To:  All Learning System Instructors and Associates

Please forward on to any of your Teaching Assistants that have learningSystem responsibilities?

In this Issue:
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1.  Winter Course Section Email Distribution Lists are ready
2.  LAST CALL for 2011FA Online Course Evaluations
3.  First call for Winter 2012  learningSystem sites
4.  SPOTLIGHT ON:  New IT User Guides for Groupwise, Lecterns, airTrent
5.  Always Preview 'My Grades' and 'Student View'
6.  LMS Review -- Upcoming Survey on Goals and Requirements


1.   Winter Course Section Email Distribution Lists are ready
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If you need to contact the students registered in your Winter 2012 course section now for some reason, you can.  The master list is at:  https://www.trentu.ca/it/coursemailing.php and is also available from the bottom left corner of  your myLearningSystem green page listing your course sites.   Please bookmark that page.

Addresses deconstructed:  2011FA means "Fall half-course" -- 2012WI means "Winter half-course" -- 2011FW means "Full Year Credit Course".  If a suffix exists, the course is being held in a location other then PTBO.  If a course is cross-listed, more than one physical email address is needed to contact ALL students registered in the course. 

2.  Last call for 2011FA Online Course Evaluations
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This is the last call for Online Course Evaluation setups via the learningSystem for any Fall 2011 half-courses.  

Absolute Deadline for online evaluation requests:  Monday November 21st, 2011.   I will not accept any requests after this date.

If you want to proceed, 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.

3.  First call for Winter 2012 learningSystem sites
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If you're not yet sure of your teaching duties, please let us know as SOON AS YOU KNOW and we'll accommodate as time permits.

We must hear from every instructor using the learningSystem for a credit course in the Winter even if you're just reusing content from last year.

Course Request Form:   http://www.trentu.ca/mls/instructors/course-request.shtml   Do not reply to this email with your course requests as it involves more work for us and less automatic coordination. Use the 'back arrow' on your browser after your first request submission for your second + successive course requests as it will save you some keying time.

If your course already exists in the Learning System from past years, please do feel free to update your materials now even before your request has been resolved/answered.

4.  SPOTLIGHT ON:  Groupwise, Lectern, Smartboard , airTrent User Guides from IT
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Trent IT endeavours to provide the Trent community with simple step by step instructions on using available technologies.   See "User Guides' from http://www.trentu.ca/it
for How-To videos on Lecterns, Smartboards, Voicemail and Video Conferencing.

5.  Always preview 'My Grades' and 'Student View'
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Whenever you are adding materials, posting/releasing new grades, posting announcements, etc., please remember to always consult the 'Student View' tab to ensure that your students are seeing what they should be seeing...  It's also helpful to give the 'demo student' some marks (these won't be counted in course stats) so that you have some actual numbers to view when you choose 'student view', 'my grades'.

6.  LMS Review Update
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From Sean Daniels, Business Systems Analyst in IT:

"A project has begun between the academic community and IT to update/renew our Learning Management System.  A move to any new LMS product will be a major transition for technical staff, systems administrators, faculty and students.  Due to the magnitude of this transition, it is appropriate to evaluate competitive products to ensure Trent invests our financial and human resources in an LMS that best meets the current and future teaching and learning needs of faculty and students.

After meeting with focus groups and the steering committee we will be conducting faculty and student surveys to help us ensure the goals and requirements of the project will be met.  We look forward to your feedback on this important project as we prepare for transition."