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.

What We Know about Merging Rosters

Requests to have course rosters merged (that is for rosters of different sections of the same class to be combined) must be approved by the instructor’s Assistant Dean or Dean at JCCC. The request is then forwarded from the Assistant Dean or Dean to the Academic Director of the Educational Technology Center (Jonathan Bacon) or the Assistant Dean of Distance Learning (Ed Lovitt).

ANGEL Help states the following regarding the Merged Roster Manager states: “You can create a new merged course that is automatically synchronized with the rosters of other selected courses for which you have editing rights.”

1. Merging Rosters creates a new “empty” course shell. Specifically: a) No mail is inherited from the source courses, b) No activity (grades, log-ins) are inherited, c) No content is copied to the merged roster course shell and d) All content must be added after the merge.
2. Merging rosters creates a single roster in the new course with all students that were enrolled in any one of the original source courses. While students are automatically merged into the new course roster, Course Editors and Teaching Assistants are not. They must be manually added.
3. When merging two or more course sections, the original courses are disabled. The original source courses still exist and are accessible to the Course Editor but not to students. Further, the original courses are no longer accessible using the Course Search.
4. When combining two or more courses, Groups are automatically created with membership based on the original course in which the student was enrolled. The Groups will be named based on the section of the original course, e.g., Section 350 and Section 352.
5. When merging rosters, you must give the new course a title. Standard operating procedure at JCCC is to use the same title as the original courses but add both sections and CRNs at the end of the title, such as ACCT-121 Sections 350 & 351 (12345 & 54321).
6. The merged roster course will inherit the same category (e.g., Spring 2009 or SD 2009) as the source courses. That means they’ll be grouped in the correct semester.
7. Generally, once two or more course shells are merged, they will not be un-merged (all content added to the merged course and student activity is lost)
8. Courses cannot be merged or merged courses deleted/unmerged after any student activity has occurred.

ANGEL Glitches: Updates

Student Calendar Entries
Issue Reported to ANGEL Tech Support: When a student accesses the ANGEL Calendar and clicks on the Personal Entry link, there is no Add button available to add an entry.

ANGEL Response: I am able to duplicate this behavior both on your server and here. I will research as to why Add does not appear for students (and some other roles as well), and will let you know what I find out.

Meanwhile, anyone who does not have the Add link can still add an entry by clicking on the numeral of the date for which they want to make an entry. That brings up the same page as clicking on Add does.

Cannot Access Learning Object Repository after Course Copy
Issue Reported to ANGEL Tech Support: After a Copy Course Import of a course (Import Wizard > Course Copy), the option to Import from Learning Object Repository (Lessons > Add Content) was no longer available. This option was available in the source course but after the copy no longer shows up in the production course.

ANGEL Response: It looks like the instructor needs to give that course access to his LOR. To do so have the instructor login to his LOR (click Learning Object Repository button in left margin), click Manage > Course and Group Access >My Courses, then check the desired courses and click Add Selected. Then this LOR should show up as an available LOR for the course. When finished, click the Exit button (lower left corner). Please let me know if you need any more assistance with this issue.

Cannot Publish to ANGEL Using Respondus
Issue Reported to ANGEL Tech Support: We are not able to upload any assessments via Respondus 3.5.4 to the ANGEL production server (dl.jccc.edu) since late November 2008 or definitely since the December ANGEL update was installed in mid-December 2008. Several faculty and staff have tried to upload to the server and get error messages in the Respondus client. Here is a typical error message:

Creating Quiz... done.
Adding Questions... error.
Errors, unable to complete.

ANGEL Response: Waiting for a Reply.

Quiz Error Message Occurs When Submitting Answers
Issue Reported to ANGEL Tech Support: Upon submitting answers to the first Quiz question there is a large error message displayed (Error message omitted here for brevity).

ANGEL Response: This error will occur when attempting to grade an algorithmic question set to evaluate using Numeric (tolerance) if the values in the evaluation settings include more than four decimal places.

The evaluation line for question #1 reads:

Evaluate using Numeric (tolerance) [Answer] - 0.00001 <= [Answer] <= [Answer] + 0.00001

It appears as though these values are being converted to a notational format in the database, 1E-05, which cannot be used when evaluating the correctness of the student's response.
I have logged Issue #32368 regarding this problem. In the meantime, in order to avoid the error the instructor will need to change evaluation parameters to only include four decimal places, 0.0001 for instance.

Course Begins Date Setting, the Student View and Course Copy

By default, student access at JCCC is enabled on the first day of the semester (January 14, 2009 for Spring 2009). Most production courses and source courses have that date set when created. When you copy from your source course to your production course, the Course Begins and Course Ends dates are transferred to the production course, so you want to be sure these dates are set correctly (by default to the first day of the semester and at JCCC we use two weeks after the last day of class; e.g., May 28, 2009). That means you cannot use the Student View (Sunglasses icon) to review your class until the Course Begins date occurs. If you’re working in your source course (development course shell), you can always change the Course Begins date to today so you can use the Student View. Just be sure to set the date back before you copy from your source course to your production course(s).

Just a reminder; to make your course available earlier:

1. Go to the Manage tab and select General Course Settings.
2. Be sure the check box following the Course Begins label is selected.
3. Set the date to the date when you want students to have access.
4. When finished, be sure to click the Save button and that should do it.

The Course Copy Function: More Detail

The Copy Course function (Import Wizard > Copy Course) is designed to copy course content not make changes to course enrollments (the Roster). When you copy course materials, the Copy Course function replaces any existing course materials as well as any student submissions related to the “overwritten” (previously existing) course content. The original content and related submissions will be replaced (lost) as a result of the import process.

So, in essence, students can be enrolled into a blank shell or a course where the faculty member is still importing content, using the Import Wizard > Copy Course process and the student and faculty enrollments remain in the course. Only the content is being replaced. Any student submissions will be lost as they are tied to the original course content that has now been overwritten with the new course content. The copy process only copies learning objects, grade book settings, agents, saved reports, theme settings, but not students.

Granting Student Course Access before Start of Semester

By default at JCCC, student access to an ANGEL course is enabled on the first day of the semester (e.g., January 14, 2009 for Spring 2009). Faculty meembers may make their course(s) available earlier:

1. Go to the Manage tab and select General Course Settings.
2. Select the check box following the Course Begins label.
3. Set the date to the date when you want students to have access.
4. When finished, be sure to click the Save button. That should do it.