The CreateCourse applet is used by the teachers to:

• How to start
• Create new courses.
• Delete already existing courses/subjects (course is the same as subject).
• Register students to a course.
• Edit the data of students already registered to a course.
• Add access to other teachers.
• Remove their own access to courses.
• Get information about a course and which teachers that do have access to it.

A course is the basic data structure in the distance education package. For a teacher to be able to create question pages in the MakePage applet and read the results in the ReadAnswerApplet, he/she has got to have one or more courses belonging to him/her.

There is also brief step by step information available in the CreateCourseApplet itself. This information is available in the panel Info.

Related topics:

• Student syntax.
• Choose a course.
• Help for the MakePage applet
• Help for the ReadAnswer applet

How to start

Select the appropiate link (depending on the browser and if a Plug-in is used or not) from the systems start page. The applet will then start loading. Please be pacient as the loading might take a while. The time it takes depends on your Internet connection. When the applet is loaded a username/password window dialogue will be showed. Enter the username and password given to you by the system administrator and press the Ok button. After a few seconds the applet will have loaded the necessary information from the server and the applet will be shown. You can start working with it immediately.

Creation of new courses/subjects:

A new course is created as follows:

1  Enter the panel Create Course shown in fig.1.
2  Click the Create New Course button (a new dialog window will now appear, fig.2).
3  Write the name of the new course in the field marked as Course Name field in fig.2.
4  Click the Ok button in the dialog window.

The applet will now try to contact the server to create the files and directories needed for the course and to add the new course to the teachers access list. When this is done a message about the success/failure of the creation will appear in the text area in fig.1. A similar message will as usual be shown in the status bar of the browser too. If the new course was created successfully, registration and editing of the course is now possible.

The rules for the name of a new course are:

• No white spaces in the name.
• No "&"- or "?"-sign in the name.

Deletion of courses/subjects:

Note: A course and a subject is the same thing. "subject" is used in the password dialogue, but course is used in the rest of the applet.

It is possible to delete courses after they have been created. If the teacher only wants to remove its own access to the course and the course is to remain on the server (i.e. there exists another teacher with access to the course, who don't want the course to be removed). For information about that, refer to Removing access from a course.

Note: A deletion of a course deletes everything related to the course created on the server, such as:

• The HTML pages (QuestionPages) created in the MakePage applet.
• The results/answers of the students.
• The access to the course for all the teachers with access to the course.

A course is deleted as follows:

1  Enter the panel Create Course shown in fig.1.
2  Mark the course to be deleted, which is done by a click on the course in the course list in fig.1.
3  Click the Delete button (a new dialog window will now appear, fig.3).
4  Click the Ok button in the dialog window.

The applet will now try to contact the server to delete the files and directories related to the course and to remove the new course to the access lists of the teachers who had access to the course. When this is done a message about the success/failure of the deletion will appear in the text area in fig.1. A similar message will as usual be shown in the status bar of the browser too. If the course was deleted successfully the actual course (the current chosen course) will be the first one in the course list (see fig.1).

Back to top

Registration of students:
 
If a student will be able to answer question pages related to a course, the student must first have been registered to the course for which he/she would like to answer the questions. Anyone can access the question pages done, but for a student to be able to save the answers on the server he/she must have been registered, if not registered and still answering, an error message will appear.

A registration is done as follows:

1  Choose the course for which registration of students should be performed, in the panel Choose Course.
2  Enter the panel Register Students shown in fig.4.
3  Write the data for the students in the text area using the student syntax.
4  Click the Register button.

If data for a student registered where incorrectly interpreted (e.g. if the cedula number or the name of the student where incorrect), just double click on the student for which the data was wrong given and the panel Edit Students will be shown with the possibility to correct the data for the student.

If there is text in the text area (e.g. an error message or old registration data for students) and a new registration is to be done, click the Clear button and the text area will be cleared.

Back to top

Editing of students data

If the data for a student is wrong, then it is possible to update the old data. A student could also be deleted from a course.

Changing data for a student is done as follows:

1  Choose the course for which editing of students data should be performed, in the panel Choose Course.
2  Enter the panel Edit Students shown in fig.5.
3  Follow either step I:
I.1 Mark the student for whom the change will take place, which is done by a click on the student in the student list in fig.5.
I.2 Click the Edit Students Data button.
    or step II:
II Double click the student for whom the change will take place.
The data for the student will now appear below the Edit Students Data and the Delete Student buttons with possibility to type in changes in the label New Data using the student syntax.
4  Click the Commit button if you want the change to take place and the Cancel button if not.

Back to top

Adding access to other teachers

When a course is first created, the access to the course is given to the teacher creating it. If for example the course is held by two teachers who both wants to have the possibility to register/edit students, create question pages for the students, read the answers/results of the question pages that the students have given, then it is necessary for both the teachers to have access to the course on the server.

A teacher with access to a course can give access to other teachers (who are registered as users on the server and thus have a user name and a password). To see which the teachers are that have access to a course see To get information about a course.

To give access to another teacher:

1  Choose the course to be given access to in the panel Choose Course.
2  Enter the panel Edit Course shown in fig.6.
3  Click the Add new user button (a new dialog window will now appear, fig.7).
4  Type in the user name of the other teacher you would like to give access to in the field for the user name (fig.7).
5  Click the Ok button in the dialog window (fig.7).
6  To give access to more teachers, repeat the procedure starting at step 2.

The applet will now try to contact the server to give the teacher access to the course. When this is done a message about the success/failure of the deletion will appear in the text area in fig.7. A similar message will as usual be shown in the status bar of the browser too.

Back to top

Removing access from a course

Note: No one can remove someone else's access to a course.

If there are more than one teacher who have access a course and no longer wants to have access to the course and at least one of the other teachers who still want the course to exist, then the teacher who no longer want access to the course should remove it's access to the course and not delete the whole course. If on the other hand the course actually should be completely deleted from the server then see Deletion of courses/subjects.

A teacher with access to a course can give access to other teachers (who are registered as users on the server and thus have a user name and a password). To see which the teachers are that have access to a course see To get information about a course.

To remove the access from a course:

1  Choose the course from which the access should be removed in the panel Choose Course.
2  Enter the panel Edit Course shown in fig.6.
3  Click the Remove your access button (a new dialog window will now appear, fig.8).
4  Click the Ok button in the dialog window (fig.8).

The applet will now try to contact the server to remove the access from the course. When this is done a message about the success/failure of the removal will appear in the text area in fig.6. A similar message will as usual be shown in the status bar of the browser too.

Note: If the access to a course was incorrectly removed, then another teacher with access to the course could give new access to the course and/or if there are no other teachers with access to the course the administrator of the database could be contacted to grant new access to the course.

Back to top

To get information about a course

The information available about a course is:

• The students registered to the course.
• The date and hour of the creation of the course.
• The teachers with access to the course.

1  Choose the course for which to view the students registered in the panel Choose Course.
2  Enter the panel Edit Course or the panel Register Students.

To see the date and hour of the creation of a course and the teachers with access to a course:

1  Choose the course for which to view the information in the panel Choose Course.
2  Enter the panel Edit Course shown in fig.6.
3  Click the Info of course button.

Back to top

Student syntax

The syntax for registering/editing student data have to follow these rules:

• The first parameter should be the cedula number.
• The second parameter should be the first name of the student.
• The third parameter should be the last name of the student.

Examples:

1  100 Juan Rodriguez
2  100;Juan;Rodriguez
3  100 Juan;Rodriguez
4  100;Juan Rodriguez

When registering more than one student, each student should be typed in on a new line.

Back to top

To register/edit students, add new user, remove access and get information about a course, the course must first be chosen in the panel Choose Course.

To choose a course:

1  Enter the panel Choose Course.
2  Follow either step I:
I.a  Mark the course to be accessed, in the course list.
I.b  Click the Ok button.
    or step II:
II  Double click the course to be accessed, in the course list.