Crosslinked Courses

Crosslinked sites refer to course sites that combine/link multiple individual course sections into one centralized course site. No action is required if sites are already crosslinked.  Below are some of the most frequently asked questions about crosslinked sites.  

Instructors must contact the administrative assistant from their academic unit to request that sections of their courses be crosslinked. This would include courses that are cross-calendared, cross-taught, multi-sections, etc. It is strongly encouraged that these requests are made prior to the start of the term to avoid any unexpected disruptions to course delivery after the term has commenced.
Academic units will submit these requests by email to the Scheduling Office.

Frequently Asked Questions

 What are the benefits of a crosslinked (combined) course in mycourselink?
Crosslinked courses are useful when instructors are teaching multiple sections of the same course and only want to manage a single online course site for them all. Anything that is set up in the crosslinked site (e.g., uploaded Content, Assignment folders, Quizzes, etc) will be available to all the sections that have been linked. This saves instructors time from having to manage multiple course sites where they would otherwise have to set up and manage each individual site separately.
 How to request to have courses crosslinked in mycourselink?

Instructors must contact their academic unit to request to have sections of their courses crosslinked.  This would include courses that are cross-calendared, cross-taught, multi-sections, etc.  It is strongly encouraged that these requests are made prior to the start of the term to avoid any unexpected disruptions to course delivery after the term has commenced.

Academic units will submit these requests by email to schedule@lakeheadu.ca

 How to tell if a course site is crosslinked and which course site should be opened to students?

Each section and each cross-calendared section have individual sites created for them. For example, if an instructor is teaching ENGL-1015-WDT and ENGL-1015-WDS and they requested that the sections are crosslinked, within mycourselink they will see the following course sites:

  • ENGL-1015-WDT
  • ENGL-1015-WDS
  • ENGL-1015-WDT/WDS

crosslinked courses on mycourselink homepage

Typically, instructors would build their course in the combined site only and open this site (ENGL-1015-WDT/WDS) for students.

If however, instructors want to have different course setups for the different sections (e.g., assignments with different due dates for the different sections), they can open the individual course sites (ENGL-1015-WDT and ENGL-1015-WDS) as well, or instead of, the crosslinked site.

TIP: Because instructors will see all current and future course sites created for their sections (individual and crosslinked course sites), we recommend using the Pin course feature to keep the active/open sites listed first under the My Courses widget on the mycourselink homepage.  Visit the Pinning Courses in mycourselink section for instructions. 

Please note that currently, it is not possible to remove sites that have been created but are not being used from D2L.

 How can I tell which students have access to a course site in mycourselink?

Instructors can view the list of students that have access to their course sites by clicking on the "Classlist" link on the navbar at the top of the course page.

To view the full list of sections that have been added to a crosslinked course site: click "Course Admin", then click "Sections" (under Learner Management). This page will list all of the sections on the course site as well as the number of students in each section. If any sections are missing, instructors must contact their academic unit to request to have the missing course section(s) crosslinked.

 Can I view just one section of students at a time?

The Classlist, Grades, Assignment, and Quiz Tools provide the option to filter the list of students by section.

To do this, just above the list of students, there will be a View By option. By default, it is set to User which shows all students in the course. To view the list of students by section, change the default from User to Sections and click Apply. From the Sections drop-down menu, select a section to view and click Apply.  The list of students below will update to show only those in the selected section.

Image of View Sections

 Can my crosslinked course site in mycourselink be renamed?
Course sites are named based on the information entered in the timetabling system.  The automatic name given to a crosslinked course, particularly if it's made up of many different section codes or numbers, may not be the easiest to read.  Instructors wishing to have their crosslinked site name modified can send an email mycourselink@lakeheadu.ca.  Please include the current name of the site and the modified name.  Note: Course name changes made in mycourselink do not update on timetables or in MyInfo.
 Can I crosslink my lecture and lab sections?

No, you cannot crosslink the lecture sections of a course with the lab sections.

If you are looking to have a single site that all students in the course can access you can use just the lecture section for this purpose. If there are multiple lecture sections for the course then those lecture sections can be crosslinked.

If the lab sections have a different instructor that you would like to have added to your lecture section's course site then you can request that through mycourselink@lakeheadu.ca. Please include the other instructor's Lakehead email in the request.