Categories
Announcements

Springboard Support Over Holiday Break

The ZipSupport Call Center will be closed beginning 12/24/2010 and will resume operations on 1/3/2011. However, you can still submit requests for Springboard support during that time by sending a message to springboardhelp@uakron.edu. Support requests should receive a response within 24 hours, and will be escalated as needed.

Self-help guides are also available for Springboard for both instructors and students. Instructor guides can be found here, and student guides can be found here. Thank you,  and have a great holiday break!

Categories
Announcements

End of Semester Checklist

Can you believe that the it’s almost the end of the semester? Here is a checklist to help you complete some end-of-semester tasks in Springboard –

For additional assistance, please contact the ZipSupport Center at 330.972.6888 or by email at support@uakron.edu.

Categories
Diving Deeper

LOR: Storage

Digital storage space is at a premium. When you copy your course, you make an extra copy of every item in your course, thus duplicating storage needs.  If you copy your course multiple times, you are repeatedly increasing digital storage space requirements in Springboard.
So what’s the alternative?  The Learning Object Repository (LOR) provides a place to share your learning objects as well as store them. You can publish your content into the LOR and place a link to the objects in your course.  Now, when you copy your course, you will copy only links and not data and additional storage space will be minimal.  As an added benefit, your copy will take significantly less time!
Picture from: http://www.desire2learn.com/learningrepository/overview/
Also consider that courses older than 3 years will eventually be purged to recover space on the file system. Although courses will be purged, there are no plans to eliminate the LOR. This means that learning objects that you publish will be secure and will be available for the foreseeable future.
Select this link for an overview of the LOR.
Select this link for detailed information on the LOR.
The LOR is waiting, store your learning objects today!
Jacob Bane
Graduate Assistant Design and Development Services.
Categories
Diving Deeper

LOR: Metadata

Metadata is essential for the ease of use of the Learning Object Repository (LOR). Metadata can make items that you post easier to find by your colleagues and vice versa. Essentially, metadata is a series of descriptive tags that are attached to learning objects that allow them to be found easily. With the LOR, you can attach metadata to your own learning objects or search for items already in the LOR with metadata.

To attach metadata to your own learning objects, you must add the metadata during the publishing process.
1. In the course you wish to upload files from, select the content tab.
2. Next to the content you wish to upload, select the publish icon ( ) on the right side of the screen.
3. Select the option to create a new object.
4. Select whether you want to hide the object.
5. Select the metadata icon () to add metadata.

6. Add your desired metadata and select save.
7. Select next.
8. Select publish
9. The object can now be accessed from the LOR and contains the added metadata.

To search the LOR using metadata:
1. Go to the course you wish to upload files to.
2. Select the content tab
3. Under manage content, select add learning object.
4. Select advanced search.
5. Add your desired metadata search criteria

6. Select search.
7. Items relating to your search terms and metadata will be displayed.

Select this link for more information on metadata.

Select this link for more information on the LOR.

LOR resources are waiting to be found, add or search with metadata today!

Jacob Bane
Graduate Assistant Design and Development Services.

Categories
Announcements

D2L: Fusion

Did you know that Desire2Learn is looking for presenters for their annual Fusion Conference? Desire2Learn is the company behind the online learning platform we use at the University of Akron, Springboard.  Fusion is an annual users conference, held in July, where Desire2Learn users from around the world come to discus the online learning platform. Fusion 2011 will be held July 10th through 15th in Denver, Colorado. Fusion is looking for proposals of presenters for the next conference right now. The final deadline to submit a proposal is December 22nd.

If interested in Fusion, select this link.

If interested in submitting a proposal, select this link.

Jacob Bane
Graduate Assistant Design and Development Services