LEARN to replace UW-ACE in January 2012

University of Waterloo is moving to a new learning management system (LMS) in the Winter 2012 term.  UW-ACE (Angel) will be replaced by LEARN (Desire2Learn). Learn was piloted with 11 courses in the Spring Term and about 225 courses in Fall Term 2011.  As of January 3, 2012 all courses for the Winter 2012 term will use LEARN. To learn more about the background and why we need to change, see:
http://av.uwaterloo.ca/uwace/lms_review/index.html

LEARN has all of the same basic functionality as UW-ACE including posting files, links, dropboxes, discussion boards, quizzes, surveys, teams for group projects/collaboration, grades, and more.

Instructors can either start fresh with a clean slate or have content from courses converted from UW-ACE to LEARN. If an instructor plans to use material from another instructor, they need permission from the instructor who taught the course previously since course materials are the intellectual property of the instructor who created them.

The end of term is approaching quickly. Please keep in mind:

• as with UW-ACE, courses on LEARN are not automatically created - courses must be requested. Send requests to Scott Anderson
• an overnight process is required to run to create course shells, so courses are typically created within 24-48h of the request being received.
• instructors who want material converted from ACE to LEARN should contact Scott Anderson soon. Conversions can take up to one week to complete. It is a multi-step process and conversions aren't always clean. IST currently has resources to help fix conversion issues, but time and resources are limited and as it gets later in the term we may not have resources to help fix conversion issues.
• the university will be closed from Dec 24-Jan 2 inclusive, so support will NOT be available during that time.

Deadlines

December 16, 2011 - DEADLINE for requests to CONVERT courses from ACE to LEARN. For requests received after December 16, we cannot guarantee that material will be converted from ACE before the university shuts down on December 23.

December 21, 2011 - DEADLINE for requests to start with a CLEAN SLATE. For requests received after December 21, we cannot guarantee that courses will be created before the university closes on Dec 23.

Course requests received on or after December 22, 2011 will be processed in January.

Training

Getting Started -- There are introductory training sessions each week until the university closes. Attending a training session is strongly recommended. 

For a full list of training sessions see:
http://cte.uwaterloo.ca/events_registration/index.html?tab=1

• click on "Getting Started in D2L" for intro training sessions

Instructors can register for "Getting Started in D2L" sessions via the HR system:

1. login to  http://www.hr.uwaterloo.ca/myhrinfo/myhrinfo.html
2. click "Self Service"
3. click "Learning and Development"
4. click on "Request Training Enrollment."
5. click "Search by Course Number > search for "CTE656"
6. If you have problems registering, contact Verna Keller from CTE (vkeller@uwaterloo.ca, x33857)

Drop-in sessions

There are also drop-in sessions each week in EV1-242 staffed by CTE Liaisons. Drop-in sessions are intended to answer questions as you begin to play with D2L (like "office hours") -- you're welcome to drop in for as short or long as you like.

For a full list of drop-in sessions see:
http://cte.uwaterloo.ca/events_registration/index.html?tab=1

• click on "Drop-in Sessions for LEARN (D2L Learning Management System)"