At the end of each semester, there are a few housekeeping practices that both students and instructors should follow to neatly wrap up the semester. These tips will help ensure that you are able to have continued access to the resources you wish to keep available.
Instructors
Here’s what D2L instructor’s need to know about the end of a semester:
- If you want students to be able to view their final grades in D2L, you must release them; they are not visible by default. If you would like assistance in releasing your final grades, please contact the IT Service Center.
- University policy requires that grades are entered into the Registrar's web grading system, located in MyCUInfo, no later than 90 hours after the final exam for the class.
- Students will lose access to your course in D2L three weeks after the conclusion of the semester (May 31, 2018). At that point, they can no longer download course materials or assignment submissions, unless you adjust the course's end date.
- It's always a good idea to back up your grade book, but make sure you also encrypt it to protect your student’s data.
- Back up your course material; it's a good habit to get into at the end of every semester.
- If you have questions about wrapping up the semester in D2L, including finalizing your gradebook, stop by one of the one-hour grading support sessions that run from April 30 to May 14. You are also welcome to contact the IT Service Center at help@colorado.edu or 303-735-4357 to schedule an appointment with a Learning Technology Consultant.
- Create your Canvas or D2L courses for summer or fall now so they are ready when the semester rolls around. This might be the time to start using Canvas as D2L will upgrade to a new look and feel on August 11, 2018. Although course content itself will not be affected, the appearance and layout of D2L will change for all courses and users.
- When considering which LMS to choose, take a moment to learn about the Canvas Web Grading Export Tool. It allows instructors to export final grades from Canvas in a format ready to upload to the Registrar’s web grading system.
For more quick tips and helpful tutorials on smoothly wrapping up the 2018 spring semester, visit D2L - End of Semester Best Practices.
Students
For students there’s just one thing for you to do at the end of the semester. If you want to keep your submissions from the spring semester, you need to download them. And make sure you do so by Wednesday, May 30, 2018. On May 31 you will lose access to your spring semester content unless the instructor has adjusted the course’s end date.
For easy download of a course's content, open the Content Tool and click the "Download" button found beneath the Table of Contents heading, as shown in the following graphic. All content will download to your computer as a .zip file. If the course has an unusually large number of files associated with it, this process can time out, in which case the files would need to be downloaded individually.
Looking ahead: When can you access your summer D2L or Canvas courses? If you are registered for summer courses, they will be available four days before the first day of class. If you register for a course after the start of class, you will be able to access it within two business days.
If you ever have questions about D2L or any of the procedures above, please don't hesitate to contact the IT Service Center at help@colorado.edu or 303-735-4357 (5-HELP from a campus phone).
