Hi @D2L APAC Community​ - it has been a while!We are looking at updating our landing and unit...

Rebecca.F.235

Hi @D2L APAC Community​  - it has been a while!

We are looking at updating our landing and unit homepages at the University of Tasmania, and I am interested to see what other institutions are doing in this space. What layout do you use? Currently we have : Two Equal Panels

Four panels: two equal panels with header and footer panels.

 

What widgets are you using? Have you created your own? How did you choose what went on the landing page and unit/ course pages? Are your students happy with the design? Do you also have consistent design in your units- in the naming of modules etc? And if so do you allow your instructors to edit or update navbars etc. Looking forward to seeing/ hearing what others are doing here.

Cheers Rebecca

Terence.C.478

Hi Rebecca,

 

At TAFE Queensland, our unit homepages are widget-based and set up with a large left panel layout. The left, right and footer panels are in use and our primary focus with this layout was to display the announcements tool to our students.

 

This layout is our homepage for all student delivery units.

 

Here is a screenshot of our layout + student view:

 

 

We do use custom widgets and often these are for our teachers and educators which we control through role-based release conditions. For the student, it is a much more simplified view displaying announcements, calendar, updates widgets and a customised studiosity widget.

 

That being said, we're actually in the middle of a usability project and thinking of revamping our unit homepage to two equal panel setup.

 

We've found in our testing that students are not interacting with the unit homepage as much as we would like which can be an issue for us, as our educators and teachers often use announcements as a day-to-day communication tool and for positing critical unit information.

 

I'd be interested to see what decisions and choices the University of Tasmania make in regard to your setup as we will likely ask the same questions soon.

 

For our new setup, so far we're thinking of utilising some widgets from the widget expansion pack, namely: Slim announcements, multi-profile and the getting start widgets.

 

With these 3 additions, we'd aim toward making the unit homepage the first step for all our students during their study with us.

 

Happy to discuss more via email - terence.chen@tafeqld.edu.au

 

Kind regards,

Terence