Form: Resources
Resources
/ Purpose and Recommendations /Examples
Schedule / Purpose: the course schedule usually is one of the most popular pages of a course web site, especially if it is continuously updated. The purpose is to provide information about date, class activities, readings, assignments due, and exams.Recommendations: it should provide cross-links to other parts of the course site.
The organization of information should be clear to students, and have a good resolution on print. / Schedule in
Course Description / Purpose: for registered students, gives direction and focus, and for visitors or students, who are applying, gives an overview of the course and its objectives.
Recommendations: the information should be published in the first page until the beginning of the course, but it could be a separate page after two weeks course. /
Professor Information / Purpose: facilitate contact, by providing information about Professor’s name, e-mail, web page, office hours, office address.
Recommendations:could be integrated in the Front Page or in the Contact Information page. /
GSI Information / Purpose: facilitate contact, by providing information about GSI’s name, e-mail, web page, office hours, office address.
Recommendations:could be integrated in the Front Page or in the Contact Information page. /
Learning Objectives / Purpose: give students direction and focus.
Recommendations:could be integrated in the Course Description.
Lectures Notes / Purpose: facilitated learning and provides uniform information.
Recommendations: it depends on professor’s practices. Can be PowerPoint presentation, Word file, PDF file etc. The notes can be published before classes or after classes. If the notes are published before class it gives the student to print the material and expand the notes with their comments during the lectures. /
/is202/f99/Lectures.html
Assignments / Purpose: assignments can be published and complemented with cross-link information
Recommendations: it is recommended having a specific page for the assignments and with links to their answers. /
problem sets page
Assignments Results / Purpose: its is important for providing feedback and improve learning.
Recommendations: students answers can be publish as good examples and/or professor’s answer.
Exams Study Guide / Purpose: helps students to have access at anywhere/anytime and be prepared to take their exams.
Recommendations: organize the information according to the main topics and provides a layout that facilitate student understanding of the questions. /
Announcements / Purpose: to inform any changes in the schedule, reading list, other updates or new references in the course site.
Recommendations: our suggestion is to present the current and last information on the front page, and archive the historic announcements at a specific page. /
Readings (list) / Purpose: as part of the syllabus, reading list is important information to registered students as well as to students who intend to take the course. Use cross-links with author’s home page, etc
Recommendations: use Chicago Manual of Style or any other bibliographical resource to uniform information. /
Resources
/ Purpose and Recommendations /Examples
Readings (links and/or files) / Purpose: to provide the recommended and optional articles with access direct to links or files. In this case should have password protection to limit the use by the students.Recommendations: complete source reference should be given
Projects / Purpose: depending on the course, projects are developed by students. In this page should provide information about the projects purposes, milestone, group names, links to projects web site etc
Recommendations: a specific page related to the projects. /
Slides / Purpose: some professors use slides in their lectures. Those slides could be available in the course web page to provide student access any time after class. Scan the slides
Recommendations: be aware of copyright issues related to the use of books or any other source available in the Internet. Password protection should be provided to restrict its uses to registered students.
It is also important to present for each slide the title, author, date, source of information, and description, if available.
Thumbnails could be used to give the whole idea of the topic or facilitate comparisons.
PowerPoint Presentation / Purpose: some professor have already available their PowerPoint files, that could be available in the course web page.
Recommendations: professor should be aware that anyone in the Internet might access the slides. If rights should be preserved, password protection to control access should be required.
It is important to verify if the slides could be printed in an economical way to students. The ideal is to have 4 to 6 slides printed in each page.
Graphics / Images / Purpose: images could enhance the course web page, or provide complementary information.
Recommendations: be aware of copyright issues related to reproduction.
Video / Purpose: could be used to complement lectures, to provide external information, etc
Recommendations: the video could be integrated in the page or create a link to its origin. Links can be created to videos provided by some newspaper, for example New York Times.
Mailing List / Purpose: mailing list is a valuable tool to complement course web site. It is an active tool that might facilitate communication between professor and students. Students also can have an active participation by recommending references, making questions etc It depends on professor. It can be used to inform about updates in the course web site.
Recommendations: see procedures to create a mailing list. /
Resources (Useful links) / Purpose: the Internet has many resources that can be useful for students and expand their knowledge. Reading author’s page, academic articles, newspaper, videos, academic and professional organizations, companies, news articles, etc. Also the organization of those links can help professor in selecting the course content.
Recommendations: discuss with the professor choices of topics and resources according to the course objectives; organize the list by topics, alphabetically. To facilitate the copy of the links by students, the URL should be visible. /
online resources page
Resources
/ Purpose and Recommendations /Examples
Exercises applied to Internet / Purpose: the idea is to create exercises integrated with Internet and use its best information resources. Can be utilized cross-link information, use of news or academic articles in order to answer questions, use of search engines, digital library, etcRecommendations: it should be considered that students usually print the exercises pages. All cross-link should be updated.
Answers to Exercises / Purpose: learning with the best practices. Some professors publish official answers and/or provide additional information by publishing students’ best answers. Students have to give permission to publish their own work.
Recommendations: can be PDF files, HTML, Word file etc.
Students’ Work / Purpose: students should be stimulated to publish their own work in the web, specially group projects or final projects, in order to enhance the learning experience.
Recommendations: it is recommended to have a specific area, where students will be able to publish their works. It should be analyzed if there are any concerns about rights protection or security.
Online Exercises / Purpose: to provide exercises with multiple choices and immediate correction in the Internet.
Recommendations: this system is available by WebCT. It would be necessary to develop a program in order to offer by Socrates account.
Newsgroup / Purpose: differ from mailing list by its thread conversation. It has not been used in many of the courses web site
Recommendations: see procedures to create a newsgroup. /
Grades / Purpose: provide grades information about assignments and projects at any time.
Layout Recommendations: For each student it is recommended to apply a code number, in order to keep his/her privacy. The student number could be communicated individually by e-mail. /
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