External Links on the Course Homepage

The bookmarks in D2L are generated by students as they opt to bookmark content topics. They are created individually, so each student can decide what to add to their Bookmark widget. Bookmarks cannot be links to outside web pages (though the content topic that they link to can be a quicklink). There are three ways to add a link yourself to the course homepage:

1. Create a News item and include a quicklink in the item's content. If you do not set any calendar restrictions on the item and keep it at the top of your news widget, it will always be visible.
2. Create a custom widget and add to your course homepage.
3. Create a custom navbar link. This has the advantage of always being visible, no matter where students are in your course.

Extra Unread Files in the Dropbox

If a student is dropped from your class and submitted any files that had not been marked "read" to a dropbox folder before the drop, those files will still appear as unread to you and show up on your course home page in the Updates widget as well as the list of unread files for that folder on the dropbox page. When you click on the dropbox name, the default list is by student. Dropped students will not appear on that list, so you will not be able to change the read status of those files on this page. To do that, click on the Files tab to see all of the files uploaded to this folder, including those from dropped students. On this page you can change the read status of a file by clicking on the envelope icon.

Synchronous Communication

There are three options for synchronous communication with your students:

• One is to use the pager, which is a tool that appears in the navbar and works well for sending short messages. These messages are not visible to anyone except the sender and receiver(s).
• A second option is the chat tool, which is a tool you can link from the navbar. Everything typed into a chat window is logged and chat transcripts are available to everyone. Chat is text only.
• If you want rich-media synchronous communication, the best option is CCC Confer. This is a web-conferencing tool that includes a phone bridge and tools that allow you to share applications. Confer sessions can be archived. For more information, visit the CCC Confer web site: http://cccconfer.org

Grades Settings for Large Courses

Desire2Learn makes the following suggestions to speed the loading of the grades area if your course has a large number of students:

• Set the number of users to display per page to a low value
• Sort the User List by user instead of grades
• View the User List by section
• Do not show decimal places
• Do not repeat user details or grade item details
• Do not repeat the final grade at the start of the user list
• Do not select the Automatic keep final grade updated option
• Only display one user detail (e.g., Last Name)
• Only display one grade detail (e.g., Points grade)
• Only display grade items and categories that you want to edit while in Spreadsheet View
• Do not create unnecessary items or categories
• Do not create unnecessary calculated or formula grade items
• Avoid making changes to grade schemes or the grade system once grades are assigned
• Only import grade items when data has changed

Student Quiz Re-entry

When a student is taking a quiz, that student's attempt is "in progress" until one of three things happens:

1. The student submits the quiz
2. The availability window for the quiz ends
3. An enforced time limit for the quiz expires (and the instructor has selected the option to auto-submit the attempt)

If a student leaves an attempt in progress, including closing the browser or suffering an network connection interruption, the student can re-enter the quiz and complete it at any time until the availability window for the quiz ends.