A new version of Desire2Learn, D2L 9.1, has been released, and will soon be replacing our current version at DePaul. There are several systematic and aesthetic changes to the new version but one that will excite most teachers and students is the option to subscribe to discussion forums. With a simple mouse click, teachers and students will no longer need to check their courses for new discussion posts on a daily basis; the new posts will come directly to them.

In D2L 9.1, when you go to the discussions section of a course site, there are star icons on the left of the forums and topics list. By clicking on a star icon, you will be signing up for automatic e-mail updates whenever a new post is made to the discussion you subscribed to. A window will pop up asking you if you are sure that you want to subscribe to this forum and showing you the e-mail address that the notifications will be sent to. To change the settings of the subscription, click “Subscriptions” on the left-hand menu bar. From here you can choose how frequently you want notifications to be sent. For more options, click “Notification Preferences.” In this section you can change the e-mail address that the notifications are sent to if the default address is not one you check frequently.

Subscriptions to posts will be huge time savers for teachers and especially students who might have five classes each with several discussion forums. Students will no longer need to enter each course for updates or run the risk of missing a new post.