WebCT news at SFU

Enclosed is some information for setting up your Spring 2008 WebCT container.

Adding lecture recordings to WebCT
Create a seamless link between large class lectures and your WebCT course container to provide learning opportunities for students outside the classroom. If your lecture hall lectures are recorded, you can now place a quick link to the recording in your WebCT course. Check here for instructions: http://wiki.sfu.ca/webct/index.php/External#adding_SFU_lecture_recordings

Add your Teaching Assistants to WebCT
Your Teaching Assistant can use WebCT to administer and deliver grades, review completed quizzes or surveys, or moderate online questions and answers in the discussions tool. You will need your Teaching Assistants’ computing IDs (the login name they use to login to WebCT, for example) to add your TAs or colleagues to the WebCT course container.

Open the Teach Tab in your WebCT course, click on “Grade Book” under the header “Instructor Tools”. Once in the Grade Book, click on the button “Enroll Members” (found above the Grade Book spreadsheet). Enter in the computing ID for your TA, and check next to Teaching Assistant (this will give them access to the Teach Tab. To give them access to the Build Tab, select Section Designer as well). Click on the “Enroll” button, and remember to click “Save” before exiting this page.

Request your Spring 2008 WebCT course container
Use the course request form found at: http://webct.sfu.ca The course request form has options to add your Teaching Assistants, copy course content from a previous WebCT course, and modify the dates that students will be able to access WebCT (by default, students have access from the first day of the semester to the last). It will take one to two working days for your course container to appear in WebCT.

Weekly WebCT Office Hours
We are holding weekly WebCT Office hours on Thursdays, between 12:30 and 1:30pm at the LIDC (EDB 7560). Please drop in with questions, to get resources or to discuss your plans.

Online Resources for Instructors and Students

• Troubleshooting hints for instructors and students: http://toolkit.sfu.ca/webct/browser/
• Student resources: http://wiki.sfu.ca/webct/index.php/Student_FAQ
• Online tutorials, pdf downloads and quick answers for faculty, instructors and teaching assistants: http://wiki.sfu.ca/webct/ If you have any questions, please email instructional_support@sfu.ca

Tutorial numbers are automatically added to the course grade book as of Spring 2008.  

In a large class, it becomes important to be able to sort and search for specific students or groups of students. This thread explains how to search and sort students according to a text column (ie, a column that indicates which tutorial a student is in).

There seem to be two main approaches.

1. Using a text column:
Create a text column that contains the student tutorial information. You could input this manually, or import it from SIMS. Once you have identified all the students’ tutorials you can sort the students according to that column. (ie, by clicking on the column title). This will not sort the students alphabetically within each tutorial, however.

You can also search for students under the Grade Book Options. Choose Find members from the drop-down menu, and then you can search by column.

2 Using Groups:
Create one group for each tutorial using the sign-up sheets in group manager. Have the students select the tutorial/group that they are currently registered in (you can move them to a different tutorial later on if they make a mistake). You then have individual groups that correspond with your tutorials. You can create tutorial based discussion topics, for example, or use selective release to share content with different tutorials.

To search for the students in each tutorial/group, open the grade book, and under the drop down menu in Grade Book Option, choose Find Members. From there you can search by group members.