Contents Course Navigation... 2 Avatars..3 Text Editor... 4 Accessing Assignments... 6 Accessing Assessments... 9 Accessing and Participating in Discussions... 12 Discussion Forums and Threads... 14 Creating Discussion Posts within a Forum... 15 Replying to Discussion Posts within a Forum... 15 Tips for Using the Discussion Forum Features... 18 Navigation Tips in the Discussions... 18 Replying to Posts... 20 Search Tool... 20 Discussion Formatting... 20 Accessing Your Grades... 21 Course Communication... 24 External Email Overview... 24 Sending an External Email... 24 Sending an External Email from My Groups... 26 Internal Messages Overview... 27 Sending an Internal Message... 27 Email and Messages in Online Campus: Tips... 27 Further (Optional) Communication Tools... 30 Blogs... 30 Live Classroom... 30 Journals... 30 Wikis... 31 Calendars Overview... 32 Creating a Personal Event within your Calendar... 33 2015 Trustees of Boston University. Materials contained within this course are subject to copyright protection
Course Navigation Course Home Page To access your course, log in to Online Campus and click on your course name under My Courses. This will bring you to the Course Home Page. On the left-hand side, you will see the Navigation Area, which includes your Course Menu and My Groups area. The Course Menu appears like this: Note: all items in the Course Menu are clickable Upon entering individual weeks or modules, you may wish to contract the Course Menu to allow more content to be shown. You can do this by clicking on the space between the Course Menu and the Table of Contents: In context, you can use the hide/show tool, like so: Expanded or Open View Minimized or Closed View 2015 Trustees of Boston University. Materials contained within this course are subject to copyright protection 2
You also have the option to minimize, collapse, or move the Table of Contents. Global Navigation If you wish to track items across multiple courses, you may use the Global Navigation Menu. The Global Navigation Menu can be found by clicking on your name in the top right corner. This global menu provides links to each of your courses, your personal homepage, your discussion posts, updated notifications, your grades, and your calendar. The icons are identified below: Avatar an identifying picture of you Home your personal homepage Posts the latest posts in your course(s) Updates course notifications My Grades grades that have been released to you, by date or by course Calendar your calendar, which will display personal, course, and institution-wide events Avatars The Avatar feature is a way for you to personalize your online experience. You may provide a picture of yourself or an icon which will portray your interests and personality. Using avatars can enhance course discussions, interactions, and relationships with others in the online learning community. To upload an avatar: 1. Go to the global navigation menu. 2. Select Settings at the bottom of the menu, then click Personal Information. 2015 Trustees of Boston University. Materials contained within this course are subject to copyright protection 3
3. On the personal information page, select Personalize My Settings. 4. Under Avatar image (item 1), you may upload an image by clicking Browse My Computer. Be sure to select Use custom avatar image. Note: do not change Settings Links (item 2) on this page or you may accidentally de-select your course links. 5. Click Submit to save your avatar changes. Note that you return to this page if you wish to change your avatar or if you choose not to display an avatar later. Text Editor As you will see, the text editor appears automatically in many of the tools used in online courses. There are several functions in the editor; for a simpler view, you may click the Show Less ( ) function. To return to the advanced view, click on the Show More ( ) function. For a popup list that describes how these functions can be used, simply click on the help function ( the upper-right corner of the editor. ) in To Remove Formatting for Pasted Text The l Remove Formatting button ( ) can be found in the top-right of the advanced view: 2015 Trustees of Boston University. Materials contained within this course are subject to copyright protection 4
To Insert a Link The Insert/Edit Link button is initially grayed out. You will need to select the text you wish to link before you are able to use this feature. 1. Type your text or the link URL into the editor. 2. Select the text or url. 3. Click the Insert/Edit Link button ( ). 4. In the box that pops up on the screen, specify the Link Path, the Target (we recommend Open in New Window as shown below), and Title. 5. Click Insert or Update to insert your link. 2015 Trustees of Boston University. Materials contained within this course are subject to copyright protection 5
Accessing Assignments To access your course assignments, click Assignments in the Navigation Area. You will be brought to the Assignment area where all of your course s available assignments will be listed with a clickable title to each assignment s submission area. Click the title to enter the assignment s submission area. In the submission area, you will see the details of your assignment and have the choice of typing your submission there or attaching a document. Please note that most instructors will request that you use the attachment tool. To attach a submission, use the Browse My Computer button to search your files and select the document you wish to upload. Once you have selected the document, click open and it will attach the document. (If you choose not to upload that document, you may remove it by clicking the Do Not Attach link on the right of the attachment.) There is a comment area for you to give your instructor or facilitator information or feedback. When finished click the blue Submit button located at either the top or the bottom of the page. If you begin the submission process, but are interrupted for any reason, you have the option of saving a draft. You can return to your draft anytime by returning to the same assignment. 2015 Trustees of Boston University. Materials contained within this course are subject to copyright protection 6
The Submit options are located at the top and the bottom of the page. Attach document using the Browse My Computer button and use Comments box to provide your instructor with additional information. The Submit options are located at the top and the bottom of the page. 2015 Trustees of Boston University. Materials contained within this course are subject to copyright protection 7
Confirming Your Submission After you submit your assignment, you will be taken to a page titled Review Submission History. This page confirms that your submission is complete, and displays your assignment details. Click OK at the bottom of the page to exit. 2015 Trustees of Boston University. Materials contained within this course are subject to copyright protection 8
Accessing Assessments To access your course assessments, click Assessments in the Navigation Area. You will be brought to the Assessment area, where all of your course s available assessments (often referred to by instructors as quizzes or tests) will be listed. Click the title to enter the assessment. The next page will provide you with some instructions regarding the assessment and a place where you can select to begin your exam. These instructions may include such information as, your time limit or the duration of the assessment, the types of questions and material that are included, and when that the assessment is available. The Begin button will start the assessment. Please note that if you are taking an assessment with a time limit, your allotted time starts immediately upon clicking the Begin button. 2015 Trustees of Boston University. Materials contained within this course are subject to copyright protection 9
Begin buttons are located at the top and the bottom of the page. Displayed at the top of the assessment are: the title of the assessment, additional information (if provided by your instructor), and a collapsible Question Completion Status bar. The Question Completion Status bar will let you know how many questions there are in the assessment and allow you to track which questions you have answered. The Status Bar is opened or closed simply by clicking it. The question types will vary from assessment-to-assessment. They may be presented one at a time or all at once at the instructor s discretion. You can navigate through the assessment using the Question Completion Status bar or the arrows keys above and below the question. Conveniently, while responding to questions, the act of moving to another question will automatically save your response. Important Note: In order to submit your assessment, you must procede to the last question in the assessment. Additional information is provided by categories and is follow by the Question Completion Status bar The question is preceded by the question number and point value displayed. Arrow keys for navigation are available above and below the question. 2015 Trustees of Boston University. Materials contained within this course are subject to copyright protection 10
Below is an example of the Question Completion Status bar opened, in the example the first two questions have been completed and the third one is open. The Question Completion Status bar allows you to move through the individual questions in any order. The arrow keys move you forward or back one question at time. Important note about submitting your assessment Once finished with your assessment responses, you should click the Save and Submit button. The Save and Submit button is AVAILABLE ONLY on the last question of the assessment. The Save and Submit button is blue and is available on the right side above and below the question near the arrow keys on the last question of the assessment. Once you have clicked the Save and Submit button, you will be asked to confirm your submission. A Test Submitted page will appear to verify that your assessment was entered into the system. 2015 Trustees of Boston University. Materials contained within this course are subject to copyright protection 11
Accessing and Participating in Discussions You will use My Groups to access group Discussion Boards. On the left-hand navigation area, you will see a menu bar titled My Groups. Click on My Groups to expand this menu. In this Orientation, you will see a Common Area where the whole course is able to join in discussions. When you begin your course, you will also see the student group that you are enrolled in. To access your Common Area discussions, click on the Common Area group, then on the Group Discussion Board. You will be brought to the group Discussion Board where all available discussion topics and threads will be listed. Please note that group Discussion Board access may vary from course to course, so the instructions that follow are generalized. Additional instructions will be supplied in the syllabus or in an announcement by your instructor, if necessary. In the Discussion Board area, you may enter an individual forum by clicking one of the titles on the left. A description of the discussion topic is provided next to the title of the forum. Three additional columns are on the far right: 1. Total Posts 2. Unread Posts (the clickable column items take you to a sortable view of unread posts) 3. Total Participants The Search tool allows you to the search discussions by specific words/phrases or by time frame. At the bottom of the page there are two view option buttons. Edit Paging will allow you to select the number of items per page and Show All will display all discussions forums. 2015 Trustees of Boston University. Materials contained within this course are subject to copyright protection 12
The Search tool helps you find specific discussion posts. Enter and participate in discussion forums by clicking the forum title. The Unread Posts column provides an entry to a sortable view of unread postings. Clicking the title of a forum will bring you to that forum s participation page. Most instructors will provide the question in the first thread of the forum. Entering the forum, you will see a list of posts from your peers with the following information included: date of post, name of thread, name of author, status, number of unread posts, and total posts. To see the thread details and read the posts, click on the name of the thread. If you only want to see the unread posts, click the number in the unread posts column. There are two buttons at the top of the page in the right-hand corner, marked List View and Tree View: o List View will list all of the posts in chronological order (see image directly below) o Tree View will list all of the posts as they relate to one another (see second image). There are two additional buttons (yellow) on right-hand side, a little lower on the page, that will give you access to the search feature and different display options. On the left-hand side (directly above the threads) are two additional function buttons, Thread Actions and Collect. These features allow you to select individual posts in order to mark or sort them (note that the top box will select all of the posts in one action): o Thread Actions (or Message Action in Tree View) allows you to flag individual posts or list them as read or unread o Collect allows you to select individual posts and view them together 2015 Trustees of Boston University. Materials contained within this course are subject to copyright protection 13
List View List View and Tree View option buttons Thread Actions and Collect buttons To see the thread details and read the posts click thread title Tree View (Close-up) To select all posts click the box at the top. To select an individual post click the box on the left. On the Thread Detail page, you will see the posts in an individual thread by scrolling down the page. You will also see the thread links organized in a Tree View fashion at the top of the page. Discussion Forums and Threads Forums are discussion areas, such as the Introductions or Ask Your Instructor forums. You should not create Discussion Forums, as these are determined by course instructors. Discussion Threads are sets of discussion posts within a forum. You will be asked to create posts and reply to others posts using Discussion Threads. 2015 Trustees of Boston University. Materials contained within this course are subject to copyright protection 14
To create a new discussion post within a forum, you will need to enter the forum and create a thread. You may also reply to another user s post within a thread. (Further directions can be found in Creating Discussion Posts within a Forum and Replying to Discussion Posts within a Forum below.) Creating Discussion Posts within a Forum For your initial post, simply click the Create Thread button at the top of the page. Replying to Discussion Posts within a Forum Reply to a specific post by clicking Reply. You also have a quote option, which will automatically paste the initial posting into your reply. 2015 Trustees of Boston University. Materials contained within this course are subject to copyright protection 15
The reply text-box will appear immediately upon clicking Reply. A subject is required you have the option of replacing the automatically generated title. Attaching a document: use the Browse My Computer button to search your files and select the document you wish to upload. Once you have selected the document, click open and it will attach the document. If you choose not to upload that document, you may remove it by clicking the Do Not Attach link below the attachment. When finished click the blue Submit button located at either the top or the bottom of the page. If you begin your post, but are interrupted for any reason, you have the option of saving a draft. Your draft will appear on the Thread Detail page and be marked as draft. You can return to your draft anytime by clicking the draft link. The Submit options are located at the top and the bottom of the page. Preview your post Attach document using the Browse My Computer button. The Submit options are located at the top and the bottom of the page. 2015 Trustees of Boston University. Materials contained within this course are subject to copyright protection 16
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Tips for Using the Discussion Forum Features The following are covered in this section: How to subscribe to a discussion forum; tips on navigating, viewing, listing, and replying to posts; the Search tool. Subscription Feature The Subscription feature allows you to subscribe to each discussion forum that you choose and receive a notification via email when there are any new posts. You can subscribe and unsubscribe at any time and also select the forums individually for which you wish to receive notifications. Instructions for subscribing to a forum: 1. Enter a discussion forum (e.g., the Water Cooler or Common Area). 2. Click Subscribe (under the forum title). You will see a message in a green bar at the top of the page reading Success: Subscribed to Forum. 3. If you wish to unsubscribe at a later date, simply click Unsubscribe. Repeat these steps to subscribe/unsubscribe to any other forums in any of the discussion areas. Each forum must be subscribed to separately. Navigation Tips in the Discussions Using the List View List View lists all of the discussions by thread in chronological order and is the recommended view rather than Tree View for easier navigation. 2015 Trustees of Boston University. Materials contained within this course are subject to copyright protection 18
To see the thread details and read the posts, click on the name of the thread. If you only want to see the unread posts, click on the number in the unread posts column. *Note* that if you click on the number in the unread posts column, you will have to mark the posts as read. Follow these steps below to do that. 1. Click Select All. 2. Click Mark and select Read. Reading Posts There are various Sort by features available (for example, Date of Last Post). You may choose Ascending to list the posts from oldest to newest. Thread Detail and Reading Posts Once inside a discussion thread, you will see the thread details on top and the contents of the post you have selected below. You have three different options for viewing and reading the thread: I. Click on each post to read and mark as read. II. Collect all of the messages into a printable view. a. Click Select All. b. Click Collect. With this option for viewing posts, you will have to Select All and Mark as Read. 2015 Trustees of Boston University. Materials contained within this course are subject to copyright protection 19
Tips for Replying to Posts As mentioned previously, the two options for responding to a discussion post are Reply and Quote. Note: In some web browsers, when you reply to a post using either response option, the message you are replying to will appear above the response textbox. If your web browser doesn t quote the text, then you can use the Quote reply button to show the original message you are replying to below your response text. Search Tool The Search button within a forum (such as the Water Cooler) or within a thread allows you to search through posts by any keywords. You can use this to search by Name, Thread title, etc. Discussion Formatting When copying text from a Microsoft Word document or another type of file into the body of a discussion, styles that you do not want may also copy over. To remove styles, select your text and click on the Clear Formatting button. Note: The clear formatting button ( ) can be found in the top-right of the advanced view within the editor. 2015 Trustees of Boston University. Materials contained within this course are subject to copyright protection 20
Accessing Your Grades To access your course grades, click My Grades in the Navigation Area. In My Grades, you will see each of your individual grade items listed by category. Categories include Graded, Upcoming, and Submitted. You can also view the date and time of any last activity, such as when an assignment was submitted or graded. An exclamation point ( ) indicates that your submission has not yet been graded. A feedback icon ( ) indicates that your instructor or facilitator has provided feedback. If you do not see this icon, comments have not been provided. 2015 Trustees of Boston University. Materials contained within this course are subject to copyright protection 21
If an item is clickable, it will bring you to a page that provides additional information. In the example shown on the last page, clicking Sample Assessment 1 or Sample Assignment 2 would bring you to pages that provide further details for each of these items. Viewing details and feedback for Assignments Clicking on the assignment name will bring you to the page titled Review Submission History, which will display your assignment details. Once an assignment has been graded, Review Submission History will also include any feedback including any Word documents that have been provided by your facilitator or instructor. In this example, a Word document with feedback has been provided. Clicking on the attachment title will allow you to open the file. 2015 Trustees of Boston University. Materials contained within this course are subject to copyright protection 22
Viewing details and feedback for Assessments When your assessment is graded by your instructor or facilitator, your instructor will determine the amount of feedback that will be released. You may also view details released with your graded assessment by following these steps: 1. Go to My Grades. 2. Click on the assessment title (for example, Sample Assessment ). 3. Click on the numeric Calculated Grade: 4. This will bring you to the Review Test Submission page, where you may see any details that have released. 2015 Trustees of Boston University. Materials contained within this course are subject to copyright protection 23
Course Communication Should you wish to reach instructors, facilitators, or other students in your course quickly via email, you may find the external email tool most useful. If you wish to spark a dialogue with others in your course, or if you wish to keep your communication within the course content, you may find either the internal messages tool or the discussion areas within My Groups to be more useful for course communication. External Email Overview The External Email tool enables you to send emails to the external addresses for participants within your Online Campus course. External emails will be sent to the email address on each user s profile. The selected users may include individual students, groups, teaching assistants (facilitators), instructors, and your student services coordinator. These users must be enrolled in the course. Please note: Online Campus does not keep a record of sent or received emails. When sending an email, you may send a copy to yourself and keep this as a record of your communication. Any emails sent in reply to your email will be sent directly to your external email address, and will not show up within the Online Campus course. Sending an External Email 1. To send an external email, please click "External Email" on your tool menu. 2. Next, you will need to choose your recipients. Your options may include: All Users: Send emails to all users enrolled in the course All Groups: Send emails to all users enrolled within any of the groups in a course All Students Users: Send emails to all students enrolled in a course All Instructor Users: Send emails to all course instructors and facilitators 2015 Trustees of Boston University. Materials contained within this course are subject to copyright protection 24
Select Users: Send emails to individual users (you will have the chance to select specific recipients) Select Groups: Send emails to all users enrolled in a specific group 3. If you have chosen Select Users or Select Groups, you will be able to select recipients. Choose recipients in the Available to Select box and click the right-pointing arrow the Selected box. (Should you make a mistake, you may also click the left-pointing-arrow from the Selected box.) to move them into to deselect recipients Tips: To select multiple users in a row, hold down Shift key and click a user to select the range (both Windows and Mac). To select multiple users out of sequence, hold down the Control Key for Windows or the Command Key for Mac, and click individual users. 4. Fill in both your Subject and Message (leaving the subject line blank may prevent the email from being delivered). 5. You may also attach a file by clicking "Attach a file" and uploading a file from your computer. If you wish to attach multiple files, you will need to click Attach Another File and upload files one at a time. 6. Click Submit to send your email. 2015 Trustees of Boston University. Materials contained within this course are subject to copyright protection 25
Please note: A copy of your email will be sent to you by default. As Online Campus does not keep a record of sent emails, remember to keep a copy of any email you may wish to have for future reference. Sending an External Email from My Groups You may send an external email solely to users within your group by going to your group tools. This is a simple way to select recipients if you plan to send an email within your group. 1. Go to My Groups and expand your group to locate the email tool. 2. Click Send Email to proceed. 3. Choose your recipients from those available within your group. Click Select All to choose all group members. Fill out the Subject and Message and click Submit to send your email, just as you would from the External Email tool. Remember: When you access the external email tool via a group in My Groups, you will only be able to send emails to other users in this group. Go directly to the External Email tool if you wish to email members within other groups. 2015 Trustees of Boston University. Materials contained within this course are subject to copyright protection 26
Internal Messages Overview The Internal Messages feature is a course specific messaging tool. Each course has its own Internal Messages inbox. Sending an Internal Message From the course Home Page, on the left side of screen, please go into the area titled Internal Messages. Click on Create Message. Under recipients, click on the To button. From there you will see a list of everyone who is enrolled in the class in the left hand box titled, Select Recipients: To line. From within that box you can scroll down until you find the name of recipient you wish to contact (e.g. Jennifer Sullivan ). Left click on the person s name, in this case Jennifer Sullivan. Then click the little arrow that is pointing towards the right, the arrow is located between two windows. 2015 Trustees of Boston University. Materials contained within this course are subject to copyright protection 27
Clicking the right-hand arrow will move the recipients from the left box to the right hand Recipient box. Conversely, the left-hand arrow will remove the selected recipients. Once you get to that point you can type in the subject line and continue on to writing your message. When you are done with your message you will need to click on the Submit button. 2015 Trustees of Boston University. Materials contained within this course are subject to copyright protection 28
Email and Messages in Online Campus: Tips To recap: 1. Internal Messages may be used to send messages which remain within the course; these messages will not forward to external email addresses 2. External Email may be used to send email to users external email addresses, but will not be received within a course inbox Some tips to note: You will need to check your Internal Messages inbox for new messages regularly. Links to unread Internal Messages will appear under My Messages in the upper right hand corner of your Dashboard when you login to Online Campus. As you receive more Internal Messages, be sure to select the edit paging button on the lower right, or select show all to display your entire inbox on one page. To message multiple people, please select their names individually. Messaging by group is not currently available. Online Campus does not keep a record of sent or received External Emails. When sending an email, you may send a copy to yourself and keep this as a record of your communication. Any emails sent in reply to an External Email will be sent directly to your external email address, and will not show up within the Online Campus course. Do not delete an email or a message until you are certain you will not need it again. 2015 Trustees of Boston University. Materials contained within this course are subject to copyright protection 29
Further (Optional) Communication Tools This section will explain some of the additional tools that instructors may choose to use in Online Campus for tasks and activities. The following descriptions provide a general overview. These tools may be tailored for a variety of purposes; review your course s materials for specific instructions and expectations of use. Blogs Blogs are similar to Discussions. Whereas Discussions help foster dialogue between multiple people, the Blogging tool focuses attention upon individual posts. Blogs allow participants to post and comment on focal ideas. Uses for Blogs might include student presentation of concepts, summaries, or briefs. Students may post and view Blog posts, and may also comment on classmates Blog posts. Blogging is available as a group tool. If used, group Blogs will appear under My Groups with other group tools. Live Classroom Boston University Live Classroom enables students to interact synchronously with faculty, facilitators, and each other. Instructors may use Live Classroom sessions to give live lectures, hold office hours, present student projects, host guest speakers, and other purposes. To properly use Live Classroom users will have: The Firefox browser Headsets with microphones included An operating system supported by Adobe Connect, the Live Classroom tool The appropriate Adobe Connect Add-In High speed internet Journals Journals are a helpful tool for reflection or exploration. There are two types of Journal tools that may be used within your course: Course Journals or Group Journals. Course Journals are automatically private, and may also be set so each student is allowed to edit and delete his or her own entries. Only the course instructor and facilitators may view students Course Journals other students will not be able to view their classmates Course Journal entries. Group Journals are available within each group. If used, Group Journals will appear under My Groups with other group tools. Group Journals are not private; like discussion posts, students Group Journal entries may be seen and commented upon by other students as well as the instructor and group facilitator. 2015 Trustees of Boston University. Materials contained within this course are subject to copyright protection 30
Wikis Wikis allow students to collaborate in a shared group project area. Students participating in a group wiki might contribute to a shared document, complete a table in which students take on different roles, or contribute graphics for a project that requires visual participation. All students in a group are able to edit the shared wiki content using tools available in the text editor. Students in each group, their group facilitator, and the instructor may also contribute comments below each wiki. If used, group Wikis will appear under My Groups with other group tools. 2015 Trustees of Boston University. Materials contained within this course are subject to copyright protection 31
Calendars Overview Blackboard calendars offer students an organized way to view upcoming course events, due dates, and personal entries all in one place. The calendar is color coded to organize due dates by course, allowing all events and courses to appear in one view. Each user has one global calendar which compiles information from course due dates, personal entries, or instututional updates added by administration. Accessing Calendars There are several ways to access the calendar feature: 1. Homepage Tools 2. The Global Navigation Menu 3. In-course menu bar 2015 Trustees of Boston University. Materials contained within this course are subject to copyright protection 32
Calendar Side Panel View Change the view to only see Day, Week, or Month Overview of the month Calendars Check off which courses you d like to view on your calendar. Dates on the calendar are color-coded based on which course/calendar they belong to. Export your calendar- Use this link to export your Calendar or integrate into another calendar platform. (Please note: The subscribe feature doesn t currently work with BU s system.) Creating a Personal Event within your Calendar Once you get to your calendar page, you can click on the Create New Event button in the topright You can also simply click on the day s box on the calendar to create an event. 2015 Trustees of Boston University. Materials contained within this course are subject to copyright protection 33
Calendar Selection Choose which calendar you d like your entry to appear within Updating Events You can update a personal event that you created by clicking on the entry in the calendar. 2015 Trustees of Boston University. Materials contained within this course are subject to copyright protection 34