mcgillx how to documentation - read the docs · if a student has made a valid complaint about a...

McGillX How To DocumentationRelease 0.0.1

McGill University

May 10, 2016

Contents

1 Discussion Monitoring 31.1 General Advice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31.2 Following Discussion Threads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31.3 Subscribing to email digests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51.4 Discussion Filtering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

2 Common Issues and Resolutions 92.1 Common Discussion Forum Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92.2 UTC Time Zone Due Dates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92.3 Problems with Drag and Drop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122.4 Browser Related Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122.5 Problem Submission History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122.6 Reset Problem Attempts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132.7 Student Progress Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

3 Creating Course Annoucements 21

4 Creating Course Discussion Threads 254.1 Open the studio and course page related to the activity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254.2 On the Course Page: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264.3 On the Studio Page: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274.4 Complete the discussion post . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

5 Class Emails 315.1 Composing and Sending an Email . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315.2 Template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315.3 Adding an Image to an Email . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335.4 Share This Course Icons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

6 Download Class Results to a Problem 35

7 Transcription 397.1 Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397.2 Uploading Transcripts to Rev . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397.3 Reviewing Transcripts from Rev . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

8 Adding to the How To Guide 41

9 Indices and tables 43

i

McGillX How To Documentation, Release 0.0.1

This documentation is meant as a reference for McGillX staff.

Contents 1


2 Contents

CHAPTER 1

Discussion Monitoring

1.1 General Advice

• Polls, word clouds, and surveys are ungraded. Other forms of questions are typically graded, review the syllabusfor specifics.

• Do your best to respond to students in a timely fashion. For issues that may take further investigation, informstudents that you are looking into the issues and will get back to them shortly.

• Students starting the course late will be discussing topics already covered by the majority of the class. It maybe helpful to refer these newer students to specific forum posts in which those topics were covered.

• Students will post responses to staff initiated discussion questions in individual posts instead of the designatedstaff threads. If you respond to these, advise them to respond to the appropriate thread in the future.

• Some students will not check the syllabus and complain once they miss a deadline. Generally, these deadlinesare not changed based on individual requests.

• Student participation in the forum will drop off substantially as the course continues.

• In the first few weeks of the course, expect a lot of student introductions. You do not need to respond or read allof these.

• Students often forget to reference the location of the issue within the course. Politely ask them refer to thespecific week/topic #, video #, question #, and time mark in the video so that you may better assist them.

• After you answer a student’s question, try to stimulate further discussion. For example, you could ask a followup question or ask other students to chime in.

• When posting or responding in the discussion board try to support your claims and arguments with citations. Ifyou are stating your opinion, make sure to mention that in your comment.

• If a student makes outlandish claims, it may be easiest to address the topic by asking where they have heard thatidea. This can lead to a discussion about the veracity and reputation of sources.

1.2 Following Discussion Threads

After responding to a student post, follow the post by pressing the star icon. This will notify you if a student asks afollow up question at a later date.

3


Once you follow a post, the star icon will be blue, and an emblem will be visible in the side bar.

4 Chapter 1. Discussion Monitoring


1.3 Subscribing to email digests

To receive notifications of new responses in the daily digest email, make sure you have signed up for it. This page isdisplayed when you click the Discussion tab in the header.

1.3. Subscribing to email digests 5


1.4 Discussion Filtering

You can filter discussions posts by topic or by activity. To look at discussions that pertain to a specific lesson or topic,click “All Discussions.” To look only at unread, unanswered, or flagged posts, click “Show all.” To sort posts in orderof recent activity, total activity, or total votes, click on “by recent activity.”the lower right icon. Multiple filters canbe applied simultaneously. For example, you could order the posts of a specific topic by most recent activity.



1.4. Discussion Filtering 7

CHAPTER 2

Common Issues and Resolutions

2.1 Common Discussion Forum Issues

Outlined below are common issues students reported by students when using the discussion forum.

2.1.1 Students Unable to Upload Images

They may have problems uploading images to their posts. This is commonly because the image size is limited, andthey do not know how to compress the image. You can advise them to use an online application like Image Optimizer(http://www.imageoptimizer.net/Pages/Home.aspx) to compress the image to a smaller size. Otherwise, you might askthem to find an image elsewhere on the internet and share the link, or simply to describe the image.

2.1.2 Students Posting Answers in Discussion Posts

Students may post answers to problem questions in the forum. We encourage students to ask for clarification andensure their understanding but we ask that students avoid posting the answers to problems. Should students create apost containing answers replace their answers with “XXXX”. Add an explanation for the edit at the bottom of thepost.

Note: We encourage students to discuss and collaborate when solving problems , but we discourage the posting ofanswers.

2.1.3 Students Categorizing Discussion Posts as Discussions or Questions

Students who are new to edX may categorize their posts incorrectly. Remind the students that for their future posts,they have the option of classifying the post as either discussion or question. If their post was incorrectly categorizedas a question, mark your response as the answer. Additionally, you can edit their post and change the categorizationmanually.

2.2 UTC Time Zone Due Dates

Students will frequently be confused by the due dates, not realizing that the deadlines are stated in the UTC/GMTtime zone. You can suggest they visit use a website such as timeanddate to convert UTC time to their local time. The“Course Info” tab also has a UTC Clock in the side bar that students may find helpful.

9

http://www.imageoptimizer.net/Pages/Home.aspx

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html


10 Chapter 2. Common Issues and Resolutions


2.2. UTC Time Zone Due Dates 11


We try to avoid issues of confusion by setting soft deadlines, meaning the deadline that appears to students is oftenmany hours in advance of the actual deadline. However, this is not something which we publicize to students.

2.3 Problems with Drag and Drop

Students may complain about not being able to complete the drag-and-drop questions on their tablets or phones. Notifythem this is a limitation of the edX platform which McGillX has no control over. edX is working towards creatingmobile friendly interactions for the future. Advise them to answer the questions on another device.

2.4 Browser Related Issues

Many technical issues students report can be resolved by using an alternative browser. Ask them which browser and onwhat device the issue arouse. We advise against using Internet Explorer; suggest Chrome or Firefox as an alternative.Chrome often has the fewest issues.

Issues can result if students have disabled javascript; advise them to enable JavaScript when using the edX platform.

For directions on enabling javascript:

• Chrome see https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/12654?hl=en

• Mozilla Firefox:

1. Click the Tools drop-down menu and select Options.

2. Select the Content section from the options at the top of the pop-up page.

3. Check the boxes next to Block pop-up windows, Load images automatically, and EnableJavaScript.

4. Click OK.

5. Refresh your browser by right-clicking anywhere on the page and selecting Reload, or by usingthe Reload button in the toolbar.

• Safari:

1. Open Safari and click on the Safari menu and go down to ‘preferences...’.

2. Click on the Security tab.

3. Make sure the ‘Enable JavaScript’ checkbox is ticked and the ‘Accept Cookies - Always’ optionis selected. ...

4. Now that you have completed these steps click the Close button at the top of the window.

2.5 Problem Submission History

If a student has an issue with a problem/exercise it’s often useful to check the student’s response to question.

To look at a student’s responses to a specific question:

1. Find the question location in the courseware.

2. Click “SUBMISSION HISTORY” and enter the student’s username. You can now scroll through all of thestudents submissions, and see the location of the question. At times it might be hard to find the answer in thecode (which is written in JSON), so keep in mind what the answer should look like.


https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/12654?hl=en


• Pay attention to the following fields:

– “last_submission_time”: “2015-07-20T19:21:17Z”

– “student_answers”: {“62be225bca294ef09c45b4b92802be71_2_1”: “choice_2”,“62be225bca294ef09c45b4b92802be71_3_1”: “choice_1”}

Note: For questions that have multiple parts, read the string of numbers from right to left the sec-ond digit refers to the number of the part. The numbering starts with 2. For example, the firstquestion part would be 62be225bca294ef09c45b4b92802be71_2_1 and the second question part would be62be225bca294ef09c45b4b92802be71_3_1.

2.6 Reset Problem Attempts

If a student has made a valid complaint about a question, we may reset their answer submissions, find the questionin the courseware and click “STAFF DEBUG INFO”. Enter the student’s username, and click “Reset StudentAttempts”.

2.6. Reset Problem Attempts 13


2.7 Student Progress Page

If students are curious about their current progress and grade in the course, refer them to their Progress Page. This isaccessible from the main header. To clarify aspects of their progress page it may help to look at the student’s progresspage.

To access a student’s progress page, click the Instructor tab, then the STUDENT ADMIN sub-tab. Insert the student’semail address or username into the box, and click the “Student Progress Page” hyperlink.



2.7. Student Progress Page 19

CHAPTER 3

Creating Course Annoucements

For course annoucements, first create the post in studio.edge.edx.org. This way the post can be previewed in the edxenvironment, and leave the course unaffected. Once you are statisfied with the announcement, copy the post to thestudio.edx.org course.

1. Draft the announcement in studio.edge.edx.org

Select “Updates” from the “Content” tab. Select “New Update.”

Copy and paste the template below into the html editor:

21


<h1 id="#replace-with-title"><b>REPLACE WITH TITLE</b></h1><p>TEXT</p><br><div align="center"><iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/ReplaceWithYouTubeId?wmode=transparent&modestbranding=1&showinfo=0&rel=0" allowfullscreen="" height="360" width="640" frameborder="0"></iframe></div><br><p>TEXT</p><br><h3>Subtitle paragraph below with event time annoucement</h3><br><p>Your first assignment which is due on Friday, February 13 at 23:30 UTC (click<a href="http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?msg=Homework%3A+Assignment+%231&iso=20150213T1130&p1=1440" target="_blank"> here </a>to see time conversion).</p>

2. Post and preview the announcement in the live edge course

3. Go through the same process in the studio.edx.org course, using the same HTML code for the announcement.

Note, when you create a new update there is no preview mode (it will be posted to the course space and be visible tostudent’s as soon as you save)

4. (Optional) Post the URL to the discussion updates thread. (This is applicable only if students have been asked tofollow a specific thread for updates.) Respond to the thread with a link to the update.

Thread Contents

[Update: Title for Update][1][1]: https://courses.edx.org/courses/McGillX/ATOC185x_2/1T2015/info#title-of-update

Important: If you upload images or other files to the course do not include spaces or special characters (!, &, ?) inthe file name. Use underscores, hyphens, letters and numbers only.

22 Chapter 3. Creating Course Annoucements


23


24 Chapter 3. Creating Course Annoucements

CHAPTER 4

Creating Course Discussion Threads

Course Discussion Threads need to be intergrated with the course material, with links going to and from the post tothe related course material.

4.1 Open the studio and course page related to the activity

25


4.2 On the Course Page:

Here you will create a create a thread on the discussion forum.

1. Click the upper navbar “Discussion” tab

2. Create a “New Post” [COURSE CODE]:...

3. Find the post you just created

4. Pin the post to the top of the discussion

5. Open the post

6. Right click the post and copy the URL for the discussion thread

26 Chapter 4. Creating Course Discussion Threads


4.3 On the Studio Page:

1. Click edit on the component which contains the “here” hyperlink

2. In the window that opens edit the html

3. Find the href=””

4. href = “Paste Url for Discussion Post Here”

5. Click save

6. Click Publish

7. Test that the hyperlink on the studio page takes you to the discussion post.

4.3. On the Studio Page: 27


inset image staff threads



4.4 Complete the discussion post

1. Go back to the discussion post

2. Hyperlink the title to the activity in the courseware (the normal courseware, not the studio version)

3. Finish the discussion post by adding a description and ensuring the URL has a number corresponding to thepage number after the slash.

4.4. Complete the discussion post 29

CHAPTER 5

Class Emails

5.1 Composing and Sending an Email

On the main course page:

1. Click the instructor tab

2. Email

3. Compose the email using the HTML editor (copy and paste the template below)

4. Test the email by sending it to yourself first (be sure to preview it in both Gmail and another email client suchas Outlook)

Note: Outlook will often block images from being displayed

Note: The email Subject no longer automatically includes the course name ([Course Name] used to appear beforeemails automatically).

5.2 Template

<p>We're back! ATOC185x: Natural Disasters is being re-offered starting Wednesday, January 14th.</p><p>If life got busy and you ran out of time or you completed the course but want to take part in the discussion, please join us again.</p><p>We are happy to announce for this offering you can choose to complete a verified attestation of completion (equivalent to an edX verified certificate). For more information click <a href="https://www.edx.org/verified-certificate" target="_blank">here</a>.</p><p>Hope to see you again!</p><p><img src="https://courses.edx.org/c4x/McGillX/ATOC185x/asset/email_to_summer_professors_campus_600px.jpg" alt="picture of professors" /></p><p>Professors John Stix and John Gyakum</p><div align="center"><p>Share this course</p><p><a href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https://www.edx.org/course/natural-disasters-mcgillx-atoc185x#.VH3YpzHF98E" target="_blank"><img src="courses.edx.org/c4x/McGillX/ATOC185x_2/asset/facebook-icon.png" alt="Facebook"/></a> <a href="https://plusone.google.com/_/+1/confirm?hl=en&url=https://www.edx.org/course/natural-disasters-mcgillx-atoc185x#.VH3YpzHF98E" target="_blank"><img src="courses.edx.org/c4x/McGillX/ATOC185x_2/asset/google-plus-icon.png" alt="Google+"/></a> <a href="http://twitter.com/share?url=https://www.edx.org/course/natural-disasters-mcgillx-atoc185x#.VH3YpzHF98E;text=Description" target="_blank"><img src="courses.edx.org/c4x/McGillX/ATOC185x_2/asset/twitter-icon.png" alt="Twitter"/></a>

</p></div>

31


32 Chapter 5. Class Emails


5.3 Adding an Image to an Email

In studio.edx.org:

1. upload the image to the course page with the following specifications:

• A unique name. Do not include spaces or special characters (!, &, ?) in the file name. Use underscores, hyphens,letters and numbers only.

• A width of 600px or less (!Important, do not try using html to resize the image, it will not work for email clientssuch as outlook)

2. Copy the external URL

3. Replace the highlighted portion of the html below with the external URL

"<img src="https://courses.edx.org/c4x/McGillX/ATOC185x/asset/email_to_summer_professors_campus_600px.jpg" alt="picture of professors" />"

4. Replace the alt text with a short description of the picture

<img src="https://courses.edx.org/c4x/McGillX/ATOC185x/asset/email_to_summer_professors_campus_600px.jpg" alt="picture of professors" />

5.4 Share This Course Icons

• Be sure the icons are uploaded to the course

• The share icon URLs should match the course from which the email is being sent

<div align="center"><p>Share this course</p><p>

<a href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https://www.edx.org/course/natural-disasters-mcgillx-atoc185x#.VH3YpzHF98E" target="_blank"><img src="courses.edx.org/c4x/McGillX/ATOC185x_2/asset/facebook-icon.png" alt="Facebook"/></a> <a href="https://plusone.google.com/_/+1/confirm?hl=en&url=https://www.edx.org/course/natural-disasters-mcgillx-atoc185x#.VH3YpzHF98E" target="_blank"><img src="courses.edx.org/c4x/McGillX/ATOC185x_2/asset/google-plus-icon.png" alt="Google+"/></a> <a href="http://twitter.com/share?url=https://www.edx.org/course/natural-disasters-mcgillx-atoc185x#.VH3YpzHF98E;text=Description" target="_blank"><img src="courses.edx.org/c4x/McGillX/ATOC185x_2/asset/twitter-icon.png" alt="Twitter"/></a>

</p></div>

5.3. Adding an Image to an Email 33


34 Chapter 5. Class Emails

CHAPTER 6

Download Class Results to a Problem

Some McGillX courses use problems to survey the class. They offer greater variety of answer format in contrast topolls. Answers to these surveys as sometimes collected and displayed to the class.

1. Find the problem location in the courseware.

2. Click STAFF DEBUG INFO, and note the location.

3. Then go to the Instructor tab, click DATA DOWNLOAD, and click answer_distribution.csv.

4. Open this downloaded file, and use the search function to find the problem location you found in the STAFFDEBUG INFO.

35


36 Chapter 6. Download Class Results to a Problem


37


38 Chapter 6. Download Class Results to a Problem

CHAPTER 7

Transcription

7.1 Overview

Transcriptions are generated for most course videos and are displayed alongside the video on the edX platform. Tran-scription allows students to quickly view and search videos for specific content. It also facilitates access for learnerswith certain impairments. McGillX uses a transcription service called rev; once transcripts are completed by rev,transcriptions need to be manually updated to the course specifications and checked to ensure accuracy. This sectiondescribes the transcription process.

7.2 Uploading Transcripts to Rev

1. Direct your browser to rev

2. Log in using the account associated with the course which has videos requiring transcription

3. Under Order History click “Place New Order” in the top right

4. Select “Captions” from the dropdown

5. Choose “FROM YOUTUBE” as the option

6. Select the account for the associated course

7. Click “Allow” on the permissions window that appears

8. Select the video or videos and click “Add Selected to Cart”

39

https://www.rev.com//

https://www.rev.com//

https://www.rev.com/account/orderhistory


Note: videos that display a “CC” in the lower left corner of the thumbnail have transcripts associated with themalready.

7.3 Reviewing Transcripts from Rev

Rev returns transcripts to the associated Youtube video automatically. You can use the Youtube transcript editor toreview and edit the transcripts.

1. Go to the McGillX Youtube Content Manager Dashboard

2. Select Video Manager from the left hand panel

3. Find the video in need of review and editing

4. Select “Subtitles and CC” from the dropdown carrot next to “Edit”

5. Click the set of subtitles labelled as “English - Default” to begin editing

6. Publish the edits once you have finished

40 Chapter 7. Transcription

https://www.youtube.com/dashboard?o=BGlye001lwz6jaZIjyqHzg

CHAPTER 8

Adding to the How To Guide

Much of this documentation is written in ReStructured Text (rst). Refer to this ‘cheat sheet’_ on rst

The guide is hosted on github. To edit files click the “Edit on Github” in the top right hand corner. Note you need tocreate a github account and without permissions you will need to create a “pull request” after completing your edits.Your edits will then be pending approval.

41


42 Chapter 8. Adding to the How To Guide

CHAPTER 9

Indices and tables

• genindex

• modindex

• search

43

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