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D2L 8.3 New Features, Changes, Fixes, and Bugs (highlights)

Content

• When you go to Content, you now will go directly to the Content Manager. To view the content the way students do, select View content in the upper left.
• All of the icons have changed. The icons are consistent throughout the entire program.
• A new menu is on the left hand side.

HTML Content Editor

• A new HTML editor has been included, which behaves consistently in all supported web browsers.
• The editor appears everywhere--news, content, discussions, email, etc.
• The editor is no longer a pop-up. Whenever you edit content, for instance, you will get the exact same page, within the same browser window.
• Better spellchecking now displays errors inline rather than in a separate pop-up window.
• The editor is now resizable, simply select the resize icon (4 blue arrows) in the lower left to switch between regular and full size.
• The new HTML Editor features improved accessibility with new key commands.
• However, Firefox will not allow the editor to access to the clipboard, for copying materials from Word and other applications, unless you follow these steps.
• If you use IE (Internet Explorer), to copy/paste from Word, select the Paste from Word icon. To see it you must use the Advanced tab at the top of the empty editor box.

Gradebook

• A new spreadsheet-style interface allows you to enter grades for all students and all grade items from a single page, making it much faster to record grades. It can be selected with a button at the top.
• Create Grade Items from a Spreadsheet/CSV File. You can now enter grades into a spreadsheet and import them into D2L without configuring the grade book ahead of time. The grade book now creates new grade items based on the columns in the import file.
• You can edit multiple grade items or categories simultaneously using a more intuitive interface.
• You have additional options for what students see when viewing their grades.
• Integration with TitanWeb e-grading is not available. They are very aware that this is a major drawback and are working on it.

Discussion

• You can now assess messages within discussions.
• You can allow students to rate each other's messages on a scale from one to five stars, view average message ratings, and use average ratings to sort and filter messages. You can see aggregate ratings for forums, topics, and users
• You can much more easily create small group discussion topics, using the Groups tool.
• You can now lock discussion forums and topics, allowing participants to continue to access a topic while preventing them from posting new messages or modifying existing ones. Topics and forums can be locked manually or based on a date range.
• Participants can now view the full text of all messages on a single page, rather than viewing one message at a time. The new view makes it easier to read a conversation with fewer mouse clicks.
• You can now move and copy messages between topics.
• You can pin a post to ensure that a given posting is always in the most prominent position at the top of the screen, e.g., sample posting for students to view or simply a description of their assignment.
• You can moderate a topic, requiring approval from you before a message is seen by students.
• Students can now edit their posts, as a post's history is now available. Please note that everyone can edit their own posts and everyone can see all posts' histories.
• You can mark messages unread if you want to re-read messages for grading or other purposes after having read them once already.

Groups

• Groups is now a tool by itself; Manage Groups is no longer part of classlist. Access it from Edit Course.
• You can now create shared lockers, dropbox folders, and discussion topics for groups when creating groups.
• The Groups tool now includes a student view that provides a central place for students to see their groups, contact group members, access discussions, lockers, and dropbox folders, and sign up for self-enrollment groups, which leads to a more engaging collaborative work experience. You must add Groups to the nav bar for them to do so.
• When a group is configured for automatic enrollment of new users, newly enrolled students will be automatically added to existing groups.

Dropbox

• You can now create dropbox folders for groups, allowing them to view files submitted by group members in a single location and evaluate the group as a whole using a grade item.
• You can now preview how a folder looks from a student’s perspective, submit a file, assess the preview submission, and view feedback.
• You can now edit multiple dropbox folders and categories simultaneously.
• You can no longer download a single file from a Dropbox folder by right-clicking. It is necessary to select the file and use the Download button to download the file as a .zip file.

Edit Course

• Selecting Edit Course now takes you to a list of course tools. The old page is now the first link, Course Offering Information.
• To find your section or course number, go to Course Offering Information and look at the Course Offering Path.

Announcements

• Announcements will now be called News everywhere.
• The last five news items appear, not just the three most recent. Relatedly, rather than paging by 3s, the option is now to view all news.

Minimum System Requirements for this Release

Hardware and browser requirements.