What's with Wisconsin and Desire2Learn??

Within a span of 3 months, the Marquette (WI) University Student Senate reportedly

"passed legislation last November unanimously recommending that all
Marquette instructors be required to attend a D2L training session
and at the very least post the syllabus on the course site"

while the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater faculty senate

"formally expresses its dissatisfaction with the performance of the
current implementation, infrastructure, and management of
Desire2Learn and request that the University of Wisconsin System
Administration investigate the systemic nature of the problem and
resolve it."

And then a few days ago in the wake of the Blackboard-Desire2Learn verdict (where D2L was found to have infringed on Bb's controversial patent), the University of Wisconsin System is quoted in Waterloo's (ON) The Record:

"Our university system really loves Desire2Learn as a course-management system, and we've had relatively good luck with it," he said. "So this is a problem."

Hmmm. Sounds like students want instructors to use it more (and more effectively), instructors want it to run well, and administrators...well...we're trying to figure it all out.

Desire2Learn ePortfolio

Desire2Learn just announced that their ePortfolio system will be available to clients for installations beginning February 28.

Today's announcement reminded me that I saw D2L's Ken Chapman give a presentation of their ePortfolio system back in July 2007. Though I have not followed the trends and issues of ePortfolios over time (and I'm not even sure where my own institution currently stands on this idea), I came away with a number of impressions.

If some of these notes are vague, it's because my memory has deteriorated since last July. I'm also hoping that what I saw back then is actually still a part of the product set to be released.

• The learner is at the center of their model. Not only can artifacts be added and grouped, but the learner can reflect on these artifacts and collections. Depending on the configuration, instructors, peers and the learner can assess the artifacts.
• A new kind of inline help was developed by D2L for their ePortfolio system. I'm hoping this will eventually show up in the Learning Environment system.
• Feedback, alerts, and comments were incorporated.
• Tagging of artifacts was incorporated. Again, let's hope this appears in the LE at some point.
• "Presentations" allows the learner to select from a number of different views of his/her ePortfolio according to the intended audience. The template designs seemed very modern (similar to Blogger or WordPress-style designs).

Feel free to leave comments if I've erred in my notes.

Also, D2L has scheduled a slew of webinars as part of their Desire2Learn ePortfolio Webinar Series.