Faculty Testing

What's in this for me?

UAT is a critical piece of the upgrade implementation plan. It is your chance to ensure the D2L system will function as expected after the upgrade. You??ll become aware of new features and tools that may greatly benefit teaching and learning, and you will have the power to ensure you are not negatively impacted by the upgrade. Thorough User Acceptance Testing by all campuses will give users a sense of confidence that they will be able to do what they need to do after the upgrade. Identifying any potential issues during the testing period allows for time to mitigate problems and develop workarounds.

What is User Acceptance Testing?

User Acceptance Testing is a term used to define the final testing stages by users of a new or changed system/application. If successful, it signals the approval to implement the system live. Cosmetic and other small changes may still be required as a result of the test, but the system is considered stable and processing data according to requirements. D2L UAT is performed in the QA (Quality Assurance) environment where new versions are tested prior to upgrading the production environment. By having different types of testers doing the same function on different platforms and different browsers, we will be able to ensure that any user variances in how they do "the same thing" are all working.

How and why Faculty are involved?

Faculty testing in QA ensures that their current courses are working as expected and provides an opportunity to check out the new features and new tools available in version 9.0. The courses in QA are a copy of the courses that existed in D2L Production as of April 13, 2010. Any work that is performed in QA will be lost the next time QA is refreshed. Faculty should use QA to test version 9.0 features, and ensure that course materials and course tools appear and behave as expected. QA is not a place to build extensive course materials, although many materials can be exported from QA and imported to Production.

How Do I Access QA?

The QA environment can be accessed from anywhere there is Internet connection to allow testers to work from the convenience of their home, cabin, boat, or local coffee shop! Contact your Campus Site Admin for the URL to log in to QA. [NOTE: The current semester (Summer 2010) courses are set to inactive in QA to prevent students from inadvertently finding the QA site and accessing quizzes. If you do any testing from the student role to verify that things such as dropboxes and release conditions are working, go to Edit course, Course Offering Information and set the course to Active. Course end dates prevent students from accessing past courses in QA.]

What are System Site Administrators testing on this upgrade?

The IMS/D2L SSA (System Site Administrator) team from Minnesota State Colleges & Universities will be performing functional tool testing in the 9.0 environment as indicated by the "Y" on the 80/20 column of the test plan checklists. They will test items deemed used most heavily, presumably by 80% of users.

How will I know what to test and how will I report my findings?

Each tester can download a UAT "check list" of features used in D2L tools. At the bottom of the checklist, add any "role-based" or "campus specific" processes or features that you regularly use that are not on the checklist. Fill in the first page of the form with: your name, school, Platform and Version (Windows XP, for example) and the Browser and Version (Internet Explorer 8, for example). Include the names of the courses tested and indicate a Pass or Fail in the appropriate column. After completing the form, save the file and email it to Karen.wenz@csu.mnscu.edu

How to Report Items that Fail the test:

Use details to describe what failed, including the course name, the tool, the steps taken and the problem encountered. Follow the regular protocol used at your school for reporting D2L problems, by
either reporting it to your Campus Site Admin, or to the helpdesk at https://d2l.custhelp.com and indicate the Problemas "9.0 QA Testing" and in the Subject box, indicate the tool and/or feature that is not working.

Who do I contact with questions about User Acceptance Testing?

• Karen Wenz karen.wenz@csu.mnscu.edu
• Charles Kroger charles.kroger@csu.mnscu.edu