Oncourse CL course sites, practice course sites, and project sites: Overview

What they are

• Course sites: A course site is the official work site for a particular academic course for an institution and can be linked to a database (such as a registrar's) to automatically populate its roster.
  
  
• Practice course sites: A practice course site emulates course site functionality so instructors can practice and prepare for future classes they may teach. To populate the roster, use the Site Setup tool to add participants and assign roles.

  Practice course sites are available for instructors and their support staff who want to familiarize themselves with Oncourse CL's course management and support features and to experiment with course development and organization.

  To request a practice course site, submit the request form.

  Note: Students are not eligible to create practice course sites.

• Project sites: Project sites are designed to facilitate collaboration. You can invite anyone you wish to join your project site.

  Any faculty or staff member can request a project site to use as a site for collaboration on project, committee, or research work.

  Students are eligible to set up project sites, but must have faculty or staff sponsors fill out and submit the request forms (i.e., students cannot submit request forms themselves).

  To request a project site, submit the request form.

Key concepts

Customization: Using a web browser, you can choose from features and functions to create course, practice course, and project sites that meet your needs. Here are some examples:

• A course web site where students can work on and submit assignments
  
  
• A practice course site where you simulate an online class
  
  
• A web site where an instructor or project director can make announcements and share resources, such as documents or links to other web sites
  
  
• A web site that serves as an online discussion board

My Workspace: When you log in, you will automatically open a site called My Workspace. All users get their own My Workspace site.

Tabs: When you log in, the course and project sites to which you belong are displayed as tabs across the top of the screen. To enter a site, click its tab. If you belong to more sites than can be displayed as tabs, those sites are accessible from the - more - drop-down list.

Note: You can choose to hide sites (e.g., course sites from previous semesters) or reorder them (i.e., choose which sites to display in tabs) using the Preferences tool in My Workspace. For instructions, see Showing, hiding, and ordering course and project sites.

Menubar: Course sites, practice course sites, and project sites can have just a few or several functions (including announcements, a calendar, an online discussion area, assignments, electronic resources, a chat area, and more). When you create a site, you choose which tools to include, and they are added to the menubar along the left side of the screen. To access a tool, click its name in the menubar. Sites also have a "home page", which you can access by clicking Home in the menubar.

Things to consider

• For best results, use one of the following browsers:
  
  
  • Windows:
    
    • Internet Explorer 6.0 and newer
    • Netscape 7.1 and newer
    • Mozilla Firefox
    
    
  • Macintosh:
    
    • Netscape 7.1 and newer
    • Mozilla Firefox
    
    
  • Other platforms:
    
    • Netscape 7.1 and newer
    • Mozilla Firefox

  Current versions of Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer for Windows and Macintosh are available to Indiana University students, faculty, and staff via IUware Online.

  On March 1, 2008, AOL ended official development of and support for Netscape software. If you use Netscape, consider switching to Mozilla programs such as Firefox, Thunderbird, or SeaMonkey. You can still download releases of Netscape from 4.x through 9.x from the Netscape Archive, and you may be able to find unofficial support through links on this site. UITS will continue to support Netscape for the present.

Help documentation

For help documentation about course and project sites, see Oncourse CL course and project sites: Help contents.