Desire2Learn 9.0
Tips for Creating & Organizing Course Content
The following tips have been developed to help you keep your course content organized. These are useful as you create content and will help make copying course components to subsequent semesters easier and less time consuming for you. The following areas are addressed:
Course Dates
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If possible, insert course dates in only one place in your D2L course.
For example, create an HTML document that contains the course calendar or add your course dates to the Schedule tool.
File Naming
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Use a generic naming scheme when naming course files.
For example, instead of using Fall_2005_syllabus.doc, use syllabus.doc.
This naming scheme will allow you to upload and replace older files with newer ones without having to recreate links in content. A generic naming scheme will also keep your files organized and to a minimum in the D2L files area.
HINT: Leave dates off any individual course files, including Word, PowerPoint, PDF, etc. -
Avoid spaces and most special characters in file names. Use the hyphen or underscore to break up parts of the file name to make the name more readable.
For example, use course_schedule.doc rather than course schedule.doc.
Discussions
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When creating discussion forums/topics, add directions in the Description area of either the Topic or Forum instead of posting a message that includes the directions. Unlike Topics and Forums, messages are not copied when you copy course components.
Course Organizational Scheme
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If possible, do not organize your content area by date. Use units or another category.
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Keep in mind that course terms may not always be the same number of weeks. Or, you might want to teach the course during a shorter term (e.g., during Winterim).
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When teaching during a shorter term, you can hide content that you will not use during the current term. By doing so, that content will still be available when copying components in the future.
Use of HTML
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Create topics in HTML if they will be updated frequently.
HTML course files can be edited and saved directly in D2L. Word documents, on the other hand, must be edited locally and uploaded. -
Save a copy of commonly used News items, which have been created in HTML, to your H: or S: drive.
When you re-offer the course, you can copy and paste these News items. If you copy all News items, on the other hand, you will have to weed through all previous items to find the ones you want to use.
