FirstClass®

I. What is FirstClass®?

FirstClass, an electronic communication package by Centrinity, Inc., will be used as an asynchronous learning tool throughout your MBA program. This simply means that you will be able to enhance your learning experience independent of the usual time-constraints imposed by office hours and class schedules, through electronic mail and conferencing. FirstClass provides virtual office hours. You can send questions about class material, assignments, schedules, or any other program related topic. This can be a personal message (one-to-one), or a general query (one-to-many) to professors, TA's, or fellow students. Because these general queries allow many-to-many communication, your questions and answers can be shared with others having similar problems. FirstClass also provides a means for file sharing. It currently has a two-directional gateway to the Internet, so you can use it to receive messages from the outside world. FirstClass is available for Mac or Windows. It is also accessible using your Internet Browser, without installing any additional software (see item IV on the next page).

Your can streamline group collaboration in the MBA program by using FirstClass. You won't have to be in the same physical location with study group members or with faculty members. You can chat online, share files, and send messages to one other. In addition to being available on computers in the College’s Office for Information Management, FirstClass is available at all CITES labs on campus. You can download a copy of the FirstClass software free of charge from the College of Business Web site (see item III below).

II. Connecting to FirstClass from OIM

At OIM, use any station in rooms 3, 7, 8, 21, and 24. Log in and enter Windows. Open the Communications Folder and choose FirstClass. Then proceed for further instructions to "Logging in to FirstClass for the First Time" below.

III. Connecting to FirstClass from Home

You will need to have an Internet connection before you can download the FirstClass software. An Internet connection is also required to run the software to access your FirstClass desktop.

Once your Internet connection is established—whether via a dial-up connection or the campus network—point Internet Explorer to and choose Public Software Library which is listed in the Resources section on the right side of the page. Under Public Domain and Shareware Archive, click on Communications. Click on the file fc5506us.exe. Internet Explorer will prompt you to choose a location at which to save the file, or you may choose the second option, “Run this program from its current location.” If you select the latter option, the program will automatically begin installation as soon as the download is complete.

Once the installation is complete, close all windows on your desktop. To create a shortcut to FirstClass on your desktop, right click your desktop and choose New, Shortcut. Click the Browse button in the Create Shortcut dialog box. In the Browse for Folder dialog box, expand your Local Disk list, and then expand the Program Files and FirstClass folders. Select the file Fcc32.exe as the target of the shortcut and click OK. Click Next to continue. Type FirstClass as the name for the shortcut and click Finish. Now, double-click the new shortcut you just created on your desktop. You should get the FirstClass login screen. The first time you use the software on your machine, you will have to configure the software.

Click the Setup button on the Login screen. In the Connect via: box, select TCP-IP.FCP as shown. Then fill in your User ID and Password given to you by the FirstClass administrator. The Server: box should contain the address given to you by the FirstClass administrator; for all College of Commerce accounts (including the MBA), this server address is valhalla.cba.uiuc.edu as shown. Click on Save.

As soon as you log in to FirstClass for the first time, change your password!

Once you complete the Service Setup, connect to the Internet first before attempting to run FirstClass. When you're connected to the Internet, you will be able to access your FirstClass desktop from home in a similar manner as you would from a computer connected to the campus network.

IV. Connecting to FirstClass Using Your Internet Browser

Using any browser, type in Login using your User ID and Password. Bear in mind that your Web browser is replicating the environment that the FirstClass client software provides, and not all features are available. It makes sense to use the browser interface from public computers that do not have the FirstClass client installed. When you are on your own computer or a machine that has FirstClass installed on it, the FirstClass client will generally provide a faster, more efficient way to access your FirstClass community.

V. Logging into FirstClass for the First Time

The first screen you will see in FirstClass is the login screen:

Type your User ID, hit the <Tab> key to move to the box for your password, then type in your password. The first time you log in, use the password orange. After entering FirstClass, you should immediately choose Service/ChangePassword to choose a more secure password.

Each group of students or faculty using FirstClass may have a slightly different desktop. This is because the appearance of your desktop depends upon who you are, which classes you are involved with, and what you need to be able to do with FirstClass. Below is an image of typical MBA FirstClass desktop.

At a glance, this looks somewhat like a typical Microsoft Windows™ desktop, with various icons representing different resources to which you have access when connected to FirstClass. Red flags next to any icon indicates that there are unread messages inside that conference. All conferences, messages, and uploaded files may be accessed by double-clicking.

VI. Introduction to Mailbox and Conferences

The most familiar resource shown above is the Mailbox. Double-clicking this icon will take you into your individual email box, used for both incoming and outgoing individual electronic communications.

The image on the right shows the contents of a typical mailbox. Note that unlike popular programs such as Outlook or Eudora, this mailbox contains both outgoing and incoming messages. Outgoing messages are denoted by “To:” preceding the name of the addressee. For all other messages, the name shown is the identity of the sender. You will note that some of the addressee names shown are not people; rather, they are the names of FirstClass conferences.

Conferences in FirstClass are much like folders within Microsoft Windows. They can be arranged hierarchically. That is, there can be sub-conferences within conferences. This allows a great deal of information to be organized logically without crowding everything onto your FirstClass desktop. The image below shows one of the MBA conferences:

Within the conference shown at left, there is a document posted, and there are sub-conferences. In this case, the sub-conferences correspond to each module in the first year curriculum.

In many conferences, you may create and post a new message to the conference by clicking the new message icon on the left edge of the toolbar. Such messages will be filed in the conference in which the message was created, and all users of that conference will have access to it. You may also copy these messages to individuals or to other conferences.

VII. Reading and Sending Messages

Your mailbox, other conferences, and individual messages are opened by double-clicking. Any unread message is marked with a red flag. To create a new message using the standard format, choose Message/New Message, or click on the envelope icon on the top left, or press <Ctrl<N> on the keyboard. Address and give a subject to the message, type in the message body, and choose Message/Send (or press <Ctrl<E>). As you gain experience with FirstClass, you will probably want to use copy and blind copy (Cc:, Bcc:), file attachments, etc. Use the FirstClass HELP menu to assist in these tasks. If you are addressing a message to an Internet email address, you must type the Internet address instead of the person's name in the To: field. You can use the FirstClass Directory to find the correct spelling of a name, or to choose names from the list instead of typing each one: with the New Message form open, choose Conferencing/Directory. Highlight a name and click To, Cc, or Bcc to insert the name into the correct address field.

There are a few special features of FirstClass that give you more control than in most mail handlers. First of all, if you change your mind about sending a message, you can choose Message/Unsend. There is, of course, a chance that someone has already read the message, but you can often stop a message before anyone opens it. Secondly, you can trace the history of a message (who has read it, who has downloaded any files attached to the message, when you sent it, if and when you unsent it, etc.) by choosing Message/History (or pressing <Ctrl<H>).

Be sure that you know who you are replying to when you reply to a message. You have the choice of replying to the sender only, the entire address list, or even changing the address list. Experiment with Reply and Reply Special (especially Reply Sender) to see what your options are. It's really important to do this carefully so that you don't send a message to a person or conference unintentionally.

VIII. Installing and Viewing Your Home Page on FirstClass

You can install a home page on FirstClass that is viewable from the WWW. The Home Page conference is not password protected (as other conferences and mailboxes are), but can be viewed by anyone with web access at where Your_name is your first name followed by the underscore character followed by your last name. If you already have a home page and would like to install it on FirstClass, follow the directions below.

  1. Be sure that your Home Page is named index.html
  2. Open the Home Page Conference in the FirstClass client.
  3. Choose File/Upload from the main menu.
  4. Use the Open dialog box to find your existing home page and any accompanying graphic files.
  5. Upload each of these files (index.html and accompanying graphics) to the Home Page directory.
  6. This upload process needs to be repeated each time you edit your Home Page or change any of the graphics files.

IX. Setting Your Preferences; Creating and Editing your Résumé

Using the menu item Edit/Preferences you can change the appearance of your desktop, the default font for your outgoing messages, your default download directory, etc. After you have experimented with FirstClass for a while, you will probably want to adjust some of these settings.

You can provide information about yourself for other users by creating a résumé. To do this:

  1. Choose File > Open > Résumé.
  2. Type your name at the top of the résumé.
  3. Copy your picture to the clipboard, and then paste it in the top left corner of the résumé, if desired.
  4. Type any information you think would be useful to other users in the bottom pane of the résumé.
  5. Close the résumé to save your changes.

You can edit your résumé at any time by following this same procedure.

X. Using Conferences

Conferences are user forums relating to a specific topic. A conference is a list of messages and may contain sub-conferences or folders. These are forums of many-to-many communication and you need to use particular care in answering the messages because the default is for all communication to be visible by all those with permission to use the conference.

XI. Transferring Files

You can transfer files in FirstClass by attaching them to an email message or by uploading them directly to a folder or conference (if you are the "owner" of the folder or conference). You can attach one or many files to a single email message. Create a new message and choose File/Attach File (or press <Ctrl<T>). Select the file to attach, click OK, and wait for the file name to appear in the Attachments field of the message. Send the message. The recipient can then click on the attachment to download it to their disk. If you are the "owner" of a conference or folder (for example, your Home Page conference), choose File/Upload and choose a file to upload to the conference.

XII. Using Hyperlinks

FirstClass documents and messages can contain hyperlinks to connect directly to the Internet or to another FirstClass Intranet Server.

XIII. Chatting

Through FirstClass you can engage in private or public chats. Chats are real-time conversations with other users connected to the server. From the File menu choose Open/Private Chat (there's also a button on the toolbar with two faces on it). Click on Invite. You will get a listing of those persons who are connected to the server. If a name is italicized, you cannot invite the person to chat (they have selected "Don't Accept Chat Invitations" in their Global Preferences). Select a person or person(s) to participate in the chat, type your first chat line, and choose Send. If you’re chatting in class, make sure to turn the speaker volume to off as it will be distracting to class and your professors will recognize the sound effects and know exactly what you’re doing.

Spend some time exploring the more advanced features of FirstClass. Learn about threading of messages, customizing your messages, etc. The HELP index is complete and there are FirstClass manuals in the Public Conferences folder.

XIV. Getting Additional Help for FirstClass

For online tutorial materials, visit There is also FirstClass documentation available in the conference called Help, FC Manuals and Useful Files, that all MBAs have on their FirstClass Desktops.

FC for MBAs.doc1 of 7Office for Information Management

11/02/18