[Building Sakai] What exactly is Subject, Course and Section ?

Fri Oct 21 02:51:00 PDT 2011

HI All

We're trying to migrate from WEBCT and note that there are various uses
of sections of which we are not sure how to enable/exploit this in
SAKAI. 

My main concern is that the Sections option in SAKIA does not allow for
the same participant to be in two different sections of a course. AM I
correct in this assumption or is this configurable? Or should w ethsu
beusing gropus ( but then lose the functionality for  a specific
lecturer to generate his /her own content for that particular instance
of the course. 

Could someone please advise if the following is doable:

Here is what we require for course creations: 

1.       A course with sections : The course code can have two or more
sections, with different lecturers and can have same or different
participants.

For example : 

Course Code(SCMD1002):        Course Title/s= Section Title  

*         Integrating skills - Integrating Problems

*         Integrating skills - Learning and Language

*         Integrating skills - Logic and critical thinking    

So sections all share the same course code with different titles

2.       Courses have the same course code, same title  but different
groups of participants and taught by the same person (BUSE2000 - which
is taught by the same person but caters for part-time and fulltime
participants)

3.       Course/s which have the same course code, same section but
taught by different lecturers and yet have the same participants

Also what is the purpose of  categories? Is this also configurable nad
can therefore  allow another layer to the Courses>Section>Category
hierarchy?

*         Another question  when you input the section data ( this is a
required field when creating the Course )does the  Section Info tool
then merely add new sections following the  initial section which has
been added i.e does the Section Info tool then follow with the same
logic from the Site info tool> I'm  not a developer  and apologise if
I'm muddling the issues here...but really trying to understand the
nomenclature and logic of the tools.

*         Furthermore can we change the terms roster etc? In South
Africa roster refers to a timetable and not a class list(which is what I
assume roster here to  mean right?

*         Also can we add the title of the course somewhere , not just
on the homepage but ideally on the course TAb( whereby the name appears
when the cursor resides on the tab.  

*         Finally are other  Universities using this tool to integrate
with their student administration system i.e. automated access?...or
does this require separate development on our side? WE seem to have the
complexity fo the email address being added which conflicts with our
student integration s we have 2 LDAP systems( one for  Faculty and one
fo r studnest) so can't use that email sign up option....or so I'm told.

Would appreciate any feedback!   

Regards

Fatima Rahiman

Head: Learning Design

eLearning Support and Innovation(eLSI)

University Corner, 18th Floor

University of the Witwatersrand

Private Bag 3

Wits

2050

Tel:  011 717-7174 

Cell: 0798737633

From: Zhen Qian [mailto:zqian at umich.edu] 
Sent: 20 October 2011 05:17 PM
To: Henry, Roger James
Cc: David Wafula; Sakai Developers; Fatima Rahiman
Subject: Re: [Building Sakai] What exactly is Subject, Course and
Section ?

Just another suggestion here in case you want to customize the required
course fields other than the Subject, Course and Section levels:

Please take a look at the org.sakaiproject.sitemanage.api.SectionField
and org.sakaiproject.sitemanage.api.SectionFieldProvider API for
definitions of required section fields, and max char length allowed for
each field. 

There are default impl of those APIs inside site-manage module, which
supports the levels of Subject, Course and Section for OOTB Sakai
course. However, you can definitely override the API by implement your
own.

Thanks,

- Zhen

On Oct 20, 2011, at 10:34 AM, Henry, Roger James wrote:

Hi All,

Here's a scenario that might clarify.

The Music Department of the University of the Midwest lists courses by
subject (Theory, Music History, etc.).

For each subject there might be many different courses representing
different levels. For instance, under Theory, there might be T101, T302,
T505; each of these courses is a theory course for different academic
levels.

Depending on enrollment and/or room occupancy limits, a course might be
divided into several sections. So, T101 might have 300 enrolled, but the
lecture hall only holds 100, so the course is divided into 3 sections of
100 each (10101, 10102, 10103, for instance).

So in creating the site for the course:

Subject: Theory

Course: T101

Section: 10101

Hope this helps.

Roger

===============================================

Roger J. Henry

Instructional Technologies Consultant

Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning

Office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education /

University Information Technology Services

Indiana University Bloomington

Phone (812) 856-2617

===============================================

From: sakai-dev-bounces at collab.sakaiproject.org
[mailto:sakai-dev-bounces at collab.sakaiproject.org] On Behalf Of David
Wafula
Sent: Thursday, October 20, 2011 10:19 AM
To: Sakai Developers
Cc: Fatima Rahiman
Subject: [Building Sakai] What exactly is Subject, Course and Section ?

Dear all,

A dilemma has arisen when creating a course. What should really be going
into Subject, Course and Section field? What exactly do these fields
expect ? We have the following scenario:

 A lecturer wants to create a course, and by course  i mean an entity
with code and description, that is meant to be taught for a full
semester. 'ICS2100' could be the code, 'Introduction to Programming'
could be the description. Lets say this needs to be created during
Semester I, 2012.

What would be a typical entry for these fields ? 

Thank you,

-- 
David Wafula

_______________________________________________
sakai-dev mailing list
sakai-dev at collab.sakaiproject.org
http://collab.sakaiproject.org/mailman/listinfo/sakai-dev

TO UNSUBSCRIBE: send email to
sakai-dev-unsubscribe at collab.sakaiproject.org with a subject of
"unsubscribe"

<html><p><font face = "verdana" size = "0.8" color = "navy">This communication is intended for the addressee only. It is confidential. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately and destroy the original message. You may not copy or disseminate this communication without the permission of the University. Only authorized signatories are competent to enter into agreements on behalf of the University and recipients are thus advised that the content of this message may not be legally binding on the University and may contain the personal views and opinions of the author, which are not necessarily the views and opinions of The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. All agreements between the University and outsiders are subject to South African Law unless the University agrees in writing to the contrary.</font></p></html>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://collab.sakaiproject.org/pipermail/sakai-dev/attachments/20111021/48df716e/attachment.html 