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Canisius Faculty, here’s a handy checklist for preparing your courses for the Fall Semester in Desire2Learn:

  • If you are teaching two sections with identical content, you can have these sections merged within Desire2Learn for easier management. See our tutorial on Merging your Courses in D2L.
  • We recommend you install your course syllabus into a module with the content area of your course.  You can also install it into the “Overview” area within content, but be aware that this will not appear if students choose the Table of Contents view.
  • In D2L, your course has start and end dates, between which your students can enter the course and access content within.  At least a week before a course begins, you should check these dates, and change them as you see fit.  This tutorial video shows you how.
    • By default, your course in D2L “starts” or opens the Friday before the course begins.
  • Check all links to files, outside websites, and other resources within your course content, to make certain they still work, or need replaced.
  • If you have start dates, due dates, or end dates attached to course content, be sure that they are updated to reflect the current semester’s calendar, so that content is visible to students when you want it to be, and due dates are properly reported.
  • Do you want students to see their calculated grade within D2L’s grades area? See the D2L Users Groups tutorial on Turning Grade Calculation on for Students.
  • Your students are responsible for learning to use D2L, their Canisius email, and Google Apps for Education.  Put this quick link to the ITS Guide for Students into your syllabus, so they know where to go for technical assistance.

This checklist, together with links to short, self-paced training videos for D2L, permanently lives in our wiki!