UW-ACE Course Preparation Checklist - Fall 2006 Contents of this page: * Student access date * Course url * Course password * Information for a class about UW-ACE * A comment on the student question "Why do we have to use UW-ACE?" * Help about UW-ACE for faculty * How to handle requests from students for access to your course * Your Homepage * Adding TAs to the course * Course email * Create a course syllabus * Update the course calendar * Hide Lesson content * Student view of course * Create student teams (if needed) * Create milestones (optional, but recommended) * Post a welcome announcement message * Tabs * Preparing students for class * Multiple discussion boards * Mathematics * Gradebook * About other courses in UW-ACE * Notes Student access date: Student access to Fall 2006 UW-ACE courses begins Monday, September 11th, 2006, the first day of term. Student access to Summer 2006 UW-ACE courses ends on the same day. Term access is normally controlled by the UW-ACE administrator. Course editors can turn access on and off by using the "Roster Status Settings" in the "UW Section Instructor Tools" box under the Manage tab. Course url: Point your browser(*1) to uwace.uwaterloo.ca. Course password: Login using your uwdir(*2) login and password. Information for a class about UW-ACE: * UW-ACE login: http://uwace.uwaterloo.ca * help for students and faculty: - help link is the left-side "?" icon, for documents about how to use UW-ACE - uw-ace help-desk email address: uwacehelp@ist.uwaterloo.ca, for questions not answered by the help documents - MFCF (http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/mfcf/undergrad/) for computer accounts in the math faculty - browsers for UW-ACE: * Windows OS: Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Mozilla. * Macintosh OS: Firefox and Mozilla. Suggested browser: Firefox. A comment on the student question "Why do we have to use UW-ACE?": Overall, UW-ACE is a good, workable set of tools that is easy to use and offers a nice selection of features that can be adapted to a wide-ranging array of class requirements, from simple document management to highly interactive online courses. It may not (yet) have a favorite feature or setting from the newest or most popular programs, but it works, is useful and is continually improving. Please send comments, suggestions and complaints about UW-ACE to pkates@uwaterloo.ca (Paul Kates). I'll do my best to address your concerns. Help about UW-ACE for faculty: - contact Paul Kates (Mathematics Faculty LT3 liaison, pkates@uwaterloo.ca) for - help with using the features of UW-ACE to their best advantage - how-to queries - access problems - adding TAs to the course - suggestions for math software (e.g. MapleTA) - course design grants - workshops on UW-ACE use for TAs, faculty members - misc. problems or questions - see items about how to use UW-ACE in the Lessons folder in my UW-ACE web page (it redirects to uw-ace): http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/~pkates/liaison-uwace-course.html How to handle requests from students for access to your course: If a student is in the UW-ACE course classlist, then they have access to the course. For a student to be placed in the course classlist they officially register for the course. The classlist for every UW-ACE course is updated once a day. To avoid having students ask for access because they have not yet registered (or because registration has not yet completed) some instructors are temporarily changing the default course settings (which restrict course access to course members), to allow guest access i.e. access to anyone. Then, a week or two after the start of class, when the classlist is stable, course access can again be restricted to members. Email Paul Kates (pkates@uwaterloo.ca) for access setting instructions. Your Homepage: Upon entering UW-ACE, you see your UW-ACE home page, which shows the courses you have access to and a selection of commands and status messages. The "Edit Page" link allows you to customize the commands and messages shown on the home page. A search page is provided to locate other UW-ACE courses - see the item "Other courses in UW-ACE" below. To return to your home page, click the Home page icon (the house icon on the left of the page). Adding TAs to the course: To add tutors or teaching assistants to your UW-ACE course, please send me their names and UW email addresses. Course email: Set your email forwarding. Follow Preferences icon (wrench on left of page), System Settings, then set the forwarding email address and forwarding mode, if desired. Note: students can set the forwarding mode, but their forwarding email address is fixed to their UW email address. Students can use UWDir to forward UW email to other locations. Create a course syllabus: Click the Resources tab, and the Syllabus "edit" link. Then upload a syllabus or use the syllabus form. Typical content includes course staff names and contact information, course objectives, required books, and marking scheme. Click the Course tab and the "Edit Page" link. Select "Syllabus" in the Available Components list and click Add Component. This will place a link to the syllabus in the Course tab. There is a single course syllabus which can be edited from either the Course or Resources tab. It is recommended that the syllabus be made available in the Resources tab because that tab has public access by default. It is also recommended that the syllabus be made available in the Course tab because that tab is the default starting tab for course members. Update the course calendar: Click on the Calendar tab. Delete old entries, create new ones. Entries can be private (only your login sees the entry) or public (the class sees the entry). Public entries are added to course member students' calendars automatically. A student's calendar is thus populated with dates from every UW-ACE course they belong to. In the Add page, a private calendar entry is created by selecting your name in the User setting. When another individual is selected then only you and that individual can see the calendar entry. This is useful for private appointments. A User setting of Everyone means everyone in the class. Hide Lesson content: Hide any Lessons files and folders that are unfinished or are to be presented later in the course. See "Hiding a lesson"(*3) below. By default, newly created Lesson items (file, folder, quiz, etc) are *not hidden* which means they are accessible to students. To tell at a glance, look at the icon - if bright then it's accessible, if dull then it is hidden to students. Student view of course: You can preview your course with student access rights to test accessibility and behaviour of course items by clicking the preview icon (the Eyeglasses icon) in the top, right corner of the page. Click the icon again to end the preview. Create student teams (if needed): Click the Teams link in the Course Management box in the Manage tab to build more teams of students for your course. Access to much of the content in UW-ACE (pages, quizzes, discussion boards,...) can be restricted to one or more teams, if desired. By default, a team is created for each lecture section of a course. Teams can be given file space in UW-ACE for their project documents. Create milestones (optional, but recommended): Milestones allow students and staff to track student progress. A milestone can be associated with any item in the Lessons tab, a file, folder, quiz, dropbox, discussion forum etc. Milestone begin and end dates are automatically placed in students' calendars. A milestone is shown completed when a Lessons item is used by a student. To view which milestones are over due, completed and pending (started but not yet due), students and instructors use the Report tab. To create a milestone for a Lesson item, edit the item using the "settings" link that appears when the mouse is near the item, and choose the Assignment tab. In the Milestone Setting box, choose "Item Completion" when student access to the item means the milestone is achieved, or choose "Manually Marked" when an instructor is to say when the milestone is achieved by selecting the milestone in the Report tab. Post a welcome announcement message: Click the Announcements link in the Course News and Events box in the Communication tab to see the course announcements. Click the "Add Announcement" link to create an announcement. By default, announcements are viewable by everyone in the course (see the User setting when adding an announcement) and are shown for a week. Students view announcements in the Communication tab, but you can also set up Announcements links in the Course tab and the Resources tab. Tabs: Decide to keep the default tab scheme or change the tab names, number of tabs and where tabs link to (see the Manage/Tab-Settings page). Preparing students for class: Consider using short concept-testing online pre-class quizzes for preparing your students with the subject matter they'll need for their next class, giving you a chance before class to see what difficulties, if any, students have with the subject material. Multiple discussion boards: Consider using multiple discussion boards - one per topic or per group - to help organize and untangle typical multiple-threaded discussions. Discussion board access rights can be set up to allow moderated discussions and student blogs (one writes, and all read). Mathematics: Plain text mathematical expressions like f(x)=x^2+2x and integral{0 to x} g(x) dx can be used for communicating mathematics anywhere in UW-ACE. LaTeX mathematics notation and output can also be used in html pages (quizzes, email, boards, ... ) in UW-ACE using the jsMath javascript program. See the folder "TeX quality mathematics in html pages" in the Lessons tab at page http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/~pkates/liaison-uwace-course.html. Gradebook: In the gradebook, set up categories for items in the course that will be graded. UW-ACE quizzes are graded automatically but they need to be given categories in the gradebook to influence the calculated grade. Marks for assignments, tests, etc can be entered into the gradebook by hand and by file. Gradebook grades can be made visible to students throughout the term. The gradebook is a little complicated to set up. Ask for a demonstration. About other courses in UW-ACE: You may be interested to swap experiences with other faculty members using UW-ACE. You can find any course in the system by using the "Find a Course" link at the head of the course list on your Home page. Click the link, select a term (e.g. 1069 for the current Fall 2006 term) and a subject e.g. MATH or CS, and the search result will show links to the current MATH or CS courses. Clicking a course name will bring you to the default starting page of a course, usually the Resources tab page with a syllabus link. By default, the Resources tab and the syllabus located within the Resources tab have public-access settings. Using the UW-ACE course search feature, students can read the syllabus of any UW-ACE course. As with earlier versions of UW-ACE, access to course content like the syllabus, assignments, FAQs, subject resources etc is controllable through settings made available to course instructors. Confidential information about names and grades is restricted and protected by default. Different access levels - instructor, student (in course), UW member, general public - can be assigned to each command tab and every individual item in the main Lessons folder. Instructors can thus share their course with potential students, other courses and faculty members or the general public. ------ Notes: ------ *1 Browsers for UW-ACE: * Windows OS: Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Mozilla. * Macintosh OS: Firefox and Mozilla. Suggested browser: Firefox. *2 A UWdir login id is your UW email name; the password is set at site http://ist.uwaterloo.ca/ew/student/uwdiracct.htm *3 Hiding a lesson: You might want to hide lessons, because * the term hasn't started yet and the lessons are still being prepared, * or the term is underway but one lesson isn't quite ready for view, * or you don't want students to work ahead, To temporarily hide content in the Lessons tab: * Click on the Lessons tab. * Click on the "settings" link that appears when the mouse hovers over a Lessons item. * Click the Access tab. * In the View Restrictions box, select the checkbox next to "Do not allow users to view this item". * Uncheck this box when the item is to be viewed. * Click Save at the bottom of the page. Folders are hidden in the same way, but items in the folder are also affected. * In the View Restrictions box, select the checkbox next to "Do not allow users to view this item". * In the Cascade Setting box, select the Hidden checkbox if all items in the folder are also to be hidden. Uncheck the Hidden checkbox and then only future items created in the folder will be hidden when the folder is hidden. * Click Save at the bottom of the page * It is always worth double checking the access settings for documents that are supposed to be hidden from student view. Experience shows that it is easy to alter the settings incorrectly. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Paul Kates Mathematics Faculty LT3 Liaison pkates@uwaterloo.ca, x7047