[Using Sakai] Question about renaming tools

Mon Apr 19 11:52:40 PDT 2010

Rita,
We use the Page Order Helper tool and let users rename their tools in course and project sites. We were leery of this function but decided to roll it out anyway.  We have had the tool for a couple of years now and have not had any significant issues with support.  We've actually found that professors do not rename the tools even if they know how to.  In our documentation we tell faculty that they are able to rename tools, but to think of the students in their site.  Students are members of multiple sites in Sakai and continuity is key for them.  For those instructors who do rename their sites, each site has an icon associated with it and we as support folks have become accustomed to looking for that icon when needing to figure out what tool the user is talking about. 

Hope this helps!

Regards, 
Whitten Smart, M.A.
User Services Consultant II
TRACS and GATO Support
Texas State University - San Marcos
Alkek Library 133.3
512.245.5566
"Infinite goodness has wide arms." - Dante

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Today's Topics:

   1. Question about Sakai renaming tools functionality from
      Indiana University (Pavolka, Rita Kay)
   2. Re: Question about Sakai renaming tools functionality	from
      Indiana University (Jeff Ziegler)
   3. Third Party Assessment program (Newsome, Angie)

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Message: 1
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2010 12:47:54 -0400
From: "Pavolka, Rita Kay" <pavolka at iupui.edu>
Subject: [Using Sakai] Question about Sakai renaming tools
	functionality from Indiana University
To: "sakai-user at collab.sakaiproject.org"
	<sakai-user at collab.sakaiproject.org>
Message-ID:
	<A6FE183CA4A0AE41BF9EA661D6629B4A0D7AEA92C0 at iu-mssg-mbx05.ads.iu.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Folks,

At Indiana University we currently deploy "reorder tools" minus the ability for site owners to "rename tools." However we are considering whether we might deploy that capability in the future.

As part of our consideration we'd like to find out what groups are currently using the "reorder tools" functionality in their Site Setup tools, including the ability to "rename tools" per site by the faculty member/project site owner. And if you are using that capability, what your experience has been in regard to

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?

Thanks in advance for any feedback you can share. I'll be glad to share the results of my query with the Sakai community.

Regards,
Rita

Rita Pavolka
Associate Manager,
Community Source Training
IT Training & Education
Academic & Faculty Services, UITS
Indiana University
pavolka at indiana.edu
http://oncourse.iu.edu/info
812-322-0477

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Message: 2
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2010 14:13:08 -0400
From: Jeff Ziegler <ziegler at umich.edu>
Subject: Re: [Using Sakai] Question about Sakai renaming tools
	functionality	from Indiana University
To: "Pavolka, Rita Kay" <pavolka at iupui.edu>
Cc: "sakai-user at collab.sakaiproject.org"
	<sakai-user at collab.sakaiproject.org>
Message-ID: <82766789-1C25-47F3-AA74-E7C0D3C2D66B at umich.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

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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Message: 3
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2010 13:40:13 -0500
From: "Newsome, Angie" <angie.newsome at ttuhsc.edu>
Subject: [Using Sakai] Third Party Assessment program
To: "production at collab.sakaiproject.org"
	<production at collab.sakaiproject.org>,
	"sakai-user at collab.sakaiproject.org"
	<sakai-user at collab.sakaiproject.org>
Message-ID:
	<CE28D47A0A5C6B4E887A90ECAFB1B1D50BD329026C at HSCMAIL2.ttuhsc.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Hello,
I am new to the Sakai listservs as we are beginning to look into Sakai as a solution for our university.  We are currently running WebCT CE8 on a SQL cluster and are looking to sort of decentralize our content.  We want to eventually go to Sakai and part of the process is putting our test banks and assessments into a different database.  We want to move toward a scenario where it doesn't matter what LMS we use we will only have to move our assessments/test banks once.  Is there anyone out there using a third party for their test banks/assessments?  We looked into QuestionMark; however, it isn't Mac compatible on the authoring side.  That's pretty much a show stopper for us.

Any information that you can provide will be helpful.

Thanks,
Angie

______________
Angie Newsome, MSM

TTUHSC, Information Services
806.743.1500
angie.newsome at ttuhsc.edu

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