MELA Meeting Minutes 2003 - 2017

1. Mark Smith presented a feature comparison between D2L and Blackboard and gave a copy of the presentation given at the Deans/Chief Academic Officers meeting. Association members discussed features of D2L that were non-existent in Bb. Mr. Smith discussed features and stability of the D2L assessment tool including password protecting tests, the quiz event log, and the ability to prevent printing, paging, and right clicking on quizzes. Mr. Blackburn expressed concern about whether or not D2L would begin to experience problems with assessments etc. when there is a larger load on the system. 2. Mr. Smith discussed the excellent customer service provided by D2L. Others mentioned that the level of customer support could be a result of their size since they are relatively small. 3. Mr. Smith reminded association members to consider the topic being taught when making an evaluation of D2L. Some courses, by design, are not likely to use many features in a learning management system. 4. Mr. Smith asked association members to send comments or additions to the comparison chart he presented. 5. Association members expressed a desire to obtain more D2L training from within the association. Mr. Smith offered to conduct the D2L training. The date has yet to be determined for such training. 6. Mr. Pugh reminded the association that 63 seats will be made available in D2L to each institution for the fall. If seats are not going to be used, please contact Mr. Pugh. Fictitious students and instructors must be counted in the 63 seat limit. 7. Association members discussed the clumsiness of imports from Bb into D2L, but the relative ease of redesigning imported courses. Mr. Smith agreed to include tips on importing at the training session.

B.

Data Entry on the Enrollment Tool

1. Mr. Pugh suggested that association members talk with registrars/counselors and remind them to include only names in the student information form during registration—no spaces, special characters, or suffixes. Double last names should be put together without the hyphen, or only one of the last names should be used. Course Archives 1. Mr. Burnett showed association members the new feature of archiving courses that are not being taught in a particular term. Archived courses will appear in red and will appear in an archived course list. Mr. Blackburn requested that archived courses be removed from the course lists when archived. Mr. Burnett will make the change.

C.

2. In addition, Mr. Burnett will set the count of course offerings to show only active courses.

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