Managing Your Courses

Users that are course instructors will have access to Workshop Settings. Clicking on Course Management provides access to the Instructor/Author section of Management. Click on Standard Courses or eCourses based on the course type you need to access. eCourse management is covered in a different article. 

After clicking on Courses, you will see a list of your courses for the most recent month. You can click on the drop-down menu to select any other month in which you have courses. Each course will show the title of the course followed by the date and time.

Selecting a course in the list will present you with that course's information. The first Overview tab will display the course time, location, credits, instructor(s), and directions.

The Class Notes tab will allow you to enter notes that are available to the staff members enrolled in this course. Using the toolbar you can access the standard word processing options to create your class notes. You can also attach files to the notes using the paper clip button in the bottom right. Once completed, check the Notes Visible checkbox, and click the blue disk button to save. Otherwise, attendees of your course will not be able to view the notes.

The Discussion tab allows the instructor and the attendees to participate in a message board type discussion. By posting threads and replying to those threads, everyone in the class can participate in an online discussion. Use the New Thread and Reply buttons to do this. The wrench icon allows you to view threads from oldest to newest, newest to oldest and to email you when a new post is added. Selecting the calendar with the sunburst icon allows discussions to be opened in a new window.

Note: Discussion posts and comments cannot be edited or deleted after they've been posted.

The Attendance tab allows the instructor to take attendance for the class. This is only available if that option has been allowed by the Professional Development Manager. If it has, then the instructor can click on each staff member and mark them absent if necessary.

The Survey tab allows the instructor to enable the course survey 10-15 minutes before the end of the course so attendees can complete the survey before leaving the room. If the survey is required to automatically earn course credit, enabling the course survey prior to course completion is highly recommended so attendees do not forget to complete the survey.

Finally, an instructor can email the entire class using the Email Class button on the toolbar. Email Class opens an editor to compose an email message that will be sent to all attendees.  

Note: If the option "use mail client for email dialogs" is enabled under General Options Tab > Messaging, the email will not be sent by the server. Instead, it will open your default email program and populate the "To:" field with the email address of every attendee. This will allow you to send the email as yourself instead of as the system.

Instructors can also print the course details, a sign-in sheet, and the course credit information using the Reports button.