To:  All Learning System Instructors and Associates

In this issue
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1.  Final Call for April Online Course Evaluations
2.  Release of Final Grades - - not through the learningSystem, please!
3.  First Call for Summer (2011S1, S2, S3) sites
4.  Course Item Usage Reports via Teach->Tracking
5.  Final backups of gradebooks
6.  Setting up Columns in Gradebooks -- choose 'NUMERIC' if you're unsure of the type
7.  Using 'set release criteria' -- watch out for AND and OR joiners -- they're trouble.

1.  FINAL Call for April Online Evaluations
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Deadline for Online Evaluation Requests:  Friday March 25th, 2011.

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Standard timeframe for evaluations begins on April 1st and ends on Sunday April 10th at midnight for traditional courses as exams begin the next day.   WEB-based courses begin Friday April 8th and extend to Friday April 22nd.
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We do not make any assumptions based on last year.  If you want an online evaluation this year, you must request it.

This is the LAST call for Online Course Evaluation setups via myLearningSystem for any Fall/Winter 2010 courses and Winter 2011 half-courses.  

If you want to proceed, and will accept the responsibility for the results, please fill out a form designed specifically for this purpose:
http://www.trentu.ca/mls/instructors/eval-request.shtml
Use the 'back' button on your browser to submit requests for multiple courses and save keying time.  DO NOT EMAIL THESE REQUESTS TO ME.


2.  Release of Final Grades - not through theLearningSystem, please!
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A reminder that Final Grades are to be released to students ONLY via the Registrar's Office & myAcademicRecord.  Please do not post/release in your learningSystem site(s)!  Also, you may not post final exam grades in the gradebook if the student could then accurately compute their own final mark for the course. 

Please select 'Student View' and then 'My Grades' to determine which columns are visible to students.  To hide a column from students, choose:

Teach->Gradebook->Gradebook Options->Column Settings  and set the 'released to students' row to 'No' for "Final" and "Final Exam" if you have the latter.

This is in compliance with the Academic Calendar on or around p.14  under "Official Final Grades".  It has been official policy since the beginning of time (Trent time, anyway): "Instructors and/or departments are not permitted to release final grades."


3.  First Call for Summer (2010S1, S2, S3) sites
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Please note that this applies  to courses that are starting on May 2nd, in June and in July.  

If you are not yet aware of your teaching duties, please do let us know as soon as that information is relayed to you.

Please do not reply to this email, but use our tracking form request to request a summer site because the form asks all of the right questions:

From www.trentu.ca/mls/instructors please choose 'Course Request' from the left menu
(direct link: http://www.trentu.ca/mls/instructors/course-request.shtml )

All requests send this way will be placed in a request queue in RequestTracker for either myself or Chris Boothroyd to process.


4.  Course Item Usage Reports via Teach->Tracking
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Teach->Tracking can provide you with lots of useful information regarding your course materials and the amount of time students spend viewing them now that the term is almost finished.

Try these:

Teach->Tracking->File Usage (set the dates to January 11th to today) for a full report of how often posted files like lecture notes were looked at.  Watch for a 'Graph' button to display these results pictorally.

Teach->Tracking->Summary (set the dates to January 11th to today) for a summary of daily usage like most active hour, least active hour, etc.

Teach->Tracking->Student Tracking (set the dates to January 11th to today) for a summary (and complete detail if you select a particular student) of your students' login habits throughout the term.


5.  Final backups of gradebooks
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As you prepare to complete your 2010FW and 2011WI course sites, please do take a gradebook backup so that you can refer to it in the event of a grade appeal.  

Teach->Gradebook->Export to Spreadsheet (choose 'all, all, default, default).  Give the file a good name and save it to a known location.

6.  Setting up Columns in Gradebooks -- choose 'NUMERIC' if you're unsure of the type
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Columns of type 'numeric' are the most appropriate for numbered grades.    If you aren't sure when creating a column or the grading part of an assignment dropbox, always choose NUMERIC.

If you choose 'alphanumeric' for the grading of assignments, it is difficult to change it to numeric (especially if you've already entered the grades) -- and you can't use a column of type 'alphanumeric' in a calculated column for calculating final grades.


7.  Using 'set release criteria' -- watch out for AND and OR joiners -- they're trouble.
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If  you're using 'set release criteria' to reopen a quiz or assignment to a select group of students, be mindful of these tips:

- Don't use 'set release criteria' with DATES or TIMES on an assignment or a quiz -- they must look after their own dates.
- Be very careful of using AND and OR joiners.   It's best to keep all student names on one line (use the actionlink on a list of student names, choose 'edit' to specify more).  In my experience, the presence of AND/OR where they shouldn't be accounts for 90% of the difficulties that people have with this option.  
- If you've set up a somewhat complicated 'set release criteria' and want me to check it out, let me know!

Questions, comments?

mj