[Using Sakai] Question about Sakai renaming tools functionality from Indiana University

[Jeff Ziegler]

Hi Rita,

FWIW, at UMich, we make the Page Order Helper tool available only to  
Project sites.  We felt that there was too much potential for student  
confusion if instructors were allowed to rename (and to a smaller  
extent, reorder) tools on course sites.  We already see a significant  
amount of support traffic from students who are unable to find their  
clearly labeled Course sites so imagine a dealing with a situation  
where there is a different name and location for the Assignments tool  
on each site of which a student is a participant.  Then figure that  
some instructors will invariably decide to rename all the tools on a  
site with names that make perfect sense to them but are less  
intuitive for the students.  If an instructor expresses a need to  
rename or reorder a tool we treat that as just another support  
service that we provide and will work with them to ensure that the  
renaming does not cause problems downstream.  In effect, rather than  
meet the challenge, we side-stepped it :-)

There was also a bit of concern regarding the Hide function of POH.   
One potential scenario was for an instructor posting, for example,  
study documents in Resources, and then hiding the Resources tool in  
the mistaken belief that doing this would prevent further student  
access to the files.  Unfortunately, that file would still be  
available if the URL to that file was known, e.g., preserved in an  
Announcement or email.

As far as using it on a Project site, it's fairly intuitive to use so  
we see very little support traffic regarding the use of POH.


Jeff



On Apr 19, 2010, at 12:47 PM, Pavolka, Rita Kay wrote:

> 1)      How have students responded to the changing tool names?
> 2)      Has it created significant challenges for your support groups?
> 3)      How have those challenges been met at your school/institution?











"New != better.  Different != better.  Only better == better."

---------------------------------------------------------------
Jeff Ziegler - CTools Support Supervisor
CTools Implementation Group
Digital Media Commons, Duderstadt Center
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