Oncourse site types: Overview
View feature demonstrations relevant to this topic.
What they are
-
Course sites: A course
site is the official worksite for a particular academic course. At
Indiana University, course sites are automatically created for each
official course, and the rosters are automatically populated from the
registrar's office.
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Practice course sites:
A practice course site emulates course site functionality so
instructors and support staff can become familiar with Oncourse's
features and experiment with course
development and organization. To request a practice course site, submit the
request form.
To populate the roster, use the Site Setup tool to add participants and
assign roles.
Note: Students are not eligible to create practice course sites.
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Project sites: Project sites are designed to
facilitate collaboration. You can invite anyone you wish to join your
project site.
Any faculty or staff member can request a project site to use as a site for collaboration on project, committee, or research work. Students are eligible to set up project sites, but must have faculty or staff sponsors fill out and submit the request forms (i.e., students cannot submit request forms themselves). To request a project site, submit the request form.
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Portfolio sites:
Portfolio sites allow faculty and administrators to guide students
through the process of creating learning, assessment, and presentation
portfolios; see Portfolio environment: Overview. You can
request a portfolio site in order to become familiar with the
portfolio tools, similar to a practice course site.
Instructors and staff may request portfolio sites using the request form.
Key concepts
Customization: You can choose from features and functions to create sites that meet your needs. Here are some examples:
- A course web site where students can work on and submit assignments
- A practice course site where you simulate an
online class
- A portfolio site offering guidance and customized data structures to
create portfolios for specific purposes
- A web site where an instructor or project director can make
announcements and share resources, such as documents or links to other
web sites
- A web site that serves as an online discussion board
My Workspace: When you log in, you will automatically open a site called My Workspace. All users get their own My Workspace site.
Tabs: When you log in, the course, project, and
portfolio sites to which you belong are displayed as tabs across the
top of the screen. To enter a site, click its tab. If you belong to
more sites than can be displayed as tabs, click
- more - to access the rest.
You can choose to hide sites (e.g., course sites from previous semesters) or reorder them (i.e., choose which sites to display in tabs) using the Preferences tool in My Workspace; see Showing, hiding, and ordering sites.
Menubar: Sites can have just a few or several
functions (including announcements, a calendar, an online discussion area,
assignments, electronic resources, a chat area, and more). You can
choose which tools to include in your site, and they will be added to
the menubar along the left side of the screen. To access a
tool, click its name in the menubar. Sites also have a home page,
accessed by clicking Home in the menubar.
Things to consider
-
Course sites are archived after eight semesters (counting summer as one semester). The archive takes place at least two weeks after the last campus begins classes. The next archive (of fall 2009 courses) will take place June 4, 2012.
To save instructor-generated material beyond the expiration, see Saving course materials beyond eight semesters. Project and portfolio sites currently have no expiration.
- For best results, use a supported browser; see Which browser should I use?
Current versions of Firefox and Internet Explorer are available to IU students, faculty, and staff via IUware.
Help documentation
For help documentation about sites, see Sites.
Feature demonstrations
All the following feature demonstrations include audio, and each link will open a new window.
Last modified on October 31, 2011.
