Technology Resource Center

WebCT basics for WSC faculty

Logging in

Go to http://ecampus.wsc.edu and log in using your network login and password. The preferred browser is Mozilla Firefox, but WebCT will work as well with any recent version of Netscape or Internet Explorer. Then mouse-over the WSC Online Resources link at the right of the page, and click the WebCT Online Education link. This will take you directly to your MyWebCT page.

This is the preferred login method for students, because they will be notified in Ecampus if their password is about to expire.

First glance
Once you reach your MyWebCT page, you must click on the course you want to enter. The first page you see is similar to what a student will see. The main difference is that instructors have the ability to change the appearance and content of the course, while students do not. Toggle back and forth between Designer Options and View to see the difference. In Designer Options, a menu is available at the right of the page to add tools or change the appearance of the homepage.

Personalize your course
Go back to your WebCT homepage by clicking Homepage toward the top of the WebCT page (not the browser) or by clicking Homepage in the left hand navigation bar. Make sure Designer Options is selected. This allows you to alter the appearance of the page. Select the textblock at the top of the page by clicking in the button to the left of “Welcome to your WebCT course.” Under Options: Textblocks at the right of the screen, click the Edit button. Under Text Heading, type “Welcome to Basketweaving 101,” or even better, the actual name of your class. Then type additional information in the Text box or, if you wish, just delete the generic wording that appears. You can change the color and size of your text, as well. Click Update when you have finished.

Adding your syllabus/course outline
From the Homepage, click Add Page or Tool. Then click the Syllabus under Course Content tools. Type Syllabus or whatever you wish for a title, and click in the box next to On an Organizer Page: Homepage. Optional: If you click in the Course Menu box, the Syllabus link will also appear in the Course Menu at the left of the screen. Click Add.

Open your syllabus in Microsoft Word. Go to File, Save As. Make sure your filename is relatively short and that it contains no special characters (&, /, etc) or spaces. Hyphens and underscores are OK. Change Save as Type to Web Page and click Save.

Go back to your Homepage in WebCT. Make sure Designer Options is selected. Click the Syllabus icon. In Syllabus Source, select Syllabus File. Click Browse, then click Upload and browse to find the Click Browse, and click Browse again on the next page. Find the syllabus web page you just created. It might be the same name as your original syllabus file, but now the file extension will be htm or html. Click Open, click Upload, and then click Add Selected. Click Update, and then click View instead of Designer Options. You should see your syllabus.

Other tools appear by default on the homepage. You can delete or hide them by selecting them and clicking the appropriate button in the Designer Options menu. The Introduction tool is an option some faculty choose to use. As with the textblock, the Introduction now contains a generic message. If you want to add your own introduction, type it up, save as a web page in Word, and load it in the same fashion you did with the Syllabus. If you don’t want it, delete it. Most faculty delete the Student Homepages tool as well. Your choice.

Communication Tools

WebCT Mail: WebCT has a built-in mail (messaging) system used for communication just within this course (completely unrelated to hotmail or yahoo addresses, etc.). Click on the Mail icon. To send an email message to everyone in the class, or just certain people, click Compose Mail Message, and browse to select any or all of the people in the class. Click one name and Select to address a message to one student. Drag through the list to select the entire class. Click/CTRL Click to select separate names. Type your message (it insists on a subject) and click Send. The message will appear in your Outbox.

WebCT’s mail system allows users to attach files, forward messages, etc., just like most mail systems do.

Discussion: WebCT’s discussion board allows online students to engage in asynchronous discussions – meaning they don’t all have to be on their computers at the same time. An instructor could post a discussion message and notify the online students that they have, say, a week to discuss the topic. Students could log in any time – or several times -- during that week to participate in the discussion.

Click on the Discussion icon. Click Main under Topic. Click Compose Message. One difference between Discussion and Mail is that discussion postings by default go to everyone in the class. There is a Reply Privately option that can be used if needed. You might have to toggle the Show All and Unthreaded buttons to see all the messages, and clicking Update listings will show the newer messages.

The Discussion tool also allows users to attach files to posted messages, and students can be assigned to groups within the discussion board to facilitate working on group projects or assignments.

Students can be added to discussion groups. Click Create Topic, name it Group 1 or whatever you wish, and click Create. Select the group by clicking in the button to its left. Click in the button under Private (same row as the group you’re working on) and click Update. Select the group again and click Manage Members. Select which students you want in the group (always include yourself) and click Update. Only the selected students (and yourself) have access to this group. Repeat as needed.

Chat: Chat is similar to the chat rooms and instant messengers that our students use. It is a synchronous tool, meaning that the students must be logged in at the same time to participate. A very handy feature, from a teacher’s point of view, is that some of the chats can be recorded. So, for example, a group of students might decide that they could all log on at 11:30 on a Tuesday night. The instructor could come in Wednesday morning and open a transcript of the chat to make sure the students were on task, headed in the right direction on their assignment, or whatever.

Posting an assignment
The Assignment function in WebCT allows instructors to post course assignments that can be retrieved by students any time or, if the instructor wishes, only at certain times. The instructor can also include additional materials.

To add the Assignment Tool, click Add Page or Tool from the Homepage and add the Assignment tool, naming it and making sure it appears on the Homepage.

To add an assignment: Click the Assignment icon. Click Add under Actions. Type a name for your assignment and click Add. Click the button in front of your new assignment, and then click Edit. On the next page, click Edit Assignment Settings. This page allows you to enter a brief description, a maximum possible grade, and some release criteria. This is where you could set up an assignment to be available only after a certain date, for example, or for a certain period of time.

Type a description and a grade. Faculty seem to have the best luck if they use Do Not Allow Late Submissions. Under Notification, select Do Not Acknowledge Submission and Do Not Send E-mail (unless you want to get an email whenever a student submits an assignment. Under Results, select Release the Score Once Assignment has been Graded, and select Yes under Release Column. Then click Update.

Click Browse under Import Assignment File to add a file to the assignment. You can use an actual assignment file, your syllabus Word file, or any other file for now. You will have to go through the Upload steps to place a new file into the course, and then click Import.

Using the calendar
Click back to the homepage, and click on Calendar. Click Settings, select “The default access level for a new calendar entry is public” and then click Update. Click on a date. Click Add Entry. Type a message in the Summary (reminder that an assignment is due, for example). Be sure to type something in the Summary box, and then a brief message in the Detail box, if you wish. Click Add. Your entry should appear in the calendar. New messages will pop up for students when they access the calendar. tomorrow’s date and your message will appear.

Adding more content
Return to your homepage. Make sure Designer Options is selected, and at the right of the page click Add Page or Tool. Click Organizer Page. Enter a title – Course Resources will do – and select On the Navigation Bar and On an Organizer Page (Homepage). Link Shows Title and Icon should be selected. Then click Add. You should automatically return to the homepage, where a new Course Resources link and icon should appear. Click on the icon and you should go to your new blank page.

Make sure Designer Options is selected, and click Add Page or Tool. First, we want to add a web address – a URL. Click URL, and type Web Resources as a title. In Address, enter the URL for Conn Library -- http://academic.wsc.edu/conn_library/
This time we don’t want it in the Navigation bar, but we do want it On an Organizer Page (Course Resources). Make sure Link shows title, but not icon. Click Add.
Return to your Course Resources page, where you should see your Web Resources link. Make sure you’re in View mode and click on the link. The Conn Library web page should open.

Using this method, you can link to any page on the web, including material you might have on the WSC Academic server.

Click back to your Course Resources page, and select Designer Options again. Click Add Page or Tool, and click Single Page. Enter a title – Additional resources – and Browse to find your syllabus web page. (Just an example – in real life you would add more of your own course content.) Select it and click the Pick button. Again, we don’t want this to show on the Navigation Bar, but we do want it on an Organizer Page (Course Resources). Select Link shows Title, but not Icon. Click Add, and return to your Course Resources page. When you click on the Additional Resources link, your syllabus should appear. Another means of organizing content is by adding a Content Module, which functions more or less as an index or table of contents, letting you add links to files or quizzes for, say, a particular chapter.

Creating an Online Quiz
From the homepage, click Add Page or Tool, then click Quizzes/Surveys. Place it on the homepage or another organizer page. Call it Quizzes, Tests, Exams – this is a link that will take students to all quizzes you create. Click Add.

Click on your quiz icon. This should take you to a page that says “No quizzes are available,” because you haven’t created any yet. Make sure Designer Options is selected, and then click Questions Database. Click Create Category, call it Quiz 1 Questions, and click Create.

Under Options: Questions, make sure Multiple Choice is selected under Create Question, and click Go. For Title, just enter 1 or A. Enter your question (leave all the options alone for now), then scroll down and enter the first answer. If this is the correct answer, click the box and enter 100 for the value. If it’s an incorrect answer, enter zero and don’t click the box. As you can see, the Quiz tool allows you to enter images if you wish, and contains an equation editor for math symbols. You can also enter feedback for each question if desired. When you have entered all your answers, scroll down and click Save.
In the interest of time today, we’ll start your quiz with just this one, obviously very important, question.

Select your question and, at the right of the screen, under Manage Questions, select Move Questions to Category Quiz 1. Click Go.

Toward the top right of your screen, click Quizzes/Surveys, Add New Quiz, and click Go. Call it Quiz 1, do not use another quiz as a template, click Add. Go back to the Evaluation Tools page. Click your Quiz 1 link, then select Designer Options. Click Edit Quizzes/Surveys, and then click on the quiz. Click Add Questions, Go. Select your question and click Add Questions to Quiz 1. Click Go. This should take you to the Quiz Editor, where you can enter a value for your question. Enter 100 (we only have one valuable question, remember?) and click Update Total. Then, at the right of the page, click Edit Quiz Settings, Go. Enter a time duration, and availability dates (Allow Access Now, set a date for Available Until. Scroll down to results and select Release score once quiz has been submitted, and release column. Click Update. Go back to Evaluation Tools – make sure View is selected – and click on Quiz 1. You should get a preview quiz. There. Nothing to it, right?

Gradebook
Click Control Panel, select Manage Course, and then click Manage Students. This is your online gradebook. In the gradebook, you should see a column for any quizzes or assignments you have created. Go to Organize, Manage Columns, Go. To add columns, click Add column. Any columns you place in the gradebook will be shown to students (only their own grades) if you select Release Column. You’ll also have to place the My Grades tool on your homepage.

If you want to add a Total Score or Final Grade column, you make it Calculated instead of Numeric, and set up a formula to calculate the final grade for you as scores are place in other columns. Posted Assignment and Quiz grades are posted automatically. For any columns you have added, you’ll have to add the grades manually by clicking Edit under Manage Students

Click the Formula link in the Final Grade column you created. The Calculation Editor appears. It consists of four sections: the Formula box, the numeric keypad, the Column tool, and the Function tool.

You must use the numeric keypad, Column tool, and Function tool to perform all actions on the formula. You cannot edit the Formula text box by selecting, entering, or deleting text with your computer’s mouse and keyboard. Here are some guidelines on using the Calculation Editor: To enter numbers and arithmetic operators, use the numeric keypad. To clear the last value entered in the Formula box, click the CE button on the numeric keypad. To clear all values in the Formula box, click the C button on the numeric keypad.

Let’s enter a formula to calculate the total score based on your grading scale. For each graded component (Attendance, your assignment, and Quiz 1), the formula must calculate the percentage of total possible points earned. Then the formula must calculate the percentage of the total score that each graded component is worth. So what we’ve got here is Attendance at 30% of the final grade, the assignment at 30%, and the quiz at 40%.

Using the numeric keypad, enter: ((
From the Column drop-down list, select Attendance and then click Insert.
Using the numeric keypad, enter: /28*.3)+(
From the Column drop-down list, select Assignment and then click Insert.
Using the numeric keypad, enter: /20*.3)+(
From the Column drop-down list, select Quiz 1 and then click Insert.
Using the numeric keypad enter: /100*.4))*100

Click Update. The Student Records Table will reappear. Note that the Total Score column contains zeroes. This will change once you enter grades by hand or they are entered automatically for the columns.

Backing up and restoring classes in WebCT

To back up your current courses (actual courses you are teaching or workspace courses that have been set up for you), go into each of your courses and click on the Control Panel. Click Manage Course and Create Backup. It will ask for a short description – none is needed. Click Create, and then Continue when it tells you the course has been backed up successfully. Select the current backup file by clicking on the button in front of the filename, and then click the Download button at the right of the screen. In the dialog box that pops up, select Save File to Disk and save the file somewhere you can find it. The auto-generated filename includes the course name and the backup date, so it’s best not to change the filename.

To place the backed-up content in your new course, enter your new course, go to Control Panel, and click Upload Backup. Browse to find your file, select it, click OK, and click Upload. Select the file and, under Options: Restore, click Keep Users. When it asks if you really want to do this, click OK. Your course will be restored.