Special Considerations Regarding Student Records

Can an instructor retain student contributions and D2L grade book information, in case it is necessary to review student performance several years after the course ends?

When downloading or saving grade books or student submissions, it is imperative to maintain the privacy of student records, which should be saved on campus-housed, password-protected network storage rather than on local hard drives or portable storage devices.

Questions about how long grade books and student records may be retained should be discussed with the UWM Records Officer.

The D2L grade book can be exported to a CSV* file that can be opened with Excel and other applications.   Step-by-step instructions for exporting the D2L gradebook

*CSV: Comma Separated Values

Saving Discussion Posts

When downloading or saving student submissions, it is imperative to maintain the privacy of student records, which should be saved on campus-housed, password-protected network storage rather than on local hard drives or portable storage devices.

Questions about how long student records may be retained should be discussed with the UWM Records Officer.

To save Discussions, an instructor must either copy-and-paste into Microsoft Word or another word processor, or print posts to a PDF file.

1. On the D2L Course Home page, click [Discussions] on the navigation bar.

2. Click on the name of the Topic you wish to archive posts from.

3. Change view options to "All Messages" under "Unthreaded"

4. Increase the "posts per page" to the highest number as possible -- typically 50.

5. To select all posts, click the checkbox at the top of the list of posts, to the left of the headings. The background of each message title, name, etc. will turn green.

6. Click the [Print] icon (looks like a printer) at the top of the page. A window will appear with the text from all posts.

• If Adobe Acrobat is installed, you can also select the [Print] button in the window to open the Print settings window for your computer. Select [Adobe PDF] as your printer.

• If you use other PDF software, use that software to convert the posts to a PDF.

• If you have Microsoft Office XP or higher for Windows, you can also print the document to 'Microsoft Office Document Image Writer" which will save all pages as a multi-page TIFF file.

• Alternatively, you could highlight all text, then copy-and-paste into Word or another word processor document.

For technical assistance in using Adobe, MS Office, or other software, please contact the UWM Help Desk.

D2L 9.2.1 SP3 – September 2011

Downloading Dropbox Files

Downloading files from the D2L Dropbox

When downloading or saving student submissions, it is imperative to maintain the privacy of student records, which should be saved on campus-housed, password-protected network storage rather than on local hard drives or portable storage devices.

Questions about how long student records may be retained should be discussed with the UWM Records Officer.

1. From your Course Home page, click on [Dropbox] in the main navigation bar


2. Click on the name of the appropriate drop box folder.


3. To select all files in the folder, click the box at the top of the list of students –or– click the box beside the names of the student(s) whose files you wish to download.


4. Click on the [green circle] icon to initiate the download.


5. In the popup window, click on the blue hotlink; the link name will include:

• your folder name
• the word “Download”
• current date and time
• the file extension “.zip”

6. In the new popup window, click on [Save File].


7. Choose a location on your computer (e.g., desktop) where you will save the .zip file that contains your drop box files.


8. Click on [Save].


IMPORTANT NOTE: Additional benefit when following the above procedure!

• When any or all files in a D2L Dropbox are selected for download, they come out as a zip file. When the individual file (or files) are extracted, the filenames will begin with students' last, then first name.

• On the other hand, if you click on the file in the Dropbox, then just open it and save it to your desktop, the file retains the name given by the student. If many students have uploaded files called "Assignment 1" it will be impossible to determine which belongs to which student ... so we don't recommend doing this!

D2L 9.2.1 SP3 – October 2011

Exporting D2L Gradebook

When downloading or saving grade books or student submissions, it is imperative to maintain the privacy of student records, which should be saved on campus-housed, password-protected network storage rather than on local hard drives or portable storage devices.

Questions about how long grade books and student records may be retained should be discussed with the UWM Records Officer.

All information from a D2L Gradebook, including the original point values, grade scheme symbols and 'out of' grades can be exported to a .CSV file which can be opened in Microsoft Excel, OpenOffice and many other spreadsheet applications.

1. In your D2L course site, click the [Grades] link in the navigation bar.
2. At the top of the "User List" page, click the [Export Grades] icon, which looks like a curved green arrow pointing to the right.
3. The "Export Grades" page will appear.
4. By default, the "Export Grade Items For" field is set to "All users." Leave it as set.
5. To export all available information, in the "Key Field" heading, select the [Both] radio button.
6. Select the "Grade Values" to be exported. Suggested are "Points Grade" and "Grade Scheme."
7. Select the "User Details" you wish to export.
8. Select the "Grade Items" you wish to export. (To select individual items, select the checkboxes to the left of each grade item. The background of the item will turn green. To select all items, select the checkbox to the left, above the "Grade Item" heading. Be sure to also choose the "Final Grade" to be exported.)
9. Click [Export to CSV] at the bottom of the page to initiate the export process.
10. A window will open, containing a link that will allow you to save the .CSV file to your computer. Click the link to download the file.

Notes on the export process:

• "Text" grade items cannot be exported.
• "Selectbox" grade items will not export the "label." Instead, only the lowest percentage in the scheme range is exported.

D2L 9.2.1 SP3 – October 2011