Configure courses
Now that we've created a few courses, we can continue our tour by looking at the features available to you under the "Configure courses" link.
Log in to the administrative system as the super-user and click on the Configure courses link. You'll see something like this:
This form asks the question "Which courses do you want to work with?" The text box is used to specify all or part of the "Internal course name" given to the course when it was created. Leaving this field blank will search for all of the courses.
While you can leave the text box empty, you must specify which group or groups you are interested in. If you're following the tutorial, there will be three groups available:
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The <Templates> group is always available. Every course template you create will be located within a sub-group, one for each teacher, under the Templates group.
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We created the clubs group when we created the standalone Physics Club classroom. (See Create a standalone course)
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We created the try group when we created Prof. Einstein's "Introduction to Physics" class. (See Creating normal courses)
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You can select more than one group from the selection list by holding down the Ctrl key as you click on the groups. |
Both the clubs and the try groups have the words (No Description) next to them in the selection list. We'll add a description in a moment. Click on the try group, leave the search text box empty, and click on the Search button. You'll get something like this:
Changing a group's description
Since we left the search box blank, the page lists all of the courses within the try group - there are two of them at this time. Note that they are sorted by the first letter of the "Internal Course Name" specified when the course was created. This is a very busy page with lots of options. Let's start by giving the try course group a description. Click on the either of the two (No Description) links:
Type in the following, and submit the form:
Now the group try will have the description "For the tutorial" wherever it appears throughout the administrative system. You can change the description (or view any notes you've added) by returning to this page and clicking on the link next to the group's name.
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Since you can add a short description and extensive notes to a course group, you should resist the urge to use long names when you create new groups as you create new courses. In our example try is internally the name of a directory on the server. Group names should be kept short! See Choosing a group name for more information. |
Getting course lists
The two buttons Get a plaintext (no links> list and Get a list with login links are relatively (for Prof. Einstein at least, heh) minor commands.
Someday someone will ask you for a list of courses using Manhattan to see if you're really worth the big bucks they're paying you. The Get a plaintext (no links) list could help you out. This list contains all of the courses you searched for in a simple list.
The Get a list with login links provides a similar list but with the course titles hyperlinked to the appropriate login program for that course. All "normal" courses and "course templates" will be linked to the same URL: http(s)://YOURSERVER.edu/manhat2-bin/doorstep. Standalone courses will be properly linked as well to the specific URL for each course http(s)://YOURSERVER.edu/manhat2-bin/doorstep?class=GROUP/INTERNAL_COURSE_NAME
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These lists will contain ONLY the courses found for the current search. (That is, only those listed below on the rest of the Configure Courses page.) |
Go ahead and try them out before you move on.
Changing a course's access rights
The administrator's "Configure courses" page also allows the administrator to control who can see a course (students, teachers, or both) and whether they can just read the messages or whether they can also add new messages, or otherwise change the content of the classroom. The options are listed at the very bottom of the page. They are:
- All: Full access
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This it the normal setting. The course will appear on the My Manhattan page for both students and teachers, and both students and teachers can add messages to the course.
- All: No access
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The course will not appear on anyone's My Manhattan page. Students and teachers simply cannot enter the course
- Teachers: Read-only, Students: No access
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The course is not listed on students' My Manhattan pages. Only teachers can enter the course, but the command buttons used to add new messages, or otherwise change the course are disabled.
- All: Read-only
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Both students and teachers can enter the course and read messages, but the commands used to add new messages or otherwise change the course are disabled
- Teachers:Full access, Students: No access
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Teachers have full read/write access to the course. The course doesn't exist as far as students can tell.
- Teachers:Full access, Students: Read-only
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Teachers have full read/write access to the course. Students can enter the course, but cannot add any new messages.
- Capture mode (experimental)
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This experimental mode is intended to allow the system administrator to "capture" a snapshot of the course using an offline browser program. When fully developed, the administrator will be able to use this feature to the snapshot of the (finished) course on a CD for archival purposes. Both students and teachers are unable to enter the course while in capture mode. (The administrator can enter the course using a special URL.) In addition, the course will behave in such a way to make it possible for the offline browser package to efficiently capture the course. This feature is not documented as of this writing, so please don't use it.
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For "standalone" courses the behavior is similar to that listed above. However, when the access rights are set to "no access" for an individual, he'll get a "Request denied" message when he logs in. |
If you're following the tutorial, try changing the access rights for Prof. Einstein's "Introduction to Physics" class as shown in the above illustration. Then log in as Prof. Einstein. You should know the URL for teachers and students on your installation by now! (If you've forgotten, see Logging in as Prof. Einstein.) I will remind you that Albert's username is ae4322 and his password is relativity. The access rights of the course are clearly shown on his My Manhattan page:
Now, on your own:
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Enter the Physics 101 course as Professor Einstein, and see for yourself that he cannot create new messages - the New Item buttons within each module are disabled, for example. Also click on the Configuration button and notice that most of the configuration commands you saw earlier in this tutorial are disabled. You can't add or delete students from the class, for example.
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Try logging in as one of Prof. Einstein's students. For example, Robert Frost's username and initial password are both: rf5734. Although he's a student in Prof. Einstein's Physics class, the class isn't listed on his My Manhattan page, since you set the access rights to the course as "Teachers: Read-only, Students: no access".
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When you are done experimenting, log back in to the administrative system as the super user, and change the course access rights back to "All: Full Access"
Accessing a course's configuration menu
The biggest benefit of the administrator's Configure courses capabilities is that it's the route to the same Configuration menu the teacher sees when he clicks on the Configuration button from the course's main menu.
This leads to the same menu the teacher of the course sees when he clicks on his Configuration button from the course's main menu:
If you're following this tutorial, you've already visited the Configuration menu for the Physics 101 course when you were logged in as Prof. Einstein. There are many options behind this menu. Briefly, you can:
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Add and remove students and teachers from the classroom.
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Get a list of students/teachers in the classroom.
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Enable/disable Manhattan's modules and change the course title.
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See who has logged into this particular class, when they've logged in, and what they did while they were there.
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Organize students into teams for use in Manhattan's Team and Team/Teacher modules.
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Although the system administrator can enter any course's Configuration menu, he can not enter other areas of the course. The administrator can not read any messages, or view grades or chat transcripts! |
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Although 99% of the administrator's capabilities within this Configuration menu are exactly the same as the teacher's, there's one subtle difference. The administrator always has the capability to add completely new Manhattan users to the system (students who do not already have other Manhattan classrooms) via an option under the Add a student and Add a teacher links. This option may or may not be available to the teacher, depending on how the custom.h was configured at the time Manhattan was installed. See Add a student. |
Configuring Course Templates
Let's now take a look at the course template we created earlier in the tutorial. On the Configure Courses search form, select <Templates> from the course group list, and click the Search button:
The page you'll see has the same controls as the one described earlier. A difference is that course templates are further sub-divided into one group per teacher. When you created a course template for Prof. Einstein's course in Create a Course Template for Prof. Einstein, Manhattan automatically created the group Tae4322 to hold the template. Any additional templates created for this teacher will also be automatically placed under this group.
Notice the hyperlink "(No Description)", next to the group name. As for your try group, you can, and should, give this template group a description. Click on the No Description link, type in something like the following, and submit the form:
On your own
Before you move on, you should spend a few minutes exploring the simple search capabilites of the Configure courses section of the Administrative system. In particular, note:
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You are not limited to displaying courses within one course group at a time. Ctrl-clicking on the <Templates>, try, and clubs groups and clicking the Search button. This will display all of the courses on the server.
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Although standalone courses are not connected to Manhattan's centralized login system, the system administrator still has access to them. Try using the Search Courses form to find the one standalone course on your server.