as well as several Virtual classrooms
Course Element: Wiki
Use a Wiki to easily create learning content together with your course participants. A Wiki is suitable for doing group work; it can serve as documentation tool or as some sort of knowledge base for your studies and projects.
If you can't find the "Wiki" course element in the course editor, it was disabled by a system administrator.
The course element "Wiki" helps you to embed a Wiki in your course. Just click on "Select, create or import Wiki" in the tab "Wiki learning content" to assign a Wiki already existing or to create a new one. The chapter "Creating Wikis" will tell you how to do so step by step. If you have not already selected a Wiki yet the title Selected Wiki will show the message No Wiki selected.
If you have already added a Wiki its name will appear in the field along with the button Show preview on your above right. In order to change the assignment of a Wiki click on "Replace Wiki" in the tab "Wiki learning content" before selecting another Wiki.
In general all course participants have read and write permission in a Wiki. Only those OpenOLAT users who have created the Wiki or users appointed as owners are allowed to delete Wiki pages. These preset rights can be adapted in the tab "Access" of the respective course element according to your needs.
In the chapter "Learning Activities in Courses," section "Wiki", you will find more information on how to adapt the Wiki syntax, how to create new pages, and how to view different versions of a Wiki page.
Course Element: Forum
With the course element "Forum" you can easily enable asynchronous online discussions for different purposes in your course. For example, course participants could write posts with questions about the content of the course and answer each other's questions, or you could initiate a technical discussion or implement specific forum-based online methods. In the chapter "Learning Activities in Courses" you will get further information on opening topics and replying to questions; see section "Forum". Generally all course participants have read and write permission in a forum. All course authors and tutors dispose of the option to moderate a forum additionally.
Moderators hold the following rights:
- Editing and deleting all posts in a forum; attaching files.
- Prioritizing threads (sticky): a certain discussion subject will always appear on top of a list.
- Closing discussion: it will no longer be possible to reply to a certain discussion subject.
- Hiding discussion: a certain subject will no longer appear in the forum list.
- Displaying discussion: hidden subject will be displayed anew.
- Filter for persons: on the forum's overview page posts of every single course participant can be displayed.
- Archiving forum: posts (as MS Word) and attached files will be zipped before storing them in your personal folder.
Persons with moderation rights can also move forum topics or individual posts. On the one hand, contributions can be moved to another topic of the same forum, on the other hand, entire forum topics or contributions can be moved to another forum. All forum posts underneath are moved and are no longer visible in the original forum. It is possible to move topics and posts to another forum both in the same course and in other courses. The moved thread can be created as a new discussion thread. In the last step of the move, an email can be sent to all users affected by the move, with the information where the forum is now moved to.
Forum posts can also be moved to forums in which the creator of the post has no access.
Tab "Access"
In the "Access" tab of a forum module, additional persons or groups can also be assigned moderation rights for an individual forum. For example, it is possible that some forums within a course are moderated by learners and others are not.
Forum: permission to moderate
By means of this field you can determine the access as moderator to the forum, e.g. the conditions of moderating the forum.
The box "Blocked for learners" is checked by default. This is in contrast to other course elements whose default settings are not restricted.
Write permission
By means of this field you can determine the access as writer to the forum, e.g. the conditions of writing contributions to a discussion. If you do not make alterations all participants will be able to write contributions at any time.
Read permission
By means of this field you can determine the access as reader to the forum, e.g. the conditions of reading contributions to a discussion. If you do not make alterations the forum will be open for participants at any time.
A course author can also use the forum to notify course participants in the short term. Just configure your forum in the tab "Access" accordingly, i.e. that only course authors have write permission. Advise your course participants on subscribing to the forum to be up-to-date.
For more information on the other restriction options, please go to General Configuration of Course Elements.
Tab Settings
Define whether guests (aka non registered users) are also allowed to post forum entries, and whether participants are generally allowed to write posts using an alias. If this option is checked, topic or reply dialogs have the added option to post using an alias. Forum participants can choose their desired alias, which is persistent across all topics in the selected forum. Aliases can be de-/activated as required. Users can protect their alias with a password, that this alias cannot be reused by another user. Furthermore it can be defined if the alias is activated for every forum entry by default. Therefore you need to activate the checkbox "Activate alias in every message".
Course Element: File Dialog
The course element "File dialog" provides you with preset discussion forums; in contrast to an ordinary forum, dialogs here are explicitly based on certain documents. Use such a file dialog to let your course participants discuss e.g. scientific articles or papers.
In the editor in the tab "Forum/storage configuration" or in the runtime files can be uploaded in the storage of the file dialog with "Upload file". Afterward they can be looked up and downloaded by the course participants. The related discussion forum is created automatically and opens with a click on "Show". The different columns give an overview who uploaded which file when.
In the chapter "Learning Activities in Courses" you will get more information on how to upload files or how to open topics and reply to questions; see section "File Dialog".
In general all course participants have read and write permission in a forum and may upload or download files. All course authors and tutors additionally dispose of the option to moderate a file dialog. These preset rights can be adapted in the tab "Access" of the respective course element according to your needs. Thus three different right groups can be differentiated:
- "Upload or download files/moderate forum": Define here who or when users get all rights of the course owner regarding the allocation of the files and the moderation of the forums and thus also the ability to delete postings.
- "Upload and download files/read and write in forum": Define here who or when users are allowed to upload files as well as publish forum entries.
- "Download files/read in forum only": Define here who or when no files can be uploaded nor postings can be created.
The right to moderate has already been explained in the section "Course Element: Forum."
File dialog: permission to moderate
By means of this field you can determine the moderation of your file dialogs as well as the write permission for stored files, i.e., the conditions concerning the file dialog's moderation or the way how files can be uploaded or deleted.
The box "Blocked for learners" is checked by default. This is in contrast to other course elements whose default settings are not restricted.
For more information on the other restriction options, please go to General Configuration of Course Elements.
Course Element: Participant folder
The course element "Participant folder" allows you to exchange files between participants and coaches. With the creation of the course element there are two folders available. On one side this is the drop box where participants can upload files for the coaches. On the other side it is the return box where coaches can upload files for all participants together or individually.
Folder settings
In the folder settings configurations for the drop box and the return box can be made. By default both folders are enabled and delete and override is enabled for the participants. For the drop box some more configurations can be made.
Delete and override can be unenabled. This means that the participants cannot delete any files. Uploaded files stay in the drop box coercively. Further a time interval can be defined. The upload in the drop box is only possible in this time frame. Out of this time frame files can only be downloaded.
If the participant's folder is activated, the participants can upload files or create them directly in OpenOLAT. If the administrator of the OpenOLAT instance has activated further document editors, it is also possible to create further file formats such as Word, Excel or PowerPoint files.
Additionally the number of files can be limited. As soon as this number is reached no writing tools are available anymore. This means that uploaded files cannot be moved, copied, zipped or unzipped anymore. But they can be deleted, if this option is enabled. If desired only the drop box or only the return box can be enabled.
Attention: As for all upload areas, there is a memory limit for the participant folder. The file upload limits set by the administrator and the entire folder limit are displayed when you try to upload a file.
A similar configuration of file delivery + file return by coaches can also be implemented with the course element "Task", only that the possibilities of the task element are much more comprehensive and complex.
Course Element: Participant list
Unlike the member management course tool, which is only visible for course owners, the course element "Participant list" provides a list of all course members to those OpenOLAT users allowed to open the respective course. Members are listed depending on their role within the course as either course administrator, coach or participant. Select the user groups to be displayed to course users.
By linking the member names to their OpenOLAT visiting card as well as the OpenOLAT mail service, this course element facilitates contacting your fellow course members directly from within the course. In the course editor you can determine whether the e-mail function should be available for all course participants or just for course owners and coaches. Use the "Send e-mail" button in the course view to send mails to multiple user (groups). If required, external mail addresses can also be added.
The course view also offers, apart from the mail function, the online instant messaging status of listed course participants. A click on the status icon opens the chat window.
Finally it can be defined, who is allowed to download the participant list as Excel or to print it. Again it is differentiated between coach and owner or all users.
