As of August 1st, 2008, the Edutech web site will no longer be updated. Edutech was funded by the Swiss Virtual Campus programme, which ended on July 31st, 2008. Some activities will be taken over by the e-Learning Services group at the SWITCH foundation.
Advises For Starting With Vista
Introduction
Keywords:
Vista, beginner
This Learning Object helps you to find a convenient way to start using Vista and helps you decide the most important functions that you might want to use.
Vista - what is different ?
Vista has been developed in reaction to the needs of big institutions that set out to integrate elearning into their curriculum and to satisfy demands that successful implementation of WebCT Campus Edition or similar platforms could not respond to, that is:
- seamless integration with the student management software of big institutions for automatic class creation and student inscription
- allow the structure of the institutions different levels to be precisely mapped in the platform
- extensible and scalable architecture allowing the use of APIs etc., thanks to a stable Oracle data base.
- easy upload and download of learning packages from other platforms in formats such as SCORM or IMS-files.
- easy exchange of learning material among different users of the platform
- allow the creation of shared learning content repositiories from which linked and dependent courses can be derived
- Usage rights are adjustable in many ways corresponding to all levels of the palteform and the roles of the users: 4 different main roles interact to make the courses work: administrators, designer, instructors and students. Add to this help roles: help dek user, teaching assistant and auditors.
- addition of a number of new functions and tools such as among others:
- "Who is online"
- Gradebook and gradable discussion forums, better grading in assignments
- Group management allow self inscription of students
- Automatic browser checker
Dos and don'ts
- If your PC has a XP-System with the Service Pack 2 installed, than you should allow pop-up menus in your Internet Explorer for the address http://athena.virtualcampus.ch.
- Administrators: Limit the number of roles for beginners in Vista to one role only, even if the possibility of adding roles in Vista exist.
- When asked to accept WebCTs Security Certificate answer at once with choosing the button: "Always accept".
More detailed dos and don'ts
on the edutech site.
Acquiring the basic competences for the course design
- Take the time (roughly 1 hour) to work through the animated Vista Tutorial that you find in your MyWebCT under the name of: "Designer Intro to Vista". If you can not find it there, please apply for it at the Vista Support.
- If you have questions check the edutech Vista Support pages and especially our Vista HowTOs.
- Contact the vista-support@unifr.ch for personalized help.
Downsides
- The enormous amount of possibilities are overwhelming for the beginner
- One can not subscribe to forums to be informed when a posting receives an answer.
- Glossaries can not be created by the students, no multiple glossaries possible, no upload or download of glossary files.
- Email is only internal though with external forward (but that does not allow return answer).
- Only text correction, not material additions to a parent template are automatically passed down to a linked child instance.
- php pages are not accepted within Vista. For a workaround contact the vista-support@unifr.ch.