Planned D2L server maintenance by Desire2Learn for 2010: Maintenance is a time period when access to SCCC D2L courses for faculty and students will not be possible. Maintenance is not an optional computer server procedure - it is a necessary part of ensuring that the D2L/SCCC online course environment operates properly and as expected. We ask your cooperation in understanding and also planning ahead for these planned interruptions to service.
Monthly Maintenance Schedule: Please plan accordingly for the following maintenance dates:
February 27-28
Start times are on Saturday night at approximately 11 pm; End times are on Sunday mornings at approximately 7 am
Office of Instructional Technology 2/3/10
Notice about D2L server being offline and unavailable:
The D2L PROD site will be offline for extended maintenance on Thursday January 14 from 9 am - 12 pm . The Production server will have its D2L environment upgraded during this time period. The PROD site is where credit-bearing courses are located.
Office of Instructional Technology 1/12/10
Notice about D2L server being offline and unavailable:
The D2L TEST site will be offline for extended maintenance on Tuesday January12 from 9 am - 12 pm . The TEST server will have its D2L environment upgraded during this time period.
Office of Instructional Technology 1/11/10
Internet Explorer 8.0 'content display' issue resolved by system patch on 9/24/09 for 'after 9/24' users. For users who had display issues because before 9/24 IE 8 had been used on any computer for a login to D2L, this is the manual workaround that must be performed once (subsequent logins will then have the entire view screen display correctly and not have only the left side of view appear to end user which was the problem):
If you are having trouble viewing course content in D2L try the following:
1. Enter the course, and click on the Content link.
2. Click the Content Topic link.
3. Slowly move the mouse as far right as possible until the cursor changes form.
4. Left click and drag the invisible frame bar to the left to view the topic.
5. Click on the Content link in the menu to save your viewing changes.
6. Click on the content topic, you should see the content now.
7. Call the D2L help desk only if you are unable to view the content (1-877-325-7778) after going through steps 1-6.
Office of Instructional Technology 9/30/09
Note about the New D2L 'Student Orientation' : Faculty are able to access the Student Orientation link in the blue Virtual Campus page header area in D2L. You will not be able to currently access and take the quiz/test because we are using the 'student only' data that results early in this semester to build a better formative and summative evaluation toolset. More information on the pilot Orientation project will be forthcoming in September.
Office of Instructional Technology 8/31/09
See the 'Memo to D2L Faculty for Fall Semester 2009' - to left of screen: use link to D2L v. 8.4.0 information to immediate left of this message
Office of Instructional Technology 8/24/09
ARCHIVED NOTICES follow:
Faculty - Please don't forget to have a News item in your online course to direct students to course information and course content or to provide late-breaking information. As with all sessions, students will not necessarily be familiar with how SCCC online instruction works or how the D2L course management system is set up and used for course participation. Also, please be sure you have active links in your D2L course header to allow student access to major content areas of the course. It is difficult to be too explicit in explaining how the course works and what are your expectations of students. On the other hand, a lack of information and direction for students can have a profound impact on both participation and success.
Office of Instructional Technology 8/24/09
The D2L TEST site will be offline for extended maintenance on Sunday August 23 from 7am - 7pm
Office of Instructional Technology 8/21/09
Notice: Access to D2L during the hours of 4 am - 7 am on Wednesday August 19 will not be possible due to a network upgrade to Banner and the 'MySCCC' portal.
Office of Instructional Technology 8/17/09
What is the MOST COMMON student issue in online courses for 2009 summer session start? The student does not have a MySCCC portal account. Access to SCCC Virtual Campus in D2L is impossible without an active portal account. Use of the portal icon (lighthouse) on the main college web page will direct student to a portal logon page where they can also create a MySCCC portal account (see 'New Students'). The OIT cannot fix any issue that relates to a MySCCC portal account - that is an issue that only a Registrar can resolve.
Office of Instructional Technology 5/29/09
Notice: There will be a scheduled D2L server outage for one hour this Wednesday, 3/18, from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Access will not be possible during this time period. Please plan your 'Virtual Campus' needs accordingly.
Office of Instructional Technology 3/17/09
Please be advised that Desire2Learn will reset computer server clocks for Daylight Savings Time THIS WEEKEND (March 7-8). Any quizzes or other time-dependent activities may be affected, such as:
-Quizzes with due dates set between , 8:00pm Saturday, March 7th ET and , 2:00 am Sunday, March 8th Eastern Standard Time and/or
-Quizzes with time restrictions started prior to , 8:00 pm Saturday, March 7th ET and , 2:00 am Sunday, March 8th Eastern Standard Time.
This notice is intended to prepare you for such effects; it may be that your particular course has no time-dependent content scheduled for this weekend.
Office of Instructional Technology 3/6/09
NOTICE:
The MySCCC portal went down (offline) during morning hours on Wednesday, February 11. The portal (and D2L access) was restored by 8:45 a.m. Wednesday morning. This outtage would have had effect on all logons to the Virtual Campus for both students and faculty.
Office of Instructional Technology 2/11/09
Student cannot access a course? Here's the top reasons as of Tuesday February 3:
Student cannot locate the 'Search' button at My Courses when in Virtual Campus at D2L (We have relocated the My Courses area to center of the web page - News has been moved to right side). D2L Support Services is reporting many calls regarding finding My Courses. The Search button must be clicked to reveal course links if they do not display on the student's My Home page in D2L.
Student cannot access D2L Virtual Campus from MySCCC portal - this is due to a failed Banner-to-D2L transfer of enrollment data. Have student contact Office of Instructional Technology at 631-451-4656 or submit a 'MySCCC Comments' form at the MySCCC portal area. The procedure used will fix this issue for a student - no matter the number of D2L courses enrolled into - as long as their account has no holds.
Student has never used the MySCCC portal - this is a very infrequent issue this semester. The only solution remains to create a portal account and then once the account is active their MySCCC logon will allow the use of the 'D2L Login' link at the portal to automatically connect to the Virtual Campus.
Having trouble setting folders up in D2L for use with student Course Mail? Click on the Envelope icon! Don't try to set-up folders by using the Course Mail link - that will not allow folder creation.
Memo sent to Faculty regarding important information about D2L this spring on Friday Jan. 23: Sent via SCCC email in Outlook to your College email account. MOST IMPORTANT ITEM: Many Banner rosters and D2L course lists do not align - the D2L list will have less students. This is due to a known issue and Office of Instructional Technology and College Computing Center are working to correct. Please let us know about these misalignments where they exist in your online courses. A student not showing in D2L class list means that student will not be able to access their course in D2L due to not having an active course link there.
Information for students is at the MySCCC portal: At the Virtual Campus box on the web page after logon to the portal there are messages relating to current needs for students and faculty in accessing and the use of D2L this spring.
Student Orientation in D2L: The Orientation is now accessible by a link in the header area of the My Home page (Org level) that everyone - students, faculty, staff - views upon reaching the Virtual Campus from the MySCCC portal. This means students do not have to be enrolled in the Orientation, just their access to D2L is the key to getting into the Orientation. Please direct students to the Orientation Course by their use of the active link in the header of the D2L My Home page (the loading page after portal logon to D2L).
NOTICE of PRODUCTION SERVER Upgrade on January 8: There was a planned upgrade to the working version of the D2L courseware. This was a Planned Event and is necessary for proper operation of the D2L software at SCCC for all online learning modes. There are no significant changes in how the software looks; there are some changes in how it works and also how secure it remains.
Web-enabled is available in D2L - What is Web-enabled?: Web-enabled (or if you prefer web-enhanced or supplemental) course templates in D2L are course-support tools for you to use to enhance your traditional face-to-face classes by making a computer-mediated online resource available to your students. The procedure to Web-enable requires notification to your department chair who can select the correct Banner code that will result in an automated event at the D2L server that will affiliate your course support template with you, the professor, and also enrolled students. A short training session is available from Office of Instructional Technology to help orient you to the use of D2L if you have not been fully trained as an online professor at SCCC. Contact OIT for more information at 451-4656.
Spring course templates to be available in D2L the week of November 24: If you are ready to begin editing your current D2L course by copying the content into your Spring course template in D2L, you will be able to do so in the next days. Stay tuned for a 'how to' email message from Robin Hill in the Office of Instructional Technology - there are some cautions and also some recommendations on how to best bring over the bulk of your existing content, links, and documents. Be advised there are some settings and restrictions that may need to be reset upon using the copy procedure in the Production server.
Real-time integration from Banner to D2L is now active: This means that a change in a Banner record, such as a registration event, will be transmitted to a fully online or blended course template in D2L - as these events happen. Soon this will allow the creation of course offerings and templates in D2L automatically and associated enrollments will be triggered as events occur in Banner. There is also linkage to the Luminis portal enviroment which will allow certain logon changes to be ported to D2L. Overall, it is expected these improvements - which went live on 11/17/08 - will result in a more effective and efficient D2L course enrollment process.
Planned D2L server maintenance by Desire2Learn for spring semester: Maintenance is a time period when access to SCCC D2L courses for faculty and students will not be possible. Maintenance is not an optional computer server procedure - it is a necessary part of ensuring that the D2L/SCCC online course environment operates properly and as expected. We ask your cooperation in understanding and also planning ahead for these planned interruptions to service.
Monthly Maintenance Schedule: Please plan accordingly for the following maintenance dates:
February 21 - 22, 2009
March 21 - 22, 2009
April 25 - 26, 2009
May 23 - 24, 2009
Start times are on Saturday night at approximately 11 pm; End times are on Sunday mornings at approximately 7 am
A new Schedule of OIT trainings in D2L for faculty new to online, new to D2L, or for those faculty/staff/administrators wanting to learn something about D2L - or Web-enabled training ( a two-hour session) - has been released for February and March. Trainings are currently scheduled into the Delta Room in the basement of Huntington Library at the Ammerman campus.
9/30/08 - Students now have the ability to forward CourseMail from D2L to external email addresses.
Known issues resolved by D2L: HTML tags appearing in Discussion
Production site enhancements made:
Expanded view of 'My Courses' so full CRN can be seen, scroll right to see entire view- use CRN to tell between two sections with same course name.
Role Switch is activated for Faculty.
Common Student logon problems: Student has not created their MySCCC Username and Password and cannot access the D2L link in portal; There can be a 24-hour delay between registration and showing in D2L which causes inability to login to D2L through MySCCC portal; Student exists on D2L server and classlist in D2L course but has not logged in due to above conditions, or, in a very few cases, there is a problem with their Banner-to-D2L file.
Other Suggestions: Use the Course Mail 'filter' settings to limit what your default view of mail looks like.
Access to D2L for students will begin the week of 1/26/09. You may allow access to your courses as desired, such as through use of an icebreaker or course information module, etc. It is planned that students will be able to view the 'Student Orientation to D2L' course when they gain access to the D2L site.
Full access to courses in D2L begins on: 2/2/09
Students will access D2L through the 'My SCCC' portal. They will login at My SCCC and then click on the SCCC Virtual Campus link after that login. They will then be automatically redirected to the D2L site where they can access their course links in the 'My Courses' section of the their 'My Home' page. IMPORTANT -
There will be a delay from time of SCCC portal username creation and gaining initial access to D2L
NavBars are now flexible for your adjustment. It is very important that you leave the recommended settings that allow normal course operation and access in place (see Robin Hill's Workshop in your My Courses section at your My Home page)
COURSE MAIL is operational. You do not need any sort of 'Private Folder' to communicate with students inside your course in D2L unless you want to use such. The D2L course mail utility allows you to communicate with all or any student in a specific section; across all possible students from all courses in D2L you teach (but only at the main or Org page - not from inside a particular course); with any enrolled SCCC D2L student across all possible students using D2L. Just pay attention to the settings for course mail - the default in each course does limit mail to only that course and students. Students to which you send course mail can reply to you - this all becomes a record of communication within the course itself.
You CANNOT use the D2L Course Mail utility to generate regular external-to-D2L 'send/reply' messages. You can forward externally but cannot send external email into a D2L course or to your My Home mail area. Plan on using an external email, such as the College Outlook or your own personal email to conduct messaging that is not part of your course(s) environment online in D2L.
Student Information materials
Elsewhere at the Distance Education web site and the My SCCC portal are Student Information and Help documents. These include:
Tri-fold brochure: 'Introducing SCCC Virtual Campus & Desire2Learn'
Portal information: Current information relating to use of 'My SCCC' to logon to D2L is at portal link to D2L
Use of the D2L Help Desk at 1-877-325-7778 is encouraged for D2L use questions and issues AFTER logging in successfully to D2L. Problems with logon and the use of the My SCCC portal are being directed to the 'Login Issues?' web page at http://depthome.sunysuffolk.edu/liminis/login_Issues.htm
Web-enabled course supports in D2L:
Web-enabled (or you may know them as web-enhanced or supplemental) courses in D2L are now available for the beginning of spring semester. This is consistent with the original plan for the D2L implementation. (There is no ability to use CourseSpace or Blackboard environments which is also consistent in following previously released information during the spring semester in 2008.)
Student telephone inqueries and information requests
In February of 2009, the Office of Instructional Technology will add a phone number for automated call direction to College resources - including OIT - to better direct student inqueries and begin to track requests for information and services.
Last updated: 3/1/10 |
