Faculty Resources for Teaching Online Courses

Contact the Online Education department:

Email - d2lhelp@msutexas.edu

Phone - (940) 397-3000 (M-F, 8am-5pm)

1. Log in here https://d2l.msutexas.edu/d2l/login using the Chrome browser or
2. Log in through the portal https://login.msutexas.edu using Chrome as your browser
3. When you log in to D2L, the landing page will have all of your course shells.
4. Click on your current semester course located on your landing page
5. This will take you into the course. If its not already, be sure to pin your course for quicker access!

1. Use the Content tool to post and organize course content so that information about course expectations, course syllabus, lecture notes, and important dates display to users clearly.
2. Course materials you post in Content can include documents, images, media files, screen capture presentations, URL links, and existing course activities.
3. You can add release conditions, grade items, and learning objectives to topics to ensure users navigate through course materials while fulfilling specific course requirements and learning expectations.
4. You can also monitor class and user progress as students work through course content by setting automatic (determined by the system) or manual (determined by the student) completion tracking.

Use forums to organize your discussion topics into categories. Your course can have multiple forums and topics, but you must create a forum before you can create a topic since all topics belong to forums.

1. On the navbar, click Discussions.
2. On the Discussions List page, from the New button drop-down menu, click New Forum.
3. Enter a title for your new forum.
4. Enter a description for your new forum.
5. In the Options section, select any of the following check boxes:
   1. Allow anonymous posts - To enable users to post anonymously.
   2. A moderator must approve individual posts before they display in the forum - To ensure that posts are approved by a moderator before they display in the forum.
   3. Users must start a thread before they can read and reply to other threads in each topic - To ensure user participation.
   4. Display forum descriptions in topics - To provide instructors the option to display a discussion forum description within a discussion topic description.
6. In the Restrictions tab, in the Availability section, select the Hide from Users checkbox to set the stats of the forum.
7. Select Locking Options for your forum. Locking a forum prevents users from posting to any of its associated topics until it is unlocked; they can still read post made to a topic prior to it being locked.
8. Click Save and Close.
9. Watch how to create a discussion forum.

1. Additional D2L Help topics this is a good resource to review.
2. Contact Online Education for training at d2lhelp@msutexas.edu.
3. D2L/Brightspace video tutorials.

1. Zoom has the screen capture capability. 
2. Screencast-o-matic is another screen capture product and it has a free version.
3. OBS Studio has strong screen capture and record capability and can be downloaded for free.

*Note: If you are wanting any of the programs above on your MSU-owned computer, contact IT and have them install the program for you. helpdesk@msutexas.edu or (940) 397-4278

MSU full-time faculty and staff have access to Zoom licensing for online meetings.  You can access the MSU Zoom portal on our website. The Zoom licensing for MSU allows for meetings up to 24 hours in length with up to 300 participants. To quick-start your use of Zoom, visit the Zoom Learning Center for training.

You can also schedule class meetings via your course homepage within D2L. Make sure you log into your zoom account via the steps above first. After that, go back into d2l and you will access zoom meetings by going into the course, click communication in the menu bar, and selecting Zoom. If there is a meeting available, you will see it in the list with the option to join or to create one of your own.

For assistance, please reach out to us via d2lhelp@msutexas.edu