Customizing courses>>Organizing course content

Adding tools to the course menu

CourseCompass courses provide a set of tools you and your students can use for communication, file passing, tracking grades, and other services. You can make tools unavailable to your students and create your own tool areas so that tools you plan to use often are easily accessible to your students.

The following tool areas are typically available by default in your course from the course menu:
 

Tool

Description

   Digital Dropbox

Enables class participants to exchange files with the instructor and other participants.

   Edit Your Homepage

Lets your students customize their home page.

   Course calendar

Lets you post course-related events.

   My Grades

Lets students view their grades.

Instructors view and manage grades in the gradebook.

   Tasks

Lets you set and prioritize tasks for students to execute and track. For example, you could set tasks to step students through a course project.

   Electric Blackboard

Lets you and your students take and maintain notes online.

   Address book

Lets you and your students maintain contact information online.

Communication

 

   Announcements

Lets you post course information, such as assignment due dates and content or syllabus changes.

   Send Email

Lets you and your students send e-mail to the whole class, designated groups (instructors), and other selected users.

   Collaboration (Virtual Classroom)

Enables class participants to take part in real-time discussions.

   Collaboration (Chat)

Enables class participants to take part in real-time discussions (with fewer features than the Virtual Classroom).

   Roster

Enables students to search the roster for other class participants and access their home page.

   Group pages

If you set up groups, students can communicate with members of their group via e-mail, Discussion Board forums, the Virtual Classroom, and the Digital Dropbox, depending on what features you enable for the group.

   Discussion Boards

Lets you and your class participate in asynchronous, online discussions.

You can add tools to your course menu. When you add a tool area, you select from the CourseCompass tool types, and a tool of that type is accessible from the course menu. For example, you can add a Discussion Board to the menu and set up forums you want students to contribute to. If you make the tool available to students, a button appears in the course menu for that area.

You can add a single tool to the menu or a collection of tools. If you add a set of tools, you can modify the tool area and disable any tools you do not want your students to access.

To add a tool to your course menu:

  1. Click the course name on the My CourseCompass page.

  2. Click Control Panel.

  3. Click Manage Course Menu under Course Options.

This page lists the current set of content areas, tools areas, course links, and external links for the course. Beside each area are buttons to modify and remove the area from the course.

  1. Click Tool Link on the Add menu at the top of the page.

  2. Select an area from the Type drop-down list, and enter a name in the Name box. This is the name that appears on the button in the course menu.

  3. (Optional) To make the content area unavailable to students, deselect Available for Student/Participant users. By default, this option is selected so the area is available to students.

Note: CourseCompass does not support the roles of Guest or Observer, so selecting the related options has no effect.

  1. Click Submit, then click OK.

The tool area is created. Unless you made the area unavailable, a corresponding button appears in the course menu.