The D2L Dropbox is a great way to allow students to submit work at any time of day and allow you, the instructor, to have an easy-to-access repository of their work that you can view, grade, and give feedback on.
However, sometimes students have a difficult time uploading to the Dropbox. Here are a few tips to help them out (feel free to share with your students):
A common issue is when students use special characters and spaces in their file names. Make sure that the file name ONLY contains letters and/or numbers. This is a standard recommendation when naming any file intended for upload or internet use. No special characters or symbols like {, }, [, ], #, _, -, etc., or spaces should be used in the file name. Also, avoid long file names. This is because, although D2L may allow files with these characters to upload one day, the next day it may not. Here are some examples:
Slow or intermittent connection to the internet could interfere with uploading files to the Dropbox Folder. Students should wait for the “File Submission Successful” Screen and should save the email receipt D2L issues with every successful Dropbox Submission.
Another useful tip is, if they are on slow internet or having issues in general uploading to the D2L Dropbox, they should switch to a more reliable WiFi internet connection or use an ethernet cable to connect to the interent.
The D2L Dropbox Troubleshooting for Students Wiki Page has all of these tips and more for helping students troubleshoot common issues. If you are interested in sharing this page with your students, here is the link so you can install it in your D2L course:
Some of the options in D2L Discussion’s Restriction Tab will have updated language and options moved to make it easier to manage restriction, visibility, and access to Discussion boards:
Locking Options are being updated so that you only need to set the Start and End date, with Visibility and Accessibility options underneath each
The language for Locking Options have been updated to be a bit clearer/simpler:
Availability Start Date Option
What it does
Visibile with Access Restricted before start
The Discussion topic (or forum) is visible but students will not be able to open it until the start date. Name, date, other restrictions will be visible, but the description will not be.
Visible with submission restricted before start
The topic (or forum) will be visible and accessible to students. However, they will not be able to post to it, making it read-only until the start date.
Hidden before start
The topic (or forum) is cannot be seen and is not accessible by students until the start date. Notifications will not be sent until the start date.
Availability End Date Option
What it does
Visibile with Access Restricted after end
The Discussion topic (or forum) is visible but students will not be able to open it after the end date.
Visible with submission restricted after end
The topic (or forum) will be visible and accessible to students (they will be able to see posts). However, they will not be able to post to it, making it read-only after the end date.
Hidden after end
The topic (or forum) is cannot be seen and is not accessible by students after the end date. Notifications will also stop.
Examples of option selections and how they affect the forum/topic:
The Default is Visible with access restricted before the start (Unlock) and Visible with access restricted after end (Lock):
Students cannot see anything beyond the Topic or Forum Title, dates, and other restrictions. For topics specifically, students can see topic stats and who posted last. For forums, students will not be able to see titles of topics.
Visible with submission restricted before start (Unlock) and Visible with submission restricted after end (Lock) (Recommended):
Students can see everything above, topic/forum descriptions and details, and also their posts. They will just be unable to post to or participate in topics or forums.
Hidden before start and Hidden after end:
The topic (or forum) will only be accessible to students for the dates specified. After that, students will no longer be able to see the topic or forum– it will be made invisible to them.
Visible with access restricted before the start and Visible with submission restricted after end:
Students will only be able to see the title of the Forum (and titles of the topics within) or Topic and the associated dates and other restrictions, but not the description. After the end date, they will be able to see everything about the topic (or in the forum) but will not be able to particpate in them or post to them.
This is mostly for students, but if you ever saw an “Invalid File Type Error”, a new message will now be appearing that provides more information on the issue:
“This file extension is not allowed for security reasons. Please see our Restricted File Extensions article in the D2L Community for more detailed information.”
For Dropbox Assignments, if a student goes to upload a file that you restricted, they will get a message stating “This file extension is not allowed”.
Quizzes: Clearer Wording
When: December
D2L will be updating some of the wording in the Quiz Editor to make it more clear as to what each option does:
Old Wording
New Wording
Automatic Grade
Automatically Publish Evaluation
Allow attempt to be set as graded immediately after completion
Auto-publish attempt results immediately upon completion
Auto-Export to Grades
Synchronize to Gradebook
Allow automatic export to grades
Sync to Gradebook on publish
Dropboxes: New Editor Made Default
When: December
The new Dropbox Editor, whichwe reported on in December 2020, will be on by default. This means that you will NOT be able to use the old editor and the new editor will be the only one available to you.
Document Viewer: Toolbar Location Change & Other Changes
When: November & December
There will be two changes happening to the toolbar for the D2L Document Viewer. The first, a minor one, will be moving the tools from the bottom of the page to the top of the page. The iconography will also be updated.
The second change will occur in December. This will streamline these tools further and make them more accessible for users. Certain toolbar tools, like View as Text and Download, will only appear on certain file types, like PowerPoints or Word Docs. PDF’s can only be downloaded by using the download button located near the bottom of the page.
For more information, please view click here or sign-up for the D2L Updates & Changes Workshop here.
If you have any questions about these updates, please contact COLI via the ITS Helpdesk (helpdesk@canisius.edu or helpdesk.canisius.edu)
