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| Product Name | Desire2Learn 8.2 |
|---|---|
| Developer Name | Desire2Learn Inc. |
| URL | http://www.desire2learn.com |
| Review Date | May 25, 2007 |
| Forums | Desire2Learn 8.2 Discussions |
| Reviewer | Jill Skene email bio |
| Communication Tools | |
| Discussion Forum |
Discussions can be viewed by date, by thread, by title or by author. Instructors may create separate discussion environments for small groups. Discussion threads are expandable and collapsible to view an entire conversation on one screen. Posts can include media, equations, attachments or URL addresses. Posts can be either plain text or html. Instructors can enable or disable anonymous postings. The entire discussion can be saved or printed for off-line reading. Discussions can be shared across courses, departments, or any institutional unit. Instructors can associate a discussion with any course content. Instructors can limit discussions to specific time periods and for specific groups.In this version screens were re-designed to make the tool easier to understand hence tasks will take less time to perform. Discussion topics can be tied to learning objectives. Discussion messages are then assessed using scoring rubrics, and that assessment is used to evaluate learning objectives and competencies.Discussions can be tied to grade items. Numerous options determine how the grade is calculated. Courses can enable peer review of discussion posts. Roles with appropriate permission can provide a 1-5 rating for discussion posts. Statistics are available on message and topic ratings. A new view has been created that allows a user to read all the messages in a topic at once, rather than having to click on each individual message. Discuss |
| Discussion Management |
Instructors can allow students to create discussion groups. Instructors can set up moderated discussions where all posts are screened. Instructors can view statistical summaries of discussions displaying participation which can be used to generate grades. Discussions can be shared across courses, departments, or any institutional unit. Discuss |
| File Exchange |
Drop box assignment folders can be linked to grade items and instructors can associate feedback with uploaded assignments. Instructors can automatically rename assignments & files to a Student ID or name. Students have a private folder into which they can upload and download files. Students can upload files to a shared group folder. Administrators can set folder permissions and quota tracking on their folders. Virus detection technology can be used throughout the file upload/download process. In this version screens were re-designed to make the tool easier to understand hence tasks will take less time to perform. Group dropboxes can be setup so that each member of a group can submit to the same dropbox. The group can then be assessed as a whole through the Grades or Competencies tools. When a learner submits a file to the dropbox they can choose to submit the file from their locker computer or their D2L locker (or group locker). Instructors now have a function that allows them to preview how a student would submit to the dropbox and even grade that submission to ensure it was setup properly. You can select multiple assignments and edit their properties at once.Instructors can also use Manage Files to upload/download/zip/cut/copy/paste/delete files for the course. Instructors can also manage these files with folders and if they have access, they can publish them to Learning Repository. WebDAV option is available for them to drag-and-drop files.Files can be copied between courses and re-used. Discuss |
| Internal Email |
The Desire2Learn email system can be setup to support multiple modes: full email system, internal course-mail only, forwarded to an external account, IMAP, and other combinations. The email system also supports tracking/filtering correspondence by course, folders, personal address-books, search, and more. Emails can be composed using HTML editor, spell checked, saved as drafts, and can add multiple attachments. Flexible email permissions allow for different email options for each role. For instance, for certain roles, administrator can restrict receiving messages from email address that are not internal. Also, storage quotas can be defined individually for each role in the system. Discuss |
| Online Journal/Notes |
Students can make notes in a personal journal and may share them with their instructor. Students can make notes in a personal work area in preformatted text or HTML-style with tags and can perform spell checking. Learners can choose to Blog in an environment that is either open to the public or restricted to users in their Learning Environment (determined by administrators). They can also choose to make entries private, supporting the concept of a Blog journal. A learner has the ability to decide which entries they wish to receive comments and how long an entry appears on their list. Furthermore, RSS feed is supported in Blog feature such that users do not necessary need to login to Desire2Learn to see new headlines and articles. These features provide a safe and secure environment for a Blogger to communicate and add links, images, media files and more. Discuss |
| Real-time Chat |
LiveRoom 4.0 is Desire2Learn's synchronous chat, whiteboard/canvas, presentation technology designed to provide a real-time learning environment for all participants. Rooms can be created easily and moderator has the ability to manage participants and the session. Participants can be ""promoted"" or ""demoted"", ask questions, raise hands, send private chat messages and more. Presentation management tools allow annotations, drawing canvas or whiteboard, resource sharing, quick link to course content, highly-scalable chat program, as well as a fully integrated web browser. Participants can also utilize Equation Editor to insert complex mathematical formulas. LiveRoom Express option is also available for organizations that only need canvas whiteboard for their presentation needs. Content uploaded to LiveRoom can be re-used within the Learning Environment, and content used in the Learning Environment is available directly from LiveRoom. There is also HTML-based chat that supports basic chat functions. The chat tool supports private rooms and private messages. The system creates archive logs for all chat rooms. The sessions can be also saved. Finally, there is a built-in instant messaging tool, also known as Pager. This tool can be used to send quick instant messages to others in contacts list. It is disabled during quizzes." Discuss |
| Whiteboard |
LiveRoom and LiveRoom Express allow moderators to create multiple whiteboard canvases and switch between them during a session. Any presentation resource can be annotated and drawn on using the drawing canvas. Users can save and download LiveRoom materials to their local machine. An equation editor is built into this tool. Discuss |
| Productivity Tools | |
| Bookmarks |
Users can create annotated bookmarks, one at a time, for specific courses. Students can bookmark content pages, creating a link that allows them to quickly return to any particular section in the course content. Discuss |
| Calendar/Progress Review |
Instructors can post events and announcements in the online course calendar or to the course homepage. Entries in the online course calendar can be posted for the entire class, or individual user. Students can keep track of all their assignments, deadlines, and due dates in an online calendar. Students can use a course calendar to store private events. Students can view their grades on completed assignments and any instructor feedback and can compare their grades against the overall class performance. Students can view their completed and pending course readings and activities. All students have a personal home page that lists new email, all courses and groups in which the student is enrolled and all course and system-wide events by date, from their personal calendar. Discuss |
| Searching Within Course |
Students can search all course content, discussion threads, calendar postings in their course or organization. Desire2Learn Learning Repository allows course content/files to be stored/searched/accessed within the course by users in the system by utilizing standard based metadata. For more information on Learning Repository, please refer to section on Content Sharing/Reuse below. Discuss |
| Work Offline/Synchronize |
Instructors can publish course content on a CD-ROM that can be dynamically linked from within the online course or viewed offline. Students can compile and download the content for an entire course into a format that can be printed or stored locally. Discuss |
| Orientation/Help |
The system includes an online student guide. Students can access context sensitive help for each of the major tools. Help items are further customizable by the institution. Students can use keywords to search a student manual and other help documentation made available by the organization. Institutions can also create FAQs and help files, as well as custom widgets to organize access to orientation information. Discuss |
| Student Involvement Tools | |
| Groupwork |
"Instructors can assign students to groups or the system can create groups of a certain size or a set number of groups. Each group can have its own shared group presentation folder, discussion forum, chat room, group email list, polls, assignments, activities, assessments, shared calendar events, file exchange, assigned group leadership. Instructors can assign grades to entire groups and monitor groups. In this version screens were re-designed to make the tool easier to understand hence tasks will take less time to perform. When creating group categories you can provide the members of those groups with their own areas in the Discussions, Dropbox and Locker tools.Students now have a ‘group homepage’ where they can see all of the groups they belong to, and what group workspaces are available.Options exist to automatically enroll new users in a course into groups based on pre-defined logic (i.e. X number of people per group, or a maximum of X groups). " Discuss |
| Community Networking |
Students from different courses can interact in system-wide chat rooms or discussion forums. Students can create online clubs, interest, and study groups. Students can send email to their groups, use a shared chat space, calendar and announcements, and share material privately within the group. Additionally, Desire2Learn platform can be used as a collaboration environment for executive committees and corporate working groups. For instance, Desire2Learn Community is enrolled in a version of Desire2Learn Learning Environment that has been specifically configured to work more as a community space than a straight learn course delivery environment. Discuss |
| Student Portfolios |
Students can build their portfolios by creating their own personal homepages (using HTML editor) and customized profile forms. Through Classlist tool, users with permission can access other’s profiles, shared files (through Locker tool), progress and homepages. Also, Competency and Rubrics tools help with skills gap analysis and contribute to building portfolio that can be aggregated and compared across courses, departments, semesters, etc. Discuss |
| Administration Tools | |
| Authentication |
Administrators can protect access to individual courses with a username and password. The system can authenticate against an external LDAP server or using the Kerberos protocol. Administrators can set up fail-through authentication against a secondary source (e.g. the system's own database) in the event that the primary source (e.g. LDAP server) fails. The system can support multiple organizational units or organizations within one server setup and each unit contains its own unique database of users and can be authenticated against a different source. The system has a password reminder option and students can maintain their own passwords. Administrators can set password length restrictions and require password changes after the initial logon and after a specified period of time. Single Sign On option is also supported. User logins can be encrypted with the Secure Sockets Layer protocol. Discuss |
| Course Authorization |
Administrators can create an unlimited number of custom organizational units and roles with specific access privileges to course content and tools. Instructors can customize specific access permissions for each student role type (e.g. Student Representative). Typically, students will not have access to author or edit the course but customized role such as Student Representative can be created to allow them to post News items, edit other's discussion messages and much more. Teacher's Assistant roles can be created where users with this role can view all participants’ grades but not allow to enter/edit grades. Administrators can distribute the roles across multiple institutions to facilitate school board-wide or consortia-style approaches. Instructors or students may be assigned different roles in different courses and group contexts. Discuss |
| Registration Integration |
Students can self-register. Administrators can batch add students to a course using a delimited text file. The software supports integration with SCT Banner, Peoplesoft, Datatel, and Campus Pipeline to name a few. The software also supports customized integration with other SIS or portal systems. Administrators can transfer student information bi-directionally between the system and an SIS through Desire2Learn middleware component. This integration can be done in Bulk, Batch or Real-time. The system provides registration progress tracking. The software is compliant with the IMS Enterprise Specification for Student Data. Discuss |
| Hosted Services |
The product provider offers a hosted system that includes 24x7x365 monitoring, redundant hosting platforms, intrusion detection, nightly backups, options for geographical disaster recovery, and service level agreements on a network of high-performance, fault-tolerant servers with fail-over capability with redundant Tier 1 network connections. Discuss |
| Course Delivery Tools | |
| Test Types |
Discuss |
| Automated Testing Management |
Discuss |
| Automated Testing Support |
Instructors can create assessments that use the following types of questions: True/False, Fill in the Blank, Matching, Multiple Choice, Multiple Select, Ordering, Arithmetic, Significant Figures, Multi Short Answer and Short/Long Answer. Custom question types can also be defined. There is a consolidated question library for quizzes, surveys and self assessments. Test questions can incorporate images, sound, video and other media types. Questions can be built with the tool or instructors can import and export questions from external test banks in the IMS QTI specification format. Questions can be randomized to provide different questions to different students. Random values can be generated for variables to provide different questions to different students. Students can also use HTML editor and Spell Check feature to respond to questions. Instructors can set a time limit on a test and give special access for individual students. Assessments can be restricted by IP address or a password. Assessments can be shared across several organizational units, and data can be aggregated during report generation. Instructors can customize reports on user and question data that can be exported. Instructors can override the automated scoring and determine how to communicate test results to students. Also, multiple quizzes can be edited at once. Instructors can weight assessments according to a grading scheme. Students can also be locked out of the instant messaging tool and have their copy/paste and print tools restricted while taking a quiz. Instructors can also create survey questions. Discuss |
| Online Marking Tools |
Discussions could be rated and students can comments on submissions. Discuss |
| Online Gradebook |
Instructors can grade assignments, essay type quizzes/exams online and provide feedback. Grades from quizzes and assignments can be updated in Gradebook tool automatically. Instructors also have ability to manually edit all grades. Gradebook tool is useful for basic statistical analysis and final grade calculation. The software automatically calculates the minimum, maximum, and average grade on any grade items including assignments and quizzes. Grade items can be grouped according to grade categories created by instructors. For instance, grade items Quiz #1 and #2 are part of Quiz category/section. Instructors can create a course grading scale that can employ either percentages, letter grades or pass/fail metrics and even create custom grade schemes. Furthermore, grade items can use built in formula editor to create functions which includes If statement, Max/Min, Sum, Avg, etc. to aggregate multiple grade items together allowing instructors to create complex grades scenarios for their course. The Gradebook supports import/export comma-delimited (csv) files. All Gradebook activities are tracked and stored in event logs. Learning Environment 8.2 also supports the creation of scoring rubrics that can be used as a scoring guide for subjective and quantitative assessments. Rubrics can be created and copied for use within a course, or shared across the organization. Rubrics can have any number of evaluation levels and have numerical components to allow for automatic evaluation, or evaluated manually using existing assessment tools.In this version screens were re-designed to make the tool easier to understand hence tasks will take less time to perform. Many grade items and categories can be selected and edited at once. Grade items can be tied to learning objectives.Learning objectives are evaluated based on numeric values for those items and compared to achievement threseholds defined by the instructor; or can be evaluated manually using a scoring rubric.The instructor now has full control over which data fields are displayed in the Student View. There is now a setup wizard that walks a new user through the process of setting up their gradebook.When importing grades, new grade items can now be created. A new view of grades has been created that shows all items in an editable format.The user can easily tab through the data fields to enter grade values for any user.Instructors can choose to email any selected user from the grades tool. Discuss |
| Course Management |
Instructors can selectively release course material, quizzes, assignments, announcements and tools based on previous course activity or specific start and end dates. Instructors can link discussions to specific dates. The system can synchronize course dates defined by the institutional calendar. Instructors can set up specific course content that is released on a specific date and that students must complete before they continue with course. Instructors can design courses for instructor facilitated learning or system managed self-study. Supported versions of IMS CP packages can be imported and also exported from any course in the Learning Environment. Instructors have the ability to choose individual items to copy/import/export. For instance, instructors can choose a single quiz and specific topic to export rather than exporting all quizzes and content. Also, courses can be reoffered by using Copy Course Component feature. Competency/Curriculum Management - Learners can see their progress on various activities, learning objectives, and competencies in a course, program, and/or their entire experience at the organization. The competencies tool allows instructors and curriculum developers to formalize learning objectives, create portal assessments, create self directed or custom learning paths through skills/competencies assessment, and track competencies beyond course. Instructors can create competency hierarchies with approval workflow, integrate with activities/assessments, and develop rubrics. Also, Instructors can specify prerequisites and sequence each course within the curriculum. Instructors can specify multiple paths through a course for different skill levels or job functions. Instructors can map specific learning objects to individual training needs. Competencies can be assessed automatically using quizes, surveys, dropbox assignments and manually using an online rubric builder. In this version screens were re-designed to make the tool easier to understand hence tasks will take less time to perform.There is now a single interface that controls which tools an organization will use. Each course can then choose which of those tools they actually want to use (i.e. the Organization may enable the ‘LiveRoom’ tool, but a given instructor may turn that off it they don’t want to use it). Discuss |
| Student Tracking |
Instructors can view reports of student session tracking, login/logout dates and times, dropbox submissions, and discussion participation as well as both individual and aggregate student performance data on assessments, number of attempts and time per attempt. Instructors can share this tracking information with students. Administrators can monitor students who are currently logged in to the course. A separate database, data warehouse, stores the information the Learning Environment logs such that large reports can run during normal business operations. All data in the data warehouse is documented in the Data Dictionary such that 3rd party reporting tool can be used to access the data. Flexible data set definitions allow for many reports to be generated. Reporting supports many filters as well as render types including Tabular, Area, Line, Bar and Pie graphs. Discuss |
| Content Development Tools | |
| Accessibility Compliance |
To comply with Section 508 of the US Rehabilitation Act, the W3C Priority Level I items, many Level II and III items and the WAI WCAG 1.0 Level A guidelines, the software implements the following features: alt tags on all system images, an authoring tool that enables course developers to create compliant web-based content, style sheets, appropriately titled framesets that describe the functionality of the frames layout, data tables that are optimized for use with screen readers, content available without color, personal preferences for tool display and content readable without style sheets. Non-visual navigation links and consistent form labels are used throughout the site to improve screen reader usability. Desire2Learn actively tests with the JAWS screen reader and other assistive technologies. The company works with clients, the accessibility community and the W3C to validate and identify accessibility features. Users can also change font sizes and styles to meet their accessibility needs.The Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) is an industry standard template for recording how a product or service conforms to Section 508 standards. This VPAT outlines the compliance of Learning Environment 8.2. Our analysis was done on tools using the 8 series framework with an understanding that as other tools are redesigned they should meet the same standards. Discuss |
| Content Sharing/Reuse |
Desire2Learn Learning Repository 4.0 tightly integrates with Desire2Learn Learning Environment 8.2 to provide a central content/learning object repository where learning objects can be stored and reused by users in the system. By utilizing user roles and management tool in Learning Environment, different permission settings can be applied to multiple repositories. Learning Objects (i.e. assets, topics, modules, and course) can be published to the Learning Repository using industry metadata standards including IEEE LOM, Dublin Core, GEM and CanCore. Searching within the Repository can be done through Basic Search, Advance Search and Local Browsing of custom taxon schemas. Local browing is an alternative to searching for key words and titles (or any other fields defined in metadata), users can also search by browsing through classification and taxonomy. Moreover, federated searching is supported which allows users to search in external repository search as MERLOT. When desired learning objects are found, it can be dynamically or statically linked to the repository, retrieved or exported in IMS format. Discuss |
| Course Templates |
Course templates containing either layout or content can be created at any level above the specific section level. Instructors can create announcements, calendar entries, discussions, links, syllabus, course descriptions and other course content using templates that include a HTML editor (a.k.a. WYSIWYG content editor), or upload and choose content from the system-wide content library. Instructors can create new content templates. Instructors can incorporate course functions into specific course templates. Course content may be uploaded through a form, uploaded through WebDAV. Discuss |
| Customized Look and Feel |
The system can support multiple institutions, departments, schools or other organizational divisions on an individual server setup. Each unit can be separately branded. Distinct designs can also be applied at both the course and specific section level. The instructor can customize the appearance of a course by changing the order and name of menu items and the location and width of the navigation bar. Custom tools can be created and quickly added and removed from course or student home pages. Students can customize the sounds, colors, font sizes, and layout of the tools within the interface. Administrators can change the availability, order and name of menu items. Depending on user’s role and permission, the user has access to certain tools/features in the learning environment. Users can choose any page as the first page that is viewed when the content tool is accessed.The instructor can view any feedback that was left for content topics and review both detailed and summary information. Instructor can also see who has read which content topics.Multiple modules or topics could be selected and their properties could be editted at once. Users can choose any page as the first page of Contents Discuss |
| Instructional Design Tools |
The software provides lesson-level templates that include the ability to link to course tools in context and can be shared to selected courses in the learning environment. Instructors can create annotated bookmarks, one at a time, for specific courses. Instructors can create sequences using conditional release based on a user’s past performance and accomplishment. Desire2Learn offers course design services to assist organizations in creating their course material. Discuss |
| Instructional Standards Compliance |
The software has been issued a certificate of conformance with SCORM 1.2 RTE 3 and SCORM 2004. The system also supports IMS Enterprise 1.1 IMS CP 1.1.2 IMS CP 1.1.3, IMS QTI 1.2.1, IMS RDCEO and AICC. For metadata, D2L supports IEEE LOM, Dublin Core, GEM and CanCore. The system includes a tool to import courses from other learning platforms into Desire2Learn. Discuss |
| Hardware/Software | |
| Client Browser Required |
Reviewer Comments The software supports Internet Explorer 6.0.1+, Netscape 7.0+, Firefox 1.1+ and Safari 1.3 & 2.0 Discuss |
| Database Requirements |
Discuss |
| UNIX Server |
Discuss |
| Windows Server |
Discuss |
| Company Details/Licensing | |
| Company Profile |
Reviewer Comments Located in Kitchener, Ontario, Desire2Learn was founded in 1999. It employs 150+ people and is privately held. Discuss |
| Costs / Licensing |
Reviewer Comments There is an initial startup fee. The license fees are typically based on either an FTE or per user/enrollment depending on the client requirements. Discuss |
| Open Source |
Discuss |
| Optional Extras |
Reviewer Comments The system provides support for secure online tuition payment by credit card. Custom tools can be built within the platform using the D2L Widget tool. Custom XML and SQL interfaces can be defined for data exchange with the system. Full commerce and portal systems are available. The software can be integrated with external authentication servers, Student Information Systems, Library Systems, email systems, and other campus based systems. The company offers consulting services for implementation planning and advanced technical services including an initial technical assessment and evaluation of issues such as authentication, load balancing, and migration and upgrade planning. The product provider also offers full services for instructional design and custom courseware creation. Wiki product can be integrated into Desire2Learn through roles/permissions framework. WevDAV can theoretically be setup for both students and instructors (however, typically we only allow instructors to use this capability). Discuss |