Legend

Course Home

Your Course Home page is the first thing you and your students see when you log into your course. The Course Home displays Course Announcements, an Introduction to the course, a list of coursework currently assigned to students, and a list of new postings or student activity.

People Tab

The people tab shows you a list of people in the class and their status. Both the job aid and tutorial covers: how to tell if a person is online or offline, how to create/edit your user profile (including privacy options), and how to view another person’s profile, as well as how to initiate a Chat or Skype with someone else.

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Activity Tab

The people tab shows you the most recent course activity. This job aid and tutorial covers how to navigate the Activity Tab and its different aspects, such as how to post a Say It Remark, how to view the latest news (e.g. Exam Submissions, and Threaded Discussion posts), and how to use the filter options to select something specific you want to see in the Activity feed.

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Unit Summary Area

Both the job aid and tutorial covers how instructors can use the Unit Summary Area to navigate through the Units in a course, to see when schedule items are about to expire (i.e. due, end), and to go to a specific lesson – all from the Course Home.

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Display of the Announcement Area

The Announcement Area is the place your students will look to read important information that you post to the entire class. This job aid and tutorial covers how to navigate through the tabbed interface, how to expand a post, and how to mark posts as read/unread

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Announcement (Add, Schedule, Edit, Delete)

Both job aid and tutorial covers how to create, schedule, and post announcements in a course. You will also learn how to edit/delete an announcement. The Web link links you directly to the eCollege Help page specific to the topic.

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What's New

Use the What’s New feature on the Course Home page to monitor student activity in your course. From this area you can see your last login, when individual students contributed to a select area of the course, such as the Dropbox. This job aid covers: What’s New, how to set the What’s New date range, how to sort the view by item, and how to sort the view by student. The Web link links you directly to the eCollege Help page specific to the topic.

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Course Checklist

The Course Checklist displays a list of all course assignments and its associated due dates, and with a check-box next to each item. The check-box allows students to monitor their progress by checking off work completed. This job aid covers how to view the checklist and how to set due dates to display on the list. The Web link links you directly to the eCollege Help page specific to the topic.

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Group Management

Many instructors see instructional value in creating groups or teams within their courses. Online groups can be useful for holding private team discussions, having specialized readings, assignments, and group emails, and using other tools to complete final team projects/papers.

Groups

Both the job aid and tutorial covers how to create a group, how to assign a content item to group(s), how to rename and/or edit a group, and how to delete a group. It also covers what is automatically created with a group. The Web link links you directly to the eCollege Help page specific to the topic.

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Units

As with a traditional course, you’ll want to break your online course up into Units, Sessions, Weeks, Chapters, or any other division you choose. You can also set up preferences and properties for a unit in your course.

Add Units/Sections

As you create your course, you’ll divide it into units or sections, which will contain individual content items (e.g. threaded discussions, exams). Both the job aid and tutorial covers how to add a unit to your course, and how to edit and/or delete a unit. The Web link links you directly to the eCollege Help page specific to the topic.

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Toolbox for Units

The Toolbox is where you can set preferences and properties for a unit in your course. This job aid covers how to edit the schedule of a unit (e.g. start/end dates), how to edit a unit title, how to change the order of content items within a unit, how to change the order of the unit itself, and how to deleted a unit. The Web link links you directly to the eCollege Help page specific to the topic.

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Content Items

Once you have added Units to your course, you are ready to add content items. A content item itself is a sub-section within a Unit that, like a Unit, you can also set up preferences and properties for in your course.

Add Exam

See ‘Exams and Quizzes’ sections

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Add Microsoft® Office Document

This job aid covers how to create a content item that allows you to upload a Microsoft Office Document (Word, PowerPoint, and Excel). Additionally, steps are given to illustrate how to replace an updated document with an existing one, and how to delete the content item altogether. The Web link links you directly to the eCollege Help page specific to the topic.

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Add Threaded Discussion

See ‘Threaded Discussion’ section

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Add Text Multi-Media

Text and multimedia content items are formatted using the Visual Editor. This type of content items is good if you would like to type instructions or information to your students. This is, rather than uploading a document into the content item (you can only do one or the other). Both the job aid and tutorial covers how to create a content item that allows you to use the Visual Editor to create an assignment with a Dropbox basket. The job aid further inform us how to update/edit the existing content item, as well as how to delete the content item altogether; scheduling items are also briefly discussed. The Web link links you directly to the eCollege Help page specific to the topic.

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Add Web Content Upload

This job aid covers how to use Web Content Upload to create a content item that allows you to upload media files, HTML files, images, PDFs, or any type of file that is not a Microsoft® Document. Additionally, steps are given on how to replace a web content upload, and how to delete a web content upload; scheduling items are also briefly discussed. The Web link links you directly to the eCollege Help page specific to the topic.

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Toolbox for Content Items

The Toolbox is where you can set preferences and properties for a current item. This job aid and tutorial covers some of the common options in the Toolbox for content items: edit schedule, create Dropbox basket, move content item to another unit, reorder content item within a unit, assign content item to a group, hide content item from students. The Web link links you directly to the eCollege Help page specific to the topic.

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Formatting Content

Use Visual Editor to create, modify, and format course content. The Visual Editor makes formatting your course content as easy as editing with a word-processing document.

Visual Editor

The Visual Editor is similar to a word-processing toolbar and enables you to create, modify, and format your course. It performs functions such as inserting text, image and/or link. Both the job aid and tutorial covers the Visual Editor’s functionality. The tutorial further covers to format the content of your course with the Visual Editor while in “Author” view. The Web link links you directly to the eCollege Help page specific to the topic.

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Link to Content or Files

Adding links is easy. There’s a simple process for adding links, and it’s the same process no matter where you are in your course. This job aid covers how to: link to content or files, remove a link from content or files, and makes edits to a link to content or files. The Web link links you directly to the eCollege Help page specific to the topic.

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Insert an Image

Adding links is easy. There’s a simple process for adding links, and it’s the same process no matter where you are in your course. Both the job aid and tutorial covers how to: insert an image, remove an inserted image, and make edits to an inserted image.

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Link to a Website

Adding links is easy. There’s a simple process for adding links, and it’s the same process no matter where you are in your course. Both the job aid and tutorial covers how to: link to a website, remove a link to a website, and make edits to a link to a website. The Web link links you directly to the eCollege Help page specific to the topic.

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Link to Course Tool

Adding links is easy. There’s a simple process for adding links, and it’s the same process no matter where you are in your course. This job aid covers how to: link to a course tool (e.g. journal), and make edits to a link to a course tool. The Web link links you directly to the eCollege Help page specific to the topic.

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Link to Course Content

Adding links is easy. There’s a simple process for adding links, and it’s the same process no matter where you are in your course. This job aid covers how to link to course content, remove a link to course content, and make edits to a link to course content. The Web link links you directly to the eCollege Help page specific to the topic.

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Course Tools

The course tools help you communicate and interact with your students. Your students can use course tools to communicate with you and with other students.

Course Scheduler

Both the job aid and tutorial covers how to use the Course Scheduler to set start, end, and due dates for Units and Content items, as well as exam Gradebook review dates in your course from a single location. Also covered is how to restrict access to a unit or content item before and/or after the assigned dates. The tutorial further covers how to set a threaded discussions to “read only” after the assigned end date (which the job aid does not cover). The Web link links you directly to the eCollege Help page specific to the topic.

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Gradebook

See ‘Gradebook’ section

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Email

Use email to address student questions, concerns, and issues individually or send messages and files to groups of students. Students can use email to send messages to instructions and their classmates. The Web link links you directly to the eCollege Help page specific to the topic.

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Live

See ‘ClassLive Pro’ section

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Doc Sharing

You and your students can use Document Sharing to upload/download documents, images, spreadsheets, .ZIP files, and HTML pages. This job aid and tutorial covers ow to create categories for your documents, and how to upload and download the documents. You can also view who has downloadable the documents, and edit and/or delete a file and/or category. The Web link links you directly to the eCollege Help page specific to the topic.

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Dropbox

The Dropbox tool provides a central location where you and your students can submit and retrieve assignments and graded activities. Think of the Dropbox as a virtual Inbox and Outbox for course assignments. A Dropbox basket cannot be created for Threaded Discussions or Exams. The first job aid covers how to create a Dropbox basket for both a new content item, and for an existing content item. The second job aid covers how to rename or edit a Dropbox basket, and how to delete a basket. The Web link links you directly to the eCollege Help page specific to the topic.

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Journal

The Journal tool is a place where students can write notes and record thoughts. Students have the option of sharing their Journal entries with you. This job aid covers how you can read, modify, and comment in the Journal entries that students choose to share. The Web link links you directly to the eCollege Help page specific to the topic.

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Webliography

You and your students can add web sites to the course Webliography. The job aid and tutorial covers how to: create categories to sort individual web entries, add a web entry, edit and delete categories and web entries. The tutorial further covers sorting entries by category, author, and by most recent entry; as well as how to use the Search Webliography function. The Web link links you directly to the eCollege Help page specific to the topic.

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Threaded Discussion

A Threaded Discussion, or Thread, allows students to post comments to a discussion topic, and respond to ideas shared by others in the course. Discussions take place asynchronously, which means students post to a Discussion at their convenience.

Threaded Discussion Content Item

Both the job aid and tutorial covers how to create a threaded discussion content item, and how to add topics to that content item. The job aid and tutorial explains how to both edit and delete a topic within a threaded discussion. It also shows you: how to hide the discussion until you are ready to reveal it, and how to delete an entire threaded discussion. The Web link links you directly to the eCollege Help page specific to the topic.

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Set Course Level Preferences

Both the job aid and tutorial covers how to set course-level Threaded Discussion preferences from the Course Admin page. It also covers how to undo Threaded Discussion preferences. The preferences are: Set topics to read only; allow students to edit their posts; display responses in preview mode; allow subject lines to be editable. The Web link links you directly to the eCollege Help page specific to the topic.

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Toolbox for Threaded Discussion

Each content item you add to your course has a Toolbox associated with it. The Toolbox is where you can set preferences and properties for the current content item. This job aid covers how to edit a schedule for a Threaded Discussion, how to move a threaded discussion (either reorder it within a unit or move it to another unit), and how to delete the Threaded Discussion. It also explains how to: set all topics to “read only”, allow student to edit their responses, and hide the threaded discussion from students. The Web link links you directly to the eCollege Help page specific to the topic.

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Exams and Quizzes

Use the Exam content item to evaluate student performance. When you create an exam item, you can also set exam preference settings like passwords, extending test time, access dates and times, grading options, etc.

Add Exam

Use the Exam content item to evaluate student performance. The job aid tutorial covers how to add an exam to your course, including how to add, edit and delete questions; how to update points, and how to delete an entire exam. Setting exam preference is also covered (e.g. passwords, Gradebook review date, scheduling options). The Web link links you directly to the eCollege Help page specific to the topic.

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Create a Question Poll

A question pool allows you to randomly draw set number of questions from a larger base of questions. This is an effective way to ensure students see different questions on an exam. You can also include a mandatory question(s) that all students get, from the question pool. The first job aid and the tutorial cover how to create a question pool, and add questions to it. Additionally, the first job aid covers how to move an entire question pool, and move the start or end row for a question pool. The second job aid covers how to edit/delete questions in a Question Pool, edit the pool itself (e.g. number of questions that should display), and how to delete a pool. The Web link links you directly to the eCollege Help page specific to the topic.

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Reset an Exam & Grant Additional Time

Occasionally, you might need to either reset an exam for a student or grant a student additional exam time. The job aid and tutorial covers how to do both. The Web link links you directly to the eCollege Help page specific to the topic.

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Toolbox for Exams

The Toolbox is where you can set preferences and properties for the current content item. The job aid and tutorial covers: edit schedule, assign to all class members or to a group, and hide Exam from students. Also covered are: number of times a student can take an exam, time allowed, set a grading option (e.g. display correct answers), and set a security password. The job aid further covers how to move an Exam (either reorder it within a unit or move it to another unit), and how to delete an Exam. The Web link links you directly to the eCollege Help page specific to the topic.

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Gradebook

You and your students have access to a shared online Gradebook. As student complete assignments, you can evaluate their work and then enter their grades into the Gradebook. You can also use Gradebook to post comments for each grade.

Gradebook Setup

The Gradebook is a good way to let your students track their progress. Before we can use the Gradebook it must first be set up, in three steps. This job aid and tutorial covers each step: Add New Items, Select Gradeable Items, and Assign Points/Weights. It also covers an optional step, if you want weighted calculations – the Use Weighted Calculations option. The job aid further covers how to add additional items to the gradable items weight. The Web link links you directly to the eCollege Help page specific to the topic.

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Gradebook Setup - Change Points

This job aid covers how to change points/weights of a Gradebook item. The Web link links you directly to the eCollege Help page specific to the topic.

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Exclude Item

You can exclude a content item from the final course grade. This option enables you to display an item in the Gradebook and assign a point value to it, but not include the point value in the final course calculations. This job aid and tutorial covers how to change the status of an item from being “included” to being “excluded” and vice versa. The Web link links you directly to the eCollege Help page specific to the topic.

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Assign Extra Credit

You can have the eCollege Gradebook recognize a gradable item as extra credit. This job aid and tutorial covers how to set a gradable item as extra credit. At anytime, you can change the status of an item back to being counted as a normal part of the course grade. The Web link links you directly to the eCollege Help page specific to the topic.

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Remove Item

You can always remove an item that you had added to the Gradebook. This job aid and tutorial covers how to remove a content item from the Gradebook. The tutorial further covers how to remove a content item from some of the Units in the Gradebook, while keeping it in others. The Web link links you directly to the eCollege Help page specific to the topic.

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Entering Grades

After you set up the Gradebook, you can enter grades and comments into the Gradebook. The Gradebook system then calculates and displays up-to-date letter and numeric grades for each student, which you can then export to a regular spreadsheet application. The job aid covers the different Gradebook views, how to assign grades to all students for a single content item (Quick Grade View also covered), how to change student’s grades, how to share grades with students & why student can’t see their grades. The tutorial demonstrates how to use the Gradebook to enter grades and comments into the Gradebook for the following: Document Sharing, Journal, Webliography, Threaded Discussions, Exams, and Content Items with Dropbox Baskets. The different Gradebook Views are covered: Grades to Date, Course Home, Unit, Item Summary, and Show All. The Web link links you directly to the eCollege Help page specific to the topic.

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