Content Access Stats and Videos

There are three ways to post videos in the content area of Desire2Learn, and the method you choose affects whether the amount of time students spend on the video is recorded:

1. External link - This is an easy way to link to videos online, especially those that are on servers that are not delivered securely. Whether a student clicks on the link is recorded, but the amount of time they spend is not recorded. It does not matter whether the external link is set to open in a new browser window.
2. File with a quicklink - This allows the instructor to provide context for the video before the student clicks on it to watch. It also can be set to open in a new browser window, which saves students from having to deal with the security warning for videos that are not delivered securely. The amount of time that students spend watching the video (as long as they do not navigate away from the original content file) is recorded.
3. Video embedded within a file - For videos delivered securely, this is a nice option. It allows the instructor to type instructional context around the video window and students can watch the video while still within the Desire2Learn course offering. The amount of time students spend watching the video is recorded.

The attached image shows the access stats for the same YouTube video shared with each of these views. 

Who Has Not Completed a Certain Assignment?

You can use D2L's reporting features to find out quickly who has not participated in a particular discussion forum or topic, submitted a file to a dropbox folder, or taken a quiz.

Discussion - for discussion, click on the statistics icon ()for a particular forum or topic. The next page shows how many messages each student has read and authored inside that forum or topic. You can sort any of the columns by clicking on its header, so you can group all of the students who have not participated in that forum or topic. This page does not have an email link on it (already submitted as a feature request).

Quizzes - for quizzes, click on the grade icon () of a quiz and then search for all users who have not taken an attempt. (That's one of the options on the "Restrict to:" pull-down menu.) You can also go to the Grades navigation area, click on the statistics icon () for the quiz you want to view. Click on User Statistics and it will show you a graph bar of who hasn’t taken the quiz. From there you can select each student who hasn’t taken that particular test and email them using the email icon ().

Dropbox - for the dropbox, click on folder name to see the submitted files. The folder submissions page includes an email button () that you can use to contact the students who have not submitted a file to this folder.

What is the Last Date of Attendance?

D2L's user progress can be used to document a student's last date of attendance (the last date they accessed your course offering). This is linked () from each student on the classlist. The User Progress page includes a pull-down menu to look at detailed statistics in several areas (content, discussions, quizzes, etc.) but all of the pages include a Login Summary table that displays the last date and time the student accessed the course offering.

Student view of User Progress

Students can now see the User Progress report. It is accessible to them in one of two places:

1. From the Classlist, they can see it by clicking on the view progress icon (the only icon visible is for the student who is logged in).
2. From the My Home page, there is a link to "View my progress" in the My Settings widget. This shows that student's user progress only for the last course offering from within which they viewed their progress.
• Because some instructors choose to remove the classlist from the navbar and this would prohibit students from seeing their progress reports, I have added the My Settings widget to the default course homepage for CRC course offerings. Adding a widget cannot be retroactively applied, so those who wish to keep the classlist hidden can choose to add the My Settings widget to their course homepages.

Once viewing the progress report, the student can choose to view the statistics for all of the various tools that report data (Checklist, Competencies, Content, Discussions, Dropbox, Grades, Quizzes, Surveys). Note that the student can only see his or her data and nothing about other users.

Quiz Statistics and Ungraded Attempts

The quizzes page shows the number of attempts and graded attempts for each quiz, separated by a slash. If the numbers are not equal (i.e., if there are one or more ungraded attempts) clicking on the statistics icon may show an error. You can mark a quiz attempt as graded by clicking on the grade icon for that quiz. Then click on any ungraded attempts to view them, click the Auto-Grade button, click the check box to indicate the quiz is Graded, and then click the Save button. The quiz statistics should be visible.

Even if the statistics icon returns an error, you can likely view the statistics for each question on the quiz and the overall statistics in the grade area (if the quiz is associated with a grade item).

Thanks to Eddie Fagin for asking the question that led to this answer.