D2L Blog

And so it begins...

Today (5/12) marks the start of our official, first full semester in D2L.  Thus far, all is going as expected with the usual bumps in the road that can be expected from a roll-out.  A couple of things to look out for:

• If you are teaching later in the summer make sure you ACTIVATE YOUR COURSE.  This is the primary faculty-related issue we are having today.  Courses can be activated at any time, but students will not be able to get into an activated course until its start date.
• If you are working on your summer course in the "USD Sandbox" or "USD WebCT" department, you will need to make sure you copy your content into the live offering before the start date.

Posted at 01:52PM May 12, 2008 by Eric James Mosterd in General  |  Comments[2]

Updates

Just a few, quick updates on the D2L Implementation Process:

• All Summer 2008 course shells have been created in D2L and the first block of content has been migrated over.  If you are teaching in the summer, please contact your designated support site for more information on how to access these courses.
• On the week of April 21st, I will be hosting a training session, again, at the UC in Sioux Falls from 3:00 - 6:00 PM.  There will be a total of three training sessions--including mine--at the UC:
• April 19th, 1:00 - 4:00PM (Barb Myers, UC)
• April 21st, 3:00 - 6:00PM (Eric Mosterd, USD)
• May 2nd, 1:00 - 4:00PM (Jason Kemnitz, SDSU)

Please RSVP Jill Toland (jill.toland@sduniversitycenter.org) if you are interested in any of these sessions

• I will also be in Rapid City on April 24th, so if you are out West River, contact the Higher Ed Center to make an appointment: 605-394-6720.
  
• The patent, of which Blackboard successfully litigated the violation by Desire2Learn has been invalidated by USPTO.  Blackboard, can, and has indicated they will, appeal the finding.  Expect this process to go on for some time...
  

Posted at 05:00PM Apr 03, 2008 by Eric James Mosterd in General  |  Comments[0]

Two quick support notes...

Greetings!

I just wanted to note a couple of things on D2L support through the CTL:

• We have a new website outlining the support services we provide.  Please visit early, visit often:  http://www.usd.edu/ctl/d2l/
• I will be up in Sioux Falls on Monday, March 31st to offer a training session at the University Center, room 186.  The session will last from 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM, and will cover D2L basics for the first hour, and then will be audience-choice training/Q&A session for the last hour.  Please RSVP the CTL at 677-5411 or ctl@usd.edu as there are only 32 seats available!
  

Posted at 04:23PM Mar 20, 2008 by Eric James Mosterd in General  |  Comments[0]

So, when can I get access to my courses in D2L?

UPDATE:  The D2L Steering Committee has pushed the access date to summer courses back to April 1st--as stated below--due to the fact that some campuses are having difficulty completing their mapping assignments.  That said, the first date on which instructors will have access to their summer courses will be April 1st.  Check back on the D2L blog for further announcements.

That a good question, and one I've been getting quite frequently as of late.  Here's the short answer:  assuming all goes according to plan, and we are satisfied with testing on March 24^th, those wanting to recreate their summer courses from scratch or self migrate their course information from WebCT to D2L will get access on March 25^th; those wanting their content migrated will need to wait a few more days after that, and those with fall and spring courses will need to wait until we are sure that the summer courses are a go.  Please see step four below for more details.  If we are not satisfied with the testing results on March 24th, we will push the access time a week later to April 1^st, but the process will be the same as outlined above.

So here's the long answer, just in case you were wondering:  integrating our student information system (Datatel Colleague) into D2L is a very complex process, especially when dealing with six universities.  On top of that, users will access their D2L courses with their WebAdvisor username and eventually their WebAdvisor password, which requires an intermediary authentication system.  Another complicating factor is that by default in D2L, every section offered by USD--and all of the other BOR universities for that matter--is created as a single course; however, many instructors like to have multiple sections in the same course, and all of our online courses actually have two sections:  815 (for on-campus students) and 820 (for off-campus students).  That being the case, there is a manual mapping process that all six universities need to complete in order to merge multiple sections into one course--those of you teaching in the summer have probably already received an email regarding this.  Only after the mapping is completed by all six university will the courses be created in D2L.

All of that said, this is how the timeline looks, assuming all goes according to plan:

1. D2L/Colleague integration has been tested for summer courses in our test environment (TEST), and save for a few minor issues, is working well.  RIS plans on setting up and testing the process in production environment (PROD).  The goal is to have this ready by March 17th.
2. Once the connection is complete in PROD, the universities will have one week to complete all of the course mappings for the summer courses as described above.  This deadline for the completion of this task is March 24th.
3. On March 25th, RIS will "flip the switch" and based on the course mappings setup by each of the universities, the summer courses will be created in D2L.
   
4. Those instructors of summer courses will be notified when they have been enrolled into their courses.  Please note the following:
• As stated previously, all sections offered by USD will have a corresponding shell in D2L.  This includes face-to-face, online, DDN, correspondence and all other modalities through which credit-bearing courses are offered.  For example, an instructor who only teaches face-to-face courses, and who has never used WebCT before, will still have his/her sections created in D2L.  This does not mean he/she will required to use the courses, and his/her students will not see them in D2L unless the instructors opts to do so.
• Those who want to start building their course from scratch can do so as soon as they receive notification that their courses are available in D2L.
• Those instructors wanting content from their existing WebCT courses can opt to migrate it themselves, using the course export feature in WebCT.  We will be providing instructions on how to perform this simple process in the immediate future.
• Those instructors, who want assistance in migrating their content into D2L, will need to make an appointment, or attend an open lab session, at their designated migration support site:
  

  College/School	Migration Support Site/Contact
  School of Education	InTEC Don Versteeg (605) 677-5273 | intec@usd.edu
  Health Sciences School of Medicine	Bob Corio Gary Larson
  College of Arts & Sciences School of Business College of Fine Arts School of Law	Center for Teaching & Learning Eric Mosterd (605) 677-5411 | ctl@usd.edu http://www.usd.edu/ctl/d2l/

• Instructors of courses in future terms (2008FA, 2009SP, etc.) will need to wait until we are sure the summer courses are well underway.  We are still working out the process by which courses in future terms will be created in D2L--more so when they will be created--so we will follow up with those instructors as soon as possible.


5. In addition to this process, RIS will be rolling out the central authentication piece described in the paragraph above.  This will eventually allows users to use the same username (WebAdvisor username) and password to access D2L, the Employee portal and WebAdvisor.

Posted at 08:29AM Mar 18, 2008 by Eric James Mosterd in General  |  Comments[0]

UPDATE: Blackboard vs. D2L Patent Litigation

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE:  for more information about the patent litigation from D2L's perspective, please read this article in Campus Technology:  http://www.campustechnology.com/printarticle.aspx?id=59935

Just a quick note about the patent litigation between D2L and Blackboard:  according to a recent article on The Chronicle, in somewhat of a surprise move, the judge in the patent case has issued an injunction against D2L, preventing the company from conducting any U.S. sales and banning it from "encouraging, supporting, aiding, or abetting the use of" its current platform.  The judge did stay the injunction for 60 days.

In response, D2L has ramped up work on its new version--8.3; we're on 8.2.2 in our production environment--which it says circumvents the patented processes of Blackboard.  They plan having this new version released before the 60-day stay has expired.

So, how does this affect us?  Well, as soon as 8.3 is available, we will install it in our test environment in order to figure out any changes, re-evaluate our processes to assure that they take any of this changes into account, and check for bugs.  If we are satisfied that the impact on learners and instructors will be limited, we will consider installing the new version in our production environment as soon as possible, if we can do so prior to the start of the summer term.  If we cannot do so by then, we may have to wait until the summer courses have concluded--and coordinate with the Med School and Health Sciences, because they are on a different academic schedule--before we roll out the new version.

Posted at 08:27AM Mar 13, 2008 by Eric James Mosterd in General  |  Comments[1]

Blackboard vs. D2L Patent Litigation

Greetings all!  Long time no blog!  We've been very busy ramping up for the first round of course migrations, so I haven't had a lot of time to get out here and post on current events; however, with all of the events as of late, I felt I needed to start again so that everyone is aware of where we are at in the project.  But before I post on that, I wanted to talk about the recent ruling in the Blackboard vs. D2L Patent lawsuit.

First let me preface this with a statement:  I am not a lawyer (from this point forward to be abbreviated as IANAL).  Any opinions enter into the discussion below are formulated from my experience, not from any professional legal training, nor do they necessarily represent the legal perspective of USD, the SDBOR, the State of South Dakota, the United State of America, the continent of North America, the Northern/Western Hemisphere, Earth, the Sol system, the Milky Way, etc.

Posted at 10:42AM Mar 05, 2008 by Eric James Mosterd in General  |  Comments[3]

And they're off...

Well folks, here we go:  the D2L pilot courses were live as of 12:00 AM this morning (1/16).  Thus far, no issues to speak of, but we'll see how it goes over the next few days.

From the student perspective, I do not anticipate many problems as the core functionality of WebCT and D2L is largely the same.  What is different is that each D2L course uses a standard template developed by the D2L Task Force and aligned with the SDBOR quality assurance guidelines, so there is less ambiguity about where to find things in the online courses.  For example, all course content can be accessed from the "Content" link on the course menu, unlike WebCT, where course content could be located anywhere.  We do lose some freedom in design, but in the end, it is likely to be to the benefit of the students.

In terms of the faculty, most seem to be acclimating to D2L, though, just like WebCT, it has its "eccentricities."  With so many eyes on D2L, we are definitely finding those much quicker than before, but at least we are doing so before we start using D2L en masse.  That said, thanks to Don Versteeg and Wendy Stubbs, nearly the entire Ed School faculty has been trained in D2L, so we're off to a good start.

Our next steps will be to closely evaluate the pilot courses and then start looking toward beginning the migration process itself.  Keep checking the blog for updates.

Posted at 09:56AM Jan 16, 2008 by Eric James Mosterd in General  |  Comments[0]

Welcome Migrators!

The D2L Migration Notifications were sent out yesterday and for many
of you viewing the blog, this is your first time here so welcome!  I
just wanted to share some updates as it has been a couple of weeks
since my last posting:

• Last week I had a training session
  with three of our pilot faculty, along with a few other guests, and it
  seemed to go well.  The session was really the genesis of what will
  become the CTL's "D2L for WebCT Users" training, which will highlight
  the similarities and differences between D2L and WebCT.  We'll begin to
  offer these session in January, once the 2008SP term begins.

Posted at 10:04AM Dec 06, 2007 by Eric James Mosterd in General  |  Comments[0]

D2L vs. WebCT: First Impressions

So, I wanted to share some thoughts/impressions I have about D2L as
compared to WebCT, while they are still fresh in mind. Having
administered WebCT since it was first introduced on campus until just
recently (ca. 1998-2006), and having used it from the perspective of a
student, staff and faculty member, I think it is safe to say that I
have a pretty good understanding of nearly every aspect of WebCT. While
the same is not remotely true for D2L yet, I have learned enough from
my committee participation and my sandbox course to share some initial
impressions.

Posted at 08:54AM Nov 15, 2007 by Eric James Mosterd in General  |  Comments[3]

Quick Update

Greetings! 

I apologize for the time it has taken to post
since our last update.  I spent the better part of a week in Seattle at
EDUCAUSE and then a few days the following week going through
"train-the-trainer training" up in Sioux Falls.  That said, all of our
primary support staff have been through training and we have begun the
process of preparing for D2L training sessions here at USD.

Posted at 04:03PM Nov 08, 2007 by Eric James Mosterd in General  |  Comments[0]

D2L Campus Visit

Today we had our official campus visit from one of the SDBOR D2L
Implementation Task Force project managers, Carla Reihe.  While we had
to struggle through some early technical issues, eventually we were up
and running, and the presentations from both Carla and I went well and
I think that most were satisfied with the answers we supplied.

So,
what did we talk about?  Well, Carla spoke mostly about the overall
project, how the various committees were structured, and the major
goals.  I'll be adding a link on the right-hand menu to the SDBOR D2L
project site, so you can read more about these on that site.

Posted at 05:08PM Oct 11, 2007 by Eric James Mosterd in General  |  Comments[3]

Where We've Been (WebCT) and Where We're Going (Desire2Learn)

Welcome to the first official posting on USD's Desire2Learn
Blog--hereafter known as the D2L Blog. It has been a long journey in
getting to this point, so we wanted to update everyone as to what has
been happening in our search for a replacement for WebCT.

Posted at 03:09PM Sep 26, 2007 by Eric James Mosterd in General  |  Comments[0]