Overview

WebCT is a tool that facilitates the creation of sophisticated World Wide Web-based educational environments. It does this in three ways:

1. It provides a set of educational tools to facilitate learning, communication and collaboration.
2. It provides an interface allowing the design of the presentation of the course (color schemes, page layout, etc.).
3. It provides a set of administrative tools to assist the instructor in the process of management and continuous improvement of the course.

Getting Started

1. If you are starting from scratch, you should power up your computer and open Netscape Communicator or Internet Explorer.
2. Go to the University of Delaware WebCT home page by typing in the following URL:

 

 
 




http//:www.udel.edu/webct




3. Login to WebCT by clicking on the Logon to WebCT button at the top of the page.
4. Click on the Logon to WebCT link of the WebCT Welcome page to initiate logon.
5. In the logon Dialog Box, type your Copland user name (NUMBERS will not be accepted!)
6. If you have used WebCT before, press the tab key and type in your Copland Password.

 

NOTE - If you have never used WebCT before, type in your Copland username a second time in place of your password. Since this is your first time logging on to WebCT, you should now change your WebCT password to your Copland password. To do this, click on Change password in the upper right hand corner of the screen. You will need to enter your Copland password twice to confirm its prior entry, and you will need to login a second time when WebCT kicks you out for being currently logged in under the wrong password.


 
1. CONGRATULATIONS! You have made it to the myWebCT home page. Select a course by single clicking on the myWebCT link to it. The courses are always listed on the left side of the page, if you have more than one course be careful to click on the appropriate one.

System setup (This has to be done each time you use a different computer!)

To be able to view changes as you make them while working with a WebCT course as an instructor, it is important that you set the cache settings of your browser to verify web documents Every time. If you have not made this change, your web browser will often display a cached copy of a document (i.e. a previous version which it has stored locally on your computer). In addition, you will need to Enable Java in your browser.

The following table provides the instructions for what you need to change in your browser.

THE WebCT HOMEPAGE

You can see by looking at the HOMEPAGE that there is more to WebCT than just a gradebook. Although most of this workshop focuses on how to input grades, please take note of the other resources that can be found on WebCT. It is important to familiarize yourself with every aspect of the WebCT page so that you can encourage your students to use WebCT to its fullest potential.

Sample HOMEPAGE:

Finding your way: Navigation Bar

• You are now on the course home page and you are ready to move around and/or enter grades. The blue bar on the left of the WebCT screen, called the Navigation Bar, lets you move to the elements of your course quickly. Clicking an item in the list will take you directly to that screen. To initiate the gradebook process, Click on the Manage Course link found to the left on the Navigation Menu (as shown below).

• On the Manage Course Menu, click on Manage Students.

• A table will appear at the lower part of the screen listing all of the columns of the student gradebook. You may scroll to the right using the slide at the bottom of the screen to see all of the gradebook columns.

In the columns where you will add grades, there are three words SORT / EDIT / GRAPH. To add grades you will click on the word EDIT. The screen will change to a column with spaces for adding names. SORT will sort the column from highest to lowest grade. If you accidentally hit SORT and it changes the order of the names you can change the names back to alphabetical order by clicking on the word SORT in the Last Name column. GRAPH will show you the mean/median for the graded assignment.
 

Grading: Student Management Table

In WebCT, student information is stored in a table consisting of one row for each student and columns containing various types of data. By default, each row of the table holds the first name, last name and WebCT ID in separate columns for a particular student. (User Services is responsible for putting the names on WebCT -- make sure that all of your students have usernames in order to guarantee that they appear on your gradebook and that they receive grades).

• To make sure you view all of the students, from the "page" menu, select ALL.
• To enter quiz grades for a grade. Scroll to the right until the column you want to add the grades to is visible on the screen.
• In the column, click on the Edit link just under the Header to signal your desire to enter grades in this column.
• The table will reappear after a brief delay in its initial aligned left position. Scroll to the right as before until the column comes into view again.
• Using your mouse, locate the mouse cursor in the form box of the first student. Left click the mouse to locate the cursor box and enter the numerical grade of your choice for the first student using the keyboard (based 100).
• Instead of pressing Return or Enter, press the tab key to advance to the next student grade box.
• Enter the next grade using the same procedure, and so on until all students' grades have been recorded.
• Saving grades you have recorded requires that you press the UPDATE button found at the far-left end of the grade table. Scroll to the left and click on the UPDATE button. (Warning: If you forget to press the update button, the grades you have entered will not be recorded.)
• Notice that recording the grades by pressing the UPDATE button kicks you back to the Manage Students view allowing you to see the grades you have entered along with the resulting averages.
• CONGRATULATIONS! You have just recorded your first WebCT grades!

NOTE-- If you cannot see the students names, you can move the name column so that it is now positioned next to the column where you are adding grades to do this follow the following steps: On the Manage Students Page -- Go to Advanced Options. Click on the arrow and choose Modify Columns, then click GO. On the Modify Columns page, click on the little white square above the last name. Then go to the Organize Columns, click on move the item to the right. You can only move a maximum of five columns at a time. Repeat as necessary to move name to the right. To move the last name back to its original position, follow the same steps but move the column to the left.

To go back to the Manage Students page from the Modify Columns page, follow the BREADCRUMBS. Do not use the BACK at the top of the page. The breadcrumbs act as links to any of the pages previously visited.
 

Notice the Average Columns -- The averages are not accurate in these columns until certain grades are inputted during the semester. (i.e. Midsemester Average is accurate at the middle of the semester, Prefinal Average is accurate when all grades but the Final Exam are on the gradesheet, the Final Average is accurate as soon as the Final Exam grade is placed on the gradesheet, the Letter Grade is accurate once all of the grades and attendance information have been added)

All Quiz, Composition, Class Participation Grades, Taped-role Play, Oral Exam, Reading Quiz and Final Exam columns are released to students at the beginning of the semester. All you need to do is to place the grades on the computer and students will be to view automatically those grades. Average columns however are not released to students, they are HIDDEN from their view. When these columns are accurate as the semester progresses, you need to RELEASE them to the students. Do not release Quiz/Composition/Class Participation Averages!

Releasing Grades to Students

To release the grades to the students you must use the following steps:

1. On the Manage Students page, go to the top right of the page and find the box which says advanced options, click on the arrow next to the words Select Action and scroll down until you find the Modify Columns. Click on Modify Columns and then click on the word GO to the right of the box. If you fail to click the word GO, nothing will happen.

 

 
 
 
 
 



2. First click on the little white square on top of the column which you want to release to the students. For practice click on the white square above the Midsemester Average Column.            SEE NEXT PAGE FOR GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION

1. Then look for the column to the right entitled Modify Columns, find the little white circle next to released, click on the circle. Then next to the arrow that says "no" to the right of the word released, click on the arrow and change this to "yes". Now click on UPDATE. You have now released the Midsemester Average to the students. To unrelease the grade, repeat the same steps but change from "yes" to "no".  SEE NEXT PAGE FOR GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION

1. Forgetting to click on UPDATE before returning to the Manage Students page using the breadcrumbs will bring about an error message:

If you want to save hit CANCEL and then UPDATE, if you don't want to save the changes you made, click OKAY.

From time to time this message will appear even though you have clicked on UPDATE. Hit UPDATE a second time if this message (see above) reappears then just ignore it and click on OKAY, the information is saved and it gets you out of the loop.

EDITING THE RECORD OF A SINGLE STUDENT

You can delete names from your list (ONLY DO THIS WHEN YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY SURE THAT THE STUDENT IS NOT IN YOUR CLASS) or edit a single student's grade by clicking on the student's name in the LAST NAME column.

1) To delete a name, click on the word DELETE and then follow the instructions on the screen.

2)To edit a single student's grade, change or add a grade, then click on UPDATE.
 
 
 
 
 

Printing the WebCT gradebook

1) On the "Manage Students " page, find the word DOWNLOAD located in the top right hand corner of the page. Click on this word.

2) You should then see a screen that says "Download student records". In the box next to where it says "record separator" you should see the word COMMA in the box. If not, select COMMA. Then click on the word download again.

3) A gray box will appear which says "You have chosen to download a file from this location". Below that statement you will see two bubbles. Select the bubble to the left of the phrase "SAVE this file to a disk". Then click the OK button.

4) Another window opens which is entitled SAVE AS. In the box to the right of the words SAVE IN, you need to choose where you would like to save this file. The recommended method is to select 3½ Floppy A so as to guarantee that you do not save the file to a hard drive where it may need to be deleted (especially in the lab). If you save it to a floppy disk you do not have to worry about deleting the file off of the computer when you are finished. You then need to give the file a name. To do this you would type the name of the file in the box next to the words "File name". A sample name could be something like GRADES105015 (grades for section 105.015). Then choose in the SAVE AS TYPE box "ALL FILES".  When you have finished all of these steps click on SAVE.

5) The computer will then show a picture of a file folder moving paper from one file to another and the download is complete. Close this box. Now to open the file go to EXCEL . After you have opened EXCEL, go to FILE and then to OPEN.  In the box next to the words LOOK IN, choose the location of your file (preferably on a 3½ Floppy). Next to FILES OF TYPE, choose "All Files". Now select the name you gave the file and click on OPEN.

6) A window will now open that says "Text Import Wizard step 1 of 3" Check the bubble next to the word DELIMITED, then click on the word NEXT.

7) In the next window entitled "Text Import Wizard step 2 of 3", you need to check the small square box next to the word COMMA and then click on NEXT.

8) A third window appears "Text Import Wizard step 3 of 3". Under the heading "Column data format", select the word GENERAL, then click on the word FINISH.

9) You will now see an EXCEL version of the data from the WebCT gradebook, to print this document go to FILE. Then choose PRINT. To print in landscape format, go to the box marked PROPERTIES and click on it. Go to PAPER and then click on the bubble next to Landscape and then click OK. You now return to the PRINT window, click OK and the data will print out. If landscape printing is not important to you in the PRINT box just go directly to OK instead of clicking on PROPERTIES.

10) YOU HAVE NOW SUCCESSFULLY PRINTED YOUR WebCT gradebook, if you did not save the file to a 3½ Floppy disk, make sure to delete file from the hard drive of the computer on which you were working. If you saved the file to a floppy disk, take the floppy with you. Remember this information is confidential.
 

Don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions or problems following these instructions.