The spec sheet for NI DAQ USB 6501 device shows that it belongs to the Digital I/O product family. The data sheet for the device indicates no analog Input/Output channels.
To see the supported subsystem for your device on your release of MATLAB, you can check in the report generated by executing the following command
>> daqsupport
When I execute the above mentioned command for R2011b (your specified version of MATLAB) I can see that this release of MATLAB supports only “CounterInput” subsystem.
You can add Counter Input channels using the following commands:
>> s=daq.createSession('ni');
>> s.addCounterInputChannel('Dev1','ctr0','EdgeCount')
To add Digital Channels to your device, upgrade to the latest release of MATLAB (any release beyond R2012a). You can then use the same device and add digital input/output channels as well.
ni: National Instruments USB-6501 (Device ID: 'Dev1')
Digital subsystem supports:
24 channels ('port0/line0' - 'port2/line7')
'InputOnly','OutputOnly','Bidirectional' measurement types
Counter input subsystem supports:
1 channel ('ctr0')
'EdgeCount' measurement type
Then you can try executing the following commands to add digital channels to your device.
>> s=daq.createSession('ni');
>> s.addDigitalChannel('Dev1','port0/line0','Bidirectional')