june 22-25 2009. should you designate your course as a standard or a coordinator course? the default...

June 22-252009

Should you designate your course as a Standard or a Coordinator course?

• The default setting on newly created courses is Standard, which is what you want if you are teaching just one section of the course.

• If you’ll be teaching multiple sections, or designing a template course to be used by multiple instructors, change the designation to Coordinator.

• Any courses copied from a coordinator course are designated as Member courses.

Characteristics of a Coordinator Course:

1. Courses that are copied from the coordinator course automatically become member courses.

2. With a coordinator course, anything you change within the MyMathLab box in Control Panel in that course will also be changed in any member courses.

3. Changes made in any area outside the MML box after a member course is copied from it will NOT show up in that member course (e.g. Announcements, Course Menu). Therefore you should try to have all your non-MML customization finished before you allow member courses to be copied from it.

4. Students cannot enroll in a Coordinator course.

Characteristics of a Coordinator Course (ct’d):

5. The Coordinator has access to all MML functions of member courses (gradebook, HW/Test Manager, passwords, etc.)

6. Timing of changes made in Coordinator course is important.

• Once a student in ANY member course has started an assignment, quiz or test, no further editing of that assignment can be done in the coordinator course or any member course.

• Changes you make as Coordinator will overwrite changes made by member course instructors (passwords, dates/times), so try to have all settings properly set before you make an assignment available for instructors to change times/dates/passwords for their sections.

How to change your course to a Coordinator course:

(Note: This is not an option if your course is a member of another coordinator course, unless the coordinator course

owner removes the course from the group.)

• In Control Panel, within the MyMathLab box, click on Settings and Group Administration.

How to change your course to a Coordinator course:

• If the course you are working on is a Member Course, the owner of the Coordinator Course must open that course, go to Settings in MML, and remove that member course from the group.

Coordinator Course View:

If you want to copy an existing coordinator course to make a new coordinator course (e.g., for the next semester):

• First, make a new (member) copy of the coordinator course.

• Then go into the original coordinator course (MML box, settings) and remove the new member from the group.

• Then go back into the new course (which will now be designated a standard course by default) and change it to a coordinator course as outlined in the following slides.

After you designate your course as a Coordinator Course, go back to the Group Admin settings box:

Pearson Help Outline for

Managing Course Groups

(Handout 4H-1in your notebook)

While still in the Group Admin settings box, note the choice box for allowing members to remove themselves from the group. (Default value is UNCHECKED, i.e., not allowed)

How to use the Section Instructor Option:

• The Section Instructor must first enroll in your member (or standard) course as a STUDENT.

• (Get access codes for this from your Pearson rep.)

• Then the owner of the course must go to the “User Management” area of control panel (OUTSIDE of the MML box) and change the status to section instructor.

Designating a Section Instructor:• This is NOT done in the MyMathLab box• Return to the Control Panel Page• Select List/Modify Users in the User Management box

Click “List All”

Some tips for course coordinators:• Create a test version of a member course

by copying your coordinator course BEFORE you allow any other instructors to copy it.– Make sure it’s available for copy– Run through all non-MML menu areas to

make sure there are no changes you need to make before others copy it.

Some tips for course coordinators:• Create a copy (member course) to be used

for the next version of the course right away.– You can make updates to the non-MML part of

this course as you think of them throughout the semester.

– All MML editing done in the coordinator course automatically transfers to this course.

– At the end of the semester, remove this course from the original course and change its status from Standard to Coordinator.

Some tips for course coordinators:• Create a step-by-step instruction sheet for

your member instructors (or section instructors) to follow in creating their courses.– Have a face-to-face meeting with your instructors

for course creation and customization if possible.– See handout 4H_2 for the meeting agenda and

instruction sheet we use for our pre-semester course creation and customization at UW-Stout.

See handout 4H_2 for the complete instructor meeting agenda and

detailed instruction list.

Some tips for course coordinators:

• Be careful in creating course names– Semester/Year– Member or template– Section number– Instructor’s initials– Class start time

See handout 4H_2

Reminder: Course names CAN be edited (by the owner/member) after the course is created, but using the “Details” button to the right of the course name in your CourseCompass home page listing all of your courses. (This is NOT done within control panel.)

Another tip for course

coordinators:

Keep a complete list of all member courses and course ID’s for yourself and also posted in your help lab. (Especially at

the start of the semester when students are

adding courses late, or changing sections.)

Some tips for course coordinators:• Use different color buttons for each separate

COURSE (e.g., Math 010 = red vs. Math 110 = green.)• Invert the color choice on the template/coordinator

course (e.g., black with red ends for template, red with black ends for members) – Do the coordinator button color change AFTER all members copy your template course.

• Alternative: Use two separate instructor accounts for yourself, one only for templates (coordinator courses) and the other for your own member and/or standard courses.

Some tips for course coordinators:• Make use of MML announcements, which DO filter through to

all member courses. (The Announcements outside of the MML box DO NOT transfer to members after courses are copied.)

• As coordinator, you can also use this function to send one email announcement to all students in all member sections using the “Save and email” feature.

Some tips for course coordinators:

• When setting the initial passwords in the coordinator course, insert the word “change” at the front of each placeholder password (e.g., “changefilly”, “changerandom”, etc.) so that your member instructors will be able to tell if they have customized their sections’ passwords.

Some tips for course coordinators:• Create a common set of lecture slides for all

member/section instructors to use as a guideline for their lecture content and length.

• Can customize these from the publisher-supplied Power Point slides.

• Post on your CourseCompass site (or on your own web site outside of CourseCompass if you can’t get them all ready before the course starts) so that students can also access these.

• If using an external web site, you can insert links to the lecture slides pages within CourseCompass (e.g. in eBook, Chapter Contents, Assignments, etc.)

Some tips for course coordinators:

• Create a standard “Preliminary email” to send out to all enrolled students BEFORE classes begin.– Emphasize importance of attending first class (there will

be a quiz, you will get points for attending/participating, you will be registering in the software this day and will have an assignment using it, etc.)

– Notify them of the fact that this software is being used, and that they need to have an access code the first day of class and how to purchase it.

– See sample of our email on next slide.

Preliminary Email

Handout 4H_3

Homework and Test manager tips for coordinators

• When making any MML changes using change dates and assign status after members copy their courses, make sure to use the “update changes only” option when saving them, so you don’t overwrite customized member courses’ passwords and deadlines.

• If you edit an already-assigned assignment (in either a coordinator course or a member or standard course), clicking the “Save” option saves the changes but automatically unassigns it. (And if you click “Save and assign”, the settings for your coordinator course will override the member course settings.) Solution: Save, then send an email out to all instructors to reassign the item in their own course.)

More Homework and Test Manager Tips for Coordinators:

For assignments/tests/quizzes created using any Custom Exercise Builder questions created in the coordinator course:

• Any editing of questions done after members copy will NOT transfer to the member courses.

• Make sure you thoroughly test and proofread all CEB questions in the coordinator course before copying as member courses.

• If edits do need to be made after copying member courses (e.g. mistake on syllabus quiz), unassign the old version, edit the CEB questions (and change the name of the new version), and create a whole new test/quiz/assignment containing the corrected version plus the other questions from the original.

When in doubt:• Contact your workshop staff liaison

• Contact Jeanne or Deb

• Email Irene Doo• Contact MML tech support (post the number

in your classrooms/labs)