A 5-Part Self-Guided Series To Get Everyone Started on the OpenLab
Part 5 of 5: Planning your Semester, Pt. 2
Now that you’ve worked through Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4 of the OpenLab Summer Series, let’s work through Part 5! In this final installment, we wrap up our summer series with two tasks that will get your course up and running for the start of the semester. These tasks involve setting up your dynamic course content as well as your first few assignments.
Task 1: Customize your Posts
- Read through the posts that come pre-loaded in new courses. By default, these are published all together in the Home page.
- Note the function of these posts. Unlike pages, which you used in Part 4 to publish your syllabus and course policies, posts are used to convey dynamic content, new information that will be updated throughout the semester.
- Note that these pre-written template posts have 6 categories: Announcements, Surveys and Quizzes, Discussions, Student Work, Assignment Instructions, and Class Agendas. These categories can be accessed from the main navigation menu and can always be edited.
- Edit each of these posts, adapting them to your course’s needs. You may decide that you don’t need some of the posts, in which case you can delete them.
Task 2: Design Student Assignments
- Read the Designing Assignments section in OpenLab help for links to example assignments created by your colleagues.
- Decide how you will collect student work. Consider the following:
- Do you want students to submit work you can read directly on your Course Site, or files that you can download onto your computer?
- Do you want students to be able to see and respond to each other’s work?
- What kind of feedback do you want to provide and where?
- Read through the different ways you can receive student work on the OpenLab. Based on your answers to the questions above, select the way(s) you will receive student work on the OpenLab.
- Design your assignments! Remember that you can save these posts as drafts for now, and schedule them to be published at a later date.
You are now well-equipped to start the semester on the OpenLab. The OpenLab Community Team is of course available to help you at any point in your process, so check our Support offerings, read through our Teaching with the OpenLab and OpenLab for Students modules, search through Help, or email the OpenLab Community Team with a question.
