[Using Sakai] Does anyone allow instructors to edit/change their course site title

Thu Sep 12 22:49:13 PDT 2013

Hi we allow to change the name of courses to Instructors this year. In 
University of Lleida we have very long names in the courses, and we also 
append the code - and year at the end of the title. That cause that we 
can't find any way for cutting titles in the site bar that make people 
happy. At the moment, and if there are not reported issues by students 
or teachers, we will maintain this options.

Alex

On 09/12/2013 11:18 PM, Jeff Ziegler wrote:
> At UMich we do not allow instructors to change course site titles in 
> order to enforce naming standards, although we do allow instructors to 
> request that a course site be renamed.  We like to retain a modicum of 
> control over the site title because:
>
> 1)  We've found that students who register for MYCLASS 101 001 look 
> for a site tab that says "MYCLASS 101 001".   When they see a tab that 
> instead says "Basic Math Concepts" it tends to result in multiple 
> support contacts asking why they can't find "MYCLASS 101 001".
>
> 2)  Some of the renaming requests I've seen over the years have been 
> somewhat questionable and would likely have caused larger support 
> issues had the instructor been able to make the change.  Had a contact 
> on this once where the instructor wanted the site title to be a mini 
> course description, over 97 characters as I recall.  Of course we have 
> a character limit unless you change title through admin Sites tool so 
> this could not have happened even if we allowed instructor to change 
> titles but it's indicative of what problems might arise.
>
> We do allow users to change Project site titles and I've seen issues 
> where users have changed the title of the site, forgot they did so, 
> and then reported that their site had been mysteriously deleted.
>
> I think a lot depends on the established policy.  I'd imagine Ithaca 
> would get a lot of pushback if they were to change their policy such 
> that site could no longer be renamed.  And IU might run into the 
> situations described above if they changed to allow title renames. 
>  However, any change is manageable if you plan your communications 
> well and are willing to commit the resources to make sure it goes right.
>
>
>
> J
>
>
>
> On Sep 12, 2013, at 2:50 PM, Marilyn Dispensa <mdispensa at ithaca.edu 
> <mailto:mdispensa at ithaca.edu>> wrote:
>
>> We do it and I think faculty like it.
>> Here's a response from our Sakai Admin.
>> Ithaca is a small Longsight installation (~7k total users).  We use 
>> the cmapi  and must allow faculty to change course titles because 
>> they have the ability to add any combination of their rosters to any 
>> course site.  So far in two years of production we haven't had any 
>> significant problems.  I'd make one caveat--- we don't allow users to 
>> delete sites. Non-standard naming could cause big problems in that 
>> scenario.
>> Also people don't tend to make sites with the same titles for the 
>> same term and the site drawer in 2.9  makes the distinction between 
>> terms clear. (We order from most recent term to latest.) Users can 
>> also view terms in My Workspace -> Worksite Setup and our provided 
>> roster/course names appear in Site Info regardless of what's on the 
>> tab. Additionally in the cmapi there's an option for the faculty to 
>> include the official course name/number--- if they do, that info is 
>> populated into the Site Information Display.  Of course they can 
>> delete it later...
>> From a support perspective---  we (try to) have our help desk capture 
>> the course site URLs/Site Ids  for tickets rather than the course 
>> titles anyway so that's a workflow I'd definitely recommend if you 
>> allow faculty to change course names.
>> Mary Jo Watts
>> Instructional Technology Specialist
>> Ithaca College
>> Ithaca, NY
>> PH: (607) 274-5191
>> *From:*sakai-user-bounces at collab.sakaiproject.org 
>> <mailto:sakai-user-bounces at collab.sakaiproject.org> 
>> [mailto:sakai-user-bounces at collab.sakaiproject.org 
>> <mailto:user-bounces at collab.sakaiproject.org>]*On Behalf Of*Ward, Lynn E.
>> *Sent:*Thursday, September 12, 2013 11:25 AM
>> *To:*sakai-user at collab.sakaiproject.org 
>> <mailto:sakai-user at collab.sakaiproject.org>
>> *Subject:*[Using Sakai] Does anyone allow instructors to edit/change 
>> their course site title
>> HI everyone,
>> At Indiana University, we allow site owners to edit their site titles 
>> for portfolio sites and projects sites, but not for course sites. 
>>  All of our course sites use the same naming convention: semester 
>> campus department course_number/ section/_number (e.g., 
>> FA13-IN-CHEM-C106-21206) and this is what shows up in the tabbed 
>> navigation.  Over the years we've received complaints from faculty 
>> and students that it's hard to distinguish between courses offered in 
>> the same program because the course titles are not descriptive.  More 
>> recently we've had a request from one of our schools to turn on the 
>> ability to edit course site titles under Site  Info > Edit Site 
>> Information.
>> Does anyone else allow their faculty to change alter the title of the 
>> site in official course sites?  And if so, has this created any 
>> significant support issues?  IF this has proven to be a Pandora's Box 
>> at other schools, we probably don't want to open it.
>> Best regards,
>> Lynn
>> ==========================
>> Lynn Ward, Principal Systems Analyst
>> Instructional Technology Systems and Services
>> University Information Technology Services <http://uits.iu.edu/>
>> Indiana University
>> Information Technology and Communications Complex (IT 342K)
>> 535 West Michigan Street, Indianapolis, IN 46202
>> Phone: 317-278-5713 E-mail: _leward at iu.edu <mailto:leward at iu.edu>_
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> "New != better.  Different != better.  Only better == better."
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
> Jeff Ziegler
> CTools Service Manager
> Business Systems Analyst Associate
> ITS Teaching and Learning Group
> University of Michigan
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
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-- 
Alexandre Ballesté Crevillén  alexandre.balleste at udl.cat
=====================
University of Lleida
Information and Communication Systems Service
Analyst / Programmer
Twitter: @sinmsinm

Tlf: +34 973 702148
Fax: +34 973 702130
=====================

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