What's New for Faculty in CE 6?

Interactive Student View

CE6 includes one-click access to an interactive student view so that faculty can instantly check their work, experiencing their course exactly as their students will. Instructors can review content, submit assignments, and take quizzes just as students would, without manually updating the student view, logging in separately, or impacting course tracking data.

Easy Content Upload

With CE6, instructors can easily move files—more than one at a time if desired—from their computer into their courses. Instructors can move files using intuitive desktop-style navigation and place them directly on a page, in a folder, or in a learning module for presentation in their courses.

New My Files Area

Users have a My Files folder where they can store files privately. The My Files folder can be accessed from anywhere through My Courses or through any course section. Instructors can conveniently access and organize content that they use in their courses using any computer connected to the Internet. Students also have a My Files area where they can store and access files related to their coursework.

Distinct Designer and Instructor Roles

The designer and instructor roles are separate. Each designer for a course can be given a distinct identity. Designers have access to all of the tools they need for course design, but do not have access to instructional tools, such as the Grade Book. Instructors have access to all of the tools they need to manage courses and interact with students, but do not see the palette of course design tools. Individuals can be assigned one or both roles.

Distinct Courses and Sections

There are distinct areas for courses and sections, mirroring the way educational institutions operate. This makes it easier to set up multisection courses since settings can be defined at the course level and applied across sections.

New Link Annotations Feature

Instructors can annotate links on course pages. For example, an instructor could annotate the icons and links on the course homepage to give students a better sense of what is available in each of the associated areas.

New Course Content Area

All Folders (formerly Organizers) can be easily accessed with a single click through the Course Content area. Folders can be used to organize and present materials, such as lecture notes or readings, and can now also include links to specific activities, such as an assignment or discussion topic. The Course Content area makes it easy to expand and collapse folders for improved navigation and greater visibility of content.

Personalized Content Delivery

CE6 provides a highly flexible model for instructors to create personalized learning paths. Nearly every type of content and activity in CE5—including individual assignments, discussion topics, chat rooms, and media library collections—can be selectively released to individuals or groups of students. Instructors have the option of adding multiple types of release criteria to a single item and combining the criteria using Boolean logic for maximum flexibility. CE6 also includes a new Selective Release tool where instructors can manage all personalization options from a central location and can view selective release criteria by student.

New Learning Module Functionality

The Content Module functionality has been expanded to provide more robust Learning Module functionality, making it easier for instructors to present materials in an engaging manner. Specific activities such as individual assignments or discussion topics can be included in learning modules so that students navigate them via a defined sequence. If instructors wish, they can personalize the path students take through these materials. For convenient offline studying, students can click the "Printable View" button to save or print the content of any learning module.

More Flexible Web Links

Previously called URLs, Web Links can now be annotated anywhere they are added to a course. Whenever a web link is added to a course, it is automatically added to a comprehensive Web Links page, giving instructors and students a central place to access and review all web links used within a course.

New Media Library

The CE6 Media Library extends the Glossary functionality with powerful multimedia capabilities. Instructors can create multimedia collections of terms, definitions, or images related to specific course topics. These terms can be automatically hyperlinked to words throughout the course content. Whenever a student clicks on these terms, a window will pop up displaying the "definition," which can include text, an image, or a media file.

Announcements Tool

CE6 includes an Announcements tool that lets instructors deliver important information to course and section members instantaneously. Instructors can send a tailored announcement to all users with a particular role (for example, all students or all teaching assistants). Instructors have the flexibility of choosing where or how announcements will be delivered (for example, automatic pop-up in the course). Announcements can also be created in advance for delivery at a later time.

Integrated Chat and Whiteboard

CE6 combines Chat and Whiteboard into a single integrated Chat tool that offers a great degree of flexibility. Instructors have many new options when setting up chat and whiteboard rooms, including the ability to mute or deny access, the option to use the new "hand raise" mode, and the option to upload, save, and create slides using the whiteboard (which includes full drawing capabilities).

New Discussion Management

CE6 includes new discussion management options, including the ability to add instructions for each discussion topic, edit postings, and re-order discussion topics and categories.

Easier Discussion Navigation

Discussions are easier to navigate than ever before, making it simple for students and faculty alike to communicate and find the information they are looking for. Users have the ability to sort any discussion topic by message subject, author, or date and can "expand all" to view all posts within a topic. Once a user makes a post, the list of discussion postings is automatically updated.

Enhanced Mail System

CE6 includes an updated mail system that incorporates a range of standard e-mail features, including the ability to send mail to groups. Users can also access a global view of mail categorized by course through My Courses.

Who's Online Tool

CE6 incorporates a Who's Online tool that allows course participants to see who else is logged in to the course at a given time and chat with them, facilitating greater instructor-to-student and peer-to-peer communication. Instructors have the option of masking their online status if they do not wish to make their presence known at a given time.

PeopleLinks Feature

With the addition of PeopleLinks, students and instructors can click a student or faculty member's name anywhere it appears in a course and send an e-mail to that person, making it easier than ever for students to communicate with each other and with their instructors.

New Question Types

CE6 includes four new question types for all assessments: combination multiple choice, true-false, jumbled-sentence, fill-in-the-blank.

Additional Grading Options

CE6 features two new grading options. With grade-by-question, instructors can quickly see every student response to a particular question, allowing them to evaluate specific responses in the context of those provided by other students. With anonymous grading, instructors can evaluate student responses anonymously making grading more efficient while helping to minimize the chance of bias.

Simplified Assessment Creation

CE6 makes it easier to create assessments, including a new option for organizing assessments into different sections and grouping questions by concept to enhance the presentation to students. By clicking on the "preview" tab, instructors can "road test" their assessments, take a quiz and experience it just as their students will.

Easier Management of Assessment Submissions

The Assessment Manager organizes assessment submissions so that instructors can easily see which submissions are complete, which need review or grading, and which have not been submitted yet.

New Setup Options

Faculty can create individual assignments, group assignments, or custom assignments with different instructions for each individual or group receiving the assignment. Instructors can also specify different options for returning assignments, including responding only with text, with an attachment, or with a web link. When designating assignment due dates, faculty have the option of including a "grace period."

Iterative Review

Once instructors receive an assignment submission, they have the option of returning it to a student or group without a grade but with comments and additional attachments (such as a marked up version of the original submission). Students can then resubmit the same assignment. This process can continue iteratively until the instructor determines that the assignment has been completed.

Convenient Submission

The Assignments tool lets students save their work so that they can come back later, work on it more, and submit it only when they are ready. Once they have submitted their assignments, students can also be given the option to recall their submission if they change their mind and want to make additional modifications.

Submission Publishing

Instructors, and optionally students, have the ability to publish completed assignment submissions so that the entire class can see them and learn from them.

Easier Submission Management

The Assignment Dropbox organizes assignments in one central place so that instructors can see which assignments have been submitted, which have not been submitted, graded, or published. Instructors can then sort by assignment name, student name, or date submitted. This makes it easy for instructors to target communications to specific groups of students.

Offline Review

CE6 lets instructors select multiple assignment submissions, save them as ZIP files, and download them for offline review. This saves time and makes it easier for instructors to review and return assignments to students.

Group Management

The new Group Manager in CE6 makes it easy for instructors to create and manage class groups. Instructors have access to a central Group Manager tool where they can create groups and set up private group discussion boards and chat rooms in one easy step.

Group Sign-Up

With the addition of group sign-up sheets, students can be given the option of joining their own class groups. Group sign-up sheets enhance collaborative functionality, offering a new way to engage students in a dynamic, interactive learning process. Instructors also have the option of allowing students to see who has already signed up in each group.

Discussion Grading

CE6 adds a central grading area to the Discussions tool. Instructors can assemble and review a student's posted messages, review total participation versus the class average, and assign a grade to each student that is automatically recorded in the Grade Book. This saves instructors time and lets them efficiently evaluate participation in class discussions.

New Gradebook

Instructors can access the Grade Book with a single click from anywhere in a course. The Grade Book provides spreadsheet-style ease for organizing and managing information. For example, students' first and last names are frozen into place as an instructor scrolls through the Grade Book, making it easier to locate and view specific grades. Instructors also have easy access to key statistics for each column in the Grade Book (including average, median, maximum, minimum, and standard deviation), which offers a quick snapshot of class performance on a particular item.

Grade Change Tracking

Instructors can override any grade recorded in the Grade Book, including quiz grades. When a grade is changed, it is automatically marked as such, creating an audit history of grade changes. Instructors can also add notes or comments to explain grade changes as necessary.

Expanded Activity Tracking

Student activity tracking has been significantly expanded to include new information that can be viewed per student or per student per session. New events tracked include number of Mail messages read, Calendar entries viewed, Media Library collections and entries viewed, files viewed, pages viewed in folders, number of assessments and assignments started and completed, and total time spent on assignments and assessments.

Summary Reports

CE6 includes reports that contain summary information for a course section with details on total sessions, session length, and most active hours and days. This information can be viewed in table format and can be displayed graphically as well.

Distinct Courses and Sections

In CE6, there are distinct organizational levels for courses and sections, mirroring the way educational institutions operate. This makes it easier to set up multi-section courses since settings can be defined at the course level and applied across multiple sections.

New Course Instructor Role

The Course Instructor role makes it more efficient to distribute administration of multicourse sections to multiple people involved in managing large courses. Course instructors can manage settings at the course level for multiple associated sections.

New Auditor Role

In CE6, there is a new learner role called the Auditor. Auditors can participate fully in a course just like a student, but they do not receive midterm or final grades.