TAFE VC 3 Learning Management System - New Features And Enhancements
New Quick Start Page for Course Set-Up
Faculty can use the new Quick Start page in Blackboard Learning System – Vista Enterprise License (Vista) as a launching pad to rapidly set up their courses, quickly adding the communication, organisational, and learning activity tools they need most.
Interactive Student View
Vista 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 Vista, 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
In Vista, users have a My Files folder where they can store files privately. The My Files folder can be accessed from anywhere through My WebCT or through any course section. As they prepare their courses, 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
In Vista, 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
In Vista, 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
With Vista, 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
In Vista 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.
Innovative Ways to Deliver Personalized Content
Vista provides a highly
flexible model for instructors to efficiently
create personalized learning paths. Nearly every type of
content and activity in Vista — 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.
Vista
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. In Vista, 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 easily access and review all web links used within a course.
New Media Library
The Vista Media Library extends the Glossary functionality with powerful multi-media 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.
Advanced SCORM Object Support
With Vista, instructors can rapidly integrate SCORM content into their courses, giving them new options for incorporating rich content to create dynamic learning experiences for their students. When students view SCORM objects in Vista, their activity is tracked. Grades for any assessment or assignment included in the SCORM object are automatically recorded in the Vista Grade Book.
New Announcements Tool
Vista 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
Vista 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 Options
Vista 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
The Discussions tool in Vista is 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
Vista 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 WebCT.
New Who's Online Tool
Vista 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.
New 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
Vista includes four new question types for all assessments: combination multiple choice, true-false, jumbled-sentence, and fill-in-the-blank.
Additional Grading Options
Vista 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
Vista 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 Vista 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 Assignment Set-Up Options
With Vista, 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 Assignment 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 Assignment Submission
The Vista 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.
Assignment Submission Publishing
Instructors, and optionally students, have the ability to publish completed assignment submissions in Vista so that the entire class can see them and learn from them.
Easier Management of Assignment Submissions
The Vista 4.0 Assignment Dropbox organizes assignments in one central place so that instructors can easily see which assignments have been submitted, which have not been submitted, graded, nor 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 Assignment Review
Vista 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.
Innovations in Group Management
The new Group Manager in Vista 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.
New Group Sign-Up Sheets
With the addition of group sign-up sheets in Vista, students can be given the option of joining their own class groups. Group sign-up sheets enhance WebCT's 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 Console
Vista adds a central grading area
to the Discussions tool.
Instructors can easily 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.
Spreadsheet-style Grade Book
Instructors can access the Vista 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.
Easy Tracking of Grade Changes
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 Student Activity Tracking
With Vista, 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.
Access to Student Activity Reports Using PeopleLinks
In addition to contacting students using PeopleLinks, instructors can access student performance statistics by clicking on a student's name wherever it appears with an assignment submission, in the discussions area, in the Grade Book, and other areas.
New Summary Reports with Graphs
Vista 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.
Administration
Vista provides many important new features and enhancements that allow WebCT administrators to effectively and efficiently manage the system for their institution. Vista is built on an updated technical infrastructure with a relational database and is designed to ensure data integrity, reliably support growing e-learning deployments, and deliver an outstanding experience for all users.
Relational Database Support
Vista runs on a relational database.
Easier-to-Navigate Administrator Interface
Vista provides significant enhancements to the administrator interface. To get to the interface, administrators need simply to log in to My WebCT and click the Administration tab — a central place where administrators can conveniently access the tools they need to manage their Vista deployment. Administrators also have access to the Content Manager and User Manager tabs, making it easy to navigate through options in these key areas.
Distinct Courses and Sections
In Vista, 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.
Distinct Designer and Instructor Roles
In Vista, the designer and instructor roles are separate. Designers have access to all of the tools they need for course section 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 on an ongoing basis and interact with students, but do not see the palette of course design tools. Individuals can be assigned one or both roles. Each individual enrolled as a designer and/or instructor for a course section will appear to students under his or her own name.
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 Vista, there is a new learner role called the Auditor. Auditors can fully participate in a course just like a student, but they do not receive mid-term or final grades.
New Help Desk Roles
Vista includes a set of pre-configured help-desk roles to make it easy for administrators to quickly set up help-desk users. There is no need to configure permissions each time you enroll a new help-desk user; administrators can just select the appropriate help-desk roles.
Ability to Retain Grade Book Data for Un-Enrolled Users
Data can be retained in the Grade Book for un-enrolled users in Vista. Instructors can choose whether to hide or show that data.
New Administrative Options for File Management
Administrators can manage files easily in Vista. Administrators have the ability to delete any folder, to filter by file type, to delete multiple links efficiently, and to create quotas by user type for the new My Files area.
Automatic Browser Checker
The Browser Checker in Vista works behind the scenes whenever a user logs in. A pop-up window appears whenever an issue is detected. It can be easily re-configured to support new browsers and plug-ins via an editable XML file.
Enhanced System Reporting
Vista provides administrators with new information for managing their Vista 4.0 deployment including Long-Term and Short-Term ("snapshot") reporting logs providing a wealth of diagnostic and reporting data, including the number of courses and sections, number of users and enrollments, and table size data for the system. Administrators can also access reports that provide insight on the size of sections, the percentage of sections using various tools. They can also run reports on the total number of chat rooms, learning modules, questions, discussions, and other items.
Enhanced Back Up and Restore
Vista provides the option to create online backups of section data into specialized database tables resulting in a faster backup and restore process. Sections can be backed up individually or in batch.
Application Server Auto-Install
Vista includes
the BEA WebLogic application server. The
Vista installer
will
automatically install the application server without additional
work
by the administrator.
