SoTL Paper_by Kyung Hun Jung

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Southern Polytechnic State University

Survey about Desire 2 Learn (D2L) at SPSU:
What do students experience with D2L?
Kendra Reece, Cindy Morales, and Kyung Hun Jung Ph.D.
School of Arts and Sciences
Social and International Studies Department
Most, if not all, courses offered by SPSU are assisted by Desire2Learn (D2L), which is
one of the few course management systems (CMS) such as Blackboard, Sakai, and Moodle.
CMS is an online application through which instructors and students can exchange course
materials such as lecture notes, assignments, and measures of student performance. CMS also
supports communication between instructor and students and among students through chatting,
email, announcement posting, and discussion thread. Such educational functions of CMS are
highly valued by both instructors and students3
, and according to a survey in 2007, more than 90%
of all responding U.S. universities and colleges utilize one or more CMS2
.
Various factors affect the student satisfaction with the CMS-mediated learning
experience: student’s anxiety level of computer usage, instructor’s attitude toward the CMS-
mediated teaching, course quality, ease of use (usability) of CMS, and diversity in assessments5
.
Previous study showed that student satisfaction is positively correlated with student’s low
anxiety with computer usage, instructor’s positive attitude toward the CMS-mediated teaching,
high course quality, high usability of CMS, and high variety in assessment methods5
. Among the
factors mentioned above, the current study focused on the perceived ease of use (usability) of

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D2L, because D2L’s usability would directly affect SPSU student’s satisfaction of their learning
as suggested above, and it also affects perceived usefulness of D2L, which in turn affects
student’s willingness to use D2L1,4
. Specifically, the current study examined various student
needs that are not satisfied by the current design of D2L, and suggested design modifications.
Through this attempt, we wanted to share the unmet student needs regarding D2L and discuss
what instructors can do to accommodate those needs.
The current study
A faculty member met two current SPSU students (the first two authors of this paper)
weekly for about an hour for more than three months, and heard about their generic needs as a
student and determined the corresponding needs in D2L. For example, one generic student need
was easy access to instructors’ contact information, which corresponds to finding instructor’s
contact information from the main page of the each course homepage in D2L (this is not
currently available in D2L). Such mapping between generic student needs and the corresponding
needs in D2L was followed by a discussion about what to change in D2L to meet those needs,
which comprises the main body of the current report.
In the beginning of the meeting, we focused on the design of D2L that students see.
However, as the discussion continued, we learned that the interface for instructors should be
modified significantly to encourage instructors to act in a way that accommodates the student
needs. Therefore, many of the design suggestions made in this study are about interface for
instructors only. We also suggested what instructors can currently do to accommodate the unmet
student needs using the current D2L.

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For each design issue addressed below, we reported a generic student need or what
students need from D2L which is followed by design suggestions for D2L, and finally
suggestions for instructors to satisfy the student needs using the current D2L. The first set of
student needs below are about easy access to and sharing of course-related information as well as
schedule management. The second set of student needs are about instruction- or grading-related
issues.
Easy access of instructor contact information
Students need to access the contact information of the instructor easily through D2L.
Currently, on each course homepage in D2L, there is no separate section dedicated to the
instructor’s name and contact information. Therefore, when students need to access the contact
information through D2L, they are required to download a syllabus from D2L, which works only
if the instructor posted a syllabus that includes his/her contact information. To meet such a basic
student need, D2L should arrange a separate section on the course homepage providing the
instructor’s name and contact information. In this contact information section, D2L should
update most of the instructor information such as name, email, office number, office hours, and
so on by cross-referencing the school database to avoid requiring instructors to manually enter
the information multiple times for different courses.
Until we have such section in D2L, what instructors can currently do is to have their
basic information as the first News item on the course homepage in beginning of the semester.
Then, the contact information will be shown in the course homepage until the instructors add
another post to the news. Also, instructors can add a greeting to students along with their contact
information.

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Easy access of course material
Instructors can upload course materials in the Content menu of D2L. Materials in the
Content can be organized effectively by keeping them appropriately in different folders with
different names. However, the current D2L allows instructors to upload individual files in the
Content without locating them in a folder, which can lead to disorganization. A solution to this
problem would be that D2L provides some default folders in the Content with basic names such
as syllabus, lecture notes, study guides, other resources, and so on. Such pre-built folders in the
Content would not only increase consistency across courses but also encourage instructors to be
more organized. Until instructors have the pre-built folders with basic names, they should make
an extra effort for organizing the uploaded contents effectively by creating folders with proper
names. Even a single file such as a syllabus deserves its own folder to increase the search
efficiency for students within the Content.
Another problem of the Content is that materials in each folder are not visible until
students actually open them, which lowers the search efficiency. An obvious solution is to
provide the inner view of a folder when the mouse cursor is hovering over the folder, so that
students can easily figure the nature of the materials contained in each folder without opening
them. Another solution could be providing a search function in D2L with various search scopes
(e.g., within a course), in case students know (part of) the name of the material they are looking
for.
Easy management of schedule
Another generic student need is an efficient schedule management. D2L currently
provides notifications of the due dates of assignments through text and email. However, students

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often do not know how to turn on the notification function or they completely turn off the
function because they get too many repetitive notifications that fill up their message box. D2L
also provides a monthly calendar that highlights days with assignment due dates. A common
downside of these two features (i.e., notifications and the calendar) is to provide notifications of
the near-future assignments only without providing an overview of the whole tasks students need
to handle in a given semester. Solely relying on these features, students may not be fully aware
of the exact due dates of assignments outside of the notification range. Therefore, to better assist
students with their schedule management, D2L should provide a task list that shows all the
assignments and exams in a given semester. The task list should allow students to sort their tasks
by due dates or course names as they prefer. The task list should also have features such as
striking out or removing completed tasks, which would encourage students to check off their
progress. Until instructors have such features in D2L, instructors should provide a list of tasks
students are required to perform in the syllabus. A course schedule that includes all the
assignments and the due dates would be especially useful. Providing an estimated time required
to complete each assignment would help students manage their schedule as well.
To further encourage students to be aware of assignment due dates, instructors can
verbally remind them of the upcoming assignments during class. However, instructors may
forget to do this at an appropriate point in time. Potentially, D2L can send a reminder of the
upcoming due dates to instructors through a text right before a class, so that they can offer a
verbal reminder of the due dates in time.
Student Forum
Students may want to ask questions regarding the course to peer classmates rather than
instructors. For example, they may want to ask other students what was covered in a class they

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missed or request help with assignments. Currently, students can meet such need only through
contacting their close classmates or asking other students around them right before or after a
class. However, some students may not know other classmates’ contact information, or they may
be too shy or embarrassed to ask in person. To assist such students, D2L can provide an online
discussion space (which we call Student Forum) for questioning and answering among students.
To avoid disorganization, D2L may provide different discussion topics in the Student Forum. For
example, every time the instructor posts a new assignment in the Dropbox or Quiz, D2L
automatically generates a corresponding folder in the Student Forum with the same name as the
assignment so that students can use the folder only for the discussion regarding the specific
assignment.
Student Forum should be especially useful for classes without any teaching assistants.
Instructors often receive emails with simple questions regarding class administration or
assignments that teaching assistants or even other students in the class can answer. Student
Forum in D2L may encourage students to seek answers from other students first, which in turn
reduce the simple student requests instructors receive.
Student Forum can be utilized as a work table for a group project. Often, students
working on a group project utilize online applications such as Google doc or Dropbox to share
files. However, such system requires students who are new to the system go through the sign-up
process and learn how to use the system. Since all SPSU students are already members of D2L,
providing a folder under the Student Forum exclusively for each group’s members should be an
efficient alternative to using the commercial file-sharing applications.
Until instructors have such features in D2L, they can pair students to each other in the
beginning of the semester and encourage them to share their contact information in case they

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need help from each other. Also, instructors can generate folders with specific topic names in the
Discussion, to encourage communications among students about the topics.
The student needs mentioned above were about easy access to and sharing of course-
related information as well as schedule management. The second set of student needs below are
about instruction- or grading-related issues.
Rubrics and example assignments
For most assignments, students need a rubric showing the grading criteria. Unfortunately,
instructors often forget or refuse to add a rubric when they generate assignments on D2L. To
encourage instructors to post rubrics, D2L could provide a reminder of attaching rubrics
whenever instructors generate assignments without any rubrics. Currently, D2L provides a link,
rubric, in the Dropbox or Quiz, with which instructors can upload rubrics when they generate
assignments. However, D2L does not send any reminder regarding rubrics when any rubric is not
attached along assignments or quizzes.
Another student need regarding assignments is having good and bad examples of
assignments with which they can better understand how the rubric is applied for grading. When it
is appropriate, instructors can satisfy this need simply by posting good and bad previous
assignments. To encourage instructors to post example assignments, D2L can add a link in the
Dropbox or Quiz, with which they can post good and bad example assignments. Until instructors
have such features in D2L (i.e., reminder of the rubric and example assignment links), they
should make an extra effort to post a detailed rubric for each assignment as well as good and bad
example assignments that show how the rubric is applied to assignments.

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Draft submission
Students striving to succeed often want to submit drafts to instructors to know their
assignments are headed in the right direction. Instructors should also encourage such behavior to
better guide students early rather than giving low scores to students who provided poor
assignments as their final work. As a way to encourage students to submit drafts, D2L should
add a checkbox such as mark as draft checkbox in the Dropbox, with which students can notify
their instructors that the submitted work is a draft and they are waiting for feedback about the
work. To keep students from submitting drafts too late, the checkbox could disappear a certain
amount of time (e.g., a week) before the assignment is due.
Until we have such checkbox in the Dropbox, instructors should allow students to post
assignments multiple times in the Dropbox and provide feedback for the initially posted ones that
were marked as drafts by students. However, the rounds of draft submission followed by
instructor feedback may increase the workload of the instructors. Therefore, instructors may
direct students to indicate how they have addressed the instructor’s initial feedback in their
subsequent work, based on which instructors can grade the work.
Automatic plagiarism check
Plagiarism is a big worry for both students and instructors. Currently, instructors can
check the plagiarism level of a student work once students submit the work, and then students
may be informed about the result by the instructor. However, if students can receive automatic
feedback from D2L regarding their plagiarism level when they submit their work to the Dropbox,
students may fix their work by themselves early to avoid serious consequences resulting from the

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plagiarism. D2L can also show a link to the school’s writing center next to the Dropbox, where
students can sign up for an appointment to get writing related assistance, including plagiarism
check. Until instructors have such features in D2L, they should encourage students to turn in
drafts, and provide feedback regarding their plagiarism level. Providing an expected score based
on the draft would be also informative for students and may encourage them to revise their work
for a better score.
Notification of the status of late assignments
Instructors occasionally allow students to turn in late assignments. However, after the late
submission, D2L does not provide any feedback to students regarding the status of their work
until the instructor posts a score. Until that time, students may keep wondering about the status
of their assignment anxiously, especially when they feel embarrassed asking about their work.
Therefore, it would be helpful for students if D2L notifies the status of the late assignment:
whether the assignment was opened by the instructor, when it was opened, and how much time
the instructor had needed to post a score after he/she opened other students’ assignments that
have been submitted in time. At the same time, instructors should get a reminder of the late
assignment from D2L if it has not been opened for a while (e.g., two weeks). Students can be
notified of this reminder as well, so that they know that the instructor got a reminder regarding
their late assignment. Until we have such notification features in D2L, instructors should pay
extra attention to grade late assignments promptly.
Midterm grade and final letter grade
Students want to know how well they are doing in the class throughout the semester, not
only after the final exam. Therefore, D2L should inform the calculated letter grade of each

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student at least once in the middle of a semester based on the assignments and exams
administered until that point in time. Then, students would have a better understanding of how
much effort they should make in the remaining half of the semester.
To release final letter grades through D2L, instructors have to go through somewhat
confusing steps: manually setting up a custom grading scheme and applying the scheme by
checking certain boxes in D2L that are hard to find. Until instructors have better D2L interface
for easily providing midterm and final letter grades, they need to calculate the grades semi-
automatically using another software (e.g., excel) and inform students of their performance
throughout the semester.
Conclusion
D2L needs significant modifications to improve its usability, especially for the
instructor’s interface. However, even without any modifications mentioned, instructors can
provide a better learning experience to students by following the guidelines addressed above that
are also summarized in the table below (see the right most column).
Summary Table
Generic student
needs
The same needs on
D2L
Suggestions for D2L design
change
What instructors can do
Easy access of
instructor contact
information
Instructor contact
information in the
main page of class
homepage
Add contact information
section in the course
homepage that automatically
fills from other databases
Add contact information as
the first News item
Easy access of
course material
Well-organized
course materials
distributed across
folders with proper
names
Provide default folders
(syllabus, lecture notes,
study guides, other
resources) with the inner-
view feature
Generate folders with
proper names and organize
materials using the folders

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Easy management
of schedule
Knowing all
assignments and
exams for the
semester
Provide a customizable task
list showing all assignments
and exams for the semester /
Due date notification to
instructors via text messages
Provide a task list in the
syllabus with due dates and
estimated times, and
verbally remind students of
upcoming tasks
Sharing
information
among students
An online place
(Student Forum) for
communication
among students
Online discussion spaces for
student Q&A that are
automatically generated upon
new assignments
Pair up students in the
beginning of a semester
and encourage them to
exchange contact
information / Generating
discussion topics under the
Discussion
Seeing rubric and
good and bad
example
assignments
Having rubric and
good and bad
example
assignments on D2L
Provide a reminder of the
rubric and a link for posting
example assignments
Upload rubrics and
example assignments upon
assignment generation
Submitting drafts
to check the
adequacy of their
work
A way to indicate
the status of the
work as a draft
Add a mark as draft
checkbox in the Dropbox
Encourage students to
submit drafts in the
Dropbox folder and provide
early feedback
Plagiarism check
of essay
Automatic
plagiarism check
through D2L
The Dropbox runs plagiarism
check and informs the
plagiarism level
Check plagiarism level
using the feature in the
Dropbox and inform
students of their plagiarism
level
Check the status
of late assignment
Notifications
regarding the status
of late assignment
Notify students when a late
assignment is opened and
how long the instructor
would take to grade it
Should respond
immediately when they
received a late assignment
and promptly graded it
Midterm grade
and final letter
grade
Midterm grade and
final letter grade
posted on D2L
Provide a midterm grade
based on tasks administered
until the point / automatic
conversion of the final scores
to letter grades at the end of
the semester
Semi-automatically
calculate letter grades (e.g.,
using excel) in the middle
of a semester / create a
custom letter-grading
scheme for final letter
grades

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Reference

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MIS Quarterly, 13, 319–339.
2. Hawkins, B. L., & Rudy, J. A. (2006). Fiscal year 2005 summary report. Retrieved from
https://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/pub8004.pdf
3. Lonn, S., & Teasley, S. D. (2009). Saving time or innovating practice: Investigating perceptions and uses of
Learning Management Systems. Computers & Education, 53(3), 686–694.
4. Pituch, K. A., & Lee, Y. K. (2006). The influence of system characteristics on e-learning use. Computers &
Education, 47, 222–244.
5. Sun, P-C, Tsai, R. J., Finger, G., Chen, Y-Y, & Yeh, D. (2008). What drives a successful e-Learning? An
empirical investigation of the critical factors influencing learner satisfaction. Computers & Education,
50(4), 1183–1202.

SoTL Paper_by Kyung Hun Jung

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