Submitting a file to Dropbox

• There are multiple steps to the process of submitting a file to a D2L dropbox.  If all the steps are not completed, the file will not be submitted successfully. Here is the sequence of steps:

·       Click [Add a File]

·       In the popup window, click [Browse]

·       Navigate to the desired file and double-click

·       Click [Upload]

·       Click [Submit] 

(Students will receive a confirmation email when file has uploaded)

• Students should use a file format (e.g., Word) that you have specifically prescribed, so that you will be able to read their submissions when you download them.

• Both instructors and students should use file names that contain only the normal letters of the English alphabet, in addition to spaces, dashes, or underscores.  Including even a single odd character – e.g., ampersand, apostrophe, pound sign, exclamation mark – in the filename can make it impossible to download. Finally, there must be only ONE period (.) in the filename – located between the descriptive text and the file type (e.g., file1.doc).

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