Mass class email:

1. At the beginning of the semester, use the mass class email feature in mySFA to email all students.
2. In the email, tell them to bookmark: http://mycourses.sfasu.edu and http://mysfa.sfasu.edu. (Wynter Chauvin)

You may email students a direct a direct hyperlink to your online course:

1. Log into myCourses
2. Go to Build
3. Click on Manage Course
4. Find the Course URL at the bottom of the list
5. Copy the Course URL
6. Then send the URL to your students in the mass email
7. Be aware this link will change from semester to semester.(Melane McCuller)

Instruct students that they may utilize Google Scholar at http://scholar.google.com instead of Wikipedia.(Chay Runnels)

Set expectations of faculty availability for students at the beginning of the semester:

1. Tell them when you will check email
2. Tell them they may have 24 × 7 access to the class, but they do not have 24 × 7 access to you, the instructor
3. Offer your contact information, and keep office hours online

In order to make the web link in your discussion board posting open in a new window, do the following:

1. Edit topic properties
2. Enable HTML Creator
3. Right click on the actual html link
4. Select Link Properties
5. To the right of the line labeled Target, click the pencil
6. Drop down to New Window
7. Click OK
8. Click Save

Quiz results -- To download Q & A results:

1. Click the Teach Tab.
2. Click the Assessment Manager (in Instructor Tools).
3. Click the Graded Tab.
4. Pull-down ActionLink menu beside Name of Assessment desired, and choose View Reports -- Assessment Reports window opens
5. Select an Assessment - pull-down to name of assessment you want
6. Select a Report Type - choose Performance.
7. Click Run Report.

Click Download Records (choose to Excel, or to Save then open in Excel)

How to view Assessment submissions (student view):

1. Click Assessments.
2. Click View All Submissions.

Click on the Attempt # link below the name of the desired quiz, desired attempt (if there are multiple attempts.) As much of the quiz as the instructor will allow will be visible.

Quiz results -- How to view the whole exam of a student:

1. Click the Teach Tab.
2. Click the Assessment Manager (in Instructor Tools).
3. Click the Graded Tab (if the quiz was objective and graded by WebCT), otherwise click the Not Graded Tab.
4. Click the Name of the quiz you want to view.
5. In the attempt column line for a student (the one with the date of the attemp), click the Action Link (pull down menu) and choose View Attempt.
6. The student's quiz appears. You can peruse it, change scores on individual questions, add comments, etc.
7. Click Update Grade.

Quiz results -- To change just the grade on a particular quiz without viewing it:

1. Click the Teach Tab.
2. Click Grade Book.
3. In the student's row, under the column for the quiz, click directly on the grade showing.
4. Edit grade in Change To, adding a comment as necessary.
5. Click Save.

How to add people to your course:

Notes:
* Choose Teaching Assistant for those who should have access to instructor's grading tools but not Designer Tools (TAs, GAs, or shared instructors.)
* Choose Auditor for those who should have access to content only (guests, SIs, auditing students).
* Choose Section Designer for those who should have access to Designer Tools but not Instructor Tools (OIT support staff, other instructors who are helping design but shouldn't have access to student data, hired designers.)
* Instructors of groups in WebCT such as faculty forums, committees, etc., can also choose Student to add members to those courses.

Quickest way to look at all of the paragraph questions in an exam
(along with the rest of the questions.)

1. From Assessment Manager list, pull down the menu for an exam and select View Reports.
2. From the Assessment Reports window, in Select an Assessment, choose the assessment desired.
3. From Select a Report Type, choose PERFORMANCE.
4. Click Run Report.
5. Download the resulting report by clicking Download Records - a file named performance_statistics.csv will be downloaded. You can rename it if you want to.
6. You may be able to click on the file and have it open in Excel without further effort. If not, open Excel first, then choose Open/All Documents, and choose the file.
7. The resulting worksheet will have the answers strung out.
8. Select all columns, then Format/Cells/Alignment/Wrap.
9. Select all columns again, then Format/Columns/Auto-fit.

You should get a sheet where all paragraph questions are listed with the student's name.

Create a discussion topic labeled, "Quarantine," and make it visible only to the instructor.

If a student posts something offensive in the class discussion board, the instructor can move the posting to the Quarantine topic, warn the student, and yet maintain a record of the posting without it being in view of students.

Always get alternate contact information from students so you can contact them in case of a computer outage.

A good way to do this is with an unscored quiz - it prints out a perfect list and avoids managing multiple mails.

Recommendations to Prevent Cheating

1. Establish an honor code for online classes.
2. Ask students to commit to the honor code by writing their name in a short answer question on the honor code test. The answer should be keyed into the test to be .* (That's a period and an asterisk, in answer type "regular expression," and this will allow each student's name to be accepted as an answer.)
3. Use random order questions and random order answers.
4. Create more questions/answers than the ones you use on an exam.
5. Set strict time limits on each question.

Respondus Lockdown Browser works in concert with exams in Blackboard.

Respondus Lockdown Browser works in concert with exams in Blackboard. The student must download the Respondus Lockdown Browser and then enter myCourses using this browser. The student will not be able to open other browser windows or print while taking the exam.

Turnitin - Students submit the paper in Turnitin within Blackboard. This produces an "originality report" showing plagiarized sources.

Utilize the Peer Review feature in Blackboard's Discussion tool to automate the feature for students to provide a peer review (anonymous or not). Contact Melane McCuller for training on how to set up the peer review matrix in Blackboard.