Updates to the Online Course System for Summer Term

July 02, 2012 | 3 Minute Read

Although June seems like it would be a slower time at the School, with the academic year just ending, the team in the Center for Teaching and Learning has been very busy adding new features to the online course system. Listed below are the new features that have been added for the start of the summer term:

• Faculty and TAs now have access to Page Builder. Page Builder is the tool that CTL staff use to create lecture pages, activity/exercise pages, and the faculty bio page in online courses. One of the Center's goals for the next couple of years is to empower faculty and TAs to make changes and additions to their online courses in ways that they simply could not before. Giving access to Page Builder is a step towards that goal. With Page Builder, faculty and TAs in online courses have broad control over the lecture and activity pages in their online course sites, including:
  • Creation of new activity pages.
  • Editing of metadata (title, subtitle) and all sections of content on activity pages.
  • Editing of all sections of content except the "Lecture Materials" box on lecture pages.
  • Previewing any Page Builder page at any time.
  • Editing faculty/TA bios.
  • Adding, managing, and deleting faculty groups for display on the course faculty page.
  • Editing the course home page welcome text.
• Quiz Generator changes. The following new features have been added to the Quiz Generator in online courses:
  • Faculty and TAs can now select an item on the course schedule to which the start/end dates of the quiz will sync. This now enables faculty and TAs to create new versions of exams and link them to the proper item on the course schedule whenever they see fit, without having to go through their course instructional designer.
    • Note that if you adjust schedule dates from the Quiz Generator, the "Start Available Date" on the schedule will be set to the "Access beings at" date for the quiz, and the "End Available Date" and the "Due Date" on the schedule will both be set to the "Access ends at" date for the quiz.
  • If you opt to display the answer key to a quiz, you also need to provide the date on which the answer key is no longer visible to students. This change was necessitated by the sync of schedule dates to quiz begin/end dates. Once the date on which the answer key is no longer available to students has passed, the link to the quiz answer key no longer appears on the course schedule page.
  • Answers to questions are now displayed on the main quiz overview page.
  • If a question is excluded from scoring, this information appears on the main quiz overview page and on the answer key.
• Additional changes:
  • The confirmation window that appears after you delete an item in the Online Library now defaults to "OK" in the main button, instead of "Undo." An undo link has been added to the confirmation window so that you can still undo a delete.
  • If an item on the schedule becomes available at a time other than midnight (00:00 hours), the time at which the item becomes available is now included on the "Daily Course Notifications" email message.
  • Printing BBS topics using "File" -> "Print" now results in more printer-friendly pages.