Creating New Folders

• Once you have clicked the [COURSE MATERIALS] main link and the Course Folders sublink, you will have an option to create a NEW COURSE FOLDER.
  At the top is the New Folder Location. It will show as New Course Folder until you give it a name. The up-pointing arrow indicates the way back to the main listing of all course folders.
  If you were creating a subfolder, the New Folder Location would show you the entire path:
  ^- FOLDER --> NEW COURSE FOLDER
  
  
  
  
• Type in the Folder Name, which is the file name on the UNIX server. File names cannot contain characters other than letters or numbers. Any others (&%$ etc including spaces) will be removed. Your choice of a name here is important as this is what Educator will alphabetically sort. So a file named filethree will appear above a file named filetwo. If you wanted filetwo to appear above filethree, you could implement an alphabetical plan of your own such as
  aafiletwo
  abfilethree
  
  

  Type in the Label which will appear in the folders listing as a clickable link on the Educator Desktop. Example >

  
  
  
• Set the Status or accessibility to students. A locked folder will not be visible to students. It cannot contain unlocked files.
  
  
• Type in Comments which is descriptive text that will explain folder contents to other users or to you in the future.
  
  
• Click on [Submit].

Changing Folder Settings

• Course folders differ from common folders in that they store files that can only be accessed by users of that course.
  
• Only the course instructor can upload or delete course folder files.
  
• Course folders must be unlocked before students can view the contents.
  

When assigning course folder names, be aware that capital letters will precede lower case letters when folder names are listed alphabetically. Therefore aaZfolder will come before aaafolder.

You can hard code HTML in Educator by paying attention to System Folder Names.
For instance, suppose you had a folder with a Folder Name of chemistry and a subfolder within that folder named images. If you had an file in the images folder named atom.gif, you could insert an HTML image tag in an HTML file inside of the chemistry folder that could look as follows:
< img src="images/atom.gif ">
Note that the virtual path to this resource would be as follows:
http://educator.ucompass.com/educator/username/courseid/chemistry/images/atom.gif
The username and courseid in the above path refer to your Username and Course ID respectively. That would be YOUR username and YOUR course ID and they need to be coded in all lowercase--no capital letters as UNIX is a case sensitive computing environment.

Method One: Manually creating a document

• Click the Course Materials main navigator link
  
• Click the Upload Center sublink
  
• Choose a folder in which you wish to store the document.
  
• Select Manually Enter a Text or HTML File.
  
• Add file information.
  
• Type or paste content into the text area.
  
• [SUBMIT]
  

Method Two: File Upload

• Prepare a document offline and save it
  
• Click the Course Materials main navigator link
  
• Click the Upload Center sublink
  
• Choose a folder in which you wish to store the document
  
• click on [Browse]
  
• Locate the saved file on your drive
  
• Highlight the file
  
• Click on the [Open] button (This will make the filename appear in the Browse input box)
  
• Click [Upload File!]

VIEW FILE EDIT FILE MAKE THIS THE COURSE ANNOUNCEMENT MAKE THIS THE COURSE SYLLABUS EMAIL FILE REMOVE FILE COPY TO OTHER FOLDER MOVE TO OTHER FOLDER COPY TO COMMON FOLDER COPY TO CONTENT EXCHANGE COPY TO STUDENT BUILD OBJECT LINK BUILD API LINK

For information about making your file a popup or embedding it directly into another document, see the Help Center Topics:

Object ID Numbers

Building Links in Content.

Always try to save your content in a format that will insure it is as small and transportable as possible

Remove files that no longer need to be in Educator

Educator will reject any file it determines may contain a virus

When delivering non web-viewable content, consider delivering it to your students in a zipped or compressed format to conserve system space

Do not upload files that contain non-alphanumeric characters such as pound signs, parentheses, and other characters used commonly in computer commands. These files will be rejected and in certain instances, may corrupt your Object ID database

Please do not use Educator as a storage warehouse for your files. This is not what Educator is designed for. Ucompass will request that excessively large amounts of files not being accessed by learners be removed.

Using an Object Command to link to a function

Images

Be careful when copying and pasting files from one course to another. It's best not to do this unless they are files from the common folders with associated HTML tags. Otherwise, files with Object IDs belong to the course in which they were created. Attempts to copy them manually to another course will result in broken links as students from the new course will not have permission to view them.
See Common Folders in this Help Center.

• Click on the Course Materials main navigation link.
  
• Click on the Upload Center sublink.
  
• Scroll down past the folders and click the link that reads: Upload educator object.
  
• Browse your computer drive for the saved file generated by another software program.
  
• Highlight and Open the file so that the file name is visible in the FILE: field.
  
• Choose the appropriate file type.
  
• Click [Upload File]
  

• Play: Play the file again


• Discard: Delete the file


• Make Link: Create a link which will be used so users may access the file


• Close: Leave the Audio/Video area (make sure you save first!)


• Clear: Clear the information for that file

IMPORTANT NOTE: The user's browser must have the Flash Player, Version 7 or later, to use Educaster and the Audio/Video tools.

To start, upload your media files to the course folder you wish to use. The file types that will convert to Podcasts are mp3, mp4, mov, m4a, m4v. (It will likely be expanded to include wav and aif in the near future.)



Once your file is uploaded, you will see:



Simply check the checkbox next to "Make Available as Podcast" and submit the change. Once you see "Submitted.Thank you", the file will be available in iTunes.



For instructions on logging in to iTunes, please see below.

PODCASTING:

In order for someone to access your Podcast, they need the following:

- A valid Educator username and password
- The free software from Apple, iTunes, which is available for both Macs and PCs.
- Within iTunes, from the menu bar, choose "Advanced", and then "Subscribe to Podcast".

To download iTunes, click here. Once the software is installed, Go to "Advanced/Subscribe to Podcast".

The subscription URL will be:

http://podcasting.ucompass.com/subscribe?publisher=educator-instructor-username@educator-login-url

So for instance, if your username is jsmith@educator.myschool.edu, your Podcasting subscription URL will be:

http://podcasting.ucompass.com/subscribe?publisher=jsmith@educator.myschool.edu

Your students will use the information above to login to the general podcasting area. iTunes will then ask for a username and password. The username the user subscribing to your Podcast must enter should be in the form of their own Educator login as educator-username@educator-login-url (ie mjones@educator.myschool.edu). The password entered should be their normal password used to access Educator.



Once the username and password are accepted, the Podcasts will download to iTunes, you can play them from iTunes or sync the Podcast onto your iPod or other mobile media device.

Please send your own training tips or comments to for inclusion in this topic. Note: Technical support questions should be addressed to support@educator.ucompass.com

3.8) FlexTV

NOTE: FlexTV is a Flash application. You need the latest version of the Flash Player from Adobe. Click the following link fo Adobe's website to download the latest version of the free Flash Player: Download latest version of Flash

FlexTV has its own CGI identifier called flextv. So you can either add a button to your navigation menu that is pointed at FlexTV:



To Add the Link, go to Customize on your menu bar. (Remember, you will need to
do this on both the Instructor and the Student views.)

1. Type the word "FlexTV"

2. Anything in this field should be deleted. The field should be blank.

3. From the dropdown box, pick FlexTV.

4. Scroll down and click Submit. Or, you can add an object link to flextv to an Educator content area: <object:flextv::FlexTV>

Of course, if you need more specific instructions, you can e-mail one of our E-Learning Technicians at support@ucompass.com


WHAT DOES FlexTV LOOK LIKE?

Below you can see a sample screen
capture of FlexTV. It shows a user taking a Meteorology course searching for television programming relative to the keyword, Climate.



1. When you first access FlexTV, you'll be asked to input your zip code. Enter a five-digit zip code (currently only United States and United States territories are supported) then press the 'Go!' button. Each person would put in their own zip code.

2. Then, you will see a list of all registered television service providers
and cable operators assigned to your zip code. Simply click on the company you
use as your television provider. Unfortunately, while our data is very complete, we may not have all providers in all parts of the country.

3. Again, this student has searched for the word Climate in this instance.

4. At first, you will see a grid that lists all of the current day's television programming, fast-forwarded to the current time of day. You can use the time pull-down interface controls to move forward or backward in half-hour increments. You can also use the calendar interface control to move ahead up to 2 WEEKS into the future to display television programming by time.

5. There is also a drop down box that will provide terms the student can be provided by the instructor. To add appropriate terms, please add the terms to your Glossary in the course. (See Glossaries under Distributing Knowledge in the Online Help Manual)



When you click on a TV program, you'll see something similar to the following:



When you click on the name of a TV program, you'll see a dialogue that lets you click on the name of the program and (sometimes) the names of any actors/actresses in the program. When you click on these links, you'll see info within the FlexTV interface straight from the IMDB (Internet Movie Database):




ADDING A TV PROGRAM TO THE COURSE CALENDAR

Upon clicking on the name of a TV program, you'll see an "Add to Calendar" icon. Upon clicking this, the television program will be added to your Educator calendar. The students would then be prompted to watch the program you pointed out to them.

3.9) Location-Based Learning

Location-Based Learning allows you to tie activities and resources to specific locations on the Planet Earth. This is accomplished with a new feature in Educator that lets you easily insert Google Maps into ANY part of your Educator classrooms.

NOTE: Certain versions of Internet Explorer seem to have particular difficulty with this new feature right now and it definitely doesn't work with Internet Explorer on the Macintosh. The feature works very well with Firefox, Safari and Netscape. Other browsers have not been tested yet but since the feature is built with the Google Maps program, if a browser can't successfully use Google Maps, it won't work with this particular feature in Educator.

To start, scroll down to the bottom of any main Educator page and click the Toolbox icon on the horizontal icon bar. Once there, click Location-Based Learning to turn on the Tool.





When you check the box to turn on the tool, an Add Map button will automatically be added to any text box in the course. Click on the Add Map button to add a map.



Center the map that appears on the general area you wish to map. To center the map, just place your mouse on the map and click and drag. You may then use the slider bar on the left to zoom in to the area until you find precisely the location you wish to map.



Once you find the desired location, click that point on the map. You will receive a box in which to fill in specific information about the item.



When you click OK, the link will automatically be embedded in the text box you currently have open. If you wish to use this link in other places in your course, just copy and paste that link.



When the students view the link, the map will appear with your notation on it when the Educator "e" icon is clicked.



Notice also on this link is the latitude and longitude of the mapped location. In addition to being able to insert maps into ANY Educator text box (e-mail, chat, etc.), all "resources" in Educator can be linked to a specific latitude and longitude down to the nearest meter using Google Maps. For instance, if you had a picture of a building that was part of a course lecture, you could tie an exact latitude and longitude to that resource to help learners' better grasp where on Earth that physical artifact is found:



Our goal is to promote the use of Latitude and Longitude, where appropriate, as a key META data field for learning objects in Educator (and other educational systems). As these resources become more easily searchable with "Learning Object Repository" technology, and as GPS on cell phones becomes as commonplace as cameras are today, we envision an exciting model evolving such that when a learner comes within a given physical distance of an artifact they have learned about during their online studies, they will be sent a friendly message on their phones or PDAs with some information about that artifact and their proximity to it.



Dramatization: Actual notification feature coming in 2007

3.10) The Lone Rearranger

NOTE: You must have at least version 9 of Flash installed in your browser to use this program. To install Flash 9, or to make sure you have the latest version, you may go to Adobe's website to download the free player. Also, please make sure popup blockers are turned off.

3.11) Content Management Navigation

Find the hyperlink generated by Educator.
< a href=/educator/common/Forte/document1.html >Link < /a >

This link may be copied and pasted on any web page inside or outside of the course, creating a hyperlink back to this file. Simply replace the word Link with your own custom text.
For additional information on common folders, please review the details section below. Later on, when we talk about image banks and sharing files, we will come back to the Common Folders.

Details

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Limiting Access to Common Folders.

It is possible to limit access to common folders to yourself, a single department, or students from one or more of your courses.
Let's look at these options which are visible in the screen display above:If you would like to limit access to this folder to specific staff or members of a department, you may input a staff password and distribute it among those who should have access.
Folders you have secured will have a key icon.
Other community members will still be able to see the folder, however, it will be marked with a lock icon.

If you would not like this folder to be visible to anyone but yourself, you may check the box to make the folder invisible.

You may also choose to make the contents of this folder available to students by selecting the checkmark in front of one or all of your courses. Students in courses that you mark for access will have a common folder sublink in their Course Materials.

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Working with Common Folders.

Common folders that you have created are marked with a little face icon. You may only delete or edit folders that you own.


As facilitator of this course, I have created a common folder using my last name, Forte. The image at left shows what I see if I view the common folders in this account. Note that there is no ownership icon next to the Smith Folder.
The image at right shows what Smith would see if he logged in and viewed the common folders. Note that some folders visible to the user at left are not visible to users on the right. That is because folders within the Forte common folder have been made invisible to other users.
I can go into the Smith folder and copy the HTML link tag from any file he has left "open" to me. Or Smith can go into the Forte folder and use any file left there. Embedding these Educator-generated HTML link will provide users with a link to that file as long as the file is not moved or deleted.


Clicking on a common folder will allow me to view the contents of the folder or manipulate the folder in various ways. Let's go over these options, one by one.


This screen image at left shows options for the owner of the folder. The options to edit or delete the folder will not appear to others.

• Folder Settings: Click this to change the name, description or access parameters of a common folder.
  Changing the name of a folder after it contains files will change the path of that file resulting in a broken link. For example, an image file that sits in a common folder called images may have a path like this:
  < img src=/educator/common/images/caution.gif >
  If I change the name of the images folder to pictures, the path of any link previously embedded in a course would still include the old folder name images and the file would not be found when the link was clicked.
  
  
• Remove folder: Click this to delete a folder and all of its contents.
  
• Upload to folder: Click this to upload a file to this common folder. At this time, multiple uploads are not supported.
  
• Import folder: If you are in another person's common folder and wish to copy the contents to your own account, click here. You are importing the contents from another user's common folder into one of your own common folders. You will be asked to specify a destination common folder, so be sure you have one prepared to receive the files contained here. Note: only files are transferred to your account...not the common folder structure itself.
  
• New subfolder: Click this to create a subfolder within this common folder.
  
• Course sharing: Click here to change the access permissions for other users including students in your courses.
  

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Importing files from Common Folders.

If you want to use a file that resides in another instructor's Common Folder, you may do so simply by clicking on the folder, clicking on the filename and then clicking on the IMPORT FILE link. Then choose the course folder in your course in which you want to store the file. That's all there is to it.
However, be aware that once you import a file into your own course, the thing that made it 'common' is no longer valid. In other words, any changes you make to the file will only be visible to viewers in your own course. Changes made to the original will not take effect on your copy of the file.

If you do not want others using your materials without your permission, please either lock your Common Folders or make them invisible to others. By the very act of putting materials into a Common Folder, you are agreeing to share them with anyone else at your institution.

Main Points

• Common folders store files that need to be accessed from multiple courses or even from outside the Educator environment.
  
• Common folders are not usually visible to students, but can be set up so that students have access
  
• Common folders and contents can be hidden from other users
  
• Common folders and files can be password protected by the owner
  
• Files stored in common folders can be imported and changed by any instructor unless they are stored in locked or invisible folders.

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Usage Tips

Common folders do not collapse. So be careful of creating too many that will make navigation difficult. If you are going to share contents only among your own courses, make your common folders invisible to others.
Why Common Folders, an article from the Ucompass.com archives.

Please send your own training tips or comments to training@ucompass.com for inclusion in this topic. Note: Technical support questions should be addressed to support@ucompass.com

3.13) Student Folders

Click [Submit]

Details

The main purpose for the student folders is so that students have a private area where they can upload and store work that they have created for their online course. These files may be associated with specific assignments and therefore, instructors may enter student folders for the purpose of grading these file submissions. This is not the main method of grading assignments. See the Assignments Packet for additional information

Instructors may also upload files to the student folders.
Let's look at each of these scenarios below.



This image shows the screen upon entering the Student Folder sublink in the main navigator column.

Each student folder is listed. If they have uploaded any files, the most recent will be visible outside the folder.

To view all files uploaded by a particular student, you must enter their folder.

To display all contents of all folders, click on Show all student files

If you would like to download all student files and view them offline, click on Download folder to desktop.

You can allow students to view the contents of each other's folders by changing the student folder settings at the top of the list. The default is locked. Unlocking this setting will allow you or the student to unlock each individual folder.

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Entering the student folder

Click on any student folder to view the contents.

You will also be able to upload to the folder, modify the folder (unlock or lock it), or download the folder to your desktop so that you can view the contents when you are offline. This is useful for external assignments, such as word documents, that need to be open by an external application. (If you make any changes to the downloaded file, you must re-upload it again, for the changes to be visible to the student).

Note that you or the student may also create subfolders. This is useful for segregating files that are all associated with a single assignment. That way, downloading the folder will only download pertinent files, and not all files.
Note too, that instructor-loaded files are so designated.

Each student file has an object ID number that begins with the letter "s". This number identifies the document within the system.

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Viewing a student file

Click on any file within a student folder to view that file. The first thing you will see is the file information page as shown to the left.

If the file is web-viewable, you will have links that will allow you to VIEW or EDIT the file.

If the file is not web-viewable, clicking on the filename will initiate a download to your desktop, where you may open the file with the appropriate application. The screen at left shows a non-web-viewable Word document (Oct.doc).

The file information page indicates whether that file is or should be associated with an assignment. Changing the Association from NONE to a specific assignment will allow you to grade that file and provide assignment feedback to the student.

If you would like to share the file with other students in the course, you may click on the link to Grant access to specific classmates/groups. (Groups will be explained in the discussion board area)

The student grade report, which is accessible from this and many other locations, will be explained in the packet that deals with student evaluation and grading.

Usage Tips

To allow students to download and edit a single document, consider putting it in a common folder and then pasting the link in your lecture, assignment or discussion posting. Then if you need to edit the document yourself, you can make the change in one place and re-upload it with the same file name. The link won't change but the document will. The key is to keep using the same file name. If you want a record of the original documents, rename them document1.doc, document2.doc, etc. This is much easier than uploading a copy to each student folder. If changes have to be made once it's uploaded, you'll have to re-upload the changed document to each student again.

Please send your own training tips or comments to training@ucompass.com for inclusion in this topic. Note: Technical support questions should be addressed to support@ucompass.com

3.14) Managing Student Files

Give students directions for uploading their assignments from the assignment page itself, instead of directly into their folders. That way, the file uploaded will automatically be associated with that assignment, keeping the grading information straight.