The Scoop on D2L and MyMotlow Banner (Part One)

By Anthony Czelusniak

Motlow Buzz Staff Writer

            SMYRNA – D2L and MyMotlow Banner are creative and helpful tools for faculty members and students, but technical challenges pop up unexpectedly from time to time.

Dean of Digital First Learning Terry Durham and Motlow State Chief Information Officer Cindy Logan recently provided information on how they manage D2L and MyMotlow Banner – working out the unexpected kinks. In part one of this article, the focus is on D2L.

            D2L, or sometimes referred to as Desire2Learn, is a service provided by a multinational company. Because of this, Durham, who manages D2L for Motlow, must maintain the service without having complete control over it.

 “We have to rely on others to make changes or improvements to the platform,” he said. “However, if we owned the software then we would need to be involved directly with maintaining and updating the software. This additional position needed to make changes in-house would be expensive to say the least.”

            Despite the lack of total control over the software, Durham and his team still work hard to ensure the software is ready for use at any time of the day during the semester. His job is made harder by unexpected changes to the software that happen. This happened last semester when the visual layout of D2L was changed drastically without warning.

            “We have had edits performed on course shells that should have not been done,” he continued. “We’re currently working on this not being an issue in the future. Instructors and students become very concerned when this happens, and I do not blame them at all.”

    Durham added, “I have contacts at D2L that I stay in-touch with, so if anything seems out of the ordinary, then we are on the phone or email asking what is happening beyond Motlow State Community College.”

            When asked about the major influx of students to Motlow over the past few years, Durham was confident that an increase in the student population won’t be a problem.

            “We have not had any issues with the system becoming overloaded, nor do I foresee that happening,” Durham said.

            He mentioned that he and his staff are working to add new features for instructors that will make teaching even easier. A new D2L training module for students will help familiarize users with the software.

            Durham explained, “If the students knew more of the basic items or terminology when emailing D2L for help, it would help us tremendously.”

Durham also shared some information on how the email system inside D2L works.

            “If you email your professor’s D2L account from your Motlow State Community College email account, the message will be returned,” Durham noted. “IT people call this ‘bouncing back.’ If you receive an email from your professor’s D2L account, then you must log in or be logged into D2L to respond to that message. The outside link to convey that message back outside of D2L is turned off. This is a [Tennessee Board of Regents] policy that is to be followed, and we can’t turn this on. So please make sure you check your D2L email account as well as your Motlow State Community College email account.”

            Students and faculty who need assistance can contact the Help Desk at Extension 1510 (on-campus) or (931) 393-1510 Option 1 (off-campus) or helpdesk@mscc.edu.

            Stay tuned for part two of this article.