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For common problems and their solutions, see Online Course Connection Help.

For more information contact Instructional Computing Services:

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ectltech@uwyo.edu 

Ellbogen Center for Teaching and Learning, University of Wyoming

Instructions for Standard Teaching Tasks using Course Studio in WyoWeb

 

 

WYOWEB AND COURSE SHELLS

 

When you use your UWYO domain account to enter the portal, WyoWeb, you should see all your courses listed when you click on the "Course Sites" link in the My Courses channel of the Faculty tab.  By default, each course is a Course Studio website.  Click on a course title to go to that course's homepage.  (Unfortunately, the platform does not identify itself with the name "Course Studio.")

Note:  Course Studio provides simple file sharing and Internet communications, but no student grades or records, or exams or surveys, or private assignment submission.  Please understand the limitations, such as those described in Section VI below, before you elect to rely on this website for your class.

If you don't want to use Course Studio:  You may request and set up an eCompanion, WebCT, or WyoSakai shell.  (See other Faculty Resources pages.) When you have done so, you may change the reference in the "Course Sites" list to that new course website, or to an external URL: Click the EDIT button next to the course title, and select one of the four choices.  The first and default choice is the Course Studio option.  The fourth choice, "Other," provides a blank field where you can type an external website address of your own.

For introductory materials on Course Studio and related WyoWeb services, please see:
  How will the new WyoWeb portal affect my teaching?
  How to Set Up Course Studio
  WyoWeb Facilities For the Paperwork of Teaching

 

 

COURSE STUDIO TOOLS

 

Instructors and students use the Course Tools for most materials, and instructors use the Content Tools and Configuration Tools to set up and manage the course site.

 

To view and modify the tools provided:

Under Configuration tools, click on Applications.  From the list provided, add or remove tools with the checkboxes.

Removal of the Announcements and Message Board tools will leave the middle column, on the Course Homepage, empty.

 

Members

 

Both students and instructors (along with guest instructors and TAs) appear on the list of "members."  Ordering is done by the first letter of the name string, which currently means alphabetization by first name (or title).  There is no distinct student view available to instructors.  What your students see on the course home page is the same layout that you see, with the Course Tools and Personal Tools, and perhaps some Content Tools IF you have delegated those permissions.  (They see no Configuration Tools.)

 

Teaching Assistants and Other Instructors:  You can add others through their UWYO domain accounts, or search for them by name, as either TAs or Guests:
  Configuration Tools --> Members
    > Add Members
      1.  Either enter name (Search for Users tab), OR
           Enter UWYO account name (Add by Login tab).
              --Designee must be a UWYO domain account holder--
            OR search by name (not recommended because it takes a long time).
      2.  Choose Teaching Assistant (status that grants Configuration privileges) or Guest (status equivalent to student).
      3.  Type required message to designee.

 

Your new teaching assistant or guest will not be able to reach the course site except through the My Courses channel, so, if not an instructor or student already, he or she will need to add that channel to a tab in his or her portal design.

 

I.  Setting up the Course Homepage

The page is divided into three columns, with the tools listed on the left, the middle column for announcements and message board exchanges, and the right for the Course Information box (not editable), and, below, photos and links that can be added (from items already in the course) through "Manage Homepage" in the Content Tools.  No other modifications are possible.

 

II.  Providing Materials

To Add a Short Announcement to the Homepage

On the course homepage, click "Add new announcement."  Announcements disappear in a week, and no archive is maintained.

To Upload Written Matter

You can provide written material in the form of plain text, MS Word, HTML, PowerPoint, PDF, and other document types.  Use either the "Files" tool in Course Tools or "Manage Files" in the Content Tools.  Click on the "Add new file" link (above the "File and Folder Search" box), then browse your computer for the file you want to upload.

Files are limited to 20Mb in size individually, with a total of 100Mb per course.  Files cannot be shared with only a designated subgroup of members, so this mechanism is not suitable for student collaborative groups or for student assignment submission to the instructor.  Avoid special characters in file names; an apostrophe, in particular, will cause upload failure with odd error messages.

Your students will simply download these files as they would from any web file server.  Tell them, after they log on to WyoWeb, click on "Course Sites" and then enter your course, to follow the "Files" link under Course Tools and click on the one they want.  The behavior that follows-- perhaps prompting for "open" or "download"-- depends on the student's browser settings.

Your students can also submit files to be shared with the whole class.  You will have to accept those submissions with the "Manage Files" tool before they will appear in "Files."  You can also grant that authority to students; see below.

Submission, Activation, and Deletion of Materials

For most types of materials, including News, Photos, Links, Files, and Messages, placement into the course takes place through a three-phase process. Items are submitted by course members, including students, reviewed and accepted by designated administrators (by default, just the instructor), and then activated to make them available to the class. And items can be deleted by the designated administrators.  To delegate such authority, see the section below.

 

III.  Communication, Discussion, and Collaborative Work

For communication, the E-mail tool will send a message to your students, or to the subset of members that you select with the checkboxes.  Please note clearly, in the body of the message, which course and instructor is sending it, since students receive WyoWeb messages from many sources.   See the last section herein for explanation of some e-mail quirks, including send failure when the class is very large.

For discussion, add the Message Board tool if it is not already present, and add topics, to which students can respond, to start discussions.  Note that when you click on a topic, to open it, the messages appear above, not below.

Students can submit files, subject to review by instructors, TAs, (and authorized students-- see below) to be shared with the whole class.

 

IV.  Consolidated Courses:  Merging Classes

You can create a consolidated course, by combining two or more classes, that will include all members of each of those classes.  Such a course shell, which exists as a separate unit under the "My Consolidated Courses" link, would be useful, for example, for distributing materials to all students in courses that are cross-listed over departments or numbers.

To create such a consolidation, you must be the instructor of record in each section; in other words, each section must appear in your teaching list of Courses Sites in "My Courses."  In that page, click on the "My Consolidated Courses" link on the top right, and follow the instructions.  Now students (and instructors) will be members of both the component courses in which they are registered, and the consolidated courses formed from them.

To reach the consolidated course, both you and your students will use the "My Consolidated Courses" link; they will not see it listed on the "My Courses" page with the others.  The same interface and tools are used; the materials that appear are any that have been added by the instructor to the consolidated course, or to the individual component course.  Materials uploaded to the component course remain only at that level.  Activity in the Message Board of the consolidated course is reflected in the Message Boards of all component courses.  (Note that the red EDIT button that changes the URL of a course is not available for a consolidated course or its component courses, as they overlap in a structure that can't be carried piecemeal to another server.)

Consolidation provides a way to carry materials over from one semester to the next.  As long as courses from two different semesters appear in your teaching list, you can form a consolidated course that includes both, then remove the obsolete one from the consolidated course, and the materials will remain.

To add or remove component courses from an existing consolidated course:  In the consolidated course site, under "Configuration Tools," click on "Courses."  The list of components shown allows addition or removal.  To remove the consolidated course, remove all components first.

 

V.  Delegating Authority to Your Students

For most of the course tools (applications), you can designate students for administrative privileges.  Such students will be able to write or edit material, in the Announcements and Homepage tools, for example, and will be able to review and accept submissions, in the News, Photos, Links, and Files tools.

To grant such privileges, under Configuration Tools, click on Permissions, then select students by name and use "Add" to place them in the administrators list.

 

VI.  Limitations and Troubleshooting

Like the other course platforms provided by UW, Course Studio is not intended to be a permanent course archive, but rather a temporary vehicle for their delivery.  Save your materials on your own systems; at the end of the semester, download anything of interest.  As of December 2007, the Information Technology policy is to retain each course shell for about a year, so those links for a given semester will continue to appear on the faculty "Course Sites" list until courses begin to be set up for the corresponding semester of the following academic year.  Fall 2008 courses, for example, will appear until courses are created (around mid-term) for Fall 2009.  No backups are kept.

Course Studio:
  • alphabetizes the list of members by first name or title.
  • imposes restrictive file size limits (see above).
  • does not provide e-mail "Sent" or "Drafts" folders.
  • allows no materials except Announcements and Message Board to be placed in the middle column of the course homepage.
  • generates e-mail with empty "To" lines (to conform to FERPA).
  • does not work with Safari (as shown in the warning message on entry to WyoWeb).
Problem:  Message on e-mail send, "Email Stock Folder Account not defined."
Do not select the option "Save a copy to the Sent folder."  It is disabled.
Problem:  Failure messages referring to Oracle database, or SQL failure, on attempt to upload file.
Check the file name, and remove any apostrophes, punctuation characters, and other odd characters.
Problem: PDF file will not open on Mac.
Use the built-in PDF viewer rather than Adobe Reader. (Delete or revise this file on your Mac system-- Library/Viewers/adobePDF.)
Problem: Mass e-mail to large class does not work.
The AskIT How-To document for this particular issue advises switching to Firefox or copying and pasting the e-mail list into the recipients ("To:") field:
http://www.uwyo.edu/askit/displaydoc.asp?askitdocid=2321&parentid=1#open

You are invited to consider other online course platforms for more facilities, and to use the Suggestions icon in WyoWeb to send comments and requests concerning Course Studio and other WyoWeb tools, but bear in mind that the process of modifying installed commercial software is lengthy.


Last Update:  5 January, 2009, by R. Hill