NILE Basics. Contents

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1 Contents 1. What is NILE? What happens if there is a problem with NILE? Can I access NILE abroad? What is the NILE Template and how will it help me? The Left Hand Menu The Left Hand Menu: Text or Buttons? Edit Mode The Site Entry Point What do I do with the left hand menu? Help More Help How do I customise my site? What is the Site Theme? How do I change the Site Theme? How do I Organise and Create my Content? Adding Content Adding a Content Folder Adding an Item to a Content Folder How do I make my Site Available to Students? How to make your Site available How to preview as a student This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License and was produced by the Learning Technology Team at The University of Northampton. Contact us at: learntech@northampton.ac.uk

2 1. What is NILE? NILE stands for the Northampton Integrated Learning Environment, which provides access to, and support and resources for all courses at the University of Northampton, whether taught or online. NILE is supported by software called Blackboard. The purpose of NILE is to create an online space where tutors and students can communicate and share information and resources. It provides a repository for documents, course handbooks etc., a space for discussion and debate, and a forum for online assessment and submission of assignments. NILE can be accessed 24 hours a day from any computer with an internet connection, providing increased flexibility for course delivery and a wide variety of tools for learning and teaching. 1.1 What happens if there is a problem with NILE? The NILE software (Blackboard) is externally hosted and consequently NILE is working 99.7% of the time. This means that if ever there is a problem with the University of Northampton website, you can still access NILE. Simply log on to the following URL: and you will be able to use NILE as normal. In addition, the Service Availability box on your NILE login page shows you whether or not NILE and Turnitin are operating normally. The current UK time is also shown in this box. This is useful for students living in other countries around the world as it informs them when their assignment deadlines are, irrespective of the time zone they are currently residing in. 1.2 Can I access NILE abroad? Yes simply point your browser to the web address above. However, please note that there are various countries around the world where websites such as YouTube do not work. As a result we have purchased various tools that can be embedded within NILE to provide alternative functionality to that which you would get with YouTube (for example). To find out more about this, please contact your Learning Technologist: LearnTech@northampton.ac.uk 2. What is the NILE Template and how will it help me? The NILE Template was designed in conjunction with all schools at the University. It builds on the 12/13 Template and seeks to make it easier for staff to know what material should be located under which menu link, prevent unnecessary duplication and make it clear for students where to find the relevant material. Adhering to the given links and menu items does make it easier for students to find the material that they are looking for as it is standardised across all modules. P a g e 2

3 2.1 The Left Hand Menu Use this arrow to expand or collapse this menu Site Name Home Button returns you to the entry page for this site Module Materials for content Reading List use ASPIRE where possible Uni support etc external links to Student Union, CfAP, Library etc Tools link to enable additional content like Panopto and Kaltura. This link does not need to be shown to students Announcements this is the default entry point Module Guide break down of this information Contacts include all tutors, SAT contact, Academic Librarian etc Assessments put the brief here Submit Your Work for student s essays and assignments Feedback and Grades self-explanatory The content in this menu has been categorised using dividers. To add a divider (or a subheader, or a new content area), please see separate guides The Left Hand Menu: Text or Buttons? While it is entirely a question of personal preference whether your left hand menu displays as text (shown above), or uses buttons (shown right) you should be aware that there are some formatting problems that result from using buttons (also shown right). For this reason, we do recommend that you display your left hand menu using text rather than buttons. To change this, scroll down to the Site Management part of the left hand menu and select Customisation > Site Style > 3. Select Menu Style and select Text rather than Buttons. P a g e 3

4 2.1.2 Edit Mode Toggling between Edit Mode ON and Edit Mode OFF allows you to be able to add content and change the NILE site and then see what students can (or can t) actually see. The Edit Mode toggle is on the top right hand part of every NILE site. When it is OFF then you will only be able to see items which have been made available. This, if you like, is the student view. To toggle between Edit Mode being ON or OFF click on the darker grey area. When the Edit Mode is ON then you can edit, add new material and move items around. Only users with an Instructor system role have this option The Site Entry Point At present, the Announcements page is the default entry point to a site as this is the place where students can keep up to date with any changes or news (e.g. room changes, cancelled classes etc). The entry point is the only page which can have a site banner at the top. Using a banner can help you to identify which specific site cohort you are currently working in ( e.g. full-time, part-time, DL, evening etc). Please see our separate Banners guide to learn how to create and insert a banner into your NILE site Changing the Site Entry Point You may wish to change your site entry point. To do so, you need to use the Site Management menu (situated beneath the main left hand menu). Click as follows: Customisation > Site Style > 1. Select Site Entry Point and then click on the drop down arrow to select the page you prefer to have as the entry point What do I do with the left hand menu? Each of the links on the left hand menu are there for a reason and most will require you to add content. You will find that some contextual help is provided for each link, indicating what you should include in each area, along with some suggestions as to how to organise the content. You will need to customise some details, add material or create submission points so that your students can submit their work when the time comes. 2.2 Help If you are unsure how to do anything, please check out the HELP tab. There are lots of specific guides located here, categorised on a A-Z basis, as well as some longer thematic guides like this one. P a g e 4

5 2.2.1 More Help If you need more help at any point 1. simply click on the More Help link in the page header and 2. a pop-up window will open that will take you through the process you are seeking to complete. Click on the Close Help button to close this pop-up window. There are More Help links on most pages. 3. How do I customise my site? Customisation is, by definition, a very personal thing and when considering how to customise your site, attention should always be paid to the needs of your students. For this reason, ideally you should not alter the names of the left hand menu links as this provides students with consistency across all of their different sites. This is one of the reasons that the NILE template exists. Additionally, if you are adding a link, please think about how use of subheaders and dividers (see separate guides) can give meaning to this menu for the students. You can customise your NILE site by using any, all or a combination of the following: Banners Changing the site theme (alters the page background and menu/font colours) Introducing sticky content Of these, separate guides already exist for banners and for sticky content. 3.1 What is the Site Theme? The site theme refers to the page background and menu/font colours used in your site. The standard site theme is pre-determined in the NILE template. However, you can change it. When P a g e 5

6 thinking about how to change your theme, you should think about accessibility issues such as how the colour combinations will work for students with dyslexia or colour blindness. You should also think about the overall look and feel of your site and the message that a selected theme will convey to your student users. If you want guidance on this, please contact the Accessibility Office How do I change the Site Theme? Scroll down to the Site Management section of the left hand menu. Click on Customisation > Site Style. The inbuilt themes are displayed in section 2. When you click on a theme you can see how this will affect the left hand menu colours by looking at section 3 on this page. When you have selected a style that fits the look and feel of your course, click on Submit. Your style will now be updated. 4. How do I Organise and Create my Content? Having your content well-ordered is a key element in terms of how good students find your site and how much they consequently return to it to find information. For some guidance on some silly mistakes to avoid, please check out the Where is Wally, Top Ten Tips guide, located on the Help Tab. 4.1 Adding Content You should try and add all your course materials under the Module Materials link. While you can always add new content areas to the left hand menu, try not to make the list too long. Remember that a lot of students are accessing NILE via mobile devices such as ipads and laptops and long menus make it harder for them to find the content. Some tips: Try to order your content in folders that are given titles that are meaningful for your students. Either use topic headings or categorise your material on a week by week basis. It can be helpful to order this material in reverse chronological order so that the newest material is on the top. Using numbers to indicate either the topic number (useful for DL students) or the week of study (better for face-to-face students) is very helpful in terms of the student learning journey Adding a Content Folder Click on the Build Content button and select Content Folder This will take you to the Create Content Folder page. 1. Give your folder an appropriately descriptive name P a g e 6

7 2. Add some relevant information that will sit on the front of your folder. This information should signpost students and tell them what they can find inside the folder. 3. Use the formatting icons to alter the layout and display. 4. Underneath the text box are some more options. 2. Default Content View allows you to specify whether you want the icon only, text only or icon and text. Most people at the University stick to Icon and Text. 3. Options gives you a few other things to think about, including whether or not you want to permit students to view this content. Select no if you are working on a live site and you still have materials to add to the folder. Only make the folder visible when it is complete and ready for the students to use it. You can also track number of views to see how many times the folder has been accessed by users, or Select date and time restrictions if you only want the folder to be available within a certain time frame. 5. Click on the blue Submit button to create your folder. The finished product will look like this (the green success bar shows you created your folder successfully): P a g e 7

8 4.1.2 Adding an Item to a Content Folder To add material to a content folder like the one created in Section 3.1.1, you need to click on the folder title in order to go into the folder itself Create an Item Click on Build Content > Create Item Give your item an appropriately descriptive title and input any relevant text into the text box. Use the formatting icons to make it clear to students what information is there, what they should do with it and what you want them to do Add Attachments You can add files to the item. So, for example, if this is part of the module guide information, you could also include a link to the complete paper copy. You can either attach a file from your computer by clicking on the Browse My Computer button or, if you have already uploaded the file to the Content Collection (see separate guide), then you would select the Browse Content Collection button instead. Select the appropriate file and submit it. An item with a file attached will look something like this: Select Options Decide whether or not you are ready to allow your students to view this content or whether you want to track the number of views or impose any time or date restrictions. When you have finished this, click the blue Submit button to create your item. P a g e 8

9 5. How do I make my Site Available to Students? Once your course has been created and all the materials necessary for students to start accessing your site has been uploaded you need to make it available to them. This means that the students enrolled on your course will then be able to see it in their My Sites box on their NILE home page. It is very important that you remember to do this once your site is complete. This is probably one of the main reasons that students phone the Learning Technology team for help and while this is something that we can easily do, we will NOT make a site available without the permission of the tutor. Where a student can t access a site due to it being unavailable they will be advised to speak to the module tutor to ask them to make the site available. 5.1 How to make your Site available. Click on Site Management > Customisation > Properties and scroll down to section 3. Set Availability. Click on Yes to make the site available to users and then on submit to activate your settings. 5.2 How to preview as a student. To check you have made all the items available to students, and to see what they will view, you can place your site into student preview mode. Use the icon in the top right-hand corner of the screen to change from your instructor s view to student s view. To exit and return to your regular view, select Exit Preview from the top right-hand corner. P a g e 9