What is D2L?

The D2L Corporation is the company that designed the learning management system (LMS) used by the University System of Georgia (USG) to deliver online courses as well as to support and/or enhance face-to-face courses. The LMS was known first as Desire2Learn, later as D2L, and now as Brightspace. D2L recently redesigned the Brightspace platform to be more integrated and responsive for all devices, and they call their redesign the Daylight Experience. Within the USG, the LMS may be known by several different names, such as D2L, Brightspace, CourseDen, Folio, GoView, or GeorgiaVIEW, depending on the institution.

In this course, we will refer to it as D2L. D2L offers instructors a wide variety of tools to integrate with texts and course materials to support student learning outcomes. Through D2L, you can build and deliver content, create and assess discussions and assignments, create and administer quizzes, manage and record grades, and communicate with learners. If you created content in another LMS, you may be able to import it into D2L, as D2L allows import of course content from several other systems, including Blackboard, Moodle, and WebCT.

The instructions for D2L provided here are general instructions. The settings made by the D2L administrators at your institution may be different from the settings of the author, thus there may be some small differences. Similarly, not all tools mentioned by the author may be available at your institution. Any tools that are added on to the D2L platform, such as publisher add-ons, multimedia, communication tools, etc., are called third-party integrations. A full list of approved integrations for USG can be found here. Third-party integrations need to be approved at the system level before they can be requested at your institution. D2L administrators limit third-party integrations because of their possible dangers to the stability of the D2L platform, their cost, their accessibility, time-constraints and available staffing at individual institutions, and other factors. Please check with your D2L Administrator on your campus to learn more about any tools you would like to use in your courses. You will learn more about third-party integrations in Course 2: Improving Student Engagement and Cultivating an Online Learning Community.