Teaching with WyoWeb

For additional information, see Instructional Computing Services FAQs.

The University of Wyoming's world-wide web intranet, called WyoWeb, houses various information and general web services for students, faculty, and staff.  The portal, http://wyoweb.uwyo.edu, is separate from the public website.  Logging in to WyoWeb is simple.  Enter your standard UWYO domain user ID and password, and then click on the Faculty tab.  Course Studio shells are located in the "My Courses" channel, on the link labeled with the current semester.

The three main effects of WyoWeb for teaching faculty, which this site addresses, are Course Studio shells, online grade submission, and advisee tracking.  In addition, you can use the faculty dashboard to show your courses, the corresponding enrollment, and your advisees.  The faculty dashboard is purely for administrative processing.
 

Course Studio Shells:  An Introduction

Course Studio Shells:  Performing Basic Tasks

Submitting Grades through WyoWeb

Tracking Advisees through WyoWeb    
 

Course Studio Shells:  An Introduction

Course Studio provides simple file sharing and internet communications, but no student grades or records, exams or surveys, or assignment submission features.  To access your course studio shell, click on the "My Courses" channel under the Faculty tab.   You will see a list of your courses, and you can select the appropriate one.

If you don't want to use Course Studio, set the reference, in My Courses, to an eCompanion or WebCT shell, 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, labeled "Campus Pipeline," is the Course Studio option.  The fourth choice, "Other," provides a blank field where you can type a website address of your own.

Instructors and students use the Course Tools for most materials, and instructors use the Content and Configuration Tools to set up and manage the course site.  Both students and instructors (along with guest instructors and TAs) are members of the course shell, and new members can be added.

Course Studio:  Performing Basic Tasks

  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.
 

  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 Material:  You can provide written material in the form of plain text, MS Word, HTML, PowerPoint, PDF, and other document types.   Just use the "Add" button in the "Files" or "Manage Files" tools.  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 especially suitable for student collaborative groups or for student assignment submission to the instructor.  Avoid special characters in file names; an apostrophe, in particular, will lead upload failure with odd error messages.

To Submit, Activate, and Delete 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. Items can be deleted by the designated administrators. 

  Communication, Discussion, and Collaborative Work

Email:  When you log into WyoWeb, you should be able to e-mail your class using either the e-mail link (envelope icon) in the Faculty Dashboard or the class listing in "My Courses."  The default configuration should handle Windows users in Internet Explorer, but others may have trouble.  Even under Windows, with Outlook as your standard e-mail program, you will have to configure it to allow commas in addition to semicolons for the recipient list: 

Tools --> Options --> E-Mail Options --> Advanced E-Mail Options -->
Allow comma as address separator (checkbox near bottom of page).

If you are not using Outlook, you may need to set up your browser so that it runs your preferred e-mail client on the "mailto" link. 

The Message Board:  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, or authorized students, to be shared with the whole class.

  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 an course shell, which exists as a separate unit under the "My Consolidated Courses" link, would be useful for distributing materials to everyone in courses that are cross-listed over departments or numbers.

To create such a consolidation, on your "My Courses" page, which shows your teaching list, click on the "My Consolidated Courses" link on the top right, and follow the instructions.  Note that you will not be able to include a class unless you are its instructor of record; you can only include the classes that appear on your own list.

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 to the component courses.

  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 and use "Add" to place them in the administrators list.

Submitting Grades through WyoWeb

Click on the “Faculty” tab and look for the “Faculty Grade Assignment” channel in the upper right (or wherever you have moved it).  In the drop-down menu, within the Faculty Grade Assignment channel, select either "Midterm" or "Final" grades and click “Go.” You should then see a list of the courses for which you are the instructor of record.  If you have more than four courses, click the "More" button at the bottom.

To begin assigning grades:

• Click on the green or yellow triangle icon to the right of the course.

• Enter the grades by either typing the correct grade in the grade box to the right of the student or by using the drop-down arrow to select the grade.

• Click "Submit" at the bottom of the screen.

• Select additional "Record Sets" to bring up more student records, if you have a large class.  Submit each separately before moving on.

A grade of "I" (Incomplete) may be assigned, but must be followed by the Authorization of Incomplete form, obtained from the Office of the Registrar.

You may submit grades during different sessions. Once you have submitted grades, they are held in the system, to appear in those students' grades channels the following morning.  If the grade roster is started, but not complete, the green triangle icon will change to a yellow triangle. If a student has withdrawn from your class and a midterm grade of W was not pre-loaded, the yellow triangle will remain.

Once grades for the entire class have been entered, the icon will change to a green checkmark in a yellow box.  You are done, but students have not seen the grades, and changes can be made. Once the icon changes to a blue checkmark (only in courses for which any W grades have been pre-loaded), the grades have been posted to official student records.
 

Frequently Encountered Issues

You can't see all your courses in the Faculty Submission Channel:  There is a link at the bottom of the channel titled MORE.  Click on that link and you can access the remaining classes

You make a mistake:  If the drop-down box is still active for that student, change the grade and press SUBMIT.  If it is not active, you will need to complete the Change of Grade form.   An electronic version of this form is available at the Office of the Registrar website under the Faculty/Staff tab.  You may also obtain a paper version from the Office of the Registrar.  If you submit this form by the grade deadline, you will only need your signature.  If it is submitted after the deadline, all signatures will be required.

You need to submit grades for a partial roster:  You can submit as many as you have completed.  If you have loaded any grades, they will appear for those students when the Registrar rolls those grades to the students’ transcripts .  If not all grades are posted, you may get questions from students who don't have grades while their peers do.

For more help, call the Office of the Registrar at 307.766.5272 or stop by the office in the west wing of Knight Hall.

Tracking Advisees through WyoWeb

(from Lane Buchanan, Associate Registrar)

To view your list of advisees

"Advisees" will search through only your advisees.  "Students" will search through only the students enrolled in one of your classes for the term selected.  "Both" will search through the students in one of your classes for the term as well as your advisees.  "All" will search through all of the students currently enrolled at UW for the term.)

The percent symbol is a wildcard and is most commonly used when the spelling of a name in not known. 

For example, John Rhys-Davis is the name of the student but you're not sure how the name appears in Banner.  You could search a couple of different ways:

Last Name:  %Davis%
First Name:  John
Click on 'All'
This will return all of the students currently enrolled whose first name is John and their last name contains Davis.  Examples could include John Davis, John Smith-Davis, John Davison, but you would also pull up John Rhys-Davis

Other examples:

Last Name:  %Rhys%
First Name:  <blank>
Click on 'All'
This will return all of the students currently enrolled whose last name contains 'rhys' in some manner.  Capitalization of letters in the search criteria does not matter.

Last Name:  Shakes%
First Name: W%
Click on 'All'
This will return all of the student currently enrolled whose last name starts with 'Shakes' and whose first name starts with 'W'.  William Shakespeare, Wayne Shakeston, and Whitney Shakescu could be examples.

 

For additional information, see Instructional Computing Services FAQs.

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