2018 Archived Announcements

Below are the announcements from 2018 that were posted in the D2L Announcements widget by LSC-Online. The newest information is at the top.  Please visit the Announcements page for the most up-to-date information.

LSC-Online also provides other outlets of helpful information, including an email newsletter, a video newsletter, and an event calendar.

RESOLVED - Service Alert: Document Converter
Posted in D2L on Dec 18, 2018 12:33 PM (Edited)

RESOLVED: The document converter in D2L is currently experiencing issues. Currently you may not be able to preview documents in D2L. We expect this issue to be resolved shortly.

As a work around you may download the document to view it.

Winter Break VTAC Hours
Posted in D2L on Dec 12, 2018 3:02 PM

During the Winter Holiday, VTAC support will maintain limited hours.

The VTAC Live Chat button is available on the VTAC website under VTAC Support. Chat with one of our staff during the following Winter Holiday hours:

Normal VTAC hours will begin January 3rd.

D2L resources for students can be found by clicking the following link: Virtual Learning Assistance Center

Turnitin Service Maintenance
Posted in D2L on Dec 11, 2018 11:00 AM

Turnitin will be unavailable Saturday, January 5th 10:00 AM until approximately 6:00 PM the same day.
 
Users will be unable to submit and grade during this maintenance window, so please ensure that any submission deadlines are adjusted to fall outside of the window.

Resolved - Service Alert: Turnitin
Posted in D2L on Dec 7, 2018 10:12 AM (Edited)

RESOLVED: Turnitin has reported a service degradation. Users may experience errors when attempting to use Turnitin both within D2L, and directly from Turnitin.com. Turnitin is working to resolve the issue, and updates will be provided as they become available.

Media Capture Transition
Posted in D2L on Dec 6, 2018 8:53 AM 

LSC-Online is continuing to work on the transition from D2L Capture to TechSmith Relay.  Videos that are currently linked from D2L Capture need to be re-linked from the TechSmith Relay system.  The D2L Capture links will stop working on December 17th once the current term has ended.  If you would like assistance updating your links or adding new videos please contact VTAC support by selecting the following link: VTAC Support

Below is a link to training options, along with links to our new support documentation and TechSmith's training videos:

• View Training Options
• New support documentation
• TechSmith Relay Training Videos

As part of this transition, the ability to upload D2L Capture videos to D2L has been removed. This is to make sure we have time to transfer all of the videos from D2L Capture to TechSmith Relay before D2L Capture is decommissioned.

• The ability to publish D2L Capture videos to D2L was removed on 12/06/2018 at 8:00 AM.
  • D2L Capture videos that are linked to courses will need to have their links updated to the correct Relay link.
  • Faculty can still create new videos in Relay and upload them using the D2L integration located in the Content tool.
  • The following link walks you through how to import Relay videos into D2L: How to add a Relay video to content
• After the end of term D2L Capture will be decommissioned and videos hosted in D2L Capture will no longer be accessible.
  • All videos created through December 6th will be transitioned from D2L Capture into TechSmith Relay.
  • Links in D2L will need to be updated to point to the new Relay links rather than to the D2L Capture links
• If you have any questions, need assistance, or just want to schedule an appointment to talk with someone about this transition, please fill out the Video Migration Request form or chat with us on the following page: https://vtac.lonestar.edu/help/vtac-support

Weekend myLoneStar Maintenance
Posted in D2L on Dec 5, 2018 2:53 PM

myLoneStar will be down Thursday, December 6th at 8:00 PM until Friday, December 7th at 2:00 AM.

During this maintenance window, you can access D2L by going to d2l.lonestar.edu and clicking Alternate Login.

For immediate support or technical questions, you can still contact the 24/7 service desk: Get IT Help

November Monthly Update
Posted in D2L on Nov 16, 2018 12:17 PM

The November update for D2L is scheduled for Friday, October 23rd.  The following new features are available as part of this update:

Discussions – Private Journals for Students:
Faculty will now be able to generate private discussions for students. This will allow students to maintain journals that only the faculty member will be able to read. These discussions will auto-create new journals for students that are added to the class after the journals were initially created

Assignments - Evaluate Assignment submissions:
The Evaluate Submission page no longer displays navbar links. This provides instructors with more screen space to view and evaluate assignments.

Discussions - Discussion posts marked as read in Enter Grades:
Previously, in Brightspace Learning Environment, when a user read a discussion post from the Enter Grades page, the post was not marked as read. Now, in Brightspace Learning Environment, when a user reads a discussion post from the Enter Grades page, the post is marked as read, as expected.

TechSmith Relay and Webinar Training Now Available!
Posted in D2L on Nov 13, 2018 3:51 PM

LSC-Online is proud to announce that TechSmith Relay, our new video platform, is now available to faculty. The Relay platform offers several exciting new features, including machine captioning, video quizzing, and an advanced editor through the TechSmith Camtasia video editor.

TechSmith is hosting free training webinars for Lone Star College employees. These webinars will introduce users to the TechSmith Relay platform and demonstrate how to use the TechSmith integration within a D2L course. Here are the dates for webinar training:

• Nov. 27th, 9:30-11:00 AM. 
• Nov. 29th, 1:30-3:00 PM. 

Your D2L Capture videos are still in the process of being migrated to the new platform. In the meantime, please review our new support documentation.

VTAC Thanksgiving Closure
Posted in D2L on Nov 12, 2018 11:58 AM

The Virtual Teaching Assistance Center (VTAC) will be closing at 3:00 PM on Tuesday, November 20th in observance of the Thanksgiving Holiday.

VTAC will reopen Monday, November 26th at 7:30 AM.

D2L resources for students can be found by clicking the following link: Virtual Learning Assistance Center
For immediate support or technical questions, you can still contact the 24/7 service desk: Get IT Help
You may also find answers to your questions in the VTAC Knowledge Base: vtac.lonestar.edu

October Monthly Update
Posted in D2L on Oct 23, 2018 9:12 AM

The October update for D2L is scheduled for Friday, October 26th.  The following new features are available as part of this update:

Assignments – In Person Submissions:
On paper submission and observed in person submission types are now available in assignments. These new assignment submission types do not require users to make a file submission for them to be completed. This allows instructors to create assignments for a wide variety of activities, not just written work, and provide evaluation and feedback for these assignments.

Content - Send to Binder set to be removed:
Located on the Table of Contents page in the Content tool, the Send to Binder option allows students to send course content to their D2L Binder accounts to review offline. With D2L Binder approaching end-of-life status, the Send to Binder option from the Content tool will no longer be available as of November 1, 2018. Students will still be able to access items already sent to Binder.

Quizzes- Auto-save during quiz taking:
Student's quiz responses are now automatically saved during the quiz taking process. For forced response questions (such as multiple choice and true or false), student responses are saved automatically when they select the radio button or checkbox. Text input questions auto-save every 10 to 15 seconds, and html-enabled questions save when the mouse cursor is clicked outside the quiz response input area. Auto-save sends save timestamps to the quizzing log, as the manual save function previously did. For quizzes with multiple pages, quiz responses automatically save upon navigating to a new quiz page. The Save all Responses and go to submit quiz buttons have been removed, and are no longer visible on the quiz page. The only button now visible on the quiz page is submit quiz. If internet connectivity is lost during the quiz-taking process, students can answer questions but are unable to auto-save questions or submit the quiz until the connection is restored.

Quizzes - Removal of Rubrics:
Instructors can no longer attach a rubric to a quiz or grade rubrics already attached to a quiz. Any data stored in rubrics is retained.

Binder End of Life
Posted in D2L on Oct 16, 2018 9:29 AM

D2L has announced that they are about to begin phasing out the Binder application. Beginning Thursday, November 1st, the Send to Binder function will no longer be available.

Students will still be able to access their files in Binder until May 31st, 2019. After that date, students will no longer be able to access the Binder application.

Students can store their files in the cloud by using Microsoft One Drive in Office 365.  Click the following link for more information about using OneDrive:  Student OTS Document 

For more information about the end of life process, please click the following link:  Binder End of Life

September Monthly Update
Posted in D2L on Oct 1, 2018 1:41 PM

The September update for D2L was scheduled for Friday, September 26th.  The following new features are available as part of this update:

Print/Download Function added to Overview in Content:
Students can now download and print an uploaded syllabus from the Overview area of Content.

HTML Editor - Add quicklinks to content modules, submodules and course overview:
Instructors can now link directly to content modules, submodules, and course overviews directly from the Insert Quicklink option in the HTML editor. This change allows instructors to insert quicklinks directly to specific portions of course content within any tool with the HTML Editor. Previously, only a link to the Content tool was available from the Insert Quicklink option in the HTML editor.

My courses widget now displays semester and course updates:
The MyCourses Widget has been updated to include the semester code at the bottom of each class and updates for unread discussion posts, ungraded quiz attempts, and unread assignment submissions.  These updates will be displayed on the right side of the course in orange.

Announcements were not archived prior to Oct. 1, 2018.