I cannot easily add a student or two or three.

You can't add students. Period. They come from the registrar's office every morning.

I'm trying to add myself as a student, but I can't get past the first page. I gave my office email, and various one-word and two-word user names, but the response is "invalid user name".

You can't add yourself as a "student" in the top box. You can't add students.

You CAN add yourself as a guest in the second box and give yourself the role of student. To do so, you use an email address as the guest name. Make sure it is NOT the same email address you use for your instructor account, or you'll lose your instructor role. Also, be sure to have an email sent to let you know what your password is. That's on the 3rd (last) page.

(See information about Guests below to set up a "fake student" account for your own use.)

Can we delete students from the roster (like inactive students)?

NO! Please do not remove students from your site roster and lose all evidence for what they have done in case of disputes, incompletes, and other issues. Unfortunately, I can't take that feature away from you without also removing the active/inactive box - which I DO want all of you to have as it shows you who is enrolled or dropped in the course. It's valuable information for faculty; it gets updated every morning.

If you want to 'drop' students from your course, please follow proper procedures and drop them with Admissions & Records. That is where registration issues should be handled (adds and drops). The next morning after students are dropped, with the next morning's reg data update on our servers, any student who was dropped with Admissions will lose access to your site. You will see them marked as "Inactive" in your site info.

I can't seem to do anything to edit students. How would I modify their first names from the legal, but unused name like Jin-Ying, to the name they really use, like Emily?

You can't edit students. It's their private account. They can edit their own information in their MyWorkspace >>Account. Students can edit their name (first and/or last), password, and email address.

How might I reset students' passwords for them if they forget?

You cannot reset a student's password. Nobody has access to passwords. It's a private and secure system. Sys admins can reset them upon request. We'll set up a "forgot your password?" feature by June.

What are Guest Accounts

I want to clarify some things with regard to the Guest account feature of ETUDES-NG.

How do I add guests (non-registered users)?

To add guests:

  1. Go to Site Info >> Add Participant.
  2. Add the email address of the individual you want to give access to your site (SECOND TEXT WINDOW). It must be a valid email address.
  3. Finish the process, MAKING SURE that you select the radio button that says "send email to user," or they won't get the password the system assigns for them to log on! Their email address will be their username.

I've added a guest and randomly selected a username. A couple of guests did get added, but a couple others did not as I got an error stating that I've selected an invalid username. Are there parameters for usernames?

You don't have the ability to add standard student accounts (usernames). All user accounts that represent registered students in a class will be loaded into your site via a batch file from your college's registration system to be coordinated with our team at Foothill and your IT staff.

You can add guests , however. This is anyone you might want to visit or access your class who is NOT a registered student. Guests are added by you with their email addresses - NOT with a typical username. I suppose we can say that the username of guests IS their email address. They get added via Site Info >> add participants (second box).

A Clarification of Guests:

  1. You can add guests and give them the role of guest, student or faculty
  2. You add a guest by adding their email address. It MUST be a real email address - and definitely NOT yours. If you use your email account, the system will think that identity theft is going on and not let you act as faculty anymore.
  3. When you add a guest, using their email address, in the following screens you must check "send email" (or something like that), so that they can receive an email with their password. Then they   can log on to your site using their email as the username and the password they received.
  4. When you add a guest using their email, you are asked to assign a role (the privileges you want to give them). Typically, you will want them to be guests. But, you might have a fellow lecturer coming in whom you might want to participate in discussions, so you might check the "student" role. You might want a colleague to come in and help you grade. You could give him the "faculty" role.

So, don't confuse the term guest with the traditional meaning of the word. Guests are non-registered users added with their email address, but they can be given any role supported by the system.

If I give someone guest access to the site how do I tell them to log in?

When you add a guest, you use a valid email address. Then be sure to click on the option to have their password sent to notify them they've been added to the course. They will receive an email with the password to log on. Their email is their userid.

Please see the section under Site Info in Modules (left) for information on adding guests (external participants or visitors - non-registered students) to your site.

I did not get an email notification yet. How soon should it take?

Instantly. Or at least within a few minutes. I have heard of it taking as much as 15 minutes, but it shouldn't take that long normally.

Guest students are very important to me for forming and testing my courses, so the ability to delete them is also important. The good news is that if I delete a fake student his name and scores seem to drop off of the gradebook and the test tool. However, the bad news is that his name does not drop off of the assignment scores tool.

Over time, tools will be better aligned, as we (teams) work closer together and see user responses to the functionality. Right now, you cannot delete assignment score for students. In most of the application, even removing a student from the course does NOT completely remove his/her records from the database. No harm is really done if you see fake students in your gradebook. When you export it in Excel at the end of the term, you just delete their column. When things slow down here, I want us to set you all up with a permanent "play" site for testing things out.

Will guests always be identified with their email addresses and not by name?

Yes, guests are always identified by their email address, and are added in the second window.

If I add a participant and assign them the status of "student" instead of "guest" will they be able to take exams & quizzes? If I add a participant and assign them the role of "guest" can I then go and change their status to "student"?

"Yes" to both of your questions.

I noticed this line in the module: You can manually add participants to your site ONLY if they are in the system (registered at the school). If I use a shell at a college that isn't an alliance member (I have my own membership), I assume I'm allowed to add my students manually following the instructions for adding guests (by using their email addresses for their user names), yes??!?

No, you can't add students manually. You will have to work with us (yours truly) to get me your roster in the right file format, if no IT person can provide that for you.

Why should I have Site Info in my course site? It takes up space on the left nav menu.

Site Info is no longer optional. It is the only tool in your toolbox that you can't remove from the list.

3/16/06