Monthly Archives: July 2014

Succeed April 2014 Release

For staff there is a significant new feature: Student Preview. Those of you with long memories will recall this feature in WebCT. It has finally made it into Succeed! This gives a complete student view of a module to an instructor. Full details are available here. The icon to start Student Preview is next to the edit on/off (circled in the image below)

Student Preview

Other new features are Anonymous and Delegated Grading when using the Succeed assignment tool  — anonymous grading is already available when using Turnitin but not delegated grading.  Learn more about anonymous grading here and delegated grading here. In a perfect world, Turnitin would be integrated into the Succeed assignment tool and not a separate tool but the world isn’t perfect.

The majority of the changes are more technical, for instance the need to have an Apache web server has been dropped which improves  the performance of the system and should simplify its management. Also frames have been replaced by divs and iFrames (I did say technical!) which improves accessibility for users of screen readers and in the future will facilitate improvements to make the interface work better on smart phones and tablets. Some of the improvements were demonstrated at the BbWorld 2014 (Blackboard Conference) and have generated many positive comments on various email lists about the proposed new UI (user interface) being much slicker. The downside is that we won’t see these improvements at Stirling (assuming they make it into the product) until summer 2015.

Succeed 2014 / 15 – template or rollover ?

There are a couple of items to note regarding next semester’s modules in Succeed.

  1. The Library Resources / SLS links under the Learning Resources menu will be (or should be for rollovers) deleted as they are being moved to exploit some of the new functionality in Succeed that allows them to be easily updated.  Further information at:

https://e-learning.wordpress.stir.ac.uk/2014/06/23/community-and-content/

2. One thing for instructors to be aware of is the proposal below which comes about from student comments regarding redundant information and difficulty navigating in Succeed modules.  (The full document, of which this is the preamble, will be available in due course).

 Copying Succeed Course Content
Introduction

In order to keep modules tidy it has been proposed that a new version be created each time a course is taught.  Previously modules would have been “rolled over” with their entire content but as files are updated this leads to a cluttered file manager and perhaps outdated links.  It will still be possible to request rollover but the default will be a module based on a standard template for your division.

It is possible to reuse previous content by:
a)       copying some or all of the existing links into an existing (or newly created) module but with some caveats
b)       copying individual files across (either singly or multiples) and then creating a
link to those
c)       Recommended is using the NEW FEATURE:   the Content Collection   (this replaces the file manager)
The Content Collection provides central file storage for all content. When creating content for your course, you can link to items anywhere in the Content Collection. When you change an item in the Content Collection, all links to the item reflect those changes. Using the links in the Control Panel, you can access the content in your present course, in all courses you teach, in all of your organisations (eventually), or in all of the courses in the institution.  Thus, only one file needs to be maintained.

In order to organize material initially, instructors will need to maintain access to previous modules, however, it is possible to remove oneself after materials are recycled by going into the old module and then:
          1.  Course Management
          2.  Users and Groups
          3.  Users
          4.  Select your entry and then
          5.  Remove Users from Course
An error message results because you are no longer a member of that course but the module will disappear from the My Courses list in My Succeed.  (If you find that something has been forgotten your ELD rep can always restore access.)

If there are any queries please contact ELD.

Tips to tidy up your My Courses list in Succeed

Here are a couple of tips to help you tidy up your Course Listing in Succeed. You may find your ‘My Courses’ list is getting quite long. You can do the following couple of things to make this easier to navigate:

1) Turn off the list of Instructors/Announcements
Succeed shows you a list of people who are Instructors for a module, and previews of Announcements in that module. If you don’t need to see these you can hide them. The effect is to close up the gaps between courses in your listing. Here’s a Before and After shot:

Before and After - My Succeed

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To do this click the icon at the right hand end of the top of your ‘My Courses’ panel header:

My Courses link

 

 

All your courses are then listed on the next page. Alongside each course are some check boxes, one each for ‘Course Name’ (leave this selected, otherwise you won’t be able to see your course!), ‘Course ID’ (off by default and you have no need to show it), ‘Instructors’, ‘Announcements’ and ‘Tasks’. Merely remove the ticks in the check boxes to hide the Instructors and/or Announcements for the relevant modules. Scroll to the foot of the page and click ‘Submit’ to update your changes.