As a course management system, obviously, online courses integrated with student information are the main use for Desire2Learn's platform. In what other ways can Desire2Learn be implemented on your campus? With any collaborative system people are going to be creative. On our campus at UW River Falls, we have found a myriad number of ways to implement Desire2Learn's course management system... not as a course, of course!
The funny thing is, we didn't plan to use Desire2Learn in this way. When we implemented Desire2Learn on our campus in 2003 we integrated courses with our SIS (Student Information System). The creative ideas of our faculty, staff and students led us to begin exploring other uses. A couple of years ago, after Desire2Learn had been established on our campus, during our training sessions, people began requesting an area in Desire2Learn to be able to organize and collaborate information with their group members. Committees such as search and screen requested an area to upload and maintain documents to be viewed by committee members. So we started creating course shells tailored to their needs. But this was something that evolved and we really hadn't thought about the logistics and planning of other possible requests as we began creating course shells for groups to use.
Before we knew it, we had created 132 demo course shells for individuals and 172 different non-credit group course shells! Now we had to start thinking about managing this effort. Our main org structure permits colleges, semesters and departments, so we began to think about special "terms" to create in order to categorize these shells. We created terms such as demo, outreach, projects and committees, and campus organizations. How do we name the course codes and templates so we can keep them organized? Our naming conventions are pretty simple, but it works. For each request we begin the code with a "Z" followed by the last two digits of the year created in, and then adding the requestor's last name and first initial.
If it is a demo course, we add "demo" in the course code also. If not, we either add part of the department name or committee name. For example the course code for a demo would look like this: "Z08_SemiD_Demo". The course code for a search and screen might look like this: "Z08_SemiD_MgrSrchScr". The main person in the course shell can then choose whatever course name they would like, but can't change the code. A naming convention helps us to manage these course shells and easily find them.As we move forward, we have received more requests from our faculty, staff and students that explore other uses of Desire2Learn. We created and online form that folks can use to easily request a setup from us. These courses can easily be reused or deleted when no longer needed. What other ways can you support Desire2Learn on your campus?
To view Dan and Mary-Alice's informative presentation:
- Login to the Community and visit the Community Updates area
- Click the link to the FUSION 2008 Post Conference Course
- From the Content area, view the presentation from the Monday Morning 11:30 am module.
