To: All Learning System Instructors and Associates
Please forward on to any of your Teaching Assistants that have learningSystem responsibilities?
In this Issue:
=========
1.
First call for 2011FA Online Course Evaluations
2.
Winter Course Section Email Distribution Lists are ready
3.
Reminder to export gradebooks for safekeeping
4
Discussions/Blogs: Hiding vs Locking
5.
Use "Set Release Criteria" sparingly and carefully
6.
Student Difficulties - please send to I.T. ServiceDesk
1. First call for December 2011 Online Course Evaluations for Half-Courses
=========
STRICT Deadline for online evaluation requests: Monday November 21st
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STANDARD TIMEFRAME: There will be a standard timeframe for
all evaluations for the
last week of classes beginning early on Thursday December 1st and
ending on Thursday December 8th at midnight (the day before exams begin in PTBO).
--------------------------
The
LearningSystem has been used successfully for collecting this sort of
data from students for more than five years. The results from
past online course evaluations have not been surprising -- if the
LearningSystem is being used as a major component to the course,
then the surveys have been well-responded to.
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. Also, please tell your department
secretary that you are evaluating
online so that they don't print/prepare paper evaluation forms for your
course. View the bottom of the request page for an overview of
the process.
2. Winter Course Section Email Distribution Lists are ready
=========
If you would like 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.
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.
Reminders: You must use your Trent email account for these lists and any attachment cannot exceed 1Mb in size.
3. Reminder to export gradebooks for safekeeping
========
As you work through entries/columns in your gradebooks, please remember
to export your gradebook FREQUENTLY and save these files in case they
are needed for gradebook rebuilding. To export your gradebook,
choose:
TEACH, GRADEBOOK, EXPORT TO SPREADSHEET. Choose 'all members, all columns'. Rename the
default filename (perhaps incorporate the date) and save these either
to a network drive, or multiple copies to memory sticks and local
harddrives.
If you are using iClicker this term, backup each 'Course' folder on your iClicker memory stick as well!
4. Discussions/Blogs: Hiding vs Locking
========
If you are using Discussions/Blogs in your course site but
wish to prevent late student contributions, please consider "locking"
the topic as opposed to hiding it or using 'set release criteria'
(which also hides the topic).
Here's how: Use the actionlink on the topic and choose 'Edit
Properties'. Choose 'Topic Behaviour Options' and then "Lock
this Topic". A little blue padlock will appear on the topic and
the 'create message' and/or 'reply' options will disappear for that
topic. This allows students to revisit the discussion content after the fact,
but prevents them from posting more information to a topic that you've
deemed to be complete. A better idea than hiding completely?
5. Use "Set Release Criteria" sparingly and carefully
========
Be very wary of anything in your course site that's noted as
"(conditional)". This means that some factors are in place
which may be preventing all students in general from viewing the item.
Often when I come across these items when troubleshooting, the
conditions are expired or are set up incorrectly and do not function as
expected.
You cannot use 'set release criteria' to hide anything from other
privileged persons in the course site (TA access, instructor access,
etc.) By default, instructors and TAs can
SEE EVERYTHING.
- Never specify a date criteria on the icon for a Quiz/Survey or an
Assignment Dropbox. These tools must look after their own dates
via 'Edit Properties' in the respective tool.
- When specifying multiple students for a limited view, make sure that
all students are listed on the same line in the 'member criteria'
setting. That's easier than remembering that the boolean operator
of "OR" must be used between names if they are on separate lines.
Please be aware that if an item is listed as (Hidden + Conditional) that
HIDDEN wins.
Something marked as hidden is hidden completely from students
and they cannot see it regardless of the other conditions set on its
release.
6. Student Difficulties - please send to I.T. Service Desk
========
If your students are complaining of issues with the learningSystem,
your first answer should be to send them either physically to the I.T. ServiceDesk on the first floor of the Bata
Library, or electronically via an email to it@trentu.ca .
Our servicedesk technicians will assist and will also escalate
difficulties if these arise. You should not feel that
you are their technical support!
