The Extended and Distance Education department will be upgrading D2L, the online component for APSU courses, from Friday, Dec. 27, to Monday, Dec. 30.
During this time, D2L will be offline. According to Bill Persinger, executive director of Public Relations and Marketing, students taking courses during the winter term will be impacted by the upgrade.
“During the transition, students will need to use their APSU email to contact instructors,” Persinger said.
Executive Director of Extended and Distance Education Dana Willet and Director of Distance Education Louanne Bergman have been alerting the campus to the upcoming change.
“The Distance Education team is working diligently with our partners and the campus community to make the upgrade smooth and successful,” Bergman said. “The upgraded version of D2L has many new features that will make it more user-friendly. We believe that the faculty, staff and students will be greatly pleased with the changes they will see with this new version.”
On Monday, Nov. 11, and Tuesday, Nov. 12, the Extended and Distance Education department held a virtual session where professors could view the new features. According to Instructional Technologist Robert Wilson, the majority of changes to D2L are in the content area.
Students can take a sneak peak at sessions available on campus by signing up on the APSU website.
Anderson said while the updated version of D2L will be more mobile-friendly, it is still not “100 percent mobile compatible.”
According to Anderson, one major change to the interface, Anderson said, is a simplified navigational system. Instead of a slew of links across the top of the screen such as “Content,” “Dropbox” and “Classlist.” The links will be consolidated into several dropdown menus.
The “Content” tab has been reworked to where students or professors can flip through pages of information quickly and have consistent links to save or print materials.
“I like the current D2L,” said senior English major Julie Upshur. “It’s basic and functional, and I can always find what I need.”
Theresa Walton, a sophomore communications major, said she likes being able to check her grades on D2L.
“I would like it if all teachers would use D2L,” Walton said, “or at least the same program so students could find information easier.”
Justin Hasty, a junior history education major, said he is looking forward to he upgrade.
“I have a lot of hopes for it,” Hasty said. “I hope that they change all the things that have been crashing and causing it to just go down all the time.”
