This turnover process may be most helpful to those programs using D2L / SMS and who run non-continuous schedules (eg. 10-11 months of school, then 1-2 months break).   It assumes that data is cleared during the break and the courses start fresh every September. 

* Note:  Example files are linked below to provide help, but MUST be checked carefully against your site's org structure.

NOTE:   D2L has kindly reviewed these steps to ensure that they represents best practice from a D2L point-of-view (as related to our needs).

 

Steps (click step to jump to details):

Step 1: Build New Course Shells

Students entering courses in September should see a course that it completely ready for them.    Thus, we do all of the course prep early enough for teachers to do any last tweaks in their last week (or two) of the school year.

In D2L, that means starting with the building of new course shells.

    1. Make a new Semester (eg. 2024-25)
    2. Build the Course Shells

•    Go to Course = Bulk Utilities…..
•    Go to "Manage Files"
•    Under BCC, upload Prepared File "Bulk Utility - BCC Course CREATE" (Example)*
•    Runs at night.   Check the next day.

 

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Step 2: Assign Teachers to New Shells

Note that steps 2 and 3 can be switched, depending on some of your choices.   Either will work fine.

Now that course shells are built, let's get teachers assigned to their courses so they can see and adjust as needed.

1.    If there are some new teachers, use "Bulk User – Teacher CREATE" (Example)*
2.    To assign everyone as teachers to their courses, use "Bulk User – Teacher ENROLL" (Example)*

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Step 3:  Load Content into New Shells

In the "old days," WCLN would encourage teachers to update their courses every year (to take advantage of updates).   With the new LTI (1.3), this is less important.   Thus, here are some options to consider.

Option 1:  if it's a new course for your program and/or new teachers for a course, probably best to import fresh WCLN course.
Option 2:  if you wish, you can have teachers move their own courses over (backup and import).  Instructions for teachers HERE.
Option 3:  admin can copy course content between courses using Bulk Utilities, as outlined below.

•    Go to Course = Bulk Utilities…..
•    Go to "Manage Files"
•    Under CCB, upload Prepared File, "Bulk Utility - CCB Course COPY" (Example)*
•    Runs at night.   Check next day

Note: If you decide to go with Option 3, you may wish to switch steps 2 and 3.   This would simply mean that teachers don't have access to the courses UNTIL the content is loaded, which "might" avoid some confusion.

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Step 4: Teacher Preparation of New Courses

Once courses are built, loaded, and teachers are assigned, any tweaking and/or customization can happen.

You may wish to do a lunch meeting to help teachers remember some of the design factors that they haven't seen for 10 months.

For example:

    1. Note: CCB brought over IA's and Announcements, that you can reuse.
    2. Adjust IA's to be based on "this year's" criteria, actions, and dates.
    3. How to double-check Intelligent Agents (eg. Welcome Letter, Activation).
    4. How to adjust widgets and/or home pages, as needed.
    5. How to update any schedules or intro information.


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Step 5:  Archive & Clear SMS Data

Even more important than archiving courses, is ensuring that you have a good archive of student data.

For audits and/or student/parent questions, it's VERY useful to have:

    • time stamps of requests, enrollments, activations, drops, withdrawls, and completions.
    • an organized list of all logged communications from schools, teachers, admins, etc....
    • a list of ALL grades and dates submitted
    • a log of all program numbers by course for future stats.

This  can all be done quickly and stored by year for any future needs.

    1. Wait until the office is done with data entry (eg. second week of July).
    2. Go to SMS > Exports, Refresh, and Download each export file.
    3. Copy this data into the district archive area, by year.
    4. Unzip, adjust format (sheet headers, etc....).
    5. Apply permissions for office staff to view and/or modify, based on needs.

Now that data is archived, you'll also want to clear out student / course data from the SMS to be ready for a new year.

Admin Settings > Clean-up Tools


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Step 6: Deactivate D2L Courses and Accounts

Now that we're ready for the new year, it's time to clean-up last year's data.

We do this by deactivating both last year's courses and student accounts.

Deactivating a group of old courses:

    • Use "Roles & Permission" > "Course Updater"

Deactivating old courses, individually:

    • Course Admin > Course Offering Information
    • Unclick "Course is Active"  (as an admin, or with adjusted permissions)

Deactivating old student accounts:

    • Roles & Permissions > Data Hub > Users (download all).
    • Delete csv rows for admin, teachers, support (non-numeric usernames, for my example).
    • Bulk User tool > Update (with UPDATE, username, active = 0).

Note that students who sign-up using the SMS for next year will use the same account.  The SMS will recognize the existing account and re-active them.   Given that the old courses are deactiveated, the students won't see those, but will only see the new courses in which they're enrolled in.

 


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Related Reference Links

Enablement Topics:

Brightspace Community Documentation on Data Purge:

 


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Last modified: Monday, 19 August 2024, 9:29 AM