1. Introduction
This document describes the creation of a set of rooms on the NBB1 Floor of the Test Building, which can be found in WebLearn. This floor has been specially created for this purpose. The guidance given can also be used to create resources on your own departmental floor in WebLearn if you have the necessary access rights. If you want to be able to create resources directly on your departmental floor, contact your Floor Manager. There is more information on this in Section 8 of this document. The document gives both concise 'hands-on' instructions covering the mechanics of the process and additional reference information to help you extend the same techniques on your departmental floor. The hands-on instructions are clearly identified in the document, by numbering, so that readers can concentrate on the mechanics of creating resources if they wish and refer to the more detailed explanations and suggestions later when required.
This document is based upon a guide initially produced by Terry Wassall at the University of Leeds and is amended with permission.
For departments that do not as yet have a floor in WebLearn, the procedure is to ask WebLearn admin to create one, designating one or more members of staff in the department as FloorManager(s). It is expected that Floor Managers will take responsibility for the overall design and structure of the departmental floor.
The NBB1 Floor in the Test Building is a simulated departmental floor created for the purposes of this document. If you wish to use the suite of rooms you create on the NBB1 Floor whilst working through this document to support your teaching in the WebLearnyou should consult your Departmental Floor Manager who will be able to move your suite to your Department's floor. After your suite is moved on to the departmental floor you can continue to create additional rooms and resources within the suite without any further assistance from the floor manager.
Practice varies between departments. A full discussion of the alternative strategies and recommendations for facilitating the creation of rooms on a departmental floor in WebLearnare covered in section 9 of this document, Collaboration on Departmental Floors. You may wish to consult your departmental floor manager to see what the preferred procedure is.
This document covers a typical procedure, that of a module co-ordinator who wishes to set up a suite of rooms in support of their module. The hands-on instructions will take you through the process of creating a suite of rooms and adding rooms to it. In addition to the hands-on sections, other sections contain useful reference materials. The reference sections identified in the text can be skipped and read later if desired.
The first hands-on section, Section 2, gives instruction for creating an empty suite on the NBB1 Floor. This simulates the actions of a floor manager creating an empty suite on a departmental floor for a colleague. The remaining sections hands-on sections are typical actions carried out by a module co-ordinator who then develops the suite and its contents for his or her specific module. The basic process of creating rooms is common to all types of room. Essentially, creating a room entails filling in a form on screen that specifies the type of room and its main characteristics. Other on-screen forms are used to set access rights to the room. Every aspect of creating, modifying, setting access rights and, when required, moving WebLearn rooms is a matter of filling in on-screen forms.
1.1 Entering the Test Building
1. Load a web browser. If you are taken to the OUCS Home page, click on the WebLearn link on the navigation bar at the left of the page. Otherwise you can access WebLearn's Home page via the following URL: http://www.weblearn.ox.ac.uk/
2. Click on the login button and enter your WebLearn user name and password.
3. On entering Oxford Campus you will see a list of buildings, including the Information Centre and the Test Building . Click on the link to the Test Building . Once in the building you will see a link to the NBB1 Floor.
4. Click on this to enter the NBB1 Floor. You are now ready to start work on creating a suite of rooms.
2. Creating a New Suite of Rooms
These instructions will take you through the process of creating a new suite of rooms on the NBB1 Floor as if you are a floor manager for a departmental floor. The suite these instructions create is illustrated on the next page.
1. When in the NBB1 Floor you will see a list of rooms created here by other members of staff working through this document. Scroll down the list until you see a command menu as illustrated.
2. Click on Create a new resource here. You will see an option to create a Suite of Rooms.
3. Click on this option and a form will open for creating the suite. You will see the following fields for entering information: a check box labelled Access controlled by containing location, and text fields labelled Name, Title, Description and Introduction with some explanatory text by each. Ignore for the moment the check box and leave it unchecked - the default. The use of this facility will be covered in section 7 on setting access rights to rooms.
4. Fill in the text fields exactly as described below.
a) In the box labelled Name enter abcd1010but substitute your own initials or module prefix for abcd. You must use lower case letters and run all the letters together. This is a dummy module code. (You may use a real module code here if you wish).
b) In the box labelled Title enter abcd1010 Introduction to Learning Skills. (Substitute your own initials or module prefix for abcd or a real module code).
c) In the box labelled Description enter This area contains on-line resources for the Learning Skills Module. (Or text of your own choice)
d) In the box labelled Introduction enter This area contains on-line resources for students who wish to develop their study skills. For more information contact Fred Bloggs (f.bloggs@oxford.ac.uk). (Or text of your own choice)
5. Click on the button labelled Create Now. A message will be displayed confirming you are creating a new suite of rooms and warning you that the operation will take some time.
Normally it takes only a few seconds and then the message is replaced by another that confirms the new resource has been created OK, as illustrated. On the other hand you will get an error message if you have used illegal characters in the URL text field or have omitted to put text in any of the other text fields. You will not get an error message if you have followed the above instructions. If you get an error message click on the browser's Back Button to return to the form and correct any errors. Then click on the Create button again.
6. The confirmation message that your suite of rooms has been
created has a link Back to menu of resources. Click
on that link 
and
you will return to the list of resources on the NBB1 floor. Scroll down
the list of resources until you find the link to the suite you have
just created. You will see that the title you chose for the room has
become the room's link and the description you entered in the create
form describes the link. Click on the link to enter the suite. The
suite you have created is illustrated
and described below. Note how the text you have entered into the
various text fields in the create form is utilised in the room.
3. Adding Rooms to a Suite of Rooms
You now have a suite of rooms that is empty. It is like an entrance lobby you can enter but there are no doors in it leading anywhere. Our next task is to create rooms to place in the suite. For this exercise we will create two rooms; a plain room for use as a module study room and a group discussion room.
3.1 Creating a Plain Room
Plain rooms are ideal for using as reading or study rooms where you can provide links to a range of documentary resources for students. As well as links to electronic documents you can also put WebLearn resources such as MCQs, questionnaires, pigeonholes, links to other web pages, etc. in a plain room if you wish. You might call the room a study room.
The
process of creating a plain room is exactly the same as for creating a
suite of rooms in that you fill in a form specifying the new plain
room's attributes. If you are following on from the previous section
you are already in your suite of rooms. If not navigate there now. Just
below the introductory text in your suite you will see a short menu
with a link to Create a new resource here.
1. From the suite of rooms select the Create a new resource here link. A list of resources you can create appears.
2. Select the link to Plain Room. A form will open for creating the plain room. You will see the following fields for entering information: a check box labelled Access controlled by containing location, and text fields labelled Name, Title, Description and Introduction with some explanatory text by each. Ignore for the moment the check box and leave it unchecked - the default. The use of this facility will be covered in section 6 on setting access rights to rooms.
3. Enter the following text in the fields.
Name: studyroom
Title: Learning Skills Study Room
Description: Contains resources for the Learning Skills Module.
Introduction: This room contains documentation and practice MCQ papers for the Learning Skills Module.
4. When you have filled in the fields click on the Create button. Wait for the confirmation message that your new room has been created OK and then click the Back to Menu of Resources link. This will take you back to your suite. You should be able to see the link to the new room displayed in your suite.
3.2 Creating a Group Communication Room
After the last exercise you should be back in your suite. Now create a group discussion room.
1. Click on the Create a new resource here link. This time select the Group Communication Room link. As before, ignore the first item in the create form, the check box labelled Access controlled by containing location.
2. Enter the following text into the four room property fields.
Name: discussroom
Title: Learning Skills Discussion Room
Description: This room is used to keep in touch with teaching staff and students.
Introduction: Welcome to the Learning Skills discussion room.
3. When you have filled in the fields click on the Create now button.
4. Wait for the confirmation message that your new room has been created OK and then click the Back to Menu of Resources link. This will take you back to your suite. You should be able to see the link to the new communication room displayed in your suite.
You have now created a suite of rooms on the floor and put two different types of room in the suite of rooms, as illustrated below.
At the moment both rooms in your suite are empty. The study room has no documents or other resources in it and there is no discussion in the group communication room. Other documents NBB2 Setting Up and Using Reading/Study Rooms and NBB3 Setting Up and Using Group Communications Rooms discuss the development and use of these room types in detail. These are just three of more than a dozen types of resource you can create in the Nathan Bodington Building. Please see the appendix for a full list of resource types and WebLearn documents that describe how to set them up and use them.
The next step is to set up access rights so the students can find and enter your suite and its rooms. This is the topic of section 6. Section 4 below describes in more detail issues concerned with choosing (and changing) the name and other properties of rooms and resources. This section can be skipped until later if desired. Section 5 explains briefly how to navigate around the Test Building (and therefore also WebLearn ).
4. Choosing and Editing Room and Resource Properties
4.1 Overview of Room Properties
The create form specifies basic properties (or meta data) about the resource being created. (Having created a resource, you can access and edit these properties by clicking on the link Manage this location and then in the menu click on the link Modify this location, which gives you the same options as the create form. This is covered below in section 4.6.)
The first item in the create form for WebLearn rooms and resources is a check box labelled Access controlled by containing location. The default for this check box is unchecked. The use of this check box is covered in section 6 of this document that is concerned with setting up and controlling access to your rooms and resources. The rest of this section is concerned with the text fields in the create form. The Name of the room is how the WebLearn system identifies the room. The name you give your room becomes the last part of the room's web address, its Uniform Resource Locator (URL). WebLearn is, in reality, a dedicated web server. All the building's rooms are web pages with a specific location on the web server. Each room therefore has to be given a name that becomes the unique part of its web address that identifies it and allows links to be made to it.
For instance, consider a hypothetical suite of rooms to support a module on a departmental floor of WebLearn . The full URL of the suite on the departmental floor will be: http://www.weblearn.ox.ac.uk/bodington/site/department/suite/ where http://www.weblearn.ox.ac.uk/bodington/site/department/ is the URL of the departmental floor on the WebLearn server and suite is the name you chose in the create form for the suite.
Error messages: if you use too many characters in the URL the following error message appears: Unable to create new location - name is more than 12 characters. If you use illegal characters the error message reads: Unable to create new location - the name contains invalid characters. In either case click on the web browser back button to return to the create form and correct the error.
The Title of the room is the text that is displayed as the link to the suite of rooms. This can be considered to be the name on the door leading into the suite of rooms. This is what users click on in order to enter the room. The room title is also displayed within the suite of rooms so that users know the location they are in.
The Description of the room is text that accompanies the room's title link giving a brief description of the contents and/or purpose of the suite. This is displayed 'on the door' so to speak, and gives the user information about the room before entering it.
The Introduction to the room is introductory text that is displayed in a room. This is usually used to give information on the room's content and purpose, for instance, who can enter the room, how it should be used, contact names and email addresses of module tutors, etc.
Error messages: If you omit to enter text in any of the above text fields the following error message displays: Unable to create new location - one or more of the boxes was left blank. Click on the browser back button to return to the create form and correct the error. To see the full URL of a room, place the mouse cursor over the link to the room but do not click on it for a moment. With the cursor over the link it changes from an arrow into a hand.
If you look at the status bar running along the bottom of the Web browser window you will see the full URL of the room. If you have followed the exercises in earlier sections of this document, put the mouse cursor over the link to your suite on the NBB1 floor and you should see something like: http://www.weblearn.ox.ac.uk/bodington/site/testarea/nbb1/abcd1010/ with the name you gave your suite in place of abcd1010. The name you gave your suite in the create form has been incorporated into the full web address of the suite of rooms.
4.2 Choosing a Name for the Suite of Rooms
The rules about creating a name are displayed next to the Name field in the create form. It is a good idea to give a suite of rooms a name that helps identify its purpose. It also needs to be unique. You cannot have two rooms with the same name in the same location, i.e. in the same suite. Typically a suite of rooms devoted to one particular module would have the modulecode as the name, for instance slsp2010 is a suitable name for a suite of rooms for the Research Methods and Computing module in the Department of Sociology and Social Policy. Bearing in mind the 12-character maximum for a name, the name for a suite of rooms could be used as a prefix for the various other rooms that the suite leads to. So a reading room for the above module might be given a name of slsp2010rr. Within the rules of length, case and permissible characters names can be quite arbitrary but you will find it is very useful to have systematic naming conventions when moving a number of rooms to different locations on a departmental floor.
4.3 Choosing a Room Title
Thought needs to be given to the title of the room. As indicated above, this is the text that becomes the link users will click on to enter the room. In the hypothetical example, a suite of rooms devoted to a particular module, the module code number and name, e.g. SLSP2010 Research Methods and Computing would make an obvious room title. However, you can choose any text you feel is appropriate.
4.4 The Room Description
If you want a little more information about the room and its contents and purpose to be displayed with the link to the room, it should be entered in this field. You may decide that the room's title gives sufficient information, in which case you must enter into this field the characters <!> This is the 'less than' sign, an exclamation mark, and the 'greater than' sign. These three characters must be entered without any spaces. If this suite of rooms will not be on open access you could consider putting contact information in the description so that students doing the module but who can't get in can contact you.
4.5 The Room Introduction
This field is used to place introductory text in the rooms. This might be a more detailed description of the room's purpose, instructions to students, or a notice of some kind. If you don't want any introductory text to appear in the room, you must enter into this field the characters <!> as described fully in section 4.4 above.
4.6 Changing Properties of the Suite of Rooms
Once
created, you can edit the properties of your rooms if you wish. Just
below the introductory text in your suite you will see a short menu,
one item of which is Manage this location. Only
you, as the creator and therefore owner of this room, will be able to
see this menu. It will not be visible to students.
1. Click on the Manage this location link.
You will be taken to the Resource Management menu for your room.
Each of items in the Resource Management Menu is covered in subsequent sections of this document. For the moment we are concerned with the process of modifying a room's characteristics.
2. Click on the Modify this location link to open the Modify this location form.
You will notice immediately that this form is very similar to the form you used to create the room. There is a link that allows you to ask for bigger text boxes. This can be useful if you wish to type more than a sentence or two in the introductory text field. Finally, the button at the end of the form is now labelled Modify Now.
By all means experiment with this by altering the room description and introduction. You may also, if you wish, edit the room's name and title in the light of the previous discussion of choosing names and titles for rooms. When you have done this click on the Modify Now button. A message will be displayed that confirms the modification has taken place and gives you a link to click on which will reload your room correctly for you to view. Click on this link and you will be taken back to your room where you should be able to see the changes you have made. Changes to the introduction and title will be immediately apparent but you will have to exit the room and return to the NBB1 Floor by clicking on the second from right icon in the Navigation Bar to see changes to the room description, the text that accompanies the link to the room. The Navigation Bar is discussed in the next section.
5. Navigating in WebLearn
As you move around the Test Building, or WebLearn a navigation bar of clickable icons builds up that you use to backtrack to any of the locations you have passed through. Each icon is separated from the others by a vertical separator. Each icon has a design that indicates the type of room or resource it represents. The illustration below is what you see if you are in the suite you have just created on the NBB1 Floor of the Test Building. (The icons may be different if you have changed preferences via the Options link).
Working from right to left, the right most icon represents the location you are in, the suite of rooms you just created. Clicking on this will reload the suite of rooms, i.e. you will remain where you are. (This can be useful if you are in a room management location and want to return immediately to the room). The next one is the icon for the floor the suite is on, the NBB1 Floor. The next icon is the Test Building and gives access to other floors in the building. Finally, on the far left, the Oxford Campus logo provides a link back to the Oxford Campus. This gives access to a number of other buildings. These include the Information Centre, buildings for each Division, and a Recycling building that temporarily stores rooms and resources deleted from other buildings. If you move the mouse pointer over each icon and pause for a second a small box will open telling you the location you will go to if you click on it.
The most efficient way to navigate around WebLearn is to use the navigation bar. You can use the browser back button but this will be very inefficient at times. For instance, if you have read several messages in a discussion room and you wish to return to a previous location in WebLearn, clicking repeatedly on the back button will recycle you through all the messages you have read. By clicking on the appropriate icon on the navigation bar you can go immediately to the level or location in the building you require.
6. Setting Access Rights to Rooms
6.1 Overview of Access Rights
A powerful feature of WebLearn is that each room or resource is customised according to who the user is and what access rights he or she has. This gives you control over who can see, gain access to and use your resources. Access control is achieved by specifying a group or groups of users who can access the room and giving the group or groups the appropriate access rights so they can do what you want them to be able to do. There are several different levels of access rights that can be granted to users of WebLearn rooms and resources. These levels vary slightly from one type of room or resource to another, detailed in the sections below that deal with each different type of room and resource, but all rooms and resources have two levels of access in common - See access and View access. When a visitor to the building has See access to a room they are able to see the title link that gives access to the room and any description you have appended to the title link. This is equivalent to being able to see the door to the room and any notice upon it. However, the visitor can only enter the room and see what is in it if they also have View access.
When WebLearn admin creates a Departmental Floor the See and View access to that floor is set to everyone on the Internet. This means that anyone in the world with an Internet connection can enter WebLearn and see that your department has a floor. They can also click on the link to your floor and enter it. However, what they see once in your departmental floor is entirely up to the owners of the various rooms and resources in there. Owners (i.e. the creators of the rooms) have full control over who has what levels of access. For instance, if you own a room on your departmental floor and you have set the See level access to colleagues and students only, anyone else entering the floor who is not a colleague or student will not be able to see the link to your room or the room description. They will not even know it exists.
When you create a room all levels of access rights are initially set to 'owner' only. Therefore you as creator are the only person who can see your room exists and enter it. You have full managerial control over it, including extending access rights to others.
6.2 Granting Access to Rooms
This section will give brief instructions for setting up access rights to your new suite and the rooms in it. This exercise will follow a typical scenario in which access is set so that anyone can see the suite but only a specified group of students can enter the suite and see and enter the rooms in the suite. A more detailed discussion of access rights and strategies will follow in sections, 6.3 to 6.5. The starting point for this exercise is the suite of rooms. If you are not already there, navigate your way to your suite of rooms. You should see listed the two rooms you created in the suite.
1. Scroll down if necessary until you can see the link to Manage this location. Click on it to display the Resource Management menu. Click on Grant access to this location. The Access Control screen opens for the suite as illustrated below.
2. At the moment only the owners group, of which initially you are the only member, has any access rights. On the left-hand side of the screen, under the heading Add/Remove, you will see a small box with a + in it, the add group button. Click on this to open the Add Group screen.
You will see, working from left to right, a list of groups categories, a list of groups in the category highlighted, a description of the group highlighted, and a check list of the access rights that group currently has, to begin with none. You will now add additional groups to the suite's group access list.
3. Select allusers from the list of groups. The group description will tell you this list contains all the registered users of WebLearn . Click on the check box for See access rights. Click on the Add Selected Group button. You will be returned to the suite's access control screen and you will see that the allusers group has been added to the access group list for the suite with the See access rights only.
4. Click on the add group button again. Select anonymous from the group list. You will see from the group description that this group includes all anonymous Internet users. Click on the check box for See access rights and then click on the Add Selected Group button. You will be returned to the suite's Access Control screen where you will see that the anonymous group has been added to the group access list with See access rights only.
5. Click on the add group button again. We are now going to add a module student group. You can choose any course that is relevant, but here we show how to add the Applied Theology students to the resource. From the list of group categories, click once on campus*. Scroll down the group category list and click once on campus.course*. From the group category list, click once on campus.course.apptha*. Now you will see, in the groups list, module group lists identified by their start year etc. Scroll down the group list until you see the students group. Click on the group list to select it. You will see from the group description that this group includes students enrolled on the module according to University Card records.
6. Click on the check box for See, View and Post access rights and then click on the Add Selected Group button. You will be returned to the suite's Access Control screen where you will see that the student group has been added to the group access list with See, View and Post access rights.
This has completed the setting of access rights to the suite. Click on the right-hand icon in the WebLearn navigation bar to reload the suite. This returns you to the suite. The access situation you have set up is as follows: All WebLearn and internet users can see the link that gives access to the suite but cannot enter the room. All the students in a module group can see and enter the room. However the students would not be able to see or enter the two rooms in the suite. This is because, at the moment, both these rooms still have all access levels set to owner only.
The next step is to go into both the rooms in your suite in turn and give See, View and, in the case of the group communications room, Post access to the student group.
1. Enter the Learning Skills Study room. Click on the room's Manage this location link to open the Resource Management Menu. Click on Grant access to this location. The Access Control screen for the room opens.
2. Click on the Access controlled by containing location check box. After a brief pause the screen updates with a confirmation message. This completes setting access rights to the Learning Skills Study Room. The process is repeated for the suite's other room, the group communication room.
3. Return to the suite by clicking on the second to right end icon on the Navigation Bar.
Click on the link to enter the Learning Skills Discussion Room. Click on the room's Manage this room link to open its Resource Management menu. Click on the Grant access to this discussion room link to open the room's Access Control screen.
4. Click on the Access controlled by containing location check box. After a brief pause the screen updates with a confirmation message.
This completes setting access rights for the Learning Skills discussion room.
What you have done: You have created a suite containing two rooms: a study room and a discussion room. For the suite, you have given See access rights to the all Nathan Bodington Users and the entire Internet community. You also gave See, View and Post access to the suite to a specified group of students. The result of this is that the whole Internet world can see the link to your suite of rooms. However, only the specified group of students can enter the suite since only they have View access.
Once in the suite the students will be able to see the links to the two rooms in it. All you did when setting up the access rights to the 2 rooms in the suite was to specify that access should be controlled by the containing location. This means that the two rooms contained in the suite will inherit the same access rights you set for the suite - the whole world (via a combination of the allusers and anonymous groups) have See rights to the two rooms and the specified student group have See, View and Post rights.
There are a couple of points to note. Firstly, although the whole Internet community has See access to the rooms in the suite (as inherited from their access rights to the suite), in practice they cannot see the two rooms because they have not got View access to the suite to be able to enter it. They only have See access to the suite so they cannot enter the suite to view its contents. Secondly, the Post access rights the students have inherited from the suite allows them to post messages in the Learning Skills Discussion room. Post rights are only relevant to a group discussion room. However, although giving students Post rights to the suite is meaningless in the context of the suite, because we wanted a discussion room within the suite to inherit Post rights from the suite for the students, we gave Post rights to the suite for the student group. The general principle here is that all types of rights, although sometimes specific to a particular type of room or resource, can be allocated to a containing resource (such as a suite or a plain room) so that rooms within the container can inherit appropriate rights for the type of resource they are. The above exercise is a good demonstration of this.
Post rights were given to a group of students for a suite although posting messages is not something they can do directly in a suite. But the suite contains a discussion room in which messages are posted. To allow students to post messages all that was necessary was to allow the discussion room to inherit the access rights set for the containing suite.
6.3 Access Groups
Access to WebLearn rooms and resources are controlled by attaching a group or groups of users to the resource and giving the group(s) appropriate access rights. All staff and students at Oxford University have user names and passwords for WebLearn . Unlike students, staff can create and manage WebLearn resources.
Many access groups are created by the WebLearn system by drawing staff, student and module data from the University Card databases. For instance, all current modules have an access list containing the students enrolled on each module. In addition, if required, access groups can be created on demand by Floor Mangers. For instance, it may be useful to have an access list that contains all level 1 module convenors and tutors in your Department. The following is a list of the main system generated access groups available.
allusers, allstaff, allstudents, allothers.
The groups prefixed with all are fairly self-explanatory. The characteristic they share is that they contain only WebLearn users, i.e. everyone in these lists has a WebLearn user name and password. The allusers group contains everyone who has a WebLearn user name and password. The other all groups have subsets of allusers. The allothers group contains all registered users who are not either a student or a member of staff.
anonymous
The anonymous group represents all Internet users (including registered users of WebLearn who have entered WebLearn without logging in and are therefore anonymous). The anonymous group does not includes WebLearn users who are logged in. This is the access group that enables public access to WebLearn . The internet public can enter WebLearn and departmental floors but can only see and enter rooms and resources on departmental floors if owners of resources explicitly grant access rights to the anonymous access group. On occasions some degree of public access may be desired for public relations and marketing purposes. However, see the appendix to this document for the rules for acceptable uses of WebLearn .
adhoc
Every WebLearn resource - be it a container or a tool - may contain an adhoc group, which is defined independently of the hierarchy of groups provided in WebLearn. Anyone with Manage access to a room or resource is able to add or remove individuals from the resource's adhoc group and set its access rights.
6.4 Access Rights
As outlined previously in this section, all strategies for granting access rights to a room or resource involve the same two steps - associating one or more groups with the resource and then assigning access rights to the group(s). There are nine different access rights that can generally be assigned to groups. Not all are relevant to every type of resource, for instance the Post access is specific to a group discussion room as it allows members of a group to post messages. The following is a list of the access rights you can give to users of your rooms and resources with a brief description of what each allows.
|
Right |
Description |
|---|---|
|
See |
People whom you allow to see this resource can see its title and description on directories of resources. |
|
View
|
People who you allow to view this resource can visit it by selecting a link or typing its URL and can access information in the resource. For some types of resource additional rights are needed to make full use. |
|
Edi
|
People who you allow to edit this resource can change content by typing into web forms if it is a type of resource that supports this. For example you need edit access to a questionnaire in order to add, remove and edit questions. |
|
Record |
People who you allow record level access can submit responses if this resource is a questionnaire. |
|
Review |
For some resource that involve assessment you need review access to see personal performance information. |
|
Post |
For resources that involve communication post access allows you to post in messages. |
|
Mark |
Applies to resources that involve tutors assessing the performance of students' work. People who you allow to mark can look at a list of students who have submitted work and if the status of a student's entry is "ready to mark" they can enter marks and feedback. |
|
Create |
Applies to resources that can contain other resources, e.g. floor, plain room, suite. Users who can create will have access to a menu that allows the creation of new resources. |
|
Upload |
Applies to resources that allow for the transfer of files from the user's computer to the resource e.g. pigeon hole, message, web document. Users who can upload will have access to a menu that allows them to select files on their own computer and transfer them up to the server. |
|
Manage |
People who you allow to manage this location can change its properties, move it to another place change access rights and perform other management tasks that may be specific to the type of resource. |
The following is a list of WebLearn resources and the access rights that are relevant for them.
| Suite of Rooms | Plain Room | Group Comm Room | External Link | Structured Doc | Web Doc | MCQ | Questionnaire | Short Answer Paper | Pigeon Hole | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| See | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES |
| View | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES |
| Manage | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES |
| Create | YES | YES | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| Post | - | - | YES | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| Edit | - | - | - | - | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES |
| Review | - | - | - | - | - | - | YES | YES | - | - |
| Record | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | YES | - | - |
| Mark | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | YES | YES |
| Upload | YES | YES | YES | - | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | - |
As indicated above, See, View and Manage levels of access are common to all types. See is equivalent to seeing the door to the room, View is equivalent to getting into the room to see what is there. Individuals having the Manage level of access can alter the access to the room or resource and move it elsewhere if desired. Manage rights are automatically given to the creator of the resource but she or he can also assign them to others if they wish. However, to move a room to which you have Manage access also requires that you have Create access to the destination.
The Create level of access only applies to rooms that can be used as containers for other rooms and resources, i.e. suites and plain rooms. An individual with Create access can move resources in and out of the room, assuming they have Manage access to the resources they wish to move.
The other levels of access that are specific to particular types of resource (Post, Edit, Mark, Record, Review and Upload) are discussed in detail in the separate documents that deal with each type of resource. See the appendix at the end of this document for details of other WebLearn resources not covered by this document.
The facilities for granting different levels of access to different groups for your rooms and resources are very powerful but as a result can seem rather complex. It is necessary to think through carefully your access strategies. You need to be careful that you don't inadvertently grant access rights to groups that you wanted to exclude. This can be a danger particularly when you use the facility that allows a resource to inherit the access rights of its container, i.e. if you allow a discussion room to inherit the access it grants from the suite it is in. It is a good idea to plan carefully and to specify which groups you want to give access to and at what level for each room and resource.
6.5 Access Strategies
This section discusses some common access strategies. It starts with a recommended simple and secure access strategy and continues with suggestions for more complex variations of this. The next section covers the practical instructions for implementing an access strategy.
As described above, departmental floors are given See and View access to all Internet users. Anyone with an Internet connection can see and enter your departmental floor. However, once in your departmental floor, they may only see what the various rooms and resources managers allow them to see and enter.
However, if all rooms and resources on a Department's floor are invisible it gives the impression that there is no activity on your departmental floor. For this reason it is recommended that you allow all Internet users to know your resources exists. This is achieved by giving the access groups anonymous and allusers See access for your resources. This allows all Internet users to see the title link to your room and the room description but, if this is the only access right you allow, they cannot enter the room or resource to see what is in there.
The recommended basic secure strategy is the one adopted in the exercises in section 6.2 above. To recap, a suite of rooms was created that contained two resources - a reading/study room and a group communication room. Three access groups are attached to the suite, allusers (i.e. all WebLearn users with a WebLearn user name and password), anonymous (all Internet users who are not registered for WebLearn), and a specific module's group of students.
The allusers and anonymous groups are given See access rights to the suite. The student access group were given See, View and Post access rights to the suite. As a result of this, all WebLearn users and all other Internet users can see the link to the suite and its description, but cannot enter it. The module student group can both see and enter the suite.
The access strategy for the two rooms contained in the suite is simply to allow the two rooms to inherit the access rights set for the suite they are in. All WebLearn users and the Internet have See rights and the module student group has See, View and Post access rights to the rooms. In practice the other WebLearn and Internet users cannot see the links to the two rooms as they cannot enter the suite to view its contents. However, the student group (that has View access to the suite) can enter it and see the two rooms. They also have the same access rights to the rooms in the suite as they have for the suite itself. This means they can enter the reading room and view its contents and they can enter the discussion room and read and post messages.
The virtue of this strategy is that it prevents anyone other than the student group entering the rooms in the suite so the materials you put in the reading/study room and the discussion in the group discussion room are private to yourself and the your students. You only had to set detailed access rights to one room, the suite, as all the resources in the suite simply inherited the suite's access groups and rights. It is equally simple and secure for any other resources you may put in the suite. For instance, you may set up some MCQs to help students assess their understanding or to revise for an exam. Any resource you put in the suite and allow to inherit the access groups and their rights from the suite will admit only the student group you attached to the suite. The only thing you would need to be careful of is that you may need to update the access rights you gave the student group when putting new resources in the suite. For instance, if you are going to add a number of MCQ tests to the suite, the student group will need to have Review rights to those resources if you want them to be able to complete the test and review their answers and scores. You could attach the student group to each of the MCQ rooms individually and give it, in each room, Review access rights. However, it would be much quicker to give the student group attached to the suite the additional Review access rights. If you then set all the MCQ rooms in the suite to inherit the suite's groups and their access rights, all the students will automatically have necessary Review access rights to the MCQ tests within the suite.
As you can see, the facility to allow a room or resource to inherit the access groups and their rights from the higher level container is very powerful and useful facility. But it should be used with caution and a complete analysis of what, in each case, it is allowing. Consider the following case. As in the example above you decide to create a suite that contains a study room with module materials in it, a group discussion room in which to hold on-line seminars, and some MCQ tests. You decide to let the whole internet world know the suite exists (achieved by attaching the anonymous and allusers groups to the suite and granting them See access rights). You also attach the module's student access group to which you give See, View, Post and Review access rights to. But you also want all students to be able to enter the suite and see what is in it. One reason for this is that the student access group for your module may not be completely up to date for the first few weeks of the semester and you are going to put a message in the suite asking any students doing your module that cannot gain access to the rooms in the suite to contact you. By giving the allusers group (which includes all student users) View as well as See access any student can enter the suite and read your message.
From this point on your access strategy is quite simple - you simply set all the rooms and resources contained in the suite to inherit the access groups and rights of the suite. This strategy restricts the ability to post messages and review their performance in MCQs to the module student group, but it also allows all other students into your study room, into your MCQs and into the discussion room. This may have been what you intended but it may not have been. You may not want all students to be able to enter your MCQs, only those taking the module.
In this case where you want all students to be able to enter the suite but not enter the resources in it, you would not be able to use the facility for inheriting the suite's access groups and rights. You would attach the allusers group to the suite and grant it See and View access. As before you would also attach the anonymous group to the suite and grant it See access rights but, as you are not going to allow the suite to pass on its access groups and right to resources within the suite, you may also consider granting the anonymous group View rights as well. You do not need to attach the module's student access group to the suite as they will have See and View access to the suite anyway as members of the allusers group. When you create resources in the suite you do not allow them to inherit the access groups. You therefore have to explicitly set the access groups and rights for these resources, from scratch. As you want all students to see the resources in the suite you will need to attach the allusers group to each resource in the room and grant it See access. There is no harm in allowing this to the anonymous group also. In addition, you will add the module's student access group to each resource in the suite and give it appropriate access rights to enter and use them - See, View, Post, Review etc.
There are many opportunities for exploiting the ability of rooms to inherit the access groups and rights of their container. As a final example, imagine that you set up a series of MCQ tests covering different topics in a module. All these MCQs could be put in one room. All the students on your module could be given See, View and Review access to the room. Then each MCQ in the room can be allowed to inherit the room's access group and rights.
The general principle to be aware of when considering using the inheritance of access rights facility is the following. If inheritance is activated, a resource will inherit all the access groups and rights of its container. If that container is inheriting the groups and rights of its own container, then all these rights are passed down the chain to the lowest level contained resource. So if there is suite on a Departmental floor that is allowed to inherit the Floor's access groups and rights, and there is a resource in the suite inheriting the access groups and rights of the suite, the resource will inherit the access groups and right of both the Floor and the suite. The effects of inheritance are additive, all the way down the chain of inheritance.
A major consequence of the additive nature of access group and rights inheritance is that you cannot selectively 'disinherit' a group at a lower level. Disinheritance is only possible by breaking the chain by switching off the inheritance facility for a room or resource.
These features of the inheritance facility should be taken into account when designing an access strategy for a resources in WebLearn . If in doubt, it is probably safer to ignore the access inheritance facility in complex multi-level situations and organise the access strategy by explicitly attaching groups to resources and setting the required access rights.
The next section reviews the process of attaching groups to a resource and setting their access rights.
6.6 Assigning Access Rights to Groups
Granting access to a resource is achieved by attaching access groups to and setting access rights to the groups. In the exercises for setting up access to a suite of rooms in section 6.2 above the typical process was described of setting access rights to a group at the same time as attaching the group to the room. This section will cover the process of adding or changing access rights to a group that is already attached.
1. Make sure you are in your suite. Scroll down if necessary until you can see the link to Manage this location. Click on it to display the Resource Management menu. Click on Grant access to this location. The Access Control screen opens for the suite as partly illustrated below.
2. You will see a list of the groups attached to your suite and any access rights you have set. The process of adding or removing access rights is quite straightforward. In the right-hand column of the screen you will see, under the heading Change Access, the change access buttons with an * on them. There is one of these for each group. Click on the change access button for the owners group. A screen will open with a list of checkboxes for each available access right. The boxes are checked or unchecked depending on which rights the group has. To add or remove an access right simply click on the access right's check box to select or deselect it. When you have made the changes you require, click on the Save changes button. You will be returned to the Access Control screen. You will see a message confirming the change and the updated list of access rights for the group.
6.7 Adding Members to Access Groups
You can only add or remove members for access groups if you have the necessary access rights to the group. Membership of groups generated from University Card data cannot (in general) be amended. You can amend groups created by your Floor Manager providing he or she has given you the necessary right that allow this. However, there are two groups you automatically have control of and can amend - your room's adhoc and owners groups. This section covers adding and removing members for these groups. It also includes some suggestions of how you might exploit these groups.
The first exercise will add a colleague to the room's owners list. One possible reason for doing this is if a colleague is going to help set up and manage resources within the suite. Adding them to the suite's owners group will give them the necessary access rights to do this. 1. Open the room's Access Control screen (via the room's Manage this location and Grant access to this location links).
2. Click on the Membership button for the owners group. This will open the Group Membership screen. You will see the name and description of the group and what rights you have to the group. You will also see buttons for the various operations you can perform.
3. Click on the List Members button and you will see only yourself listed. Click on the Add Members button and a form will open that allows you to search the WebLearn user database for and identify your colleague. This form offers powerful search methods for WebLearn users to add to access groups.
4. For this exercise you wish to search for a member of staff. Within the Search within group list, click on and highlight the allstaff group. The colleague you wish to add to the owners group for your suite will be in the allstaff list. They will also be in the allusers group but selecting the allstaff group to search in will limit the scope of the search to staff only. Within the Search by Name or Unique Identifier list, click on and select surname. In the Search For field enter the surname of a colleague. Click on the Search Button. After a short wait a list of all staff members with the surname you entered will appear.
5. If the colleagues surname is relatively uncommon, you will get a short list of staff, as in the illustration. However, with a more common name the list can be quite long and it may not be obvious which person listed is the correct one. In either case, to add the required person to the owners group, uncheck the boxes against the unwanted individuals and then click on the Add selected users button. The screen will clear and after a while you will see displayed the WebLearn ID number list of the users added to the group. Click on the Close button to return to the Access Control screen. The instructions above have identified the possible problem with searching for a user by surname. If it is fairly common surname the search will generate a long list of users and it may be difficult, or even impossible, to identify the correct person. It is strongly recommended that you obtain the WebLearn user name of staff members you wish to add to a group. In the Search by Name or Unique Identifier list in the search form you will see, amongst other options, to search by WebLearn user name. If you select this and enter the appropriate information in the Search for field, the list users found should contain only the person you wish to add to the group. Note that you can enter a list of names, user names or other IDs in the Search for field. The users found list will list all the individuals searched for.
To remove individuals from a group is a similar operation.
1. From the room's Access Control screen, click on the owners group Membership button. In the Group Membership screen, click on the Remove Members button. This will display a list of current members.
2. Notice that you are listed as a member of the group but, as it is the owners group for your suite, you cannot remove yourself from the group. Click on the check boxes for any members you wish to remove and click on the Remove selected users button. This will return you to the Group Membership screen. To finish the process click on the Close button to return to the Access Control screen.
The other group you can add or remove members from is the room's adhoc group. Every WebLearn resource has its own adhoc access group which is always, initially, empty. This adhoc group can be used for a variety of purposes. One common use is to allow students access to the room who are not in the University Card module student access group. The University Card generated access group for your modules may not always be completely up to date. With late arrivals and transfers, there is usually a time lag before the University Card student records are updated. This means that there may be a few students doing your module that are not on the University Card module student access group and cannot therefore get into your WebLearn module resources. One way to deal with this situation is to put these students in the rooms adhoc group and give that group the same access rights as the student access group.
The process of adding students (or any other WebLearn users) to the adhoc group is identical to the process described above for adding a colleague to the owners group.
1. Open the room's Access Control screen (via the room's Manage this location and Grant access to this location links).
2. Before you can add members to the adhoc group you will need to attach it to the room. The full instructions for adding a group to a room's access group list are in section 6.2 above. Brief instruction are repeated here. Click on the add group button. In the Add Group form, first click on and select the adhoc group from the list of groups. Then click on the access rights you wish to give the adhoc group, say See, View, Post and Review for example. Click on the Add selected group button. This will return you to the Access Control screen where you will see that the adhoc group has been added to the access group list.
3. Now you need to add students to the adhoc group. Click on the Membership button for the adhoc group. This will open the adhoc group's Group Membership screen. Click on the Add Members button.
4. In the search form, set Search within groups to allstudents. Set Search By Name or Unique Identifier to Bodington user name or surname, depending upon what information you have about the student(s) you wish to add. (It is recommended that you get this information from the students rather than search for them using their surnames). Enter the student user names or ID numbers into the Search for field and click on the Search button.
5. After a pause the Users found list will be displayed. Click on the Add selected users button. After a further pause the screen will display a list of WebLearn ID numbers for the students you have added to the suites adhoc group. This completes the process of adding students to the adhoc group. If you want to check the group's membership, simply click on the List membership button. When you have finished click on the Close button to return to the Access Control screen.
This completes this section on adding and removing access group members.
7. Moving the Suite to a New Location
Sometimes you need to move a set of resources to a new location. It might be because you are reorganising the structure of the departmental floor (if you are a Floor Manager) or it might be because you are restructuring your module rooms. To enable staff to practice moving rooms and resources a suite has been created on the NBB1 floor in the Test Building called Level 1 Course Modules. To try out the process of moving a room work through the following instructions:
1. Make a note of the full URL of your suite of rooms. If you have created a suite on the
NBB1 floor it will be something like:
http://www.weblearn.ox.ac.uk/bodington/site/testarea/nbb1/abcd1010/
Make a note of your suite's URL. The bit you need to write down particularly is from the building name onwards, i.e. testarea /nbb1/abcd1010/ substituting the name of your room for abcd1010.
2. If you are not already there, navigate to and enter the NBB1 Floor. Look for and click on the link to the Level 1 Course Modules suite.
3. When you are in the Level 1 Course Module suite look for and click on the Bring rooms or resources here link in the room's command menu. A form will open on screen the important part of which is illustrated below.
4. As the note in the form indicates, the first part of your room's URL that you wish to bring to this location is assumed to be http://www.weblearn.ox.ac.uk/bodington/site/ You need only to enter the remainder of the room's URL in the form. In this exercise it is the remaining URL you made a note of - example this would be testarea/nbb1/abcd1010/. Remember to substitute the correct name of your own suite of rooms.
5. Click on the Bring Here Now button. Providing you have entered the remainder of your room's URL correctly you will get a message confirming the room has been brought to this location.
6. Click on the right-hand icon of the WebLearn navigation bar to reload the room. You should see that your room is now listed within the Level 1 Course Modules suite.
7. Return to the NBB1 floor to see that your room is no longer listed there. If you wish to bring your room back to the NBB1 floor click on the Bring rooms or resource here link in the NBB1 floor and complete the Bring Here form with testarea/nbb1/level1/abcd1010 (substituting the correct name of your own suite of rooms).
The rule for moving is: navigate to the destination, choose the Bring rooms or resource here command and specify the current URL of the resource that you want to move. If you don't know what the current URL of the resource you want to move is, go there first and make a note of it. If, on clicking the Move Here Now button, you get a message reporting the move has not taken place it will almost certainly be because you have mistyped the full URL.
Click on theBack button to return to the Bring Here form to make any necessary corrections and click on the Bring Here Now button again. Repeat this process as often as necessary until the the move is successful.
Note that if you have moved a suite of rooms containing other rooms and resources, these will have been moved with the suite and will still be in it at its new location.
8. Collaboration on departmental floors
It's often necessary to collaborate with others when you plan and then implement a set of resources for your module. Generally overall control of a departmental floor in WebLearn is given to one or two people designated as Floor Managers. They take responsibility for setting up the overall structure of the floor but then grant access to colleagues to allow them to create, move and modify their own rooms and resources within that structure.
There are different approaches to the process of creating and moving resources on departmental floors. The problem is one of access because you need Create access to create new resources at a location and to move an item you need Manage access to that item and Create access to the destination location. Only Floor Managers have the Create access to a departmental floor. Here are three different approaches:
a) For floor managers authoring their own resources it is simple. They are, by default, granted Create access to the departmental floor by the system administrators. This means that they can simply create their own rooms directly on the departmental floor.
b) If the resources to be moved have been created elsewhere (i.e. in the Test Building) by staff members who are not floor managers, then he or she must give the floor manager Manage access rights to the resources they want moved on to the departmental floor. They must tell the floor manager the full URLs of the resources to be moved. It is a good idea to give the floor manager See and View access to the room or resource to be moved as well as Manage rights so they can see and enter it and check the URL for themselves if necessary. Once the room has been moved to the floor the owner (i.e. the creator of the room) is in complete control and can reallocate access rights as they wish.
c) A more straightforward approach is for floor managers to create empty suites for each module convenor or module team to populate with resources. The suite is created on the departmental floor by the Floor Manager who then adds the colleague(s) he or she created it for to the suite's owners list. The colleague(s) will automatically get all the access rights necessary to modify and manage the suite themselves access. From that point he or she will be able to create resources within the suite, modify the suite (for instance, change the title, description and introductory text, and control access to it).
d) A more general variant of c) is for the floor manager to create on the departmental floor a suite within which module convenors can create their own suites. All departmental staff are given See, View, and Create access to the suite so that they have complete freedom to create and manage their own suites in it. In addition the allusers group are given See and View access so they can see and enter the suite.
Approach a) only applies to Floor Managers. Approach b) is a special case where, for instance, a colleague who has worked through the exercises in this document has created a suite on the NBB1 floor in the Test building and wants the suite moved from there onto the departmental floor. Only a floor manager can do this.
Approaches c) and d) are more general. Approach c) may be preferred to d) because it allows the Floor Manager to plan and control the structure and organisation of the floor. Approach d) is the most hands-off strategy for a floor manager but it means possibly losing control of the structure of suites and resources within the 'master' suite. Potentially, this could lead to a very messy and unorganised list of rooms and resources that can make navigation for students difficult and confusing. Consequently, this approach is best implemented by adhering to the rule that only suites can be created in the 'master' module suite and that module convenors create other resources within their module suite(s). This means that, on entering the 'master' modules suite, students are only confronted with a list of suites for particular modules. Ease of navigation for students (and staff) is the key aim of designing the structure of a departmental floor.
8.1 Using Groups on Departmental Floors
Apart from the access groups created by the system (e.g. the all prefixed groups) and the University Card module students groups, Floor Managers and possibly other designated individuals in each department are able to create other named access groups if required. For instance, it may be useful to have an access group that contains all a department's teaching staff, or a group of individuals responsible for teaching a module. Once these access groups are created they appear in the list of available access groups that can be attached to rooms. It is also possible to set up such an access list so that its members can edit it, i.e. add and remove individuals from it. Groups have been set up to accommodate all staff who are recognised as having an attachment to a particular department or college to allow for user-specified group seeding. For more information on this please contact your Floor Manager or WebLearn admin.
9. Creation and Development of Further Resources
The resources not covered by this document are MCQs, questionnaires, pigeon holes, short answer papers, structured documents, web documents and links to external web sites. They are created within a plain room or a suite in exactly the same way as suites, plain rooms and discussion rooms are created, via a create form. The process of setting their access groups and setting access rights to those groups, moving them onto a departmental floor and/or into another room is also the same.
Although this document has covered the creation of suites, plain rooms and group discussion rooms, there has been no discussion on how to develop and use them. For instance, it has been stated that a plain room can be used as a container for a variety of resources to make a study room. Or it can be used to provide access to a range of documents and materials to form a reading room. However, there have been no instructions or guidance on how this can be done. This document has concentrated on basic process of creating rooms, granting levels of access to them, and moving them. Please refer to the documents NBB2 through to NBB8 which cover the development and use of specific types of resource in WebLearn.
10. Archiving or Recycling Redundant Rooms and Resources
Rooms and resources can be deleted from WebLearn . When they are deleted they are moved to a recycling building which is restricted to certain staff and from which they can be recovered if necessary. However, you may prefer to create your own archive of redundant rooms and resources. In many cases it is desirable to recycle rooms for use in subsequent academic years by modifying and reusing them. In other cases you may wish to keep redundant rooms for Teaching Quality Assessment purposes.
To delete a WebLearn resource click on the Delete this resource in the resource's resource management menu. The recommended strategy for storing redundant rooms and taking them out of public view is to create a suite to be used as an archive and moving unwanted rooms and resources into it. Provided the archive suite has access rights only granted to the owners access group no one else will be able to see or enter it. The archive suite can be created in the module suite itself, thus keeping archived and current materials conveniently together. As mentioned above, the archive suite will be invisible to all users other than the owner.
However, items in the archive can be made visible to whomever and whenever you wish. It is also recommended that the archived resources have their names and titles edited to reflect their archive status. This could be achieved by appending the academic year of use to the name and title. The maximum number of characters for a URL is 12 so some URLs may need additional editing to incorporate the year.
All the information required for creating a suite for archive purposes and moving rooms and resources into it is contained within the appropriate sections of this document.
11. Conclusion
If you have a number of colleagues, e.g. the group of module managers in your department, who would like specific training on how to use the services provided in WebLearn, please contact Paul Davis at OUCS (extension 83414 or email paul.davis@oucs.ox.ac.uk).
The WebLearn team would be very grateful for any constructive critical feedback on this document or any comments or suggestions you might like to offer. Please contact Paul Davis as above or email weblearn@oucs.ox.ac.uk.
This document is based upon a guide initially produced by Terry Wassall at the University of Leeds and is amended with permission.