| Feature | D2L | eCollege |
| Announcements | The Announcements tool enables you to create news items that help communicate course updates, changes, and new information to your users quickly and effectively. Since My Home or Course Home is the first page that users often see when they log in or access their courses, the Announcement widget is a good area for displaying important information.
Announcements can be scheduled to appear/disappear based on dates, and also can have release conditions attached. Announcements can also include Attachments, and include a Record Audio or Video option. Users can setup preferences to receive SMS or Email notifications when new Announcements are posted. Users would otherwise see the latest Announcements post in the Announcements widget within their courses/My Home. Announcements can have quicklinks to take student directly to specific location in Content. Announcements can have a start/end date, attachments, record audio, and release conditions. Users can subscribe to the RSS feed for announcements, and/or set up SMS or email notifications |
Announcements are posted within Course Home within a course.
Announcements can be scheduled to appear/disappear based on dates. |
| Attendance | The Attendance tool enables instructors to create registers that track attendance for activities within their course. Instructors can track attendance for any number of activities and customize their registers to suit your needs.
Use the Attendance tool to create sessions to track attendance and define attendance statuses for activities. You can assign grades for user attendance, view attendance results, and track users that have poor attendance. |
This feature is not available in eCollege. |
| Audio | Audio Recording is available in HTML Editors. Users can record audio from within their browsers. Users can also upload their own audio from their computer to embed, or include embed code generated from a third-party site, such as SoundCloud. | Users can create audio files outside of eCollege, upload their content to a third party, such as SoundCloud and embed them into a Visual Editor or link to the file within the Visual Editor (users would download the file and listen on their computer if the file is linked). Recording within the system is not available. |
| Blog | There is not a Journal tool in D2L, however, there is a Blog tool. Blogs are public to other users in the platform, or can be set to private, which means only the user who wrote the blog can view it. The Assignments tool would need to be utilized for entries that are private only between the student and instructor. THIS TOOL IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE MAY 2021. | A blog tool is not available in eCollege, although a Journal tool is available. See “Journal” below for more information. |
| Bookmarks | This widget is used to bookmark pages in course content. The bookmark widget is typically located on course offering homepages. Users with all roles have access to this feature. Bookmarks are used for easy access to course material users might want to navigate back to easily. | This feature is not available in eCollege. |
| Broken Links | The Broken Link Viewer stores a list of broken links found on your site. A broken link error occurs when a browser attempts to access a page or item that does not exist. Link verification is done on text links, images, plug-ins, backgrounds, style sheets, scripts, Java applets, and more. The Broken Link Viewer contains a continuously updated list of URLs. This is accessible to all Professor and TA roles. | This feature is not available in eCollege. |
| Bulk edit | You can edit multiple items at one time. For example: Edit Quizzes: names, categories, active or not, attempts allowed. For Assignments tool: Edit names, categories, date availability (start/end/due dates) | This feature is not available in eCollege. |
| Calendar | Calendar items can include custom events or can be connected to course content. Access dates can be set to display in the calendar when creating items such as quizzes, assignments and discussions. Use Course Admin>Manage Dates to control items included in calendar display. | There is no calendar display in the course. Course Scheduler is available to instructors, though, to manage student access to course content. |
| Chat | The Chat tool is a real-time, text-based collaboration tool. You can use the Chat tool to brainstorm ideas, hold a question and answer period, have a debate or discussion, or organize a remote study group. As opposed to other collaboration tools, such as Discussions, Chat conversations occur in real-time.
There are two types of chats:
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The Chat tool enables you and the students in your course to communicate with each other in real time. This tool can be tied to the gradebook, and allows for both a main course chat, group chats, and private chats (set up by instructor). All chats have a log viewable by all users in the course (except private chats). There are currently compatibility issues with many browsers with this tool. |
| Checklists | A checklist contains important or required assignments, readings, or other items to complete. Each checklist contains one or more categories, into which checklist items are organized. For example, you might have an “Assignments” checklist with categories for written assignments and quizzes, both of which could have multiple items that you need to complete. These are created by Professor or TA roles with authoring abilities within the content modules. They allow for tracking of required tasks, can use release conditions to items. Student progress visible to instructor. | This feature is not available in eCollege. |
| Classlist (D2L)/ Course Enrollments (eCollege) | From Instructor perspective: D2L Classlist shows the list of users enrolled in the course, their role, and Last Access date. Send emails (to all users/individuals), page users (individual or select multiple users), see an individual’s progress, blog, group enrollments.
From Student perspective: Use the Classlist tool to view who’s enrolled in your course, check users’ online statuses, send email or instant messages, view shared locker files, and read their blogs. |
eCollege Course Enrollment shows the list of users enrolled, role, date enrolled, and their email address. |
| Collaboration | Collaboration in D2L can take place within Discussions, Chat, or the Virtual Classroom tool. | Collaboration in eCollege can take place in Discussions or Chat. |
| Competencies | Competencies help track information about the knowledge, skills and abilities learners acquire as they participate in courses or other learning experiences. Competencies are an inventory of skills and knowledge, rather than measures of how good learners are at something. Other vocabulary used to describe competencies can include “proficiencies”, “learning outcomes”, “standards”, “objectives”, and “skills”.
Can be linked to items in course. Can be created at higher org level and shared down. |
Learning Outcomes Manager is no longer utilized at TCU. |
| Content Copy Tool | See Import/Export/Copy Components below for more information. | The Faculty Course Copy tool provides instructors with the ability to copy their own courses or selected content items from courses. |
| Content Items | Content Items within Modules are referred to as Topics. These can be Uploaded Files, Video or Audio, Create Files (this gives you a Visual Editor to create content), Links to a URL, new: Checklists, Discussions, Assignments, Quizzes, or Surveys, or existing: Chats, Checklists, Discussions, Assignments, External Learning Tools, Quizzes, Self Assessments or Surveys. | In eCollege, content that sits within Course Home or a Unit. on the left-hand navigation is called a Content Item. These items can be text/multimedia type (Visual Editor), Microsoft Document, Exam, Threaded Discussion, or Web Content Upload (PDF/web files). |
| Course Builder/Course Design Accelerator/ Instructional Design Wizard | Course creation support tools: Course Builder interface is straightforward and efficient, transforming the process of course design and set-up from multiple steps in different tools into simple one-step actions. Whether you’re starting from scratch or updating existing courses, Course Builder is an excellent tool for planning and organizing course materials. Course Design Accelerator provides task-based direction and assistance for your course design. This is useful for multi-disciplined course design teams and individuals who are either designing new courses or re-factoring existing courses. Course Design Accelerator provides the means to structure, organize, and incorporate Learning Environment tools in a pedagogically-sound manner. It achieves this by incorporating instructional design best practices to align objectives, methods, and assessment. Instructional Design Wizard provides a step-by-step process for defining course learning objectives, incorporating assessment activities, identifying appropriate instructional methods and activities, and promotes alignment between learning experiences and Bloom’s Taxonomy. |
This feature is not available in eCollege. |
| Course Home | When you enter a course, the Course Homepage displays announcements and various widgets such as “updates.” Instructor can choose widgets to use on the homepage layout. | Course Home displays Announcements, Course Introduction, What’s New and Course Checklist. It also serves as a “unit” in the course that can contain course content. |
| Course Schedule | Course Schedule displays all events within the course that were set either through Calendar tool, or upon Content creation (example: Quizzes scheduled for x date/time will display on Schedule for that date/time). | Students can see the “Course Checklist” on Course Home, which displays due dates for content items. It does not, however, allow for manual creation of dates. |
| Delete in Content area | There are two types of delete in D2L – remove link from content (leaves in Manage Files area) or from course (removes link from content and files from course). | Deleting a content item in eCollege will keep any uploaded files in the File Manager. The item will be removed. |
| Demo Student | Faculty can select “View as Student” to experience their course as a student would. This will allow them to test out content, etc. without needing to fully log in with another account. | Faculty in eCollege have to request a demo student to be enrolled in their course (separate login) to view the course as a student to test out content, grading, etc. |
| Discussions | In D2L, these are called Discussions. They can be accessed either from the Discussion tool or from within Modules. Forums, which must be created by a Professor/TA role first, are used to organize the discussion topics into categories. A course can have multiple forums and topics, but you must have a forum before you can create a topic.
Example: Weekly Discussion (FORUM) might contain a Week One Discussion: Introduce Yourself (TOPIC). A student response would be called a Thread. Instructor can allow anonymous posts, require moderator approval for posts, and require users to post first prior to seeing peer responses. Discussion can be added to the calendar with visibility settings, restrictions for groups and sections, and release conditions can be attached. Groups can automatically have their own Forums created for collaboration. |
Threaded Discussions are added as Content items within Course Home or a Unit. In order to have a respond button, Topics must be created with a discussion prompt. Students post their Responses to the Topic and their peers within the Threaded Discussion content item.
Users can be required to post first prior to seeing peer responses. Instructors must copy a Threaded Discussion and assign it to a group if they choose to separate their class into different discussion groups. |
| Doc Sharing | There is not a separate doc sharing tool in D2L; instead, instructors can share documents via Content Modules. If an instructor needs students to post documents for other students to view, they can add a Discussion for this purpose. | The Doc Sharing is a tool within eCollege where faculty can upload documents to share with students. Students also have the ability to upload documents here. |
| Dropbox / Assignments Tool | This tool is called “Assignments” in D2L. Assignments allows Instructors to see users’ submission times, download assignment folders to your computer, view submissions with the document viewer on the Evaluate Submission page, associate assignment folders to rubrics and competencies, and return submissions with grades and feedback. You can view users’ submissions and submission dates in the Folder Submissions area. This eliminates the need to collect assignments and helps you track when files were submitted. Create categories to group and organize your assignment folders. You can also restrict access to assignment folders by date and time, group membership, or special access permissions. Each folder’s Folder Submissions area has search and filter options that enable you to find users’ submitted files by user name, submission history, and amount of feedback they have received. Feedback can be text, audio or video. | The Dropbox tool allows Instructors to see users’ submission times, download dropbox submissions to your computer, associate dropbox baskets to rubrics, and return submissions with grades and feedback. You can view users’ submissions and submission dates in the Dropbox tool, sorted by basket, or student. |
| Email in D2L is simply an STMP gateway. Email sent through the system will be received in the user’s TCU email inbox. Replies must be generated from TCU email – not within D2L. |
Email in eCollege is simply an STMP gateway. Email sent through the system will be received in the user’s TCU email inbox. Replies must be generated from TCU email – not within eCollege. |
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| Enable/Disable Tools | The nav bar will be set globally for the campus. Faculty can hide tools they are not using, by selecting Course Admin>Tools and then set any tools they wish to hide in their course to “inactive.” | Instructors can Enable/Disable tools from the toolbar within Course Admin>Enable/Disable Tools. |
| Enrollments | The Koehler Center staff will manage enrollments into D2L. Details to be determined. | Enrollments are managed by the Koehler Center . Enrolled Student and Faculty assigned are auto-loaded by daily files handling add/drops incrementally throughout the day (not in real time). TA and special enrollments are handled manually by the Koehler Center staff. |
| ePortfolio | ePortfolio is a personal portfolio tool for storing, organizing, reflecting on, and sharing items that represent your learning. You can include items such as documents, graphics, audio files, videos, presentations, and course work to demonstrate your improvement or mastery in certain areas.
You can control what items you want to include in your portfolio, how they are organized, and who you want to share them with. When you share items with your peers, mentors, or potential employers, you can give them permission to view items, edit items, see or add comments, and see or add assessments to receive feedback. Access is retained after graduating. |
This feature is not available in eCollege. |
| Frequently Asked Questions | The FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) tool enables instructors to provide a list of common questions with answers that users might have when using Learning Environment or accessing a course. FAQ questions and answers are organized into categories, and all questions and answers must belong to a category.
We recommend you create categories that group questions and answers by topic, or by similar contexts in which users often have similar questions. For example, some categories you might create are General Information, Technical Issues, Assignment Folder Submission Policies, Research and Citation Style Requirements, and How to Find Grades. |
This feature is not available in eCollege. |
| Global Announcements | TCU Online Administrative team can use Global Announcements to post news items across your organization. The Global Announcements tool enables Admins to add announcement postings to all course offerings simultaneously. This will be used to make announcements that affect all system users, such as scheduled system maintenance or a weather-related school closing. | eCollege has the ability for administrators to post notices on the tcuglobal.edu homepage, however, these are not emailed out. Messages can be emailed to users, however, they will not be posted within the system. |
| Glossary | The Glossary tool allows Instructors to store terms and their definitions. Each course has its own glossary and you can populate this with explanations of concepts and terms that are relevant to the course. Users can then access this glossary and search for particular terms. | This feature is not available in eCollege. |
| Grades | Use the Grades tool to set up and manage grade books and schemes to evaluate your students’ assignments and tests. Set up a grading formula to calculate grades; determine which coursework assignments you wish to grade; associate grade items with other tools; control when grades are released to students, along with how much grade information they see. You can attach rubrics and release conditions and associate learning objectives with grade items. Allows for partial points. Grades can be calculated by points, weights, or formula. Individual Grade Items can be setup as Numeric, Select-box, Pass/Fail, Formula, Calculated, or Text. Custom grading scales (called Schemes) can be integrated. | Gradebook allows for setting up course content, tools or custom items as gradable. Rubrics can be attached to grade items. |
| Groups | Groups in D2L classes can be set up as:
Content can be assigned to specific groups, without the need for creating separate content items. Groups also have a locker where they can share files, group discussion forums, and assignments such as Assignment submissions, can be graded by group (one student uploads document, instructor grades and all users will get grade pushed to them.) Grade can be manually altered if certain students deserve higher/lower grade in the group. |
Groups in eCollege are set up by Instructors and users manually added. Content that is to be shared with an individual group, must be added as a separate content item in the course. All groups have their own doc sharing area, chat, and email list. |
| Import/Export/Copy Components Tool | In D2L, Professor roles have access to the Import/Export/Copy tool from within “course admin.” This tool allows Professors to: Import components created outside of the Learning Environment, Copy components between course offerings, and Export components to be used outside of the Learning Environment. | See Course Copy Tool above for more information. |
| Instant Messaging | The Instant Messaging tool is an online messaging tool for sending text messages to classmates and other members of your Learning Environment. A page is quicker and less formal than an email. Use the Instant Messaging tool to quickly see which of your classmates are online, get an answer from a friend, or to send a reminder or notice. | This feature is not available in eCollege. |
| Intelligent agents | Intelligent agents monitor a course to find activity that matches criteria that you set. The criteria that the agents search for are login activity, course activity, and release conditions in Learning Environment.
Example uses for intelligent agents include: – Emailing users with grades below a certain level. |
This feature is not available in eCollege. |
| Journal | This feature is not available in D2L. See “Blog” above for more information about a similar tool. We also recommend instructors create Single-User Groups for a Journal tool. | The Journal tool in eCollege is place for a student to write an entry that only the instructor can see, unless they set the entry to private, in which case, only the student can see the entry. Journal entries cannot be shared with other students. |
| Learning Object Repository (LOR) | Learning Repository is an online library for storing, managing, and sharing your learning resources (learning objects). A learning object can be a quiz, a presentation, an image, a video, or any other kind of document or file you use to create course content and learning materials for online learning.
When you publish your learning objects to Learning Repository, you tag those objects with metadata to classify and organize your learning objects and make them easily searchable for others. You can classify learning objects according to defined learning standards or goals. You can also review, rate, and provide feedback on learning objects to ensure high quality online resources. |
This feature is not available in eCollege. |
| Locale | Options regarding Locale are still To Be Determined in D2L. | Instructors can select various locales, such as English, Spanish or French for their courses, which sets a full immersion experience within the course for their students. |
| Locker | Use the Locker tool to upload and store files in Learning Environment. Locker enables you to upload files from your PC, or to create new HTML files. There are two types of Lockers:
Personal Locker: Your personal locker area is not course-specific. You can access the locker from anywhere in Learning Environment and store all of your files together. Group Locker: Group lockers are restricted locker areas where members of a group can share files. Any group member can modify files posted in group locker areas. Group lockers have the same options as regular lockers with the following exceptions: The option to make locker files public is not available. |
This feature is not available in eCollege. The closest parallel is the Doc Sharing tool. See “Doc Sharing” above for more information. |
| Manage Dates | The Manage Dates tool enables instructors to view, edit and offset the date availability, and set the Calendar status of all Content topics and modules, Discussion topics and forums, Assignment folders, Grades categories and items, Announcements items, and quizzes in your course from one central location.
These course objects display in a grid that you can sort by any of the column headings. You can also filter the grid by specific tool and use advanced filter options to work with smaller sets of objects. If you filter your course objects, any bulk changes you make apply only to the filtered results. This enables you to update multiple availability dates based on specific criteria. In addition to managing dates, you can open each course object in a new window by clicking on its name. This launches the object’s edit page where you can edit additional properties for that object without leaving the Manage Dates tool. |
Course Scheduler is available to instructors in eCollege to control access dates, due dates, and gradebook review dates. This is done for the course in Course Admin>Course Scheduler, or per item by selecting the item, Author, Toolbox, then Edit Schedule. |
| Manage Files | This is an Instructor tool: The Manage Files tool is a file management system for your course. You can use this tool to organize and upload files associated with your course offering. We recommend that you organize your files into folders, creating a folder for each module of content. The functions you can perform in Manage Files can be divided into the following two categories: 1) Organizing and managing files and folders. Perform basic tasks such as creating, editing, deleting, uploading, moving files and folders, and zipping and unzipping files. 2) Creating topics from your files. Create topics using files from your course content structure. | This tool is similar to File Manager in eCollege. File Manager enables you (instructors) to upload files into your course rather than uploading files directly into content items. Additionally, you can create new folders within File Manager and organize them to follow the same structure as your course. |
| Mobile | Access via tablets and smart phones to interact with course. Apps available: Brightspace Pulse, Assignment Grader (iPad), and Binder (iPad and Android Tablet app and web access on all other devices) | eCollege can be accessed via tcuglobal.edu on all devices, however the full site is not optimized for mobile viewing. An mSite, m.tcuglobal.edu is available, however features are limited. The Courses App is available on mobile devices and tablets, also with limited features. |
| Notifications | The Notifications tool enables you to:
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This feature is not available in eCollege. |
| Password Reset | Users can select “Forgot your password?” to have a password reset link emailed to them. | Users can select “Forgot your password?” to have a password reset link emailed to them. |
| Polls | There is no polls tool within courses; surveys could be utilized instead. Polls are available in Virtual Classroom. See Virtual Classroom below for more information. | This feature is not available in eCollege. |
| Quicklinks | Quicklinks within the visual editor enable instructors to link to tools such as quizzes, discussions, assignments, URLs and files. | “Add a link” in the Visual Editor enables instructors to link to content or files, tools or URLs. |
| Quizzes | The Quizzes tool enables you to create and manage points-measured assessments. Create and manage quiz questions from the Question Library or the Quizzes tool, and organize quizzes into categories to make it easier to find assessments with similar or related content. Use the quiz preview option to test the accuracy of content and grading before you release a quiz. In a preview, you can answer the questions, view allowed hints, submit the quiz, auto-grade answers, read feedback, and view report results.
Grant different durations of access (for accommodations) for specific users without creating a separate exam. |
The Exam Tool enables you to create and manage points-measured assessments. Create and manage quiz questions from the Question Builder, shuffle questions using Question pools, and share questions between different exams within a course through Test Banks. Other features available: Preview Exam, Preview Graded Exam, and Exam/Question Level Statistics.
Users needing additional time (for accommodations) must have the exam copied for them, groups set up, and the exam assigned to groups. |
| Record audio and video | D2L allows instructors to record audio and video in content areas. Both instructors and students can utilize this tool in discussions and assignments. Instructors can use it in feedback areas, too. | This feature is not available in eCollege. |
| Release conditions | Release conditions allow you to create a custom learning path through the materials in your course. When you attach a release condition to an item, users cannot see that item until they meet the associated condition. For example, you could attach a release condition to the second topic in your course’s content area that would hide that topic until users viewed the topic before it. Or you could create a condition that required users to view a content topic before gaining access to a quiz, or one that required them to post to a discussion topic before they could see a content module.
If you attach multiple conditions to an item, users must meet all conditions before they can access the item. For example, you could require users to visit the first three content topics in a unit before gaining access to an associated quiz. |
eCollege has Path Builder. Instructors can release content in the course based off of grade or submissions (dropbox or quiz) or post (threaded discussion). Units and Content Items can have triggers and conditions set on them. |
| Rubrics | Rubrics are used to evaluate an activity or item based on a predefined set of criteria. They help ensure that activities and items are evaluated fairly and consistently.
Rubrics can be created at the organization, department or course level, but they have to be explicitly shared with courses from a higher level, if desired. Rubrics created at the course level cannot be shared with other courses. There are two types of rubrics: Holistic (single criteria used to assess participants’ overall achievement on an activity or item based on predefined achievement levels) and Analytic (levels of achievement as columns and assessment criteria as rows. Allows you to assess achievements based on multiple criteria using a single rubric. You can assign different weights to different criteria). The following items can be assessed by a rubric: Quiz activity, Survey activity, Assignments activity, Discussion activity, Grade Item activity, Content activity, or Manual Assessment (something not in the online course) activity. |
Rubrics in eCollege are only at the course level, and while you can copy them within a course, you cannot copy them from course to course without fully copying the course over again.
Multiple criterion can be assessed separately on multiple levels. Rubric score can be used as the numeric grade. Once you create content items and make them gradable, you can then create rubrics. Rubrics can be created for course items, course tools, and custom items |
| Sections | When using Sections within a Course Offering, only one offering will exist. All users will be enrolled in this offering and then further enrolled in their specific section. Sections make it easier to organize assistants, assignments, and grades.
For Students: When sections exist for a course, users only see learning materials and users from their own section. It will appear as any other course offering for students; however, they will only be able to access materials, complete activities, and interact with peers that are a part of their section. For Instructors: It will appear as any other course offering for faculty; however, they will only be able to access materials, complete assessments and grading, and interact with classmates in their particular section. The gradebook and other assessment tools will be organized by section. If a student add/drops between sections in a combined shell, there will be no lapse of enrollment or access and grades/data will be preserved. |
A course with multiple sections combined in a shell in eCollege all share the same course shell. All students are listed in one alphabetical list in the gradebook. If a student add/drops between sections in a combined shell, it is likely/possible that the students will lose access due to the Pearson enrollment process randomly sorting the add/drops rather than keeping it chronological.
Faculty wanting to keep their rosters separate in the shell but have one place to update, must utilize Group Management. Content must be added in duplicate and assigned to each group for it to separate the groups/sections in the gradebook. |
| Self Assessments | Self Assessments is a formative assessment tool that enables you to provide students with a series of questions and immediate feedback for responses. Question types available are similar to quizzes; however, student responses are not graded and self assessment questions do not have a points value or difficulty level indication. The omission of numeric evaluation enables students to make reflective learning and course material comprehension their main priorities during a self assessment.
You can set up self assessments as part of your course’s instructional sequence by creating quicklink topics to self assessments in Content. You can also set up quicklinks to self assessments from other places in the course such as in Announcements or Events. Each self assessment belongs to a single course and cannot be shared among other courses unless you copy your course material into another course. |
Not available as a separate tool in eCollege. Normal quizzes can be set up as a self-assessment, and set up as not-graded, if desired. |
| Special Access | Special access allows you to provide alternative content or time limits to individual users or groups of users to accommodate special needs. For example, you can use special access to accommodate individuals who need additional time writing a quiz because of a physical or learning disability or you can use special access to set up a restricted assignment folder for individuals who missed or under-performed on an assignment.
The following tools allow time-restrictions to be set on content and, therefore, use special access to allow alternative time limits:
There are two types of special access:
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In order to assign additional time for assignments, faculty must copy the content item, assign the original and the new content items to groups, and set the time separately for each item. Users have to be added to groups to view the content. Special Access for groups is available for content items only. |
| Surveys | Create surveys and use the statistics tools to monitor current course trends, seek opinions, and assess user satisfaction. Surveys are an excellent way to solicit feedback from participants regarding any aspect of a course. For example, use surveys as a method of collecting course evaluations, mid-year reviews, or researching people’s learning styles and content delivery preferences.
Instant Feedback can be given upon submission. Surveys can be set to be anonymous, required/not required, set the number of attempts, set Release Conditions, and attach Learning Objectives and/or Rubrics. |
This feature is not available in eCollege. |
| Switch Roles | Those in Professor and Teaching Assistant roles can temporarily switch their role from their personal menu to view the course as a Student, for example. | This feature is not available in eCollege. |
| Templates/course design | Options regarding Templates and course Design are still To Be Determined in D2L. | Users can create their own or user Koehler Center designed templates for their text/multimedia content items. These are typically table-based or CSS based to provide a consistent look/feel for course content. |
| TurnItIn Integration | TurnItIn integration details are still To Be Determined in D2L. This will be integrated with the Assignments tool in D2L. | TurnItIn is integrated within the eCollege Dropbox. Faculty can opt to enable it for each dropbox basket and set up their preferences for originality scanning. |
| Units | In D2L, these are called Modules. You must create a module before you can add topics. You can create sub-modules (modules within existing modules) to establish a deeper hierarchy. These are not numbered, so they can be utilized in an order or by type of content, etc. Modules set to Draft status will not appear for students. | In eCollege these are Units, although the standard name can be changed in Course Admin to be anything. They are automatically numbered in the order they appear in the left-hand navigation. Units can be hidden from Students. |
| User Profile | User Profile allows users to share social media profile links, contact information, photos, etc. A profile picture might appear next to your discussion posts, your name in class lists, and ePortfolio contributions. Anything added to a user profile will be visible to other users on the campus. | User Profile only allows for changing a password and email. |
| User Progress | For Instructors: User Progress tracks your learners’ overall progress as a class and individually. See indicators below for what can be tracked.
For Students: The User Progress tool helps you check your progress in a course through tracking course-specific assignments and feedback, and through measuring 9 progress indicators:
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User activity, within the gradebook, shows the number of minutes a user accesses course content or tools. |
| Video | Video Note is available in HTML Editors. Users can record video from within their browsers. Users can also upload their own videos from their computer to embed, or include embed code generated from a third-party site, such as YouTube. | Users can create video outside of eCollege, upload their content to a third party, such as YouTube or Vimeo and embed them into a Visual Editor. Recording within the system is not available. |
| Webliography | There is not a Webliography tool, however, Links tool is very similar. Links shared between and instructor and class can be shared within the Links tool. Links can be ordered by categories, and reordered. Students cannot add links to the tool. | The Webliography tool in eCollege is a place for instructors and students to add links to be shared within the class. Weblinks in the list will appear in one list, however they can be sorted by category. |
| Whiteboard | See Virtual Classroom below for more information. | ClassLive is a whiteboard, chat room and presentation sharing application. For fully online courses, users can utilize audio/video. |
| Widgets | The homepage is the first page you see when you view the organization’s My Home page or enter a course. The typical default homepage is widget-based. Widgets are sections of content that provide information and links to tools, courses, and personal settings. Organization and course homepages can point to Learning Environment tools, such as Announcements or Content, or an external URL.
Widgets are the building blocks of homepages. You can create, edit, delete, customize, and preview the widgets in your organization. There are two types of widgets available for your homepages: System Widgets and Custom Widgets Examples of widgets are: system widgets (calendar, announcements, tasks, etc.) and custom widgets (Welcome widget, twitter feed, etc) |
This feature is not available in eCollege. |
| Virtual Classroom
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Virtual Classroom is an integrated web conferencing tool by YouSeeU. It helps instructors engage learners in two-way video conversations. Virtual Classroom is available within TCU Online courses now under the People menu on the course navbar.
Features of Virtual Classroom in TCU Online include:
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See “Whiteboard” above for more information. |