Faculty Guide: Distance Learning Spring 2007

VWCC Distance Learning
Faculty Guide
eLIT @ VWCC
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Introduction
Distance Learning courses are expressly designed to relieve faculty of the responsibility for
presenting core material in a traditional mode, i.e., classroom lecture. This, in turn, leaves the
instructor free to function in a variety of roles, including:
 Course facilitator and manager whose primary responsibility is to counsel individual
students, direct them to additional learning resources, answer questions, and generally
facilitate learning. In this role, the instructor relies heavily on the core material
presented in the media and text book components.
 Discussion leader who is available for group seminars or other contact sessions. These
may be held via telecommunicated methods, such as using Blackboard Collaborate and
discussion board in Blackboard.
 Course presenter who offers additional insights and analyses or discusses different
approaches or interpretations of material. This material may be included as part of the
core requirements or as a supplement to existing materials. Presentations may involve
one or more media such as essays, short articles, multimedia projects (PowerPoint
slides, narrated Panopto Lecture Capture recordings, or Flash movies).
 Evaluator who adopts examination material, designs new materials, organizes projects,
assigns grades, and provides feedback to each student.
Important Guidelines:
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Faculty must have a course orientation activity to be able to indicate if a student is a
“show” or “no-show”.
Faculty should have a presentation which covers the content of the first traditional class
meeting. The content should include information about the course structure and how to
navigate the course, and answers to commonly asked questions.
Office hours: Faculty who teach distance learning course must have office hours each
week. The office hours can be either online using Blackboard Collaborate, Blackboard
Instant Messaging (Bb IM), or on campus. The online office hours must be recorded.
Archiving and deleting course: Courses created in Blackboard for a specific semester will
be retained for three semesters beyond the semester offered and then removed from
the Blackboard server. VCCS ITS archives Blackboard courses every week and keep the
archived files for 3 years. To retrieve the archived course from VCCS ITS, please contact
the department of eLearning and Instructional Technology at 540-857-6202.
In order for students to check grades in a Blackboard course, the instructor must include
a button named “My Grades” in their course menu.
Faculty Responsibilities
As in traditional on-campus courses, faculty who is teaching distance learning courses should
ensure the academic integrity of the course and provide a positive learning experience.
Specifically, faculty is responsible for:
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Course development
Participation in training provided by VWCC and the Department of eLearning &
Instructional Technology (eLIT)
Instructional administration, including:
Evaluating students’ assignments and exams
Grading and maintaining students' records
Providing timely feedback to students
Monitoring student progress
Maintaining office hours and regular contact with students
Providing adequate and timely feedback to students’ questions
Cooperating with eLIT staff for academic support and technical support
Administering course evaluations
Blackboard Tutorials
Distance learning at Virginia Western Community College is delivered using Blackboard.
Blackboard is a course management system that is maintained by the Virginia Community
College System (VCCS). Blackboard is web-based so there is nothing for you to install or
download. All you need is internet connection. Blackboard works with both Windows and
Macintosh computers. You can access Blackboard using most web browsers but it performs
best with Mozilla Firefox.
To Access Blackboard, direct your web browser to http://learn.vccs.edu Enter your My VWCC
username and password and click on Login button to continue.
Making a Course Available in Blackboard
When you log into Blackboard as an instructor, you will see a list of “Courses you are teaching”.
If the course has not been set as available to students, students will not see it at all when they
login to their Blackboard account. To make the course available:
1. Login to Blackboard and click the link of the unavailable course under the Teach tab.
2. As an instructor, you will see the Control Panel under your course menu buttons. To make
the course available, click Customization and then select Properties.
3. Properties control the functional settings of the course. On this page, the instructor can set
the availability of the course. The last step is to click Submit.
Uploading Course Syllabus
Follow the steps below to add a syllabus to a Course Content Area.
1. Make sure that the Edit Mode is On.
2. Click on Syllabus button on the course menu bar. (Note: The VWCC course template includes
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a Syllabus menu item and the folder that includes required syllabus content and course
outcomes.). If you do not have a Syllabus menu item, then you will need to add a menu item
before you can add the syllabus but please contact your division office for information that is
required in the syllabus content.
3. Hover over Build Content to view the menu listing.
4. Click on Item.
5. Provide a name for this item and enter some information about the syllabus in the Text box.
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6. Under Attachments, attach a file using one of the following options:
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To upload a file from your computer, click Browse My Computer.
To upload a file from the course files content collection, click Browse Content
Collection.
7. Select the file from your local computer or content collection. The file added to this page is
added as a link.
8. Select Options for the item:
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Select Yes to Permit Users to View this Content.
You may also select Yes to enable the Track Number of Views for this item.
For Enter Date and Time Restrictions, you can set items to display on a specific date and
time and to stop displaying on a specific date and time.
Select the Display After and Display Until check boxes to enable the date and time
selections.
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9. Click Submit. The course syllabus now appears in the content area.
Note: Follow the same steps to upload other documents/content items within any course
content areas (such as Course Documents, Course Materials, Course Information, etc.).
Creating an Assignment using the Assignment Feature
Instructors can add a single or group assignment within a content area. Assignments give the
option to attach a file and assign a point value. When an assignment is created a corresponding
column is automatically added to the Blackboard Grade Center. Students can complete the
assignment with the Upload Assignment page or in a separate file and send it back to the
Instructor.
1. Log into Blackboard and click on your course. Add the assignment within one of the content
areas in the course. Be sure the Edit Mode is On.
2. Hover your mouse over the Assessment Menu and select Assignment.
3. Add the name and instruction of the assignment. There can be no special characters (#, ?, *
or any other) in an assignment name.
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4. In option 2, click Browse My Computer if you would like students to refer to a separate
document such as a rubric and/or instructions. The selected file will be listed. This step can be
repeated for attaching additional files for the same assignment.
5. In option 3. Grading, enter the points possible for this assignment. You can associate a rubric
using the Add Rubric button. Use option 4. Availability to make the assignment available to
students and click the Make the Assignment Available checkbox. Select the number of
attempts you would like to allow for assignment submission. The instructor may choose a single
attempt, unlimited attempts, or indicate a specific number of attempts. There can also be a
date and time restriction for the availability of the assignment. The instructor can click the
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Track Number of Views checkbox to track the number of times the assignment is viewed.
6. The instructor can indicate if the assignment is for All Students Individually or Groups of
Students. All Students Individually means that the assignment is released to every user in the
course, not just the groups. Groups of Students means that the assignment is released to
specific groups of users within the course.
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7. Click Submit when you ready.
8. Students can access group assignments by:
a. Clicking their group name in My Groups under the course menus.
b. Selecting Group Homepage and click the assignment name under Group Assignments.
Notes for Group Assignments:
 Course groups must exist prior to creating group assignments.
 Multiple Attempts allow users to submit their work for a group assignment more than
once and receive comments and a grade for each submission.
 Students enrolled in more than one group receiving the same assignment will submit
more than one attempt for this assignment. It may be necessary to provide these
students with an overall grade for the assignment.
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Students that are not enrolled at the time a group assignment has been created and
submitted do not have access to that submission; they can see that the submission
occurred.
Students that are un-enrolled from the group cannot see the group assignments. They
can access their submissions from My Grades.
If the group assignment is edited between creation and the Due Date, the entire group
may lose any work already in progress.
Grading an Assignment through Grade Center
1. Go to Control Panel section. Click the Grade Center link and select Full Grade Center.
2. After the Grade Center loads, locate the student’s assignment by clicking on the drop down
arrow next to the green exclamation mark and select View Grade Details.
3. When the Grade Details screen appears, click View Attempts in the Grade Details area to
grade this assignment.
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Or select Clear Attempt to delete a student’s submission and allow them to redo the
assignment or select Edit Grade to change the Grade Value.
4. Once you click the View Attempt button, the Grade Assignment page will display.
Note: The submitted attempt should either open for viewing (Inline Grading) or prompt to save
or print the file, all depending upon the type of file which has been submitted and the browser
and software that is currently installed. When you view a document submitted in an
assignment, that document is converted to a format that is viewable inside the web browser.
Supported document types that can be converted are Word (DOC, DOCX), PowerPoint (PPT,
PPTX), Excel (XLS, XLSX), and PDF (PDF). The converted document is displayed in a viewer on the
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Grade Assignment page.
Function of Inline Grading:
A. Review and comment directly in the document.
B. From the inline viewer toolbar you can zoom the contents of the document in or out,
open the annotation tools menu to comment in the document, download the document
and move from page to page.
C. Grade the submission from the inline grading sidebar. From here you can view the
assignment details, the grading rubric and each attempt. You can type an overall grade
and grades for each attempt as well as provide feedback to your students without
leaving the page.
D. If you prefer to open/download the file to view the file in its program (e.g. in Microsoft
Word) instead of Inline grading, you can click the download icon to open or download
the file directly on your computer.
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5. Once you have determined the grade, locate the Grade area and input a grade for the
assignment. To add additional feedback, enter comments directly in the Grader Feedback box
or attach a file containing additional comments by clicking Attach Feedback Files icon.
6. The Instructor Notes section is optional and can be used to make internal notes and/or
attach files which are not visible to students and provide references of students’ performance
progress for later use and are accessible to other users in the course who have permissions to
access the Grade Center (other Instructors, Teaching Assistants, and/or Graders). By locate the
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Grading Notes, click on the Show Grading Notes icon next to the assignment attempt.
7. An instructor can allow an individual student to submit an additional attempt for this
particular assignment by clicking the Allow Additional Attempt button. Note: The Allow
Additional Attempt button will only appear if the student has already submitted the maximum
number of attempts allowed for that assignment. You can continue to offer opportunities to
resubmit attempts each time the student reaches that maximum number. Previous attempts
do not have to be graded to allow the student to submit again.
8. Click Submit to update the entered grade to the Grade Center.
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Grade Group Assignment:
Once a group member submits the assignment for the whole group, an instructor will view the
submission in Grade Center. In Grade Center under the group assignment column, a green
exclamation mark (Needs Grading symbol) appears next to all three group members. The
instructor can grade one group member’s submission and submit the same grade to all students
within the group by entering a single grade.
1. Click the double-down arrows next to green exclamation mark of one group member and
select View Grade Details.
2. Click View Group Attempt to open the assignment submission.
3. Review the submission and enter the grade. Click Submit to update the grade. After
submitting the grade, all three group members’ score for this assignment will be updated.
Note: The instructor also has the ability to provide each group member an individual grade
overriding the group grade by clicking the Manually Override button within the Grade Details
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screen.
Copying Previous Course Content into an Existing Course in Blackboard
When new courses are created in Blackboard, they have only the preloaded content outlined as
basic content for any course taught at VWCC with support materials for faculty and students on
the Faculty Resources and Student Resources menu items. As an instructor, you can copy
previous course content into your new course shell.
1. Open the previous semester course which contains the content you wish to copy to the new
course shell.
2. Under Control Panel, select Packages and Utilities.
3. Select Course Copy.
4. Select Copy Course Materials into an Existing Course.
5. Enter the destination course ID (e.g. VW286.ENG.100.V1.SP10).
6. Check the box next to each item of content you want to copy (it is strongly recommended
that the instructor select every option but Faculty Resources and Student Resources. Be sure
that the option of Grade Center Columns and Settings and Tests, Surveys, and Pools is
checked).
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7. Keep the default setting for File Attachments.
8. Do NOT check the box next to Enrollment since that could copy the previous semester’s
student roster into your new course.
9. Click Submit to finish. Note: You will receive an email from learn@vccs.edu about the success
or failure of the Course Copy process. Do not copy the course a second time until you receive
the email about the success or failure of the first course copy as this can result in duplicate
items being copied.
Information and Resources
Phone Number
Academic Link ............................ (540) 857-6442
Admissions ................................. (540) 857-7231
Advising Center .......................... (540) 857-7237
Bookstore ................................... (540) 857-7334
eLIT ............................................. (540) 857-6202
Library ........................................ (540) 857-7303
Email Address
Academic Link……………………tutoring@virginiawestern.edu
Blackboard/eLIT………………….eLIT@virginiawestern.edu
Testing Center…………………….testingcenter@virginiawestern.edu
Library…………………………….library@virginiawestern.edu
Useful Online URLs
Blackboard Login
Blackboard Support Form
eLIT web site
http://learn.vccs.edu
http://tinyurl.com/VWCCBlackboardHelp
http://www.virginiawestern.edu/learning/elit/index.php
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Help Desk
Library
Testing Center
Academic Advising Center
My VWCC
Instructor Tutorials
https://www.virginiawestern.edu/iet/helpdesk/
http://www.virginiawestern.edu/library/
https://www.virginiawestern.edu/learning/testing/index.php
https://www.virginiawestern.edu/advising/advisingcenter.php
https://signin.my.vccs.edu/
http://www.virginiawestern.edu/learning/elit/faculty/index.php
Virginia Western Community College is an equal opportunity/affirmative action institution
TTY: (540) 857-6351
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