Technologist or Designer: Who's the Best to Contact?

LSC-Online Technologists and Instructional Designers are available to assist faculty with their D2L courses. Appointments with a technologist or designer can be scheduled during business hours.

  • Technologists support:
    • D2L questions
    • Integrated and licensed instructional software (e.g., Respondus, YuJa Media, SoftChalk, or Linking to a Publisher content)
    • LSC-Online D2L forms (e.g., Course Merge, Verify Roster, Extend Access)
    • A variety of other specialized, third-party integrations
    • Individual and group training requests and facilitation
  • Designers support:
    • Online course design
    • Course building
    • A variety of other specialized, one-on-one strategies
    • Group training requests and facilitation

The chart below lists specific tasks and whom best to approach for assistance with these tasks.

Semester Start



Course Access and Set-up

Technologist

Designer

Add Missing D2L Courses

✔️


Provide Early Access to Course/Change Start Date for course

✔️


Activate Course

✔️


Add Users to a Course

✔️


Merge Course Rosters

✔️


Reconcile Course Rosters

✔️


Restore an archived course

✔️


Copy Course Components

✔️


Add Publisher Content to Course

✔️

✔️

Offset Course Dates

✔️


Add/Sync Third-Party Integration to a Course

✔️





Course Design & Development



Syllabus, Learning Goals and Course Structure 

Technologist

Designer

Review and edit the Course Syllabus


✔️

Align Program Goals, Course goals, Lesson Objectives, Course Activities, and/or Assessments with expected Learning Outcomes


✔️

Review and modify the content organization and course structure


✔️

Source and review instructional materials (online materials from publishers, OER, etc.) for the course


✔️

Define and set up competencies and objectives for the course


✔️




Accessibility

Technologist

Designer

Run a Blackboard Ally check

✔️


Review and edit content to ensure adherence to accessibility guidelines


✔️

Make content (images, videos, audios, etc.) accessible

✔️

✔️

Resolve errors highlighted by BlackBoard Ally

✔️

✔️




Assignments 

Technologist

Designer

Determine/Review assessment strategy for Assignments and Quizzes


✔️

Align assignments with Learning Objectives and Outcomes


✔️

Identify/specify alternate ways of assessment


✔️

Design/Compose a Rubric for assignments


✔️

Specify instructions for online assignment folders


✔️

Create Groups for assignments

✔️

✔️

Enabling Turnitin for assignments

✔️


Generating Turnitin Reports

✔️


Create individual and/or group assignments

✔️

✔️

Attach Rubrics to assignments

✔️

✔️

Associate Assignment with existing grade item in the grade-book

✔️


Provide links to existing assignments from Content

✔️


Define and set release conditions for an assignment


✔️




Content

Technologist

Designer

Compose Module descriptions


✔️

Use supported third-party tools to create course materials and activities


✔️

Define and include checklists in content modules

✔️

✔️

Add pre-recorded lectures, content, audio, or videos to modules/topics

✔️


Delete all content from a course

✔️


Import zipped content

✔️


Set Release conditions for modules and topics


✔️




Discussions

Technologist

Designer

Compose prompts for discussions


✔️

Create Discussion Forums and Topics

✔️

✔️

Design/Compose a Rubric for discussions


✔️

Attach existing rubrics to discussion forums/topics

✔️


Create grade items for discussion topics

✔️


Provide a link to the discussion topic from Content

✔️


Specify grading criteria for individual posts


✔️




Grades

Technologist

Designer

Determine/Review grading strategy (points, weighted averages, bonus, etc.)


✔️

Build/Set up a Gradebook

✔️

✔️

Add a curve using Adjusted Grade


✔️

Create and edit grade schemes

✔️

✔️

Import grades from an external source

✔️


Mark grade as Exempt

✔️





Instructional Software/Course Technologies

Technologist

Designer

Create Softchalk activities

✔️

✔️

Create/Add Yuja videos to the course

✔️


Create quizzes/upload questions from Word documents using Respondus

✔️

✔️

Schedule online synchronous meetings using Webex/Zoom

✔️


Add link to Webex meeting in the Content area

✔️


Set up Webex Appointment Booking

✔️


Add Brainfuse Dashboard to the course

✔️


Add StudyMate Campus activities

✔️





Quizzes

Technologist

Designer

Create Quizzes

✔️


Outline/Specify proctoring and testing options for quizzes


✔️

Load questions from the publisher into Quiz Question Library

✔️


Create and publish quizzes from Word documents

✔️


Write quiz questions directly in D2L’s Question Library

✔️


Create grade item for quiz

✔️


Provide the link to the existing quiz from Content

✔️


Setup special access to quizzes

✔️


Reset Quiz attempt

✔️


Submit a Quiz stuck “in progress”

✔️


Set up proctoring (Lockdown browser, Examity, etc.) for a quiz

✔️


Create Bonus Questions

✔️

✔️




Course Personalization/Customization

Technologist

Designer

Customize Course Image and Banner

✔️


Customize content and communication (announcements, emails, etc.) using replacement strings

✔️


Define and create Intelligent Agents for early alerts, student inactivity, etc.

✔️

✔️

Create awards for a course


✔️

Add existing awards to the course

✔️


Issue/Revoke awards

✔️


Set release conditions for modules, topics, quizzes, discussion topics, awards, etc.


✔️

Set up and use Qwickly Attendance

✔️


Develop Course Templates


✔️

Create Surveys

✔️

✔️




Student Engagement/Success

Technologist

Designer

Identify and implement student engagement strategies for your course


✔️

Define criteria and milestones to gauge and measure student learning/success


✔️

Identifying and providing/including active learning opportunities


✔️

Establish and set up office hours in Webex

✔️





Course Quality

Technologist

Designer

Conduct Student-Centered Course Reviews


✔️

Review course based on Quality Matters Rubric


✔️




Semester End

Technologist

Designer

Export D2L Gradebook

✔️


Export attendance data

✔️


Save/Print Copy of Final Exam

✔️


Extend Course Access for Students with Incomplete

✔️