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Student Information


Accessing MTSU's D2L Site

There are two methods for accessing MTSU's D2L server. The first method is preferable because students will be able to view their targeted MTSU announcements.

  1. Log into Pipeline, click on the "Click here to:"; link under the My Courses heading and then click on the Desire2Learn link at the bottom of the page.
  2. Go to http://elearn.mtsu.edu and login.

How to Get Started with D2L:  Click here to view D2L video tutorials in addition to the overview information below.

My Home: My Home is the first page you will see when you log into D2L. If you would like to go back to your "My Home" page when you are inside a course, click on the My Home button in the upper left hand side of the blue banner above the big white "LEARN"; (the blue banner is called the navigation bar). Your My Home page displays the following content:

  • (in the body of the page) your course list, the university announcements, a university resource list, a welcome area, an updates area, and your personal events calendar.
  • (on the navigation bar [the blue banner]) - Links to the Email and Calendar tools, as well as links for Instructor and Student Help.

Course Home: The first page you will see after you click on a course link is the Course Home. Your instructor may have announcements and course and contact information posted the News are at the center of the page. Click on the Content link in the blue banner to access links to course content.

My Email

Email in D2L does not go out to your regular MTSU email account. You will need to remember to check your D2L mail daily. D2L mail is not course specific; however, the mail tool attempts to filter your mail by course if you click on the email link while you are in a specific course. Sometimes the filter does not find all of the email for that specific course or sometimes you may want to see all of your email. If this is the case you can click on the drop down menu that specifies which filter is being applied and choose to view "all mail";.

Tips:

  • Sending Email: The easiest way to send email to your instructor or other classmates is by going to the Classlist tool on the navigation bar rather than the My Email Tool. Read email using the Email and Send email to your class using the Classlist Tool.

Course Navigation

The tools that you will use to navigate your course will vary depending on which tools your instructor has chosen to use. You can access detailed explanations and instructions for every D2L tool available in MTSU's learning environment using the Student Help link on your D2L My Home page. Here is a quick summary of the most commonly used tools:

Content

Clicking the Content link in the course navigation banner allows you to view the course structure and access course content.

Classlist

The Classlist is a directory of enrolled students, profiles, homepages, email addresses, and group enrollments for the course. Use this tool to email your classmates.

Groups

The Groups link takes you to a list of your groups in the course. If you are asked to self-enroll in a group, it is performed using this tool.

Dropbox

The Dropbox tool lets you submit assignments to your instructors electronically. Your instructor might also upload your graded assignment and give it back to you via this tool.

Discussions

You can read and post messages to discussions using this tool.

Quizzes

Clicking the Quizzes link takes you to the list of quizzes for that particular course. Make sure you read the instructions carefully before taking each quiz. It is wise to save question responses as you answer them instead of waiting until you finish the quiz because if your computer freezes or your network access drops before you save, your answers will not be saved.

Grades

Check your assignment/course grades here.

Calendar

The Calendar tool allows you to view events related to the courses you are enrolled in. You can also use it as a personal calendar and scheduling tool.

File Naming Conventions for Dropboxes and Student Homepages

In the process of completing assignments, you may be asked to submit files to the dropbox, or attach files to emails or discussion postings that you want your instructor or classmates to receive. When you submit or attach files you need to make sure that the filenames do not have any characters disallowed by D2L. You must also make sure that each filename has an extension. Read the paragraphs below for more information on naming files.

NAMING CONVENTIONS

File Extensions

Always make sure you have a file extension on your file. PC computer operating systems use that file extension to figure out which program opens each particular file type. It is important that you find out from your instructor which file types he or she will accept when you hand in assignments.

Example: You instructor may not have the newest version of Office installed on their computer so may not accept files with the .docx file extension made by Word 2007 or 2010.

  • PC users - The Windows OS should place a file extension on each file by default [sometimes you may not see the file extension because of the way your folder preferences are set]….just be careful not to remove the extension if you can see it.
  • Mac users - you will most likely need to add a file extension.

Common File Extensions are listed below.

Go to http://www.fileinfo.net/common.php to locate or identify other file extensions you encounter.

Text Files or Documents:

  • Word 97 - 2003: ".doc";
  • Word 2007: "docx";
  • Adobe Portable Document Format: "pdf";
  • Rich Text Format: ".rtf";
  • Plain Text Format: ".txt";
  • Web page: "htm"; or "html";
  • Microsoft Works Word Processor: "wps";

Data Files:

  • Excel 97 - 2003: ".xls";
  • Excel 2007: ".xlsx";

Presentation Files:

  • PowerPoint 97 - 2003: ".ppt";
  • PowerPoint 2007: ".pptx";

Image Files:

  • Joint Photographic Experts Group: ".jpg";
  • Graphics Interchange Format: ".gif";
  • Portable Network Graphics: ".png";

FILE NAMES

When naming a file which will be uploaded or attached in D2L (drop box, email attachment, discussion message attachment, homepage filename), do not use any special characters in the file name except "-" (dash) and "_" (underscore). You also use the period "." solely to delineate the file name from the file extension. Files with names containing any other special characters may prevent your instructor or fellow students from accessing the file.

PipelineMT and D2L Supported Browsers

Windows supported browsers:

  • Internet Explorer (IE), version 8* or 9 (IE 10 under investigation)
  • Mozilla Firefox, latest version*
  • Google Chrome, latest version*

Macintosh supported browsers:

  • Apple Safari, version 4.0 or 5.1*
  • Mozilla Firefox, latest version*
  • Google Chrome, latest version*

Mobile web supported browsers:

  • Apple Safari, iOS3 and iOS4 (iOS 5 & 6 will be supported on D2L v10)
  • Android, version 1.5 and 2.1(Android 2.2 through 4+ will be supported on D2L v10)
  • Blackberry, version 6

System Requirements

  Required Recommended
Operating System Windows 2000, 2003, XP, Vista, Windows 7

Mac OS X (up to 10.7)

 Windows XP or Windows 7

Mac OS 10.6 or 10.7
Video SVGA monitor

Minimum resolution of 800 x 600

 Resolution of 1024 x 768 or greater
Internet Speed 56K modem DSL or cable modem
Java Runtime Environment (JRE)

Latest version

 Check here for Java updates.
Java Script Enabled Enabled
Cookies Enabled Enabled

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