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<h2>Features</h2>
of the <a href="education.html">Education Module</a>
by <a href="http://web.mit.edu/randyg/www/">Randy Graebner</a>
and <a href="mailto:aileen@mit.edu">Aileen Tang</a>
<hr>
<blockquote>
Some of the high level features of the Education Module:
<p>
<b>Course Management</b>
<ul>
<p>
<li>Using simple web forms professors can create and administer a
class without using any HTML.
<p>
<li>Course administrators can make course materials avialable to
students simply by uploading files.
<p>
<li>Course administrators can grade student homework online, providing
comments and feedback that the students can see. In addition, all of
the graders will be able to input their information into a shared
grade book thus allowing for automatic grade calculations and
histograms.
<p>
<li>Permissions can be selectively set the permissions for the
administration pages. Thus, a professor can give Teaching Assistants
permission to add and remove students from the class but not grade the
assignments.
<p>
<li>Students can self enroll in the class and the professor has the
ability to limit enrollment or make a class private so that only users
enrolled in the class can see the class pages and assignments.
<p>
<li>Course administrators can email the only the teaching staff or
everyone in the class. All of these emails are archived so that they
may be references later.
<p>
<li>Every class can have multiple bulletin boards and news sections
using the build in functionality provided by the ArsDigita Community
System.
<p>
<li>Classes can be broken down into sections (recitations) and teams.
These subgroups of can then have their own threaded discussion forums
and chat rooms.
<p>
<li>Teams can be assigned to projects and can submit progress reports.
In addition, course administrators can submit team evaluations into
the grading system.
</ul>
<p>
<b>Departments</b>
<ul>
<p>
<li>Departments can easily create and display a course catalog to
students and faculty alike.
<p>
<li>Department administrators
Aggregated course
enrollment, course
announcements,
grades, and course
conten
Personal Tools
Editor (Tasks,
Calendar,
Contacts, etc.)
Course Cataloging
</ul>
<p>
<b>Personalization</b>
<ul>
<p>
<li>Users can keep the personal events in the system using the
calendar, provided as part of the portals system. The calendar allows
users to enter personal information that will appear on the same
calendar that contains all of the important datas for all of the
classes for which the user is subscribed.
<p>
<li>When viewing past assignments, students will see their grades and
comments left by the grader, if the grader selects the "show student"
option when filling out the grading form.
<p>
<li>When users log in, they see their customizable portal page. This
page is customizable so users can view information about all of their
classes on the same front page. This page provides the user with
easy access to information about their classes as well as important
information relating the the institute.
<p>
<li>Users with different roles within the system can be given
different views of the system. For instance, when a student logs in
they will see news about thier classes but when an administrator logs
in they will see information about when the next faculty meeting is.
</ul>
<b>Community</b>
<ul>
<li>The teaching staff can privately share documents among themselves
for review before allowing students to see the document. This allows
professors to collaboratively go through many drafts of an assignment
or its solutions before allowing the studnet to view it.
<p>
<li>The Bulletin Boards and Chat rooms have been set up so that each
class and recitation can have their own instance. So, recitations can
hold discussions on their own bulletin board and entire classes can
share the chat room to collaborate on assignments or study for tests.
<p>
<li>Users can easily be emailed based on their role within the system.
For instance, a professor can email the teaching staff or an entire
class. Or, the department can email all students taking a class
within the department.
<p>
<li>Most importantly, since the Education Module is tied in with the
rest of the ArsDigita Community System, where a more complete view of
the user can be seen. For instance, it is possible to view all public
postings to bulletin boards by a particular user. In addition, the
user can make themselves known to other uses by doing anything from
uploading a picture of themselves into their user profile to creating
their own personl homepage using the homepage module.
</ul>
<p>
<b>Other</b>
<ul>
<li>Auditing of data so you can see:
<ul>
<li>who made the changes
<li>when the changes were made
<li>what changed
<li>the history of all states the data have been in (so your data are never lost)
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p>
<b>What's Coming in Future Versions</b>
<ul>
<li>Multi roled departments so that administrators can easily manage
their members by lumping them into groups such as secreatries,
professors, students, and alumni.
<p>
<li>The ability to easily browse and search through classes and subjects.
<p>
<li>Using simple forms, the class administrator will be able to upload
desired information about students into the Oracle database. In
addition, department administrators will be able to perform bulk
upload of the classes offered during the coming semesters.
<p>
<li>Ability to download the personalized calendar into a palm pilot.
<p>
<li>Ability for professors to upload their own custom HTML pages that
will interact with the current system (right now, they prof can use
the homepage module to do this but we would like to provide an easy
way to tie the two modules together).
<p>
<li>Students and professors alike can search through uploaded course
material including handouts and presentation.
<p>
<li>Ability for students to privately annotate course material.
<p>
<li>The ability for professors to upload graphics to give each page a
custom look and feel for the class.
<p>
<li>we hope to tie this module in with the home pages and wimpy point
modules thus allowing students to create their home page within the
system as well as allowing professors to link lecture notes directly
to wimpy point presentations.
<p>
<li>Integration with the <a href="homepage.html">homepage</a> module
so that students and professors can create personal home pages. In
addition, this will provide more freedom for professors when creating
their class homepage.
<p>
<li>Integration with <a href="wp.html">wimpy point</a> so that
professors can easily create lectures online.
<p>
<li>Very distant future - the ability to administer exams online.
<p>
<li> and much, much more...if you have any suggestions, please email
them to us at the addresses below.
</ul>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<i>randyg@arsdigita.com</i>,
<i>aileen@mit.edu</i>
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