Learning the D2L Basics

Login Options:

• URL: https://elearn.mtsu.edu
• MTSU Homepage, choose Quick Links, choose D2L
• Within Pipeline, click D2L (along the very top of the screen)
  
  
  

Browsers: We recommend Chrome as your browser since D2L develops using Chrome. Firefox and Safari work very well too. Avoid IE since it is no longer supported by D2L.

Username and Password: Login to D2L using your Pipeline username and password. Remember to include the @mtsu.edu or @mtmail.mtsu.edu in the username.
(E.g. jdoe@mtsu.edu or jdoe@mtmail.mtsu.edu and not John. Doe@mtsu.edu) 

Find Courses: 

Use the My Courses widget and the options across the top of that widget to find D2L courses for a specific term. Also use the "Select a Course" option (the 9 square boxes to the right of TrueBlue Learning) to search for a course.

Students see the D2L course on the Start Date of the course and no longer see the course after the End Date. Typically courses open 5 days before the start of the term and close 10 days after then end of the term. Faculty may adjust these Start and End dates.

Want more detail?

Explore the many options that exist within these content setups. The information given here is the basics.

D2L Discussions require a Forum AND a Topic setup.

1. Creating a D2L Discussion Form
   1. Login to D2L and go into your course.
   2. Click Assessments or Communication in the navigation bar (navbar) and then click Discussions.
   3. Click New and then New Forum.
   4. Give the Forum a Title such as Chapter Discussions.
   5. Click Save and Close.
2. Creating a D2L Discussion Topic:
   Note: Students will click the Discussion topic name to participate.
   1. Stay within the Discussion area and click New and then click New Topic.
   2. Click the dropdown next to the Choose a Forum option and select the appropriate forum to house this topic of discussion. For instance, you may click the Chapter Discussions option from Step 1 above.
   3. Title your Topic such as Chapter 1 Discussions.
   4. Give a description of how you would like the students to participate.
   5. Click Save and Close.

Worth mentioning:

• Faculty often check the box for "Users must start a thread before they can ready and reply to others".
• For restricting times of participation, faculty may choose to Unlock the topic for a specific date range.
• The Assessment tab allows you to grade the discussion and send the grade into an appropriate grade item in the D2L Gradebook.

Creating a D2L Dropbox for Digital Assignments:

1. Login to D2L and go into your course.
2. Click Assessments on the navigation bar (navbar) and then click Dropbox.
3. Click New Folder.
4. Type in a name for the assignment such as Chapter 1 Assignment.
5. Type in the instructions for the student to follow for creating this assignment file to be submitted.
6. Click Save and Close.

Worth Mentioning:

• Click the Restrictions tab to put a Start and End Date on this assignment. Students will not be able to submit a paper after the End Date. Date/time stamps will be next to each submission.
• Click the Turnitin tab to enable Grademark (online grading of this assignment) and Enable Originality Check. Percentage of Similarity match will be next to each submission and clickable for review and online grading options.
• The Evaluation and Feedback area of the Properties tab allows faculty to associate the grade for this assignment with a D2L gradebook item.

New Quiz and Question Library work together for building quizzes, tests or exams. To keep questions organized start with the Question Library and then design a quiz using questions from within your question library.

Typically faculty use one of two methods for grading:

1. "Points" Grading System: Adding up all the assessment scores achieved by a student and dividing that score by the total number of assessment points possible.
2. "Weighted" Grading System: Several categories are grades have different weights to arrive at the final grade. Typically each item is out of 100 points possible.

The directions below cover setting up a points grading system.

Watch this video for a sample in setting up a weighted grading system. <link>

Look under Settings in the Grades area for overall gradebook display and calculation adjustments.

Organizing your D2L "Points-type" Gradebook

Create a Grade Category

Grade Categories are like folders which will house similar types of grades. Grade Categories MUST be used if the instructor intends to drop any grades within certain categories.

1. Login to D2L and go into your course.
2. Click Assessments on the navigation bar (navbar) and then click Grades.
3. Click Manage Grades.
4. Click New and then click Category.
5. Type in the Category name such as Homework.
6. Click Save and Close.
7. Continue until all of your grade categories are setup.

Worth Mentioning:

• Instructors who intend to drop any grades within a category, take notice when creating the Category that there is an option to "Distribute points across all items" and then select the "Number of lowest non-bonus items to drop" options.

Create Grade Items

1. Login to D2L and go into your course.
2. Click Assessments on the navigation bar (navbar) and then click Grades.
3. Click Manage Grades.
4. Click New and then click Item.
5. Click Numeric (most of the time).
6. Type in the Item name.
7. Click the dropdown for the Category (next to the word None) and select what category this grade item should fall under.
8. Type in the number for the Maximum Points possible for this grade item.
9. Click Save and Close.
10. Continue this process until all of your grade items are setup and sorted into appropriate categories.

Worth Mentioning:

• Faculty who only use a few grade items and do not drop any grades may not need to sort into Categories and might simply create the few Grade Items.
• When setting up the items, there is a Bonus checkbox for items that are to be Bonus points only.

Entering Grades

1. Click the Enter Grades option within the Grades area and then Switch to Spreadsheet View.
2. Enter the values for the grade item for each student and click Save.

Want more detail?

One way to email an entire class of student is to use the D2L Classlist feature. Note: When using Classlist to send email, the email message stays contained within D2L's email tool and does not flow out into the person's mtsu.edu or mtmail.mtsu.edu inboxes outside of D2L.

Best Practice: If you intend to use this feature, please inform your students to regularly check email within D2L in addition to their MTSU outlook/webmail.

Using D2L Classlist to Send Email:

1. Login to D2L and go into your course.
2. Click Communication on the navigation bar (navbar) and then click Classlist.
3. Click the Email Classlist button (near the top of the screen).
4. Click Send Email (near the bottom of the screen).
5. Type in the Subject line and the Body of the message.
6. Click Send (near the top of the pop-up).

Worth Mentioning:

• Within Classlist to send to a single or couple of students, click the box to the left of the student's name in Classlist and then click email at the top of that column. Fill in the subject and body and click Send.
• Find email messages to your D2L email inbox by clicking Email on the My Home page or Email within the course Communications navbar listing. There is a "Filter By:" option that allows the selection of "All Messages" which may be helpful in finding messages.