ARCHIVED: Past Oncourse changes and enhancements

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See more recent ARCHIVED: Oncourse changes and enhancements.

Changes for summer 2013

The following changes to Oncourse are available as of May 11, 2013. For background information about the Oncourse enhancement and development process, see Oncourse Enhancement and Development Process and Oncourse Enhancements Status.

  • For Announcements:
    • Site owners can reorder announcements via drag and drop.
    • A history of revisions and notifications is kept for each announcement.

  • A new setting in the Email Archive allows site owners to choose between forwarding messages sent to the site or simply archiving them without forwarding.
  • For Forums:
    • Threads are now called conversations.
    • Conversations are sortable.
    • Forums and topics can have open and close dates.
    • Users with appropriate permissions can duplicate forums and topics, and can automatically create separate copies of a topic for selected groups.
    • Students can be required to post before reading other users' posts.
    • Profile photos appear to the left of the author's name for each post. Clicking the photo opens the author's profile in a pop-up window.
    • The tool contains numerous usability enhancements.

  • Instructors can add the new Lessons (beta) tool (available only as part of a limited pilot in spring 2013) to any course site.
  • In portfolio Matrices, icons have been added for reflections, feedback, and evaluations.
  • For Messages:
    • When authoring messages, you can blind cc recipients.
    • Site owners can hide groups so they are not visible in the "To" field.
    • You can preview messages before sending.
    • Site owners can configure the permissions of the tool.

  • The portal has been completely redesigned with numerous usability enhancements, including:
    • The ability to navigate directly to a tool from any tab or site listed in the "More Sites" drawer
    • The ability to search for sites in the "More Sites" drawer
    • The ability to collapse the site menubar, allowing more screen space for content
    • An introductory tutorial that begins automatically the first time a user logs in
    • A "me" icon, providing one-click access to the Profile and Preferences tools, as well as the tutorial mentioned above

  • A new group permissions option has been added to the Permissions page of several tools (Announcements, Calendar, Messages, and Resources), allowing the site owner to set different permission settings for items restricted to specific groups.
  • The updated Profile tool now supports globally-recognized avatars (called gravatars) and allows users to post updates on each others' walls.
  • For Resources:
    • You can expand uploaded ZIP files and create ZIP archives for easy download.
    • You can check your quota and current usage.
    • You can reorder resources via drag and drop.

  • A new, more accessible version of the rich text editor is integrated into the tools that use it.
  • The Presentations tool now includes a tab for public presentations and the ability to duplicate one's own presentations.
  • For Site Setup:
    • Users can be added to the site with an initial status of inactive.
    • Site owners can quickly select all users for removal at the top of the list.
    • Site owners can link a given site to a "parent" site. Once the link is established, users can navigate to and from the parent via breadcrumbs and menubar links. (This navigational connection is distinct from the ability to combine sites.)
    • Unpublished sites can be published in one click via the Publish Now button above the menubar.
    • A timestamp indicates when the most recent manual changes to the participant list were made.
    • Site owners can randomly assign users to a specified number of groups or to groups of a specified size.
    • Site owners can create groups by role.
    • Site owners can populate groups by importing a CSV file.
    • When importing content from another site, hyperlinks to items stored in Resources are automatically updated to point to Resources in the current site for most tools.

Changes for spring 2013

The following changes to Oncourse are available as of January 3, 2013. For background information about the Oncourse enhancement and development process, see Oncourse Enhancement and Development Process and Oncourse Enhancements Status.

  • In the Assignments tool, instructors can filter bulk downloads by group or by section.
  • For citation lists in Resources, for Bloomington and Kokomo users, the "Search Library Resources" option has been replaced by the OneSearch@IU service, a tool that searches multiple research databases at once. (Current options remain for all other campuses.)
  • Courseload, which provides access to electronic textbooks (eTexts), is available in My Workspace. Instructors who accidentally remove the Courseload tool can also re-add it to the site using Site Setup.
  • The CourseNetworking CN (Beta) tool, which provides an integration between Oncourse and the academic social networking environment known as the CN, is a default tool in all course sites. For more, see ARCHIVED: CourseNetworking CN (Beta): Help contents.
  • In Gradebook:
    • Grade export files now include the section number, so that when you export grades from combined course sites, you can sort them by section.
    • When importing grades, entries for students who are no longer enrolled in the course are ignored.

  • For the Presentations tool:
    • You can view presentations created in other course and portfolio sites.
    • When creating or editing presentations, you can copy an existing section (i.e., a saved form) to use in another presentation.
    • The tool is more accessible for users with visual impairments.

  • For Tests & Surveys:
    • The tool is more accessible for users with visual impairments.
    • Question pool owners can transfer one or more pools to another user.
    • When selecting a question pool for use in a random draw part, you can see the entire hierarchy of available pools.

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Last modified on 2018-01-18 16:12:35.