An overview of the course management system used at the University of Arizona as well as other universities across the country By Adrienne Kaiser, Dana Pagnan, Mike Schlossberg, Robin Rarick Page by Adrienne Kaiser

What is D2L anyway? Desire2Learn is an instructional, course management system allowing students and instructors to work with materials via the internet How can I access D2L? All you need is a computer, an Internet connection, and an Internet browser such as Mozilla or SeaMonkey Is my information safe? Yes! D2L is a system that keeps your information between you and your instructor. Confidentiality is no hurdle here What can I access on D2L? Instructors can enable all sorts of applications on D2L from dropboxes and profiles to syllabi and discussions. D2L is often used for quizzes, workshops, and assessments Who uses D2L?Instructors and their students use D2L to connect within a virtual classroom environment or to support a traditional classroom environment Page by Adrienne Kaiser & Dana Pagnan 

Here is a link to an example walk-through on how to use D2L. This is just a sample and may not look exactly like the D2L page for your specific university or classroom. Page by Adrienne Kaiser

 D2L has become a staple at many universities, with over 5 million members from higher education institutions. The following link provides a list: List of Higher InstitutionsList of Higher Institutions  D2L is an asset to instructors, providing automatically graded quizzes as well as one common location for papers to be turned in to.  D2L also benefits students as it provides one website that is able to deliver all of the information necessary to their classes.  Prior to the D2L system, more paper as well as confusion occurred in school systems as it could cause chaos and disorder as too many assignments began in a class.  D2L provides a much more organized way for students and instructors to communicate and remain up to date with all activities happening in the classroom. Page by Dana Pagnan

Positives - D2L provides students with the opportunity to take classes from the comfort of their own house, apartment or dorm room - It provides the opportunity for students to receive immediate feedback from their peers in discussions, as well as from instructors on assigned quizzes over the internet - Drawbacks - For some D2L quizzes the professor only puts in one answer to a question - An example of this is when a question asked for the author and the instructor had listed “Livy” as the answer and students put “Titus Livy” this was marked incorrect and the students had to go to the teacher to personally get his grade changed - D2L makes you rely on internet servers that are subject to malfunction at any time Michael S. Schlossberg

CommentNumber of People Keep it the way it is37 Make some minor changes ^33 Make Major Changes*16 Switch to Blackboard~12 Switch to Pen and Paper2 Michael S. Schlossberg ^ A minor change can be defined as changing around the layout of the homepage *A major change can be defined as changing the way the information is presented as in creating more animation is the information that is presented ~ Blackboard is a software company that licenses software applications, specifically found in academics Students were polled at a random throughout Northepoint Student Apartments, as well as a Math 302 B class on January 26 th, 2009

 Chemistry undergraduate students and faculty at the University of Arizona were surveyed  67% of faculty and 12% of the students responded within 48 hours (only those responses were used in this study) Robin Rarick Response in % Overall satisfaction with aspects of D2L

Faculty Convenient, Customizable saves $$ on printing great for large classes can easily track student activity quick dissemination of materials to class Not intuitive Limited ability to transfer grades to Webroster (UA’s grade reporting interface) Difficult to output class lists into Excel Uneasy about the accuracy of grades loaded directly into D2L feeling of forced conformity to using this technology Students Convenient Intuitive good for grade tracking good for seeing who is in the class and contacting other students Too much room for professor error when sites are not set up properly homework submission not always good content is put into too many different file types Robin Rarick Overall, both groups give D2L a thumbs up!