Giving Students Early Course Access

At JCCC faculty can grant students access to one of your courses (using ANGEL) earlier than the first day of class (for Spring taht date is January 20, 2010), here are the steps to change the availability date. The same steps apply if you want to extend student access to a course beyond the default closing date, which at Johnson County Community College (JCCC) is two weeks after the end of finals (i.e., June 4, 2010):

1. Log into ANGEL and access the specific course.
2. Select the Manage tab.
3. In the Course Settings nugget, select the General Course Settings link.
4. Scroll down and make the required changes to the Course Begins date and time settings and Course Ends date and time settings.
5. Be sure the check boxes in front of the two settings are selected.
6. Click the Save button at the bottom of the screen.

It’s important to note that by default, the Course Begins date at JCCC is always set to the first day of the class and the Course Ends date is always set by default to two weeks after the class ends.

Not Moving to ANGEL 7.4

Just prior to the Thanksgiving Break, the Educational Technology Center staff at JCCC completed the first round of tests of ANGEL 7.4 (originally scheduled to be installed over the upcoming semester break and ready for production/faculty use in January 2010). Based on that testing, we recommended to JCCC's ANGEL Implementation Team (and notified our Distance Learning Advisory Council) that sufficient time was not available prior to the planned upgrade to complete testing, explore new features and resolve a number of issues encountered (e.g., the new Gradebook functionality, exception errors encountered and more). As a result, the Implementation Team has decided to postpone the ANGEL 7.4 upgrade until at least summer 2010.

We’ll be testing additional 7.3 patches available for ANGEL in a pre-production environment and will install the new 7.3 patches at an appropriate time this spring.

Our Testing Results
For the record, during our initial testing we encountered multiple problems and felt we could not work through these issues in time for a January update. All of the following were reported to Blackboard/ANGEL and in some cases they responded with potential fixes, that we do not have time to implement or test. Here’s a quick cut and paste of the issues we did encounter.

1. We tried to create a new course similar to a source course in ANGEL and for some system editors, did not allow the user to add the course title, received an error message.
2. We tried to view the course preview and setting for the 7.4 courses. longer have the edit pencil in 7.4 or could not preview the course without an error.
3. When a course includes a quiz (even though we never used Quizes, just assessments, many epacks come with quizzes to amke them compatible with 7.2) when the course opens there is a pop up that asks if you want to convert all of your quizzes to assessments. If you click "no" it keeps popping up. If you click "yes" you get an error page. It did not actually convert anything and the pop up continues to appear no matter what one does. Note: This pop up only occurs if you have an old format quiz in the course.
4. You cannot create a Grading Scale in the Gradebook. Go to Gradebook click on Grading Scale try to enter a grade letter and a number and click on new Item. Nothing happens and it is not added.
5. When attempting to enter certain courses (clicking the course name in the course list) an error message appears in a new tab. It is possible to enter the course and the course seems to run fine except for the error message re-appearing when you click on the "Course" tab.
6. The Grade Entry Grid does not load. There is a message that says "There is no grading scale defined for this course. You may see incomplete grade data until a complete grading scale is created."
7. When you go to Manage Tab>Grade Reports and click Rearrange, you get a server application error (but you can go to the Reports Tab and see My Gradebook)
8. When using the “Ungraded Items” in the Tasks List, on the Course Guide, a tester reported that when she clicked on the Mid-Term (an assessment in ANGEL with just 4 questions), you get some of those questions repeated in the ungraded list.
9. You get an error when you try to Publish Grades: “There are no allowable grade values defined by the administrator. . .” There are grades present, though because the Submission Manager appears to work correctly, showing you the grades and comments that have already been entered. You can also grade assignments by going to the assignment and clicking on Submissions
10. Add Item button does nothing. Browser reports a JavaScript error: "Angel is not defined","https://owa.jccc.edu/owa/redir.aspx?C=d3bce8fd830f4801ba4cfed8094794bc&URL=https%3a%2f%2fangeltest.jccc.edu%2fsection%2fGB%2fCategories%2fDefault-min-Loc-en-US.js","Line: 19". That line reads: "{Angel.API.Ajax.Gradebook.SaveCategories(json,strPropertyList,objGrid.SaveDataSuccess,objGrid.SaveDataFailure,objGrid);}"
11. On the 7.4 pre-prod server, when copying a course over another course, not a blank shell, the copy process took exceedingly long (30 Minutes). Also the new homepage fro the target course, did not match the original course home page format/arrangement, that is, some elements were present but not in the original locations, and the theme was not copied over.

Just for what it’s worth.

ANGEL Tip – What’s a Chat Room Anyway?

One of the tools available in ANGEL is the Live Chat nugget. As the name implies, this tool is for synchronous conversations, or chats. To take advantage of this tool, you would first make sure the Live Chat nugget is available in your course – usually this is present on the Communicate tab. If not, you can use the Edit Page link and then the Add Components button to add the Live Chat nugget to the page.

Next you need to add an actual chat room. You can add as many different rooms as you like. Think of them like actual rooms, with labels on the doors. If you want to chat about a certain subject or on a certain date, you would enter the room with that label. As the instructor, you determine what label you want on the “door” by naming your chat room. Or, you can have a generic chat room for general purpose use, in which case you might just call it something like Chat Room. To create a room (and give it a name), just click on the pencil icon at the top of the Live Chat nugget and then choose Add a Live Chat . Fill out the options and click Save . If you want to change any of the options you selected, you can click on the pencil icon and then click on the Edit button next to the chat room you want to edit.

Whatever you name your room and however many rooms you have in your course, there are some things you should know about chat rooms. When you enter a chat room, it’s like walking into a real room. Whatever was said before you entered is not available to you. All you “hear” (i.e., see on the screen) is what is happening when you are in the room. If you leave the room and come back in, you will no longer see the text that was on the screen when you left – it’s like starting over!

You can save a record of everything said in a chat room. To do this, you must turn Tracking to ON in the chat room settings.

You can then review all posted messages in saved chat logs. Be sure that you make it clear to your students which rooms are being recorded and which are not!

ANGEL TIP: TEAMS & UNREAD DISCUSSIONS POSTINGS

Faculty members have reported that unread discussions are not showing up in the Tasks area of the course Guide. Here’s what we discovered: If you create new teams with ANGEL randomly generating only students, you will not be on any of the new teams. If you are the Course Editor, but not on a team, you can read the discussions, but new unread postings will not appear in the Tasks area as unread discussions. Once you assign yourself to the new team(s), the unread postings will appear in the Tasks area.

ANGEL TIP: USING THE COURSE ANNOUNCEMENTS TOOL EFFECTIVELY

The Course Announcements nugget is a common place many instructors use to communicate important information to their students. Do realize, however, that whatever you put in this nugget is also visible on the Personal Home Page (the page you see after logging in to ANGEL but before you select a class) in the My Announcements nugget.

This functionality can be helpful if you have information you want students to see even before they log into your class. However, you should be aware that if you include some kind of formatted content, like a large image or a table, your announcement could affect the appearance of the Personal Home Page for all of your students. If you include something (like an image or a table) that cannot collapse to a smaller width, it will cause the whole column that includes the My Announcements nugget to remain at that width. This causes the other columns to shrink to smaller widths, which can make it difficult for students to locate their courses or read other content.

If you want to make an announcement in your course that does not appear on the Personal Home Page, you can consider using the Course News nugget rather than the Course Announcements nugget.

Thanks to Tracy Newman for sharing this tip.

Reordering Discussions in the Discussion Forums Nugget

You can now change the way Discussions are listed in the Discussion Forums nugget that appears by default on the Communicate tab (and can be added to the Resources page or the Course Home page).

1. Go to the Communicate tab (or wherever your Discussion Forums nugget is located).
2. Mouse over the Discussion Forums nugget and click on the pencil icon.







3. Choose the order you would like to use to display your discussion forums within the Discussion Forums nugget.
   


4. Check the boxes for the other options you want.




5. Click the Save button.

Bug Report: Personal & Team Calendar Entries Visible to All

The recent patch applied to the ANGEL server (July 2009 patch plus hotfix and security patch) has caused an issue with personal entries in the ANGEL Calendar. Personal entries created by an instructor are now visible to all students in that course. Students can also see all team entries, whether or not they are on the team for which the entry was intended. ANGEL is aware of the issue and is working on a fix; however, there is currently no workaround. We suggest that instructors remove all personal entries from their course calendars until this issue has been resolved.

ANGEL 7.3 Bug Fixes in July Patch & Hotfix

JCCC will apply a series of patches (July 2009 plus the subsequent hotfix) to our ANGEL server on Monday, September 21, 2009. These patches have been tested on campus by staff in the Educational Technology Center and the Information Services Branch. The following indicates those items that have been fixed, per our testing. The list also includes some problems that we discovered during testing (they'll be reported to ANGEL) as well as some issues that we anticipated would be fixed but were not. Items in red may be critical issues to you depending on which tools you use in your course.

Items that Are Fixed:

1. Assessments with questions linked from a LOR can be exported into another course. Note: This works with questions copied from the LOR, but a Question Pool that draws from the LOR disappears from the assessment when exported. Copy Course does work, however.
2. When multiple questions are displayed in an assessment, they appear in the proper order with question one visible at the top of the screen.
3. Hitting the Enter key while taking an assessment does not result in loss of assessment responses. Note: hitting the Enter key submits the quiz, but gives the student the option of canceling before submission.
4. Students can see personal events in Today's Calendar Nugget. Note: A student can create a “personal” entry, which is all that students can create anyway. The entry doesn't show up in the course, because the entry is “personal.” It does show up on the Calendar nugget on the ANGEL home page of the user who created it.
5. Private Team Journal Malfunction: Private teams can no longer see posts from other private teams in which they are not members . Note: This has another improvement - now when students post there is a drop-down (in a more obvious place than previously) that lets them select the team in which they are a member (if they are members of more than one team in a course). If you have the access set correctly, including the Read/Post/Reply permissions on the Post Permission tab, then there is only one team listed, unless you add the student to more than one team and give access/permissions to those teams .
6. Student's email address is not visible in Discussion Forum post if their personal information is set to restrict the email address. Note: This works when the student deletes their email address in personal preferences; that is, if email information exists in a student's profile, it will be accessible from posts. Removing info from the profile doesn't seem to qualify as restricting, as implied, but that’s how it works.
7. The default sort order in Grade Book is alphabetical.
8. When new courses are created for a faculty member, those courses automatically have access to the instructor’s personal LOR.
9. When an email message is sent to multiple recipients, they all get the message.
10. When Milestone entries are edited, they no longer are duplicated and if one of the duplicates is deleted, all entries are no longer deleted. In other words, creating, editing and deleting Milestones works as you’d expect.
11. You can search within the Course Roster by login name, user first name or user last name. Note: you cannot search by first and last name at the same time.
12. Results from SoftChalk generated SCORM module quizzes are successfully posted to the Grade Book without generating an error message. (See pages 10-17 of SoftChalk manual for details at http://www.softchalk.com/pdf/lms_angel7_3.pdf)

Items that Are Not Fixed:

1. When the instructor grades an assignment and checks the box to send an email, if the student replies to the email, the instructor does not receive the email. Note: The reply message isn't validly addressed; if it goes anywhere, it's not to the instructor(s).
2. Desktop Sharing function does not work.
3. You cannot generate a printable list of all drop box submissions except by using the Browser Print feature.
4. You cannot generate a printable version of each submission in the drop box except by using the Browser Print feature.
5. Print PDF (Grade Book) function works on Macintosh with a caveat: the print function generates a file with the .aspx extension which will not open in Acrobat Reader. Changing the extension to .pdf makes file readable in Acrobat Reader.
6. Using View Grades > Find Student in the Gradebook does not work. Note: We stumbled across bug in our testing. If you select Find Student in the second drop-down under View Grades in the Gradebook, then click Search in the window that pops up, and then click on a user's name; nothing happens.
7. If you import an ANGEL archive into a new course (using Import > Content Package) with the "overwrite existing content" box checked, the import still duplicates all content.
8. When page content exceeds the viewable area of a browser window (in certain browsers only) and scrollbars are needed to scroll content, the scrollbars are not visible in the window and user cannot scroll. Note: On Firefox 2 and Firefox 3.5 part of the content is hidden but this works fine in Internet Explorer 7.
9. The ANGEL Print function does not print the entire page of content, just the portion displayed in the browser window.
10. The Roster does not print in alphabetical order

Other:

1. Though we have not tested it fully, it appears that Internet Explorer 8 is now supported.
2. Macintosh users cannot publish from Respondus to ANGEL course, because there is no Mac version of Respondus.

HOW TO VIEW ASSESSMENT ANSWERS & ITEM ANALYSIS: CORRECTION

Correction: While the steps indicated in yesterday’s message cover the Item Analysis feature, they do not address how you would view an individual student's answers. To do this:

1. Go to Utilities for that assessment.


2. Select View, Grade or Delete Submissions.


3. Next to a student's name, click either View or Grade, depending on whether you just want to see their answers or if you want to grade the assessment.


4. And that’s it!

If you want to see the Item Analysis for the assessment, use the following steps (the same steps listed in yesterday’s newsletter).

1. Go to the item (Assessment) on the Lessons tab.


2. As you mouse over the item, links appear below the item (Settings, Reports, Utilities, Delete).


3. Click on the Reports link and you will see the following options:
   
   Activity Summary: Displays the number of times each user has accessed this item
   Activity Detail: Displays the complete activity log for this item
   Item Analysis: Shows a summary of responses by question
   


4. Select Item Analysis and you will be able to review the answers students gave to each question.

GRADE BOOK GRADING CAVEAT & UPDATE

Here’s a grading scenario that doesn’t work in ANGEL: A faculty member was using the Drop Box but not recording points (e.g., 85 out of 100), but was attaching a marked up file and/or including text in the comment box. She also selected the option to send to mail. When she clicked OK, she received an error message every time. She then logged in as a student, because she weren’t sure if her students were or were not getting the messages and files she was trying to send. As a student, she made a submission; then, returned as the professor and wrote a message in the box without entering a grade; the error message appeared as it did with other students. Then, she went back into the course to see if her "student view" displayed the comments or if she had a mail message; the comments did not appear and the email never came.

When grading in a Drop Box, if you leave the grade blank it generates a type mis-match error message. This has been reported to ANGEL. While the error is not very descriptive, it’s trying to signal that you need a grade in the field to continue. So the process includes these steps:

1. Open the course.
2. Go to Lessons and select the Drop Box ready for grading.
3. Grade a student’s work and leave the grade blank.
4. You see the error message.
5. Entering any number including 0 in the field will prevent the error.

This issue is addressed in the July 2009 ANGEL 7.3 Patch, which is currently being tested in a pre-production environment at JCCC. The July patch does appear to correct this problem so an error is not generated when faculty do not enter a grade but include comments on a Drop Box assignment.

Assessment Mis-Behavior

You will find that when you go to take an assessment in ANGEL it will start you at the bottom of the assessment. You will get the last question and any before it that fit on the screen and not the first question with any following that show, like you would expect.

This is causing some students to panic because they don’t realize they must scroll to the top of the screen to get the beginning of their assessment and they think they are missing questions.

This refers to ANGEL version 7.3 with all patches installed up to and including June 30, 2009.

How Students Can View Their Grades

If you have the Grades nugget on your course home page, students will be able to see an overview of their grades when they log into your course. Students should click the Refresh link on the Grades nugget to see the most current view.

To get a detailed listing of grades, a student can click anywhere on the graph within the Grades nugget. This action will bring the student to the Reports console, with Learner Profile > Gradebook Grades already selected. All the student needs to do is to click the Run button. They may also want to switch the view from Chart to Table for a more understandable summary of grades.

Any assignments or assessments in their grade summary can be accessed from the grade report by clicking on the link to that assignment or assessment. This technique works even if you have put the assignments inside a hidden folder. As long as the folder is hidden but the actual assignments are not hidden, the student will be able to access them via the links on their grade report.

If you do not include the Grades nugget in your course, students can still get grade reports by going to the Reports tab, choosing Learner Profile in the first drop-down menu and Gradebook Grades in the second drop-down menu, and clicking Run.

A more detailed report can be accessed by going to the Reports tab, choosing Grades in the first drop-down menu and Student Grades in the second drop-down menu.

Finally, previewing this action in your student view may or may not produce accurate results. Your students will be able to access their grade reports, but an instructor using the student view may not.

Using ANGEL’s Preview Function with Teams

When you are using ANGEL’s User Preview function and an instructor has teams set up for the content you are reviewing, don’t forget that you need to select which team you wish to view. You do not go into the Teams interface and actually add yourself to a team. You do check the box(es) for the team(s) you want to pretend to be on for preview purposes – these checkboxes are in the User Preview Tool interface (i.e. click on the glasses, check the box(es) for the team(s) you want to be on for this preview, click Begin Preview).

Publishing from Respondus to Disabled Course

If an ANGEL course has been disabled (access limited to Editors only), it's also unavailable to Respondus. Respondus is a program that enables you to create an assessment off-line in Respondus and then publish the assessment to ANGEL. If you’re trying to upload an assessment and Respondus cannot see the course, you’ll need to enable the course using these steps:

1. Select Manage tab
2. Select General Course Settings
3. Select the Access tab
4. Set Member Access to All Members (if set to Editors Only, the course is disabled and will not appear in the Courses nugget, except on the Home page of Course Editors).
5. While on the screen, if the course is a source course, set the Search Engines radio button to No.
6. Click the Save button to save the new settings.

A trial version of Respondus is available at http://www.respondus.com/products/respondus.shtml

ANGEL’s Team Journal Feature

Do you want your students to participate in a team discussion in your online course? Perhaps you have a lot of students in your class, or you have merged two sections of your class, and you want smaller discussion groups. In ANGEL, you can do this without creating a separate discussion forum for each team.

First, you must create teams in your class. You can either have the teams randomly generated by ANGEL, or you can create teams and choose members manually. In this example, we will have ANGEL generate the teams.

To set up randomly generated teams, follow these steps:

1. Click on the Manage tab
2. Click on Teams
3. Click on Random Team Generator
4. Fill in the next screen based on your preferences
5. Click Next when all criteria have been set
6. Adjust team membership as desired, then click Generate Teams
7. Click Continue

Now that you have teams in your class, it’s time to set up a Team Discussion forum:

1. Go to your Lessons tab and click Add Content
2. Choose Discussion Forum
3. Fill out the criteria on the various tabs as usual, with the following exceptions
   a. On the Access tab, set the Team Access drop-down to Selected Teams
   b. Check the boxes for the teams you wish to have access to the forum
   c. On the Post Permissions tab, make sure Read, New Post, and Reply are checked only for the teams that will be using the forum
   d. On the Interaction tab, change Mode to Private Team Journal
4. When all the settings are the way you want them, click Save

As the instructor, you will be able to see posts from any or all of the teams by going to the forum and choosing which team you want to view (or choosing all teams) from a drop-down list at the top of the forum. Students will only be able to see posts and replies from other members of their team.

Thanks to Tracy Newman for writing up this tip.

Warning about Merged Course Rosters

If you’ve merged two or more sections of the same course, do not enable any of the original courses (whose rosters were merged). If you enable them, students will see the original courses (in their Courses nugget) in addition to the merged course. The end result is confusion for the student and the possibility that you may have student activity in both the original and the merged courses (which cannot be combined).

Confused? What to do to Start the Semester…

We push a lot of information to JCCC faculty so I tried to gather in one message, a checklist of issues for our faculty to tackle at the start of each semester. Here's the information we share (minus the intranet URLs that would not be accessible to non-JCCC folks anyway):

Do you need a checklist of tasks to complete to prepare for teaching or supplementing your face-to-face course with online materials in ANGEL? Use the following checklist to see if it helps.

1. If you’re teaching multiple sections of the same course and they have the same content, assignment due dates and so on, you may request that the course rosters be merged (the sections merged are treated as a single section and you load content once). Note: we do not enable our faculty to merge rosters, it's handled administratively by my office.
2. If you can’t see your courses on the Courses nugget in ANGEL, change the Courses nugget settings to show hidden courses. By default we hide all courses at JCCC (we create course shells for all sections of all classes and then disable them. Instructors who choose to use ANGEL must enable each section).
3. Update the Online Course Information Guide with details about your course. Note: we have a separate tool that is database driven and includes information on each course provided by the instructor. See http://web.jccc.edu/courseguide/list.asp.
4. Copy content from the source course to the desired production course. You should always build your course in a source course, not a production course.
5. Enable access to the course (that is; make the section visible to students in their Courses nugget). And...
6. Check Course Begins and Course Ends date settings to be sure they are accurate. By default, we allow student access on the first day of the semester (for Fall 2009 we set the Course Begins setting to August 17, 2009 at 12:00 AM and the Course Ends setting to December 30, 2009 at 11:55 PM).
7. Update the About This Section nugget to include information you want prospective and currently enrolled students to read about your course.
8. Update or adjust dates/milestones to make them applicable to the new semester. Check out the Manage tab and select the Date Manager link (Set Content Dates tab).
9. Update and/or upload your course syllabus.
10. Add your Ed Tech Center Designer to your courses (a Sr. Ed Tech Center Analyst is referred to as a Ed Tech Center Designer). If you don’t have an Ed Tech Center Designer, request one by contacting Jonathan Bacon at mailto:jbacon@jccc.edu (JCCC folks only).
11. Grant access to your personal LOR to specific other courses if you’ve granted access in previous semesters and your colleague plans to use the linked content in the new semester. If you need help with the process, contact your Ed Tech Center Designer.
12. If you want to grant students access to your course before the first date of the semester, change the Course Begins date setting to reflect the date you will grant access.
13. Have a wonderful semester!

Creating and Editing Files in ANGEL

The best way to edit files that were not created in ANGEL is to do so offline. When you work offline (using an HTML editor or SoftChalk) it may appear that you have problems replacing the old file with the new. To successfully replace a file:

1. You need to click on the Utilities option (appears under the filename you want to replace),
2. Select the Re-upload option,
3. Browse to find the updated version of your file on your computer that you want to upload.

It won't work just to delete the old file and give the new file the same name--it'll look like your work was lost and ANGEL is still using the old file (ANGEL caches pages and you’ll see the old content until you log out or clear your browser’s cache).

One benefit of working offline and keeping your files in a local spot is you’re never dependent upon the ANGEL server to store your work—you just need to trust your computer and your own methods of backing up your work. By keeping copies on your local hard drive, the content stored in ANGEL becomes just another archive copy of your work, but not the only place you store your data (which probably represents hours of labor).

Thanks to Monica Hogan, Center for Teaching & Learning Distance Learning Associate, for this tip.

ANGEL Gradebook Tips

When ANGEL calculates grades for students, only the assignments/assessments that have been graded are included in the average. This means that you need to fill in zeroes for any assignments/assessments that students did not turn in. There are a couple of options for how to accomplish this task.

1. After an assignment or assessment closes, go to the Gradebook , go to Enter Grades by Assignment , choose the assignment/assessment, and use Batch Update to enter a zero – only the students with no grade entered will be affected by the batch update, therefore it will give zeroes only to those who don’t already have a grade.
   or,
2. At the end of the semester, when you are not accepting any more work, go back to the Gradebook preferences and check the box for “Treat ungraded items as zero .” This will fill in zeroes for any score that has not already been entered.

The benefit to the first method is that your students will see an accurate cumulative grade throughout the semester. You can always change a grade later if the student turns in the assignment and you accept late work. Using the second method at the end of the semester, even if you used the first method throughout the semester, can serve as a final check that all the zeroes have been entered.

If you notice that not all of your assignments or assessments are being used to calculate the final grade, the first thing you should check is the Gradebook Categories . If you have set a category to “Use highest 5 assignments” and there are six assignments in that category, one of the grades will be dropped. Likewise, if you set a category to drop the lowest 1 grade, one grade will be dropped. You can leave this setting at the default value of “Use all assignments” if you don’t want to drop any grades for that category. To change this setting, check the box next to the category, click Edit Selected , and then change the setting to use the number of grades desired.

Thanks to Tracy Newman, Ed Tech Center Sr. Analyst for compiling this information.

Closing Up Shop After the Semester Concludes

As JCCC faculty plan ahead for Fall 2009 courses we advise them to be aware that we’ve set, by default, all ANGEL courses to shut down student access on December 30, 2009 . That’s roughly 2 weeks after the end of the semester. This enables students to check the course for final grades or to refer back to course content. We then advise faculty that if they have a student with an incomplete who needs to access the course content after that date, they’ll need to extend the Course Ends date setting.

To do so you use the same steps that change the availability date for a course. Here are the steps:

1. Log into ANGEL and access the specific course.
2. Select the Manage tab.
3. In the Course Settings nugget, select the General Course Settings link.
4. Scroll down and make the required changes to the Course Begins date and time settings and Course Ends date and time settings.
5. Be sure the check box in front of each setting is selected.
6. Click the Save button at the bottom of the screen.

Merged Rosters Idiosyncrasy

We’ve discovered a small issue when we merge rosters for two or more sections of a course. During the roster merge process, we can place students on teams based on the original section in which they are enrolled (e.g., students in section 350 are enrolled on a team called "Section 350," students in Section 351 are enrolled on a team called “Section 351” and so on).

By default, this is how we setup a course with a merged roster at JCCC. This enables the instructor to keep separate all or part of the activities of students assigned to the original course sections. However, new students who are added to the original sections after the rosters are merged are not automatically assigned to any team (the instructor must handle this manually). We’ve contacted ANGEL to inquire whether this is a bug or functioning as designed?

Best Macintosh Browser for ANGEL 7.3?

A JCCC faculty member recently indicated (on a campus list that a student using a Macintosh computer reported problems when using Apple’s Safari browser. The ANGEL browser check returned all positive results (green check marks) but they experienced problems using ANGEL Mail and other ANGEL functions. After switching to Mozilla FireFox the problems stopped. Firefox is the recommended browser for Macintosh users and it’s available for download free at http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/ . In addition to Mail problems, Safari fails to display some ANGEL buttons, which are part of the interface.

A second issue for Macintosh users is how PDF files are handled. No Macintosh browser currently supports viewing PDF files inline; it does not matter which browser you use or the website you visit. It's just not something Macintosh computers do. The same applies to Microsoft Word files.

Changing the Dates a Course Is “Open” to Students

If you want to grant students access to one of your courses earlier than the first day of class, here are the steps to change the availability date. The same steps apply if you want to extend student access to a course beyond the default closing date, which at Johnson County Community College (JCCC) is two weeks after the end of finals:

1. Log into ANGEL and access the specific course.
2. Select the Manage tab.
3. In the Course Settings nugget, select the General Course Settings link.
4. Scroll down and make the required changes to the Course Begins date and time settings and Course Ends date and time settings.
5. Be sure the check boxes in front of the two settings are selected.
6. Click the Save button at the bottom of the screen.

It’s important to note that by default, the Course Begins date at JCCC is set to the first day of the class and the Course Ends date is set to two weeks after the class ends.

LOR Problem: Students Experiencing Access Denied Messages

We’ve had several instances when students have not been able to access course content (such as the syllabus, files within lessons, and so on) and receive an “Access Denied” message instead. In most cases we’re finding this occurs when the course loses access to the Learning Object Repository (LOR ). In other words, the content was linked to an object in the instructor's personal LOR and the link fails. We’re not exactly sure why this has occurred, but here’s the solution:

1. Log-in to your LOR (use the Learning Object Repository button in the left margin of the ANGEL screen) and select the link to your personal LOR .
2. Select the Manage tab.
3. Select the Course and Group Access link and click My Courses (right column).
4. Then select the check box in front of the desired course(s) and click Add Selected.
5. The LOR should now appear on the left-side of the screen as one of the Current Associations.
6. The links should now work (ask your students to verify this).

While this solution is a temporary fix, the real issue is why this is occurring. It seems to occur either when courses are copied from a source course to a production course or during the batch course creation process (which we’re no longer using since ANGEL’s XEI now provides the integration between SunGard Banner and ANGEL). We’ll keep you posted on this issue.

DOJ Investigates Blackboard Acquisition of ANGEL

Many thanks to Timothy W. Peterson, Ph.D., Dean of Continuing Education, Washburn University for conveying the news that the Department of Justice (DOJ) is investigating Blackboard's acquisition of ANGEL learning. He wrote:

In case you've haven't already seen the article below.The United States Department of Justice is apparently taking an interest in Blackboard's recent acquisition of Angel Learning. DOJ has been asking questions about the controversial buyout, according to Blackboard's chief rival in the commercial LMS space, Desire2Learn.

The Campus Technology article about the investigation is at http://tinyurl.com/pgfdgf.

From the Desire2Learn's own web site we learn some additional details; see http://tinyurl.com/D2LonBb.

For additional background on the migration of Blackboard users to ANGEL check out http://tinyurl.com/owxe6k.

To review my FAX complaint calling for an investigation check out http://tinyurl.com/qxtq7c.

Join the "Force," file your own citizen's complaint!

DOJ Fax Complaint

Here's the language of the FAX sent to the Department of Justice Citizen's Complaint line regarding the Blackboard acquisition:

Please feel free to use any portion or all of this language to file your own complaint.

Blackboard Inc. (650 Massachusetts Avenue N.W., Washington, DC 20001-3796, phone: 202 463-4860, http://www.blackboard.com/) licenses two learning management systems (LMS): Blackboard Campus Edition (formerly WebCT and acquired when they purchased WebCT in 2006) and Blackboard Academic Suite (their original product). Numerous schools, Johnson County Community College among them, have chosen to cease licensing Blackboard and are in the process of migrating to a different LMS, primarily ANGEL offered by ANGEL Learning. This migration is specifically related to cost and the lack of customer support and responsiveness to the customer.

In early May 2009, Blackboard Inc. announced that they have acquired/purchased ANGEL Learning, thus eliminating one of the last non-Blackboard Inc. options available to institutions offering online instruction. Further, Blackboard has an on-going patent infringement case against another competitor in the LMS field, Desire2Learn. Blackboard appears to be trying to shut down competition either by purchase or by legal action. Their patent claim is disputed by most industry leaders and has been thrown out at least once by the court but the decision has been appealed and a second patent claim filed by Blackboard against Desire2Learn.

If you check my blog at http://angeliclearning.blogspot.com/ you’ll find several postings on this issue including the May 10, 2009 posting that lists institutions that have experienced poor customer service and an inferior product line since the merger of Blackboard and WebCT.
Our concern is that Blackboard through monopolistic practices is reducing the viable alternatives in the field and forcing the higher education customer base to use Blackboard product(s) as they eliminate other options. To see verification of this, please review the Instructional Technology Councils 2008 Distance Education Survey Results, Table 1, page 3 at http://www.itcnetwork.org/file.php?file=/1/ITCAnnualSurveyMarch2009Final.pdf).

We are requesting that the Department of Justice review this merger/acquisition to determine whether allowing the process to continue creates a monopoly by significantly reducing competition and whether the needs of the higher education community are served or jeopardized by the acquisition.

Footnote: Additional coverage of this "buyout" has appeared in:

• The Chronicle of Higher Education: http://chronicle.com/free/v55/i37/37a00102.htm, May 22, 2009


• eLiterate: http://mfeldstein.com/bad-news-for-blackboard-good-news-for-angel/

More on the ANGEL Buyout

Department of Justice Complaint Line

An article in the Chronicle of Higher Education dated May 11, 2009 (http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=3764), concludes with this paragraph:

Matthew Small, Blackboard’s chief business officer, said Blackboard’s acquisition of Angel Learning was too small a transaction to trigger an automatic review by the department. When Blackboard purchased a larger rival, WebCT, in 2005, the deal was large enough to spark a routine review by Justice Department officials before the sale officially closed, he said. “I don’t think that there’s any anti-trust concern with this combination,” said Mr. Small.

Jim McWard, professor of English, contacted the Department of Justice to voice his concerns and was given a fax number for filing a formal citizen's complaint against the merger: 202-514-1629 (fax number for Citizen's Complaint at DOJ.)

This is clearly one avenue for expressing concern and I've also faxed a citizen's complaint to the DOJ. I hope faculty and staff from other colleges that have recently switched to ANGEL (see http://angeliclearning.blogspot.com/2009/05/flight-from-blackboard-to-angel-and.html) will join in this grassroots effort for a government review.

Institutional Action

At JCCC, the Educational Technology Center working in conjunction with our ANGEL Implementation Project Team and the Distance Learning Coordinating Council also plan the following actions:

1. We’ll carefully monitor ANGEL technical support to be sure it is responsive and avoids the pitfalls that occurred after the Blackboard/WebCT merger. ANGEL support has been timely and accurate to date. Blackboard at the conference indicated that the ANGEL support center will remain in Indianapolis. If they start requiring tech support personnel to move to DC, like they did with WebCT staffers who lived in Vancouver, BC, we’ll know they haven’t learned any lessons.
2. We’ll watch for further development of the ANGEL platform. ANGEL traditionally offers a yearly “dot” release or upgrade with fixes every other month. If we see a variation on that pattern, we’ll suspect that Blackboard is walking away from the ANGEL platform.
3. We’ll also monitor any changes in the pricing structure. Blackboard has a tradition of charging addition fees for features that are covered by ANGEL’s basic license.
4. If (when) Blackboard merges ANGEL into Blackboard’s NG (Next Generation) tool we’ll have to carefully evaluate migration tools available as well as the design and features of the new product. Blackboard has traditionally been a tools based product while ANGEL is more content (lessons) oriented. For the majority of our faculty who have made the transition, the latter approach seems to better meet their instructional needs. If the NG product is a dramatic shift from ANGEL and a major transition is imminent for our faculty anyway, then we’ll explore all LMS options before assuming we’ll move to NG.
5. Finally, we’ll keep our eyes and ears open over the coming couple of years to see what other options are available should Blackboard take ANGEL in an undesired direction. We’ll keep an eye on the marketplace including open source products.

Flight from Blackboard to ANGEL (and Back Again)

With the announcement this past week of Blackboard becoming a larger "black hole" swallowing up ANGEL Learning, a question came to mind. How many former customers of Blackboard Inc. abandoned one of that company's learning management systems (LMS) for ANGEL, only to find they have not escaped after all? So, I posted a survey on several lists that include ANGEL users. Here are the results to date (I'll keep updating as long as I hear from more schools):

• Brevard Community College, FL, "(4 campuses) went to ANGEL from Blackboard starting the Fall 2007 semester. The reasons given were: 1. Cost – Blackboard was too expensive compared to ANGEL. 2. Service – weeks and months would often pass before problem tickets were addressed. 3. Faculty approved ANGEL over Blackboard and competing systems."
• Bristol Community College, "I think an equally interesting question is how many WebCT users have made the switch. We've lived through this before and know how the song goes...," signed ANGEL contract this past Tuesday.
• Buffalo State College, NY, "moved from Blackboard to ANGEL in 2005 due to Blackboard’s outrageous prices and deplorable customer service."
• Butler County Community College, KS, "after Blackboard bought WebCT (the college) was not treated well and support went downhill quickly."
• Central Florida Community College, FL, "left WebCT 4.1 because of the Blackboard purchase. Too many problems with Blackboard support."
• Concordia University Wisconsin, WI, "Blackboard was unwilling to answer our support requests even when our entire e-learning program was on hold for over a week (right before finals), 2) in our review of five LMSs that met our basic tech requirements (integration with Banner, for example, ANGEL was number one 4) ANGEL was far more affordable, 5) ANGEL customer support ratings were great, 5) a focus group of faculty found ANGEL to be the most intuitive of the LMSs that we reviewed, 6) we were not comfortable doing business with a company that we didn’t trust and clearly indicated that they had no interest in keeping our business, and 7) the 2.0 capabilities and open architecture allows us to customize the product," in transition now, turn off old server in October 2009.
• Creighton University, "We moved from Blackboard to ANGEL in summer 2007 for a few reasons, #1-price, #2-functionality, #3-support!"
• Gettysburg College, moved from Blackboard to ANGEL Spring semester, 2006.
• Johnson County Community College, "poor customer service, buggy product, slow response time on promised fixes and upgrades, lost many features we had become accustomed to in WebCT after moved to Blackboard CE, even though it was supposed to be an "upgrade,'" (August 2008-June 2010).
• Kirkwood Community College, IA, "Cost scaling (no non-FTE multiple node options – $25k-ish for more than 2 nodes, more than one branded domain required Vista level - an extra $45k annual or so), features (gradebook features and functions, report/event triggers for at risk students, ability to assign standards to sections, LOR seemed to work better than CE, multiple domains, rss feeds, web interface from normal to pda to light-weight at the click of a mouse), multi-tiered administration levels, not 99% dependant on Java working for students, the ability to view faculty/student course issues without having to add/remove yourself from the section roster everytime (use assume role, use “login as user” overrides), better chat/whiteboard controls and features, pre-login announcement functions. I know I’m missing around 15 – 20 more things identified by faculty/staff when the systems were reviewed by our LMS change project members. BB was dead last (and we were presented the NG concepts and visions by BB) – Angel came in #1, Desire2Learn #2, " midway through migration now.
• Lansing Community College, MI, moved from Blackboard to Angel in summer 2004. ( may have been 2005, not sure - memory gets foggy). Primary reasons: 1. BB raised prices significantly, 2. BB uptime & bug fixes were poor. Given those reasons to leave BB, Angel was chosen from a wide survey of possible vendors by a faculty vote because: 1. promised easy conversion of course content from BB to Angel, 2. additional features in Angel (esp re-grading quizzes), and 3. a razzle-dazzle sales presentation & full-court blitz by Angel sales team.
• Laramie County Community College, WY, "moved from WebCT (after it was taken over by Blackboard) to ANGEL. In our LMS search, Blackboard was too expensive, it lacked customer support, and they weren’t very willing to set up sandbox courses and/or send a rep to do a live demo of their product. All these issues were exactly opposite with ANGEL and even D2L (our second choice)."
• Manatee Community College, "We moved from WebCT 4 (were going to go to CE6) after it was taken over by Bb because we began hearing horror stories of poor service and poor product."
• Mohave Community College, "We moved as well last year for the same reasons (as others listed): support, price, features."
• National Park Community College, AR, "My school switched to ANGEL two years ago. We had been with Bb (basic) for quite a few years. The prices to switch to Enterprise version were too costly and we were tired of lousy customer support, so we sought out ANGEL."
• North Central Texas College, TX, "We moved from BB Classic to ANGEL in June 2005 because we were dissatisfied with the level of customer support (none) and the significant difference in cost for BB add-ons that were built into ANGEL."
• Northeast Community College, "We moved last August from CE 4.1 to Angel specifically because of lack of support from BB/WebCT and Angel had more features ready and working at the time versus the NG product not being out for a few years."
• Richland Community College, IL, Richland continued using BB/WebCT product "until this semester, when a few of our faculty began piloting Angel in preparation for a complete switch to Angel, which begins this summer. We left BB/WebCt because the cost was prohibitive and because BB’s support department was unresponsive to many of our problems. We would submit trouble tickets and get a 'this will be fixed in a future update' message, only to find that fix after patch after update would go by without addressing the problem. We had several unresolved problems (some nearly 2 years old) by the time we began talking to Angel, and our faculty were extremely frustrated.
• Santa Fe College, FL, "We moved from WebCT CE 4.1 because it was no longer supported and we wouldn't be able to get a new license. In deciding what to move to, we kept BB off the list because of the lack of support, etc. that we were experiencing as well as the patent lawsuit issues. We narrowed it down to Angel and D2L, and after polling our faculty (after demos from both companies, etc) 93% of the instructors either didn't care or wanted Angel."
• State Fair Community College, MO, just switched from Blackboard to ANGEL.
• State University of New York (SUNY) at Fredonia, "Bb was too expensive, didn’t address bugs, wouldn’t let us query the DB or install it on a test server without paying double the license fees. We moved to ANGEL because our faculty liked it the best of all the options."
• University of Kansas Medical Center, KS, "KUMC moved to Angel approximately 2.5 years ago. Why? Money."
• Washburn University, KS, Washburn (is) moving from Blackboard to Angel because the system is reportedly easier to use for both faculty and students, " further, during "the evaluation process they failed to respond to some of our requests for information. Some of us felt like that might be an omen about their future support," pilot this summer and fully transitioned this fall.
• WashingtonOnline (WAOL), WA, "just moved in January 2009 from BlackBoard to Angel. WAOL consists of 34 community colleges in Washington State."
• Washington State University Spokane, "moved primarily because of the sudden and unreasonable price increases (separating out campuses into individual licenses) with non-negotiable Blackboard sales people."
• Wichita Area Technical College, KS, "we were not please with the levels of support after the take over of the Blackboard product...It was a natural that we would choose Angel and made that decision last fall, not long after the semester started."

The theme throughout is pretty uniform, cost and poor quality product and service. I've been considering what action anyone can take in light of this development and there seem to only be two options:

1. Find another LMS and drag faculty and support staff through a major transition. I'm not sure how viable that option is for institutions. JCCC is half way through a two-year transition having spent tens of thousands of dollars for the new product, continuing to pay for a license for the old product, hardware acquisition, training and support.
2. Find a way to stop the merger.

The second option caused me to wonder if the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has a role in approving this merger. Their web site (https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/) indicates that "The Federal Trade Commission, the nation's consumer protection agency, collects complaints about companies, business practices, identity theft, and episodes of violence in the media."

So I filed a complaint based on "monopolistic business practice in distance learning field." To file a complaint you also need the company's contact information (here it is):

Blackboard Inc.
650 Massachusetts Avenue N.W.
Washington, DC 20001-3796
(202)463-4860
http://www.blackboard.com/

I skipped the page about how much the company asked me to pay and so on and entered my personal information so the FTC can contact me.

When asked to describe my complaint, here's what I wrote:

Blackboard Inc. licenses two learning management systems (LMS): Blackboard Campus Edition (formerly WebCT and acquired when they purchased WebCT 2-3 years ago) and Blackboard Academic Suite (their original product). Numerous schools, Johnson County Community College among them, have chosen to cease licensing Blackboard and are in the process of migrating to a different LMS, primarily ANGEL offered by ANGEL Learning. This migration is specifically related to cost and the lack of customer support and responsiveness to the customer. This past week Blackboard Inc. announced that they have acquired/purchased ANGEL Learning, thus eliminating one of the last non-Blackboard Inc. options available to institutions offering online instruction.

Further, Blackboard has an on-going patent infringement case against another competitor in the LMS field, Desire2Learn. Blackboard appears to be trying to shut down competition either by purchase or by legal action. Their patent claim is disputed by most industry leaders and has been thrown out at least once by the court but the decision has been appealed and a second patent claim filed by Blackboard against Desire2Learn.

If you check my blog at http://angeliclearning.blogspot.com you’ll find several postings on this issue including the May 10, 2009 posting that lists institutions that have experienced poor customer service and an inferior product line since the merger of Blackboard and WebCT. Our concern is that Blackboard through monopolistic practices is reducing the viable alternatives in the field and forcing the higher education customer base to use Blackboard product(s) because other options are ceasing to exist.

We ask the FTC to review this merger/acquisition to determine whether allowing the process to continue creates a monopoly and dampens competition and whether the needs of the higher education community are served or jeopardized by the acquisition.

So, my guess is one complaint may be largely ignored. A rash of complaints may generate some action. Anyone else willing to take 10-15 minutes to file a complaint with the FTC?

Dream Scenario

After the announcement on Wednesday of the Blackboard acquisition of ANGEL (see http://angeliclearning.blogspot.com/2009/05/dark-angel.html), here’s my dream scenario:

• Blackboard acknowledges that it acquired ANGEL because they recognize ANGEL a superior product. Blackboard provides a migration route from Blackboard (classic) and Blackboard CE to ANGEL and encourages/pushes existing clients to switch to their new product: ANGEL.
• Recognizing the inferior support provided by Blackboard and the highly esteemed good quality support offered by ANGEL, Blackboard maintains and expands their Indianapolis-based “ANGEL” tech support center. Former “Blackboard only” tech support staff must vie for a position (based on quality of service) to remain with the company based on their knowledge of ANGEL.
• Blackboard recognizes you can’t squeeze the “golden goose” too much or you get crap rather than golden eggs so they decide to freeze price increases for 3-4 years while they get their “house in order.”
• Enhancements are made to ANGEL in a cautious by timely fashion.
• Blackboard finally ditches its “dark side” and becomes Whiteboard Inc. or simply “ANGEL Learning.”
• We all live happily ever after.

Blackboard Monopoly Grows, Buys ANGEL

An email message from Michael Chasen, President & CEO of Blackboard was sent on May 6, 2009. The text follows (see additional links at the end):

Chasen Message

I'm writing today to communicate the news that Blackboard has acquired ANGEL Learning and to share with you some of the thinking behind the combination.

Why put these two organizations together? This combination was about getting better. At Blackboard we're always trying to improve, both by focusing internally within our company and by looking externally to other organizations we admire, like ANGEL. We admire them not just for their story of entrepreneurial growth and impact on teaching and learning, but also for very specific strengths that we wanted to add to our story and deliver to our clients:

- The first is their customer support culture that has translated into consistently excellent experiences for ANGEL clients. We can learn from their skill in this area and add their know-how to the ever improving client support capability we're building here at Blackboard.

- The second is their history of innovation - especially in the areas of user experience, teaching and learning tools and course-based assessment. Independently our two offerings have led the way in a lot of areas. Now we have the opportunity to bring these strengths together for the benefit of learners in our Project NG vision for the future of the Blackboard platform.

From ANGEL's perspective, and especially in today's economic environment, joining these strengths with Blackboard's own innovation, industry leadership and financial stability also made a lot of sense.

At the ANGEL Users Conference in Chicago next week we'll be talking about how the solutions will come together and will send you an update after we get back. The short story is that ANGEL's latest release, ANGEL LMS 7.4 which launched last week, will continue as planned. In parallel we'll set about the work of bringing the product innovations of both companies to the new combined client community.

As we move forward and knit our organizations together, we’ll continue to be very focused on the client experience. That means drawing on what we’ve learned from previous integrations and minimizing distractions while weaving the best of ANGEL into the tangible value you get from working with us every day. More than anything, today’s news directly supports our top goal of continuing to bring clear added value to your investment in Blackboard.

You can learn more at www.blackboard.com/angel, but please feel free to contact me (CEO@blackboard.com) or your Blackboard representative if you have any questions or comments.

In closing, thank you once again for your institution's partnership with us. We look forward to showing you the benefits of this latest step in our ongoing effort to be a stronger, more flexible and creative supporter of your teaching and learning goals for the near and long term.

Additional Links:

Press Release: http://tinyurl.com/covjjm
Reactions: http://tinyurl.com/co7axa
FAQs: http://www.blackboard.com/resources/company/FAQ_ANGEL_BLACKBOARD_Acquisition.pdf
Inside Higher Ed Article: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/05/07/bb
Campus Technology article: http://tinyurl.com/d444gm
Washington Post Article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/06/AR2009050603933.html

Turnitin Tips

Turnitin is a tool that can be used to improve student writing in addition to simply detecting plagiarism. JCCC has licensed the tool for use with ANGEL and Blackboard. You can submit papers (after licensing) directly through their website (http://www.turnitin.com/) and there's no need to use with ANGEL or Blackboard, though the integration is nice for students and instructors.

We thought we'd give you the heads up on a few useful “tips” if you want to use Turnitin. If you want students to see the reports generated, you need to make sure you've set the appropriate setting to yes. Unfortunately with Turnitin, it’s slightly more complicated than just toggling that setting on.

First, if you have not yet reached your "post date," trying to view the info through student preview on a faculty account will generate an "Angel Integration Error." The post date has nothing to do with the grade book or grading, just originality reports. This is a fairly logical outcome, so it’s not a bug, but we thought you’d like a heads up. If you’re getting an Angel integration error, it probably means you should check the post date.

In addition, there's an option in the advanced options for the assignment that effects when reports are generated. If you want your students to be able to view their reports immediately, make sure the reports are set to generate immediately and the post date is the same day as the day the assignment begins.

Thanks to Marziah Karch, Ed Tech Center Sr. Analyst, for these tips.

MERLOT: Not Reinventing the Wheel

Whether teaching online of face-to-face, MERLOT is an excellent resource for “learning objects” (games, assignments, class activities). JCCC recently hosted a three week webinar introducing MERLOT. If you missed the session, you might at least want to explore the site (http://www.merlot.org), the MERLOT Faculty Development Portal at http://facultydevelopment.merlot.org, the Journal of Online Learning and Teaching at http://jolt.merlot.org/05011.htm and the Virtual Instructional Designer's (VID) link: http://vid.vinu.edu.

Grades Not Showing For Students

At JCCC, we’ve identified situations when students go to the Report tab and select Grades > Student Grades, but all grades are not visible for some students. Other students can satisfactorily view their grades. If the student selects Learner Profile > Gradebook Grades, then all grades are visible (although this does display the class average which some instructors do not like). The student who cannot view their grades can still go to the Drop Box to see their grades and the grades do show in the Gradebook. We’ve verified that the grades/assignments are not hidden and the Calculation Type is set correctly.

The problem was identified by ANGEL Support as a result of extraneous HTML code in the Comments field for the grade. The code causes a portion of the report to be truncated and not displayed. If the instructor cleans up or removes the unnecessary code, the entire report displays properly.

To avoid this problem, we recommend that when you compose text in Word (to paste into the Comments field) that you first copy the text into Notepad (which strips out the extra code) and then paste the comments into the Comments field.

Student Activity in Discussions

There are two places you can get information about student activity in your discussion forums.

1. The first place is in the Report tab. There are several different reports dealing with discussions, such as:
   
   · Learner Profile > Forum Posts (shows number of posts from a particular student in each forum)
   · WhoDunIt > Forum Posts (can find out who has or had not posted in a particular time interval)
   · Class > Forum Activity (can see total number of posts and replies for all students in all forums for a particular time interval)
   · Class > Forum Posts (can see total number of posts for all students in all forums for a particular time interval)


2. You can also go to a particular forum in your Lessons tab and click on the Reports link under that forum.
   
   
   
   
   
   You can then choose one of two reports:
   
   · Activity Summary (displays the number of times each user has accessed this item)
   · Activity Detail (displays the complete activity log for this item)
   

Video File Download: Internet Explorer Fluke

We have had reports from instructors using ANGEL that they can play mp4 files (if the QuickTime plug-in is loaded), however, if you download the video file to the desktop using Internet Explorer and then try to play (using QuickTime), you’ll see an error message stating QuickTime cannot play that file type.

We’ve determined that when you download the file, IE7 changes the file extension from .mp4 to .mpg which generates the error message in QuickTime. If you change the extension back to .mp4, it will play correctly. When downloading an mp4 file with Firefox, the extension is not changed and consequently the file plays correctly in QuickTime.

This problem seems to be connected to using IE7 with an LMS. Both ANGEL and Blackboard download .mp4 files in a manner that changes the extension. From ANGEL the extension is changed to .mpg which then must be changed back to .mp4. Blackboard leaves the .mp4 extension, but appends a long string of text after it which renders the file unplayable. Deleting the extra text after the expected extension will then allow the video to play.

Additional Findings about Teams

[See the earlier post today for further background] If you’ve used multiple teams and it is causing confusion, you might want to delete or hide the old teams. Just be aware of the following:

You can delete old teams, but this makes the forum disappear for students. You can change the access to all teams and the forum link will then be visible, but students can’t read any posts. Instructors can still see the old posts, and grades appear to be retained in the grade book.

You can hide the old teams – the students will no longer see the hidden team name in the drop-down box, so they cannot post to the old (incorrect) team. Students can still access discussion boards for the hidden team, but they can’t post from that team—not sure why that capability exists.

You can disable the old teams. When you disable the old teams, students will not be able to see the old board. For instance, if Teams 1 and 2 can access Forum 1 and you disable Teams 1 and 2, Forum 1 will no longer be visible to them.

In the second two cases (hidden and disabled), grades do remain in the grade book, and when the students go to post, they have “all journals” and one team name (whatever team they are on that is not hidden or disabled) in their drop-down menu.

Caution About Teams

As we’ve worked with teams in Discussions, we‘ve found some interesting idiosyncrasies which can best be described using a specific example.

Students must be cautioned to know and select the correct team for each forum in which they post in order for the system to work as expected.

ANGEL allows the student to see their postings (based on their drop-down menu selection) for any team in which they are a member, without regard to the current Forum selected. That is; you can select a forum, and then select a team that is not appropriate for that forum from a drop-down menu/list. Example

• A student is assigned to Team A for Forum A and Team B for Forum B.
• The instructor assumes that when working on Forum B, the student and other team members will only see postings by other students on Team B.
• Because the student is enrolled in more than one team (for different forums), she has a drop-down menu that enables her to view and post to either Team A or Team B.
• The option to post to either Team A or Team B opens the possibility that she could respond to Forum B after selecting Team A. If this occurs, other students who are only on Team B will not see her post.
• The instructor’s assumption is that anyone assigned to Team A for Forum A will only see postings by their team members. The same assumption holds for students assigned to Team B for Forum B without regard to team assignments for other projects/forums.
• If a student selects a team to which they are not assigned for a given forum (e.g., they select Team A for a posting in Forum B), their postings are not visible to other members of the assigned team (Team B)…which gives the impression that the posting disappeared.
• The posting is still available but not visible unless the student later selects the incorrect team (Team A) for the forum (Forum B).

For instructors who use new groups for each discussion or each new unit, here’s a suggestion. Consider naming the teams to correspond to the assignment or the unit; such as, “Narrative Team 1,” Narrative Team 2,” and so on. Then, students would have “Narrative” in only one of their team names, and they could select that “narrative” team for any discussion that has “Narrative” in its title or for any discussion in the “Narrative” unit. Students would then have a list of meaningful team names rather than generic team names (such as Team A, Team B, Group 1 and so on). It would also mean the instructions in the discussion wouldn’t have to be personalized; you, as the instructor could tell students to select their “Narrative” team, for example.

Finding a Pending Assessment

Faculty members have reported a few instances where students submitted assessments and receive an error message. Later, the instructor finds no record of that submission existing anywhere. In one instance, this occurred because the end time for the exam was reached while the student was still working on the exam (i.e., the student had an hour to complete the exam, but started 30 minutes before the exam was set to be disabled – the student took 45 minutes, hit submit, got an error message, and poof!).

In another case, a student hit the Backspace key while writing an essay, and ANGEL interpreted the keystroke the same as clicking the Back button in the browser (this is a common way in which a browser interprets pressing Backspace). When my staff tested using the Backspace key, they were able to get back into the exam and continue, but the student apparently could not, and her submission was nowhere.

Note: You may want to warn your students about using the Backspace key during an assessment or composing a submission online.

Anyway, we’ve found that under the Utilities link for each exam, there is a Pending link. Submissions that were interrupted by pressing the Backspace key or by an error (when submitting) will be found under the Pending link. You can view, delete, or submit any of the pending submissions. Our experience is that these pending submissions were not complete, so we suspect that answers are only retained until the error occurred.

Clarification – if you use the Backspace key during an assessment while writing an essay or short answer (anything in a text box), nothing bad happens. It only acts as a Back button if you are not within a text entry field. Even on an assessment, you can go back in and finish if the time has not expired. All answers seem to be retained until the interruption occurs.

How Students View Their Grades

If you have the Grades nugget on your course home page, students will be able to see an overview of their grades when they log into your course. To get a detailed listing of grades, a student can click anywhere on the graph within the Grades nugget. This action will bring the student to the Reports console, with Learner Profile > Gradebook Grades already selected. All the student needs to do is to click the Run button. They may also want to switch the view from Chart to Table for a more understandable summary of grades.

Any assignments or assessments in their grade summary can be accessed from the grade report by clicking on the link to that assignment or assessment. This technique works even if you have put the assignments inside a hidden folder. As long as the folder is hidden but the actual assignments are not hidden, the student will be able to access them via the links on their grade report.

If you do not include the Grades nugget in your course, students can still get grade reports by going to the Reports tab, choosing Learner Profile in the first drop-down menu and Gradebook Grades in the second drop-down menu, and clicking Run.

Finally, previewing this action in your student view may or may not produce accurate results. Your students will be able to access their grade reports, but an instructor using the student view may not.

Discussions: Read but No Post

In Blackboard (our former LMS), you could lock a discussion so everyone could still read it, but no one could post. You can do the same thing in ANGEL. Here's how:

1. Go to the Settings for the Discussion.
2. Select the Post Permissions tab.
3. De-select New Post and Reply.

Of course, this presents the same issues as in Blackboard--when you copy your course, you'll have to change those settings back.

800x600 Resolution

When trying to view posts within an ANGEL discussion with the screen resolution set to 800x600, you lose the scroll bar for the frame containing the postings. We’ve shared this design flaw with ANGEL. We do not find any indication in their documentation that ANGEL it is designed only for systems with a minimum screen resolution of 1024x768, but that appears to be the case.

Have You Added our Ed Tech Center Designer to Your ANGEL Course(s)

At JCCC we have technical support staff (an Educational Technology Center Designer) assigned to each instructor. We suggest that each faculty member should add their Ed Tech Center Designer to each of their ANGEL Courses.

We remind faculty that when problems occur in ANGEL, their first line of defense is their Ed Tech Center Designer. If you need technical assistance (fellow online instructor, technical support person) you can add them to your course and set them to be Hidden in the course Roster. To do so:

1. Go to Manage tab.
2. Select Roster.
3. Select Add a User.
4. Type part (or all) of the name of the person you want to add into the search box and click Search.
5. Click Select next to the name of the person you want to add.
6. Choose Course Editor in the first drop-down box (Rights).
7. Choose Technical Support in the second drop-down box (Title).
8. Choose Yes in the third drop-down box (Hidden).
9. Leave the last box (Disabled) set to the default, which is No.
10. Click Save.

Bits & Pieces of Tips

Let’s say you have a recurring entry in your ANGEL Calendar, such as the class time (every T/Th 2:00-3:00, for instance). Then you go into all those entries and add comments about what you will be covering on those days. Then you realize that class actually meets from 2:30-3:30. So you go into an entry and make the change, and then choose the radio button that applies changes to all occurrences. This does not just apply the changes you just made – it will change the entire entry to match. For instance, if you did this on a day where the topic was going to be “Getting to Know You Icebreaker,” then all of the Calendar entries in that series will now say “Getting to Know You Icebreaker” rather than listing the original topic.

If you have a Discussion forum and you create a Milestone set to Item Completion, it will be checked off for students even if they have not posted yet. Instructors should use Manually Marked to avoid this confusion.

The Assignment Tab for ANGEL Content Items

When creating a content item in ANGEL, the Assignment tab has two subsections. The first is for Milestone Settings, which is all about the Calendar and Tasks. When you create a milestone, you are essentially creating an entry in the student’s task list. You can choose either Manually Marked, which means the student will check off the box when they have completed the task, or Item Completion, which means that ANGEL will mark the check box when the student has completed the task. The task list can be viewed in the navigation panel on the left side of the screen. Whether or not the student uses this task list to track assignment is up to each student. In addition, under the Task Type, you can set Assign and Due dates which will automatically create entries in the ANGEL Calendar. These dates have nothing to do with when the content item is visible or when it is accessible to the student – the only place these dates show up is the Calendar.

The second section on the Assignment tab is the Gradebook Settings section. These settings are for linking the content item to the Gradebook. You can either create the assignment in this tab, or choose an existing assignment from the Gradebook. In the Calculation Type field, you need to be careful when choosing Manual. You would choose Manual if the assignment is one that ANGEL can’t grade, such as an essay. However, if the content item is a discussion forum, you don’t want to choose Manual or you would be unable to copy the grades to the Gradebook and would instead have to open the Gradebook and record them manually.

Announcements Everywhere

Announcements come in two varieties: course specific and institutional. You, the instructor, send out the course specific announcements while institutional announcements deal with scheduled server outages or other system-wide issues. Students and faculty can add or delete the My Announcements nugget from their Personal Home Page. That nugget includes both types of announcements.

Within the course, the instructor can include a Course Announcements nugget. It will include only the announcements that the instructor issues. As previously stated, these announcements will also appear in the My Announcements nugget on the Personal Home Page, mixed in with announcements from all other courses in which the student or instructor is enrolled and with the institutional announcements. If you want to create announcements that are not listed on the Personal Home Page, use the Course News nugget within your course.

If you or your students delete the My Announcements nugget from their Personal Home Page, the log-in page for ANGEL still includes the Public Announcements nugget which displays institutional announcements.

Disappearing Calendar Nugget?

The Calendar nugget does not appear on the Resources tab for students if there are no dates on the Calendar for the current week. So if you are conducting a scavenger hunt early in the semester to introduce your studnets to ANGEL (and the Calendar is one of the nuggets being sought), the Calendar must have at least one entry, such as a “Start of Class” date or a due date for the scavenger hunt…or it will not appear within the course.

Calendar & Date Manager Issues

We've had faculty members report some idiosyncrasies when manually adding Calendar dates.

For example, when you add an event to the ANGEL Calendar and then Edit that event, the year rolls back one year. Every time you go back in to edit that event, it rolls back another year. Workaround: manually change it back to the appropriate year.

Additionally, the year rolls back one instructor reported that when he tried to edit an event on March 31, 2009, the date changed to March 28, 2009. We verified this behavior in a second course.

We have had reports of disappearing dates from the Calendar but we suspect it's a mis-use of the Date Manager. When you manually add entries to your ANGEL Calendar, don’t use the Date Manager, go direct to the Calendar. The Date Manager is for changing dates associated with assignments (drop box) and assessments.

Students Experiencing Access Denied Messages

We’ve had several instances when students have not been able to access course content (such as the syllabus, files within lessons, and so on) and receive an “Access Denied” message instead. In most cases we’re finding this occurs when the course loses access to the Learning Object Repository (LOR). In other words, the content was linked to an object in the instructor's personal LOR and the link fails. We’re not exactly sure why this has occurred (see below), but here’s the solution:

1. Log-in to your LOR (use the Learning Object Repository button on the left margin of the ANGEL screen) and select the link to the personal LOR.
2. Select the Manage tab.
3. Select the Course and Group Access link and click My Courses (right column).
4. Then select the check box in front of the desired course(s) and click Add Selected.
5. The LOR should now appear on the left-side of the screen as one of the Current Associations.

The links should now work (ask your students to verify this).

While this solution is a temporary fix,the real issue is why this is occurring. It seems to occur either when courses are copied from a source course to a production course or during the batch course creation process (we're not using XEI yet to integrate between SunGard Banner and ANGEL). So, is the link to the Course Editor’s personal LOR not being established by the Manage > Import Wizard > Copy Course process or is it not being created during the batch creation process? In other words, if a faculty member has an ANGEL course with a personal LOR and additional courses are added, why isn't that personal LOR automatically attached to the new course(s)?

Email from Students Now?

We’ve had several questions about email being received by instructors in ANGEL before the course is opened to student access. Here's why this is occurring: Students can send email from their ANGEL personal home page, even before logging into a specific course and before the course is open. They can send email to any course in which they are enrolled. See Course Mail > Quick Message, click the To: button and then under Source, select (from the drop-down list) the course you want to send a message to. Then you can select the individual in that course to whom you want to send a message.

Course Begins & Ends Dates Inherited From Source Course When Copied

Please be aware that when you copy course content from a source course (Manage > Import Wizard > Copy Course), the Course Begins and Course Ends dates in the source course are also copied to the target (production) course. Be sure to check these dates. For example, at JCCC for Spring semester 2009 the settings should be set by default, as follows:

Course Begins: January 14, 2009
Course Ends: May 28, 2009

To view these settings, select Manage > General Course Settings > Course tab and check the Course Begins and Course Ends settings.

Respondus Workaround

ANGEL tech support has verified that Respondus does not publish to ANGEL on our server, but it does publish successfully on their servers (both version 7.3 before and after the December update). So we’re now looking at specific settings on our servers that might be precluding the operation. In the meantime, JCCC faculty member Susan Brown has shared a work-around that everyone can use to get your assessments out of Respondus and into ANGEL. Please review the following:

To import Respondus quizzes as a ZIP file into ANGEL:

1. In Respondus set or change the Personality to IMS QTI 1.1+
2. If the Quiz you are working with was made in another Personality, it will ask you if you want to convert the File, click OK.
3. Choose Save as a new file.
4. Click on the Preview and Publish tab, then the Save QTI XML button on the left side menu. Make sure the following two default preferences are checked:
   Points as percentage 1-100%
   QTI XML zip file using IMS Content Packaging 1.3.
5. Click the Save as button and save the ZIP file to any location on your local machine.
6. Log into your ANGEL® 7.3 course and click the Manage tab. The Management Console page appears.
7. Click the Import Wizard hyperlink (located in the right column). The Content Import Wizard menu appears.
8. Click the Content Package hyperlink. The Content Package Upload page appears.
9. Click the Browse button. A Choose file dialog box appears on the screen.
10. Locate and select the Zip file and click the Open button.
11. Click the Upload File button once. An Upload Successful message appears when the upload process is complete.
12. Click the OK button to continue. The next screen allows you to select where you want the items added to your course or group, such as Top-Level, New Folder, or Existing Folder.
13. Be sure to check the box that says Migrate Quizzes to Assessments.
14. Once you have selected where you want the item, click the OK button.
15. Click Cancel when it asks if you want a backup made before migrating Quizzes to Assessments.
16. When the import process is complete, click OK.
17. You will need to rename the assessment as they all will be named EXAM 1 by default.