A brief overview of all the new and changed tools on the college's website that were developed this summer:
- Course roster tool changes
- https://wsgdev3.amherst.edu/jr/mm/100868
- instructors can now manage groups they have created
- instructors can add ad hoc email addresses to groups
- there is now an email history
- System is now aware of withdrawls in their various forms, and will not show withdrawn students to other students.
- Comment tool changes
- Link here
- comments now have various presentation options - control over sort order, whether to show threaded or non-threaded, etc
- comment settings are saved universally.
- help link on course websites
- https://www.amherst.edu/mm/165169
- There is now a link in the course settings menu to help content on all course sites
- Tools to manage large groups
- https://wsgdev3.amherst.edu/jr/groups/89348/89569/settings
- It will now be possible to search for, add, and delete members from groups with large memberships
- Permissions assessment tool
- https://www.amherst.edu/academiclife/departments/courses/1011F/MATH/MATH-05-1011F/settings
- Anyone who has any permission above read on pages can review permission issues on that page to triage support issues
- New file browser
- https://wsgdev3.amherst.edu/revamp/users/H/dhamilton/testarea/summer2010demo
- rewritten from the ground up, html5, no flash
- auto-generated bookmarks for faculty and students to their courses
- all users can create and manage bookmarks
- multiple file upload
- Supports file selection and upload tools that work as the user's operating system works.
- Remember that there is still a 100MB file upload limit, and the maximum upload is limited by aggregate file size, not by the number of files.
- booklists on course websites and scheduler
- https://www.amherst.edu/mm/165169
- https://www.amherst.edu/course_scheduler
- Developed in response to new federal law
- entered books are submitted to the library and local booksellers
- (hopefully) streamlines faculty, ADC and library workflow
- course migration tools
- https://wsgdev3.amherst.edu/revamp/academiclife/departments/courses/0809S/BIOL/BIOL-04-0809S/settings
- Allows faculty to migrate content from one semester's course to another.
- complex, but basically, if faculty use the predelivered course sites and do not change permissions, guaranteed migration. If they change permissions, we let them migrate content, but cannot guarantee the permissions will be correct in the new course.
- revamped structure on course website and new course content types
- https://wsgdev3.amherst.edu/revamp/academiclife/departments/courses/0910S/ENGL/ENGL-26-0910S
- Course Documents
- articles now support attachments
- Assignments
- New Content type
- Has due date
- Allows file attachments
- Links
- A new content type, the course link, is available in the link page for courses.
- Dropbox
- https://wsgdev3.amherst.edu/revamp/academiclife/departments/courses/0910F/AMST/AMST-11-0910F/dropbox
- Faculty can send files to students enrolled in sections they are teaching
- students can send files to faculty teaching courses they are enrolled in
- ATS and some DCS staff can assist faculty with complex permission modeling, say for example when they want to grant a lab instructor access to their sections' dropboxes, or when 3 sections of a multisection course are joined together because they are team taught.
- MyAmherst integration shortly
- file attachments on articles
- All articles now support file attachments - you can attach as many files as you want to any article.
- attached files appear below the article body.
- Amherst Reads
- 'alumni bookclub'
- searchable database of alumni publications.
- Integrated with profiles
- Multimedia search
- searchable interface on top of all multimedia content PA produces
- Study abroad
- Searchable sortable interface on top of all study abroad programs the college supports.
Coming soon: Signups