version 9.0 HighlightsSummer 2010


OVERVIEW OF CHANGES IN D2L VERSION 9.0

Confirmation/Status Banner Upon Saving in Multiple Tools Classlist Discussion View Progress Navigation Bars Release Conditions Manage Files User Preferences—Time Zone HTML Editor Rubrics NEW TOOLS

Course Design Accelerator Course Builder Instructional Design Wizard Intelligent Agents (available since 8.4—but initially had some bugs)


CONFIRMATION AND STATUS BANNERSAfter saving or performing other actions in D2L tools, a

prominent confirmation status banner briefly displays.

When user clicks Manage Files, a “Loading” status message displays while the user is waiting for the file list to load.


CLASSLIST – IMAGES AND LAST ACCESSED INFOIt was always possible to see a user’s image if the user had uploaded an image to the profile. In version 9.0, the image displays in the classlist, and links to the user’s profile.

The date the student last accessed the course is displayed in the classlist


CLASSLIST REPORT OF WITHDRAWN STUDENTS

View Progress is now available for Withdrawn Students


DISCUSSIONS DISPLAY USER’S PROFILE IMAGE

This view is Settings: Message List Style = Reading Style


DISCUSSION GRADING FEEDBACK TEXTBOX

When grading from within the discussion tool, a textbox displays for entering feedback.


GRADES TOOL HAS VIEW PROGRESS FEATURE

View Progress is available from the Grades tool.


USER PROGRESS DISPLAYS FEEDBACK/COMMENTS


NAVIGATION BARS – LOOK, FEEL, FUNCTIONALITY

Navigation bars are frameless in 9.0 Links can be displayed as text only, image only, or both

When the window is resized, the navbar links will wrap


EDITING A COURSE NAVBAR

Ability to edit the Navbar will be based on permissions set at each site

There is a new interface for Editing the Nav Bar When editing an existing Navbar, the user will need to

create a copy of the navbar and perform the editing on the copy.

This is the way it was always done, but the copy was made automatically, in the background, so in the past it was not obvious to the user that the navbar was copied.


EDIT A COURSE NAVBAR

To Edit an Existing Navbar, first click the Copy Navbar icon and click the Yes button to confirm


EDIT THE COURSE NAVBAR COPYThe navbar copy appears, click on linkto edit the navbar

New interface for editing the nav bar


EDIT NAVBAR AND MAKE IT COURSE DEFAULT

Properties tab, rename the new copy of the navbar , Save, then use Links tab to customize the navbar

Click Navbars, click Change button, selectnew navbar from list and click Apply. This setsthe new, customized navbar for the course.


RELEASE CONDITIONS – NOT AND NOT BETWEEN

New Operators for some Condition Types include Not Between and !=


RELEASE CONDITIONS – ENROLLMENT TYPE

Release items based on enrollment Role Type


RELEASE CONDITIONS - ANY OR ALL

Multiple release conditions can be set for an item option of requiring ALL or ANY of the conditions to be met (in previous versions, the only option was ALL conditions)


MANAGE FILES – NEW INTERFACE

Multiple new features in Manage Files for ease of use.


MANAGE FILES – EDIT HTML AND TEXT FILES

Multiple new features in Manage Files for ease of use.

HTML and TEXT files can be edited from the File Manager


PREFERENCES—TIME ZONE SETTING

This setting enables students in time zone other than Central to display deadlines in the time zone in which they live.


HTML EDITOR – LATEX AND MATHML

Same editor used on all platforms and browsers (Mac and Windows and their browsers use same HTML editor)

LaTeX and MathML are now options in Equation Editor


RUBRICS - MULTI-DIMENSIONAL

Rubrics in previous versions only allowed for one row with multiple columns.

Rubrics in version 9.0 allow for multiple rows and multiple columns.


COURSE NAVIGATIONCourse Administration Widget displays available tools. Course Design Accelerator, Instructional Design and Course Builder are new


COURSE BUILDER Course Builder tool provides a way to create thecourse framework and enter placeholders for learning materials.


INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN WIZARD

Instructional Design Wizard tool provides a way to bring pedagogy into the design of the course as it is being built with learning materials and activities


INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN WIZARD STEP 1

The wizard provides examples and guides at each step


INTELLIGENT AGENTS TOOL Intelligent Agents can assist the instructor and

students as an early warning notification or as a positive feedback notification for outstanding performance

The tool is available from Edit CourseThe instructor sets up the agents with criteria

and customized e-mail messages……

The Intelligent Agents tool was available in version 8.x, but with the enhancements to Release Conditions, and some bug fixes, it will function better in Version 9.0


INTELLIGENT AGENT – BASED ON RELEASE CONDITION


INTELLIGENT AGENT PERSONALIZED MESSAGE TO STUDENT

Create a customized message thatwill be sent to students who meetthe criteria for the Agent.


INTELLIGENT AGENT BASED ON LOGIN CRITERIA


INTELLIGENT AGENT -- PERSONALIZED MESSAGE WITH REPLACE STRINGS


INTELLIGENT AGENT – AGENT LIST


INTELLIGENT AGENT MESSAGES TO INSTRUCTORS

After an agent runs, the instructor receives an email message that confirms the agent ran, and indicates whether action was taken. The “action” the agent takes is sending email messages to students who met the criteria. If no students met the criteria, Action Taken would be “No”. Example of a Message:

The following agent has finished running:Org Unit: May2010V9TestCourse - May 2010 Version 9 Test CourseAgent: No LoginRequest Submitted: Thursday, May 27, 2010, 8:04:18 AMAgent Completed: Thursday, May 27, 2010, 8:04:20 AMAction Taken: Yes


INTELLIGENT AGENTS—E-MAIL MESSAGES TO STUDENTS

The instructor does not know which students received the message, only that the agent was run and action was taken

If instructor wants to know which students receive the message, instructor can put his/her own email address in the cc: or bc: field of the email message

The instructor will receive a copy of each message that the agent generates for each student

That can be a lot of messages, but it is the only way to get that information

A feature request has been submitted to D2L to provide the instructor with the list of students who received the message in a single e-mail to the instructor

Documents

W HAT ’ S N EW IN D2L D2L Version 9.0 Highlights Summer 2010 Minnesota State Colleges and Universities D2L Upgrade to Version 9.0