Lake Superior State University
Lake Superior State University
 
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Course Management Systems
WebCT, Course Studio, Webpages

Faculty at Lake Superior State University have a couple of tools available for managing courses, distributing course materials, and communicating with students on the internet. The tools that are available for faculty to use for Spring 2007 are: Course Studio, WebCT6 and Webpages at www.lssu.edu

Course Tools Overview

Course Studio (my.lssu.edu)

WebCT6

WebCT is the high-end course management system on campus. It is a course management software that aids students in their classes by creating, managing, organizing, and housing a web-based learning environment. On this site, professors can post lecture notes, grades and quizzes. There are also various tools such as chat rooms, discussion board, calendar and grade books that could be added to the WebCT course.

Need help deciding if WebCT6 is for you?

 To get started on WebCT6: Please contact Beth Hronek, bhronek@lssu.edu or Sara Devaprasad, sdevaprasad@lssu.edu for assistance.

Need WebCT6 documentation?

Public webpages at www.lssu.edu

Website at www.lssu.edu is accessible to anyone, and does not require a password. Create webpages at www.lssu.edu if you need to make course materials available to individuals outside the campus community. Need to see an example of a course site on www.lssu.edu, visit Prof. Dan Dorrity's Course webpage!

Need help deciding if Website at www.lssu.edu is for you?

To get started on your website:

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Course Studio within my.lssu.edu*

Course Studio is the solution if

  • You want an easy to use system for distributing files, posting your class syllabus, threaded discussions, chats, sharing photographs, and listing links to web sites.
  • You want to email students at their regular email address, not a private email system accessible only from within WebCT.
  • You have only basic file and content sharing needs, want a limited number of photos or links published to the whole class, and do not require database or search capabilities.
  • You do not need any student evaluation features such as quizzing, assignment dropboxes, or other.

Consider an alternative to Course Studio if

  • You want to publish a web site that is accessible by the general public.
  • You need to upload or download many files. Course Studio can only upload or download one file at a time, which can be a problem with a lot of files.
  • You need to post very large files. Currently the maximum single file size is 10Mb.
  • You need discussion forums that remember what messages you have read. Course Studio does not provide any indication of new or previously read messages.
  • You need to use a tool that is not provided by my.lssu.edu, but is provided by WebCT (like the gradebook, student group work, whiteboard, student tracking, etc.)

Starting Spring 2007 course instructors will automatically have a Course Studio class created for each section taught. Students will automatically be uploaded into each course. You do not need to request a course created on Course Studio.

Click here to get started on Course Studio

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WebCT6 Course Management System*

WebCT is the solution if

  • You need to manage a student gradebook.
  • You want students to be able to see their grades in the course.
  • You need automatically graded quizzes or anonymous surveys.
  • You want to provide an assignment dropbox that markers can easily grade.
  • You want students to work together in groups.
  • You want discussion topics that notify you if there are new messages waiting and can hide messages that were already viewed.
  • You need to easily compile and download discussion topics or lecture notes.
  • You need to archive chat sessions.
  • You want more than one chat room (so multiple chats can happen simultaneously).
  • You need a whiteboard to share freehand drawing among course participants.
  • You need to easily organize a lot of web pages by adding navigation links between them (build "Content modules").
  • You want to export course material easily to other courses.
  • You want to backup your course materials easily (using WebCT's backup and restore features, or the ability to archive course materials as .zip files).
  • You need to upload or download many files at a time.
  • You want a simple "image database" that is searchable.
  • You want to easily integrate your course with materials distributed on a CD-ROM.
  • You want the system to remember the last page a student viewed so that next time they log in they can resume the course where they left off.
  • You want the ability to release information to students only if certain conditions are true. For example, show Unit 2 only after they pass the quiz for Unit 1.
  • You want to combine multiple courses together.
  • You want to monitor student activities in a course (how they participated in discussions, what content they viewed, how long they spent in different areas of the course).
  • You want to monitor quiz effectiveness (how well students do on specific questions, which questions are consistently answered wrong, etc.).

Consider an alternative to WebCT if

  • You need public web pages people can access without a password. (This can be done with WebCT using guest accounts, but is easier to do with a normal web page.)
  • You need students to use a real email account. WebCT's email is really a messaging system just between participants of the course. If real email is required, they would have to use an outside email tool, such as the email in my.lssu.edu.

Click here to get started on WebCT6

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Public Webpages*

Web Site at www.lssu.edu is the solution if

  • You want to publish material that people can access without a password.
  • You need to make material available to people who are outside Lake Superior State University. These people normally do not have access to my.lssu.edu, so it may be easier to password protect material on a normal web site and then share that password with selected off-campus people than it is to get them accounts in my.lssu.edu.

Consider an alternative to website at www.lssu.edu if

  • You need to develop a tool that is already provided in either WebCT or Course Studio (chat, whiteboard, gradebook, etc.). It is much easier to utilize the existing tool than it is to rebuild a new tool for your web site that does the same thing.

* Adapted from Wrights State University website

 

Documentation

Course Studio

Webpage at www.lssu.edu

WebCT

WebCT/Blackboard system requirements

  • Operating System: Windows XP
  • Browsers:
  • Internet Explorer 6 SP1; 6 SP2; 7. IE 7 is not fully supported by WebCT
  • Click here for IE recommended settings
  • Netscape 7.2
  • Mozilla 1.7.x
  • Firefox 1.0.x, 1.5.x

 

Directions to login to WebCT

  • Click here for an outline that has directions on logging into WebCT

Blackboard/Wimba/Pronto workshops

Need some assistance using Blackboard? Get some hands-on instruction on the following dates:

All sessions held at Library 333

Getting started with Blackboard
Thursday, September 4th, 2008 Noon – 12:50 p.m. OR
Friday, September 5th, 2008 10:00 – 10:50 p.m.*
*(please note the new session time, it was previously advertised for 1:00 - 1:50 p.m. The session time has to be changed due to the unavailablility of Library 333)

Introduction to using the grading and assessment tools
Monday, September 8th, 2008. 9:00 – 9:50 a.m. OR
Tuesday, September 9th, 2008. 11:00 – 11:50 a.m.

Bring any Blackboard related questions to the following open lab time:
Wednesday, Noon – 1 p.m.

 

Need some hands-on experience using the new on-line tools, Wimba and Pronto? The following is a list of Wimba/Pronto introductory sessions that are open to faculty/staff to get them you familiar with the new products:

All sessions held at Library 333.

Using Wimba
Thursday, September 11th, 2008 2:00 - 2:50 p.m. OR
Monday, September 15th, 2008 9:00 - 9:50 a.m. OR
Tuesday, September 16th, 2008 11:00 - 11:50 a.m. OR
Wednesday, September 17th, 2008. 1:00 - 1:50 p.m. OR

Using Pronto
Thursday, October 2nd 2008. 2:00 - 2:50 p.m. OR
Monday, October 6th, 2008. 10:00 - 10:50 a.m. OR
Tuesday, October 7th, 2008. 11:00 - 11:50 p.m. OR
Wednesday, October 8th, 2008. 1:00 - 1:50 p.m. OR

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Beth Hronek bhronek@lssu.edu, or Sara Devaprasad sdevaprasad@lssu.edu.

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