During-Semester Checklist

This page contains an administrative checklist to help you cover the steps you may want to take for your WebVista course site as you teach over a semester.

Demo Your Site for Students

The first day of class you may want to familiarize your students with your site. Give them sample discussions, assignments, and assessments to submit to make sure their browser is properly configured and they are comfortable using the tool.

Solve Content Problems

If students experience problems with content in your site, try the following.

• Have them review the Browser Set Up information.
• Provide links so students can download appropriate Content Plugins to view files in different formats that are included on your site.
• Verify other content problems in the Student View.
• Refer to Fixing Content Problems for how to deal with commonly reported problems. See the WebVista Materials handed out in UTTC short courses for more detailed information about fixing content.

Manage Columns and Student Data in the Grade Book

Use the Grade Book to manage student grades and enrollment information. See the WebVista Materials handed out in UTTC short courses for information about setting up and using the Grade Book.

Access the Grade Book

1. Select the Teach tab in your WebVista course site.
2. Under Instructor Tools, click the Grade Book button.

Some activities you may want perform in the Grade Book during a semester include:

• hide and reorder columns,
• manually enter student grades, and
• release grade columns to students.

Create Columns

WebVista’s discussion, assignment, and assessment tools automatically create columns in the Grade Book. For other gradable class activities you can manually create columns.

1. In the upper left of the Grade Book click the Create Column button, then click the type of column you want to create.

   Column types:

   • Alphanumeric columns allow you to enter numbers or text.
   • Calculated columns allow you to specify a formula (that
   • Letter grade columns allow you to calculate a letter grade based on the numeric values of another column.
   • Numeric columns allow you to enter numbers only.
   • Selection list columns allow you to specify one or more text values that can then be selected.
   • Text columns allow you to enter text only.
   can include other numeric columns) to come up with a numeric value.
   • Grading Form columns allow you to display the numeric result of a grading form that you created.


2. Each column type has different options. See the WebVista Materials handed out in UTTC classes for step-by-step instructions.

Hide and Reorder Columns

Columns can be reordered or hidden in any of the Grade Book tabs. Reordering or hiding columns in any of the tabs except the View All tab will only affect the instructor view of the grade book. The ordering of columns in the View All tab affects the ordering of items in the student’s My Grades tool, but not the item’s visibility. To make columns hidden or visible to students, see Hide or Release Grade Columns from/to Students below.

Reordering Columns

1. In the tab you want to customize, click the Reorder Columns button in the upper right.
2. Select the checkbox for the columns you want to move.
3. Click the Move Selected Items Above ()icon that is at the row below the column where you want to move the selected items.
4. Click Save.

Hiding Columns

1. In the tab you want to customize, click the Reorder Columns button in the upper right.
2. Select the checkboxes for columns you want to hide.
3. Click the Hide button. (You can also change the Visible setting to NO for any individual row.)
4. Click Save.

Manually Enter Student Grades

Grades for discussion postings, assignments, and assessments are entered automatically in the Grade Book. Instructors and teaching assistants can manually enter grades. You can enter or change:

• data for multiple students,
• one item for a single student, and
• multiple items for a single student.

Enter or Change Data for Multiple Students

Changing data for a column is useful when you wish to enter the grades for all or many students for a particular activity.

1. Click the title at the top of a column and choose Edit values from the drop down menu.
2. Under Current Value Change To enter your first student score.
3. Use the Tab key to move to the next student(s). Enter scores for the remaining students.
4. Add Comments for any student. Note that these comments are visible to instructors only.
5. Click the Save button.

Enter or Change One Item for a Single Student

1. Locate the row for the student for whom you want to enter grades.
2. Scroll to the right and find the column for which you want to enter a grade.
3. Click in the cell in that column for that student.
4. In the Edit Value for screen enter or change the score.
5. Add Comments if you are changing the score. Note that these comments are visible to instructors only.
6. Click the Save button.

Change Multiple Items for Single Student

You can enter or change multiple items for one student at the same time.

1. Click the last name of the student for whom you want to enter grades.
2. From the drop down menu click Edit Member.
3. From the Edit Member screen enter grades for that student using the Tab key to move to the next item.
4. Click the Save button.

Hide or Release Grade Columns from/to Students

Grades from WebVista tools are not always automatically released to students. Instructors can manually release grades to students.

1. In the Grade Book, above the member table on the right, click Grade Book Options button.
2. Select the Column Settings.
3. In the first column of the table look for the row called Released to Student.

   You can hide or release:

   • individual columns,
   • multiple columns, and
   • all columns.

Releasing Individual Columns

1. Locate the column you want to hide or release.
2. In its Released to Student row, click No. The value is updated to Yes. Any grade in the column is not visible to students in the My Grades tool.

Releasing Multiple Columns

1. In the table-heading row, for each column that you want to release, select the check box.
2. Click the Release button. Grades in all the selected columns are now released to students in the My Grades tool.

Hiding or Releasing All Columns

1. Next to Select All/None, select the check box. All columns are selected.
2. Click the Release button. Grades in all the selected columns are now released to students in the My Grades tool.

Communicate with Students

WebVista has a number of tools you can use to communicate with your students. See the WebVista Materials handed out in UTTC classes for information on setting up and using communications tools.

Access Communications Tools

1. In your WebVista site click the Teach tab.
2. From the Course Tools area, click the communications tool (announcements, calendar, discussions, mail, chat) that you want to access.

Some communications activities you may want perform during a semester include:

• prevent students from creating public calendar entries.
• create a printable view of calendar postings.
• inform students of guidelines for discussion or chat participation.
• lock a discussion top to prevent students from making additional postings.
• grade student postings to a discussion topic.
• release discussion grades to students.
• compile and download discussion postings.

Prevent Students from Creating Public Calendar Entries

By default, students in a WebVista site have the ability to create public calendar entries. This option can be disabled.

1. From the Course Tools click the Calendar link.
2. Click the Calendar Settings button.
3. Under Section Settings deselect Allow Student public entries.
4. Click the Save button.

Create a Printable View of Calendar Entries

If you want to back up all the public and calendar entries from a course site, you can use Printable View.

1. Above the calendar click the Create Printable View button.
2. Select a date range for your class. The Time Range by default covers 24 hours, so unless you want to limit the entries included, don't change the start and end time.
3. Under Course Selection, select the radio button for either:
   • Show entries from all my courses, or
   • Only show entries from these courses.
4. If you selected Only show entries from these courses, deselect the course you don't want to include.
5. Under Access Level select the radio button for one of the following:
   • private entries only,
   • public entries only, or
   • both private and public entries (default).
6. Click Continue.
7. Click the Print button. (Mac users will be prompted to click Command+p.) If you want to save the entries to a file you will have to select the printable view and copy and paste it into a word processing document.
8. Click Cancel when finished.

Inform Students of Guidelines for Discussion or Chat Participation

Before asking students to participate in a discussion, you will need to inform them about expected behavior, participation guidelines, and whether or not their postings will be graded. This information can be added to the discussion topic when it is created. For long discussion postings, we recommend that people create the message in a word processing program and copy and paste into WebVista.

See the Practicing Good Netiquette and Participating in the Learning Community Student Support pages on this site.

Lock a Discussion Topic to Prevent Students from Posting

After students have posted to a discussion topic for a while, you may want to lock the topic to prevent additional postings. Locking is different from setting availability to No. Students can still see and read locked topics. You might want to do this before you grade student postings, but it is not a requirement.

1. From the Course Tools area click the Discussions link.
2. Next to the topic you want to configure, click the ActionLinks button ().
3. A menu appears. Click the Edit Properties link.
4. Click the Topic Behavior Options link.
5. The options area expands. Select the option for Lock this topic for Students.
6. Click the Save button. Note the lock icon next to the discussion topic.

Grade Student Discussion Postings

1. From the Course Tools click the Discussions link.
2. Next to the topic you want to grade, click the ActionLinks button ().
3. A menu appears. Click the Edit Properties link.
4. Under Grading, select the type of grade you want to use.
5. Click the Save button.
6. The screen refreshes. Click the ActionLinks button () again.
7. Click Grade Topic.
8. In the frame on the left click a student's name.
9. From the pop-up menu choose View Student Posts.
10. Evaluate the posting(s). In the left frame, under Grade, type in a grade in the text box.
11. Click the Save Grades button.

Release Discussion Grades to Students

WebVista doesn't automatically release discussion grades to students. You can release the discussion column in the Grade Book. For step-by-step instructions, see Hide or Release Grade Columns from/to Students.

Compile and Download Discussion Postings

1. In the Discussion tool, click the title of the discussion topic for which you want to compile postings.
2. From the Messages screen, select the messages for which you want to create a printable view:
   • To create a printable view of one or more messages, next to each message for which you want to create a printable view, select the check box.
   • To create a printable view of all the messages in a thread, next to the first message in the thread, select the check box.
   • To create a printable view of all messages in the topic, in the table-heading row, select the check box.
3. Click the Create Printable View button. The Compile Messages pop-up window appears giving you the option of printing compiled postings or saving them to a file.
4. If you want to print the compiled messages:
   1. Click Print. (Mac users will have to use Command+p).
   2. In your browser's print dialog box, make your selections to print the compiled messages.

4. If you want to download the compiled messages:
   1. Click Save as File.
   2. In your browser's save file dialog box, make your selections to save the compiled messages to the desired location on your local computer.
5. When you are finished viewing the compiled messages, click Close this window. The Messages screen appears. Once you have compiled messages, they are marked as read.

Manage Assignment Submissions

See the WebVista Materials handed out in UTTC classes for information on setting up and using the Assignment tool.

Access the Assignment Tool

1. In your WebVista site click the Teach tab.
2. In the Course Tools area, click Assignments link.

Some assignment activities you may want perform during a semester include:

• grade student assignment submissions,
• release the assignment grade to students, and
• publish assignment submissions.

Grade Student Assignment Submissions

1. In your WebVista site click the Teach tab.
2. In the Course Tools area, click Assignments link.
3. Click the link to the assignment you want to grade.
4. In the Submitted tab, click the title of the student's submission.
5. If the student's submission is an attached file, click the link under Student Attachments to download the file.
6. Enter comments in the Grader/Reviewer Comments text box.
   1. If you wish to attach a file, click the Add Attachments button.
   2. In the File Browser window, click the My Computer button.
   3. Locate and select the file you want to upload.
   4. Click Open.
7. Under Save Options select the radio button for Return graded submission to Student(s) with the following grade.
8. In the text box type the number of points.
9. Click the Save button. The student's submission moves to the Graded tab.

Release the Assignment Grade to Students

WebVista doesn't automatically release assignment grades to students. You must manually release the assignment column in the Grade Book. For step-by-step instructions, see Hide or Release Grade Columns from/to Students.

Publish Assignment Submissions

Instructors can publish individual and group assignment submissions so other course members can view. Published assignments do not show grades or grader comments.

To allow students to publish their submission, the option must be chosen when the assignment is created.

1. In the Graded or All tabs of the Assignment Dropbox find the assignment submission you want to publish click the ActionLinks button ().
2. A menu appears. Select the Publish Controls option.
3. In the Publish Controls pop-up window click the Publish button.
4. The assignment submission now appears in the Published tab of the dropbox and is now visible to all class members.

Manage Assessment Submissions

See the WebVista Materials handed out in UTTC classes for information on setting up and using the Assessment tool.

Some activities you may want to perform during a semester include:

• release assessment results to students, and
• view and download assessment reports.

Release Assessment Results to Students

By default, Assessment scores are set to not be released to the student in the My Grades tool.

1. From the Teach tab click the Assessments link.
2. Next to the assessment you want to configure, click the ActionLinks button ().
3. A menu appears. Select Edit Properties.
4. In the Edit Assessment Settings window scroll down to the Student score release area.
5. To release assessment results and scores chose one of the Release the score options.
6. To see which assessment results are released to students by default, scrool down and click the Results Properties link.
7. Select or deselect checkboxes to choose the results students will see for this assessment.
8. For more information on results settings see the Assessment Settings page.
9. Click the Save button.

Release Assessment Grades to Students

If you choose not to release scores immediately or forget to release them when creating an assessment, you can release the score in the Grade Book. For step-by-step instructions, see Hide or Release Grade Columns from/to Students.

View and Download Assessment Reports

With Assessment Reports you can compile and print information about student performance on assessments or surveys.

1. From the Teach tab, click the Assessments link.
2. Next to the assessment you want to investigate, click the ActionLinks button ().
3. A menu appears. Select View Reports.
4. Select the radio button for the type of report you wish to run. Some report types also require you to use the drop down menu to choose to display your results arranged by All Class members or by specific User IDs.
5. Click Run Report.
6. Any report can be downloaded to your desktop as a comma delimited file by clicking the Download Records button.
7. Open the file with a spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel.

What's inside

• Site Log In
• Browser Set Up
• Instructor Support
• Student Support
• About WebVista