End-of-Semester Checklist

This page contains steps to close your WebVista site at the end of a semester and back up student data for your records prior to archiving. All of the steps are optional, and depend on whether you used certain tools. Further, we can restore your site intact within two years of archiving it, but we recommend at least keeping a copy of your Grade Book.

Note that while we keep backups and archives of data, the Office of Information Technology is not recognized as an official record-keeping unit of the University. You may wish to keep your own records for each WebVista site handy in a folder on your computer or shared drive.

Access the Grade Book

1. In your WebVista site click the Teach tab.
2. Under Instructor Tools in the left-hand toolbar, click the Grade Book link.

Close the Site/Deny Student Access

This step may or may not be applicable to your site. It will depend on student activity and learning activities within your site. If applicable, determine a date to close the course site and let students know they have to complete all work in the site before that date.

Show Only the Student Members of Your Site

Since you can deny access to other instructors/designers in your site, find just the student members.

1. In the Grade Book click the Grade Book Options button in the upper right and choose Find Members from the drop-down menu.
2. On the page that comes up, make the following selections:
   • Click the checkbox for Roles.
   • Select the radio button for contain.
   • Select Student from the menu.
   • From the Column drop-down menu, select First Name.
   • From the Condition drop-down menu, select does not contain.
   • In the Value text box type demo.
3. Click the Run Query button.

Select and Deny Access to All Students

1. Click the checkbox in the upper left corner of the table to select all the visible members.
2. Below the member table, click on the Deny Access button.

Export the Grade Book (Recommended)

You can save the WebVista Grade Book as a comma- or tab-delimited file on your computer, and open it within a spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel. We recommend that you download the Grade Book at the end of the semester, after any major exams, or before major edits.

1. Below the member table click the Export to Spreadsheet button.
2. On the page that comes up, make the following selections:
   1. Members to Export: Selected members
   2. Columns to Export: change to All columns
   3. Select Export Format: leave it at Comma-delimited
   4. Select Character Set: leave it at Unicode (UTF-8)
3. Click the Export button.
4. Choose Save when the browser displays "Save or Open?"
5. The Save dialog box appears with the default filename of exportedcourse.csv if you chose comma-delimited or exportedcourse.txt if you chose tab-delimited. Browse to the location where you want to save the file on your local machine.
6. Change the filename to something more recognizable if you like but do not change the .csv or .txt extension.
7. Click the Save button.

You can then open the saved grade book file in Microsoft Excel or other spreadsheet program. The steps will be similar to those below (for Excel) with any spreadsheet program.

1. Open Microsoft Excel.
2. Choose File > Open from the menu bar.
3. Locate the grade book file you saved on your computer and click Open or OK.
4. A wizard will ask you to choose "delimited" or "fixed width". Choose "delimited" and select either Tab or Comma, depending on which one you chose above.
5. Click the Next button or the Finish button.
6. Your grade book data will then appear in a spreadsheet.

Print or Export the Audit Log

You can view the full history of any overrides made to any student's grades for any grade-related column in your section.

1. From the Grades, Members, View All or Custom View tabs, click the Grade Book options button in the upper left and choose View Audit History from the drop-down menu.
2. To print the list, use your web browser's print function.
3. To export the list as a comma or tab-delimited file:
   1. Click Export Log.
   2. Under Select Export Format, do one of the following:
      1. To create a text file where field information is separated by a comma, select Comma-delimited.
      2. To create a text file where field information is separated by a tab keystroke, select Tab-delimited.
   3. Click Export.
   4. Choose where to save the file on your local computer.
   5. Click the Done button twice or click the Grade Book link in the breadcrumbs to return to the Grade Book.

Run Reports and Tracking

With the Reports and Tracking tool, you can run reports on various Student activities in your course during a specified date range. Tracking information is updated nightly. You can use the statistics provided by these reports to:

• determine the components, tools, and pages that are of most interest to students.
• determine each student's level of participation in various course activities.

For most Student Activity report types (excluding Summary of Activity and Student Tracking), you can graph the report statistics. For all Student Activity report types, you can export the statistics to your local computer.

1. In the Teach Tab under Instructor Tools in the left-hand toolbar, click the Tracking link.
   
2. Under Select a Report Type, locate and select the report type you want to run.
3. Under Select a Date Range for the Report, select a start and end date:
4. Click Run Report. The report appears in a new browser window.
5. Depending on the report type, you can now graph or export the report, or to return to the Tracking screen, click OK.

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 you want to compile:
   • 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 the Print button. (Mac users will have to use Command+p).
5. If you want to download the compiled messages:
   1. Click the Save as File button. (Mac users will have to use Command+s to save to a file).
   2. In your browser's save file dialog box, choose where to save the file on your local computer.
6. When you are finished viewing the compiled messages, click the Close this window link. The Messages screen appears. Note: Once you have compiled messages, they are marked as read.

Compile and Print Calendar Entries

If you want to back up all or some calendar entries from your site, use Printable View.

1. In the Teach tab, click the Calendar link in the Course Tools toolbar at left.
2. Above the calendar, click on the Create Printable View button.
3. Select a date range for your class. The Time Range by default covers 24 hours, so unless you want to limit the entries included, do not change the start and end time.
4. You can Filter results by selecting a particular type of entry.
5. Under Course Selection, select the radio button for either:
   1. Show entries from all my courses
   2. Only show entries from these courses
6. If you selected Only show entries from these courses, deselect the course you don't want to include.
7. Under Access Level select the radio button for one of the following:
   1. Private entries only
   2. Public entries only
   3. Both private and public entries (default).
8. Click Continue.
9. 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.
10. Click Cancel when finished.

What's inside

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