Username merge - considerations for D2L
If you've been a student at Toronto Metropolitan University, and later became staff or faculty, or perhaps experienced a gap in your education, you may find that you access university services using more than one username. For various reasons, it's preferable to only have one username, so you may be considering merging your accounts.
It's important to consider the potential consequences of taking this action.
Impact
In short, you can't actually merge accounts - you will lose some data in the account you will no longer use, but will regain access to the courses themselves - albeit without your prior activities, as that information cannot be transferred.
This page should help you understand which data that you can no longer access once your accounts are merged, so that you can understand the impact of making this change.
Scenarios
For the purpose of a tangible example, consider the following:
Student account: jdoe
Staff account: jane.doe
The user wishes to keep one account and "merge" data from the other account into it, so they will only need to maintain one account.
Maintained:
Existing student enrollments are added to this account (but activities cannot be transferred).
New student enrollments are added to this account from now on.
Existing staff enrollments and activities are retained (as they originated in this account)
PLEASE NOTE: This must never be done mid-term.
Lost after account merge:
Data and content that the student would have had long-term access to:
User Account Settings & User Profile settings.
Notifications settings.
Personal calendar entries & tasks.
Previously achieved badges and certificates.
ePortfolio content saved to student account.
Course-specific content that the student loses access to after shell End Date anyway:
Activities in their courses, and any associated activity tracking.
Previous grades.
Previous assignment submissions, and assessment of those submissions.
Collaborative activities, such as discussion boards, groups, chats.
Access to anything that has been shared with them because of Release Condition (i.e. content, grades, etc.) - not a high likelihood in a course, as RC is usually used on broader areas, like Section or Group affiliation. Could affect areas based on achievement or activity completion.
Special Access granted to the user for extensions on Quizzes or Assignments.
Maintained:
Existing staff enrollments are added to this account (but activities cannot be transferred).
New staff enrollments are added to this account from now on.
Existing student enrollments and activities are retained (as they originated in this account)
Lost after account merge:
Data and content that the user would have had long-term access to in Organizations:
User Account Settings & User Profile settings.
Notifications settings.
Personal calendar entries & tasks.
Previously achieved badges and certificates.
ePortfolio content saved to student account.
Shell-specific content that Course Admins lose access to after the shell end date anyway:
User-specific course settings (like Personal Display in Grades tool)
Access to anything that has been shared with them because of release condition (i.e. content, grades, etc.) due to their username.
Shell-specific content and data that participants lose access to after shell End Date anyway:
Activities in their courses, and any associated activity tracking.
Previous grades.
Previous assignment submissions, and assessment of those submissions.
Collaborative activities, such as discussion boards, groups, chats.
Access to anything that has been shared with a user because of Release Condition (i.e. content, grades, etc.) due to their username, completion of an activity or achievement of a grade (among others).
Special Access granted to the user for extensions on Quizzes or Assignments.
User Investigation
Beginning in W2017, this will start to become important, and needs to be considered, as this content may not be accessible when accounts are merged.
* Organization list available to DMP team for investigations.
