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D2L made the New Content Experience, also referred to as NCE, available last year, and The Minnesota State system office decided to have it replace our “classic” content experience starting Summer 2026. Here is the big picture:
- All Summer and Fall 2026 courses (and beyond) will have NCE
- Existing standard academic courses, including current Spring 2026, will not change; they will retain the classic content experience
- On May 14, all existing Development and Sandbox courses will switch to NCE
NCE vs Classic
The New Content Experience is very similar to the classic experience, just with a few changes and new features. D2L developed NCE to make the Content area cleaner and more minimal in its look and feel, for both instructors and students. Here are the key differences between NCE and classic:
- Modules are now called Units; Topics are now called Lessons; Sub-modules are now called Folders
- There are now color stripes in the table of contents to differentiate modules (units)
- The left sidebar now shows a collapsable/expandable full table of contents, versus just showing modules and sub-modules
- When you click on any content item from the table of contents, it opens right there in the content viewing area, not as a new separate page
- Printing functionality has changed, see below
- NCE has a simplified, more intuitive method of creating new modules (units) and adding new content items to a module (unit) and topic (lesson)
- The screen for creating or editing a content item (unit, lesson, folder, or page) is now cleaner and easier to use
There are some functions that will no longer be available with NCE. Most notably:
- You can no longer bulk edit content topics within a module
- There is no longer a print icon visible in the content area, this applies to both instructors and students
- You (and students) can no longer quick-print content elements like the table of contents, or items that are created directly in the content area, such as web pages (a workaround for this is using your web-browser controls)
- You (and students) can still print materials, such as Word documents and PDFs, that you load into your course and are viewable in the content area (when you hover over the content in the viewing area, a print icon becomes available)
- The Bookmarks and Course Schedule items are no longer available to students (located in the left sidebar above table of contents in the classic experience)
NCE Resources for You
- Brief explainer from the system office containing a few commonly asked questions/answers and a chart that documents all the actions and features that have changed from the classic experience to NCE
- Presentation that walks through the transition from classic experience to NCE
- Video recording of the webinar session that featured the above presentation
- Video demo of NCE in action (instructor view within course)
- Video demo of NCE in action (student view within course)