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.