BlackBoard 8: HTML Tags in Discussion Board Forum Titles Prevent Use of Discussion Board Display Order Drop-down Menus

When the title of a discussion board forum contains html tags such as <font></font> or other formatting tags, the display order drop-down menus used to reorder the display order of your discussion forums will not work.  If you ever experience, while trying to reorder the display list of your discussion board forums, that Blackboard is ignoring changes you make using the Display Order drop-down menus, then check the title of your discussion forums for any html tags.  Remove the html tags from the discussion board forum titles you want to reorder and the drop-down menus will work as expected.  Once reordered you can add the html tags back into the titles for formatting, but remember that if you ever need to reorder the discussion forum list again, you will need to again remove any html tags contained in the titles.

UTTC Online Course Assessment, Review and Analysis Tool (CARAT) Release

We’re pleased to announce that UTTC has released the online Course Analysis, Review, and Alignment (CARAT) tool as open source at Source Forge:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/carat/

The instructional design of each new UT TeleCampus-funded course is evaluated by UTTC Course Development staff early in the development process using the CARAT tool, which is based on a UTTC-designed rubric. This tool was formerly known as “cQual.”

CARAT employs a course evaluation rubric that is a composite of evaluation metrics from the SACS Principles of Good Practice, from California State University Chico’s seminal work, and from years of UTTC course development experience. The rubric is not dissimilar to that used by Quality Matters; in fact, the Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications featured a Quality Assurance panel at its 2007 conference and featured Quality Matters and the TeleCampus as the two evaluation rubrics. UTTC uses this rubric in the evaluation of online courses to make sure that they are of the best possible quality for students.

The CARAT application has been redesigned from its original Flash AS2 movie clip based architecture to a Flex 3 / AS3 component based application. The primary reason for the redesign was targeted 508 accessibility compliance. The application graphics and branding style are fully customizable, as they are driven by easily edited external xml and css files. CARAT is ready to use out of the box using the standard UTTC rubric for course evaluation, but end users interested in employing a custom evaluation rubric will find that the rubric is xml driven and can be readily updated to customize the evaluation for user-defined implementations; further, css allows you to easily change the colors and logo to reflect your organization and make CARAT your own.

Credits

The original cQual application was done by Ross Henderson and Jeremy Gordon. The redesign of the application to a fully customizable, object oriented component based Flex /AS3 application was done by Brad Shaevel.

New Course Content Template Released

UTTC’s CDT group has released a new Course Content Template that is available for download and free use now!

Why use this template when building your course content? Well, there are a few reasons that set this template apart from other templates or WYSIWYG page-builder options.

1. It’s web-standards based and an ACCESSIBLE solution.
2. You only need to EDIT ONE FILE, and you can do it in Dreamweaver’s Design View if you like.
3. The Template includes a DYNAMIC NAVIGATION bar that is generated on-the-fly; you won’t need to worry about keeping track of which page links to what or edit any JavaScript whatsoever.
4. If you want to, you can customize the look and feel, and IT’S EASY to do.
5. You (and faculty and students) can PRINT THE WHOLE MODULE AT ONCE.
6. It’s open-source, a.k.a. FREE!

Check out the presentation and download a package file to get started.

Overview Presentation:

http://georgeirwin.com/UTTC/cct/

Template Package Files:

https://sourceforge.net/project/platformdownload.php?group_id=263990

Live Classroom/Horizon Wimba new name: Wimba Classroom

Quick Note: For course developers and tech reviewers please note that references to “Live Classroom” or “Horizon Wimba” will need to be updated in course syllabi and wherever found in course content beginning FA09 to the current name:  Wimba Classroom.

Case Simulation Release

We’re pleased to announce that UTTC has released the generic case simulation engine as open source at Source Forge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/casesimulation/.

Background

In 2004, the University of Texas System TeleCampus developed a Flash-based simulation in Emergency Room Psychiatry which was used to successfully teach interns and medical personnel across Texas about recent ER intervention and diagnostic techniques. The project received the Computer World Heroes Laureate in 2005. On the basis of this project, the TeleCampus was approached by the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas to develop a series of courses for training Dermatology Physician Assistants. In-depth discussions with the program director uncovered the need for dozens of courses for P.A’s across a variety of medical specialties. Design discussions revealed the need for a multimedia-rich presentation layer, not only to engage learners but also because the subject matter was visual-centric. The demand and magnitude of the project implied the dedication of multimedia programmers for several years, a scope beyond the available resources of the university. As a result, the project was conceived as an XML-driven Flash template which technically-competent faculty could modify to create new content.

Characteristics

The resulting case study application consists of two separate Flash application layers: (1) an XML-driven meta-template that defines the user interface and pedagogy used at the discipline level, and (2) an XML-driven course content template. The second template is accessed by faculty to build specific courses within a discipline, while the first template is used by Flash (Actionscript 2.0) programmers to create the discipline-specific application interface and tools used by faculty. In the discipline-specific template, a medical course may be contextualized with a patient complaint followed by lab tests resulting in a diagnosis that produces a treatment plan; a course in social problems would require a different structure: a crisis analyzed through data sets leading to an hypothesis that produces a policy proposal. In discipline-specific tools, a course for lab assistants may require an image magnifier; a course for counselors may require a video player; a course for business law students may require a secure communication link to the Lexis library; and a course for physical anthropologists may require a carbon-dating simulation.

Credits

The original Flash Action Script was done by Ross Henderson with UI design by George Irwin and database programming by Mike Nowlin. The extension of the application to an OO design and rewrite of the Flash Action Script was done by Brad Shaevel. If you are interested in using this application, we can also make available to you a series if screen-capture movies that provide a detailed walk through the code; email manderson@utsystem.edu.