Access to the Schedule Builder Tool in Online Courses
Some faculty in online courses have long asked for the ability to edit the course schedule (or main "Content" page), as it's the only page in their online course site which they cannot edit. Prior to now, the faculty had to work with their course instructional designer to make any changes — even the modification of one due date — to their course schedule.
Faculty now have access to the Schedule Builder tool in online courses! Faculty cannot do everything that a course instructional designer can do, but they can:
- Access the Schedule Builder tool
- Reorder the items in the schedule
- Add new items that are not lectures or LiveTalks. Those must still be added by the course instructional designer.
- Add and edit group headers for items on the schedule.
- Change available and due dates on any item except for lectures or LiveTalks.
- Change the Assignment Description for lectures or LiveTalks.
Edits that are made by faculty are compiled into a daily digest email and sent to the course instructional designer. This helps facilitate communication between the two parties.
The limitations on complete faculty access to the Schedule Builder tool are the result of the extensive, detailed production process for creating online lectures. While it would certainly be convenient for faculty to be able to change the opening date of a lecture as they see fit, that lecture might not actually be fully produced by the date that the faculty selects. As such, coordination with the course instructional designer is still important.
We know that some faculty will continue to rely on their course instructional designer to do all edits to the course schedule. For those fauclty who prefer a more hands-on approach, we hope that these changes will provide you with additional flexibility you've been looking for!