DOCUMENT by: ESC Training
Subject: Terminology

Here is some of the vocabulary you will come across while teaching your online course:


Open Module: A learning module of your course that is available for the students to access. They will be able to read and submit within those modules. Generally, all modules of your course should be Open. Empire State College does not recommend closing modules except in special circumstances.

Closed Module: A learning module of your course that you have made unavailable for students to access. If a module is closed, students will not be able to access anything in that module, with the exception that any evaluations you have already completed for the student in that module that would appear in the student's Evaluations view.

Documents: Documents are pages within the course. Each document has a Subject, which appears within the course as a link. Click on a document link under Course Information documents or in the module menu to open the document for reading.

Edit Course Map Adjuster: Area of your course where you are able to make changes to the Course Map and the information your students can access on the web. Within this Course Map Adjuster view you will be able to open or close modules, activate or deactivate some features of your course and update your Newsflash. (These functions are discussed in more detail in Module 3: Making Changes). The link to this tool is in the top left part of the Course Map.

Hpertext-only Document: A document that will not appear to the student in any of the module menus on the web. A Hypertext-only document is only accessible via a link created to it embedded within one of your course module documents. An common example of this is where a specific word or concept that appears in one document might need a further definition or explanation and you don't want to clog up the document or module with it. Normally, the word itself would be hyperlinked if a student wanted the further information. If any hypertext-only documents exist in your course, they will be displayed in the "Professor Navigator - All Documents view" near the bottom of the list of all documents (also in the "Developer Views - Hypertext-Only Documents" option).

Professor Navigator: Area of your course where you are able to utilize different views to manage your course and look at and evaluate student submissions. The link to this tool is in the top left part of the Course Map.

Submissions from last 14 days: Submissions from last 14 days link shows all postings made within the course in the previous 14 days. The postings are segregated into their type of submission/document (discussion, assignments, questions, etc.) in reverse chronological order. You as the instructor are able to see all postings made (except for a student's private save which only he/she has access to) while students will only have access to their documents and the public documents posted by you or classmates. (All postings that are not for professor, in the private folder, small group submission or other students' private saves). When a document is opened within this view, it will show the document as it appears within the module with the navigation bar at the top and bottom. If you use the module menu link, it will allow you to find where the posting you are reading was actually submitted and to which documents it pertains, as this information may not be apparent in the Submissions from last 14 days area.

View, All Documents: As the name implies, this view allows you to see all the documents within the course (you will never be able to see any "privately saved" student documents, however, until the student changes the submission status to "Submit for Professor." For more details go to the All Documents View page.

View, By Author: These three views (Chronological, Evaluations, By Module) display submitted documents ordered by student last name and then according to the specific view chosen. For more details go to the By Author Views page.

View, Developer: The primary tool here is the Attendance View. This view shows you all the documents submitted by each student, broken down by date, and gives you a total number of documents so you can quickly gauge the general participation level of your students. There is also a link to the Private Notebook here. This is a private tool where you can store and accumulate notes to yourself about managing the course or making changes for the future. You can also store standard documents you want to access via the web but may not want to make available to your students. Go to the Attendance View page for more details about that view.

View, Outline: The Outline view is similar to the All Documents view except that it contains some additional administrative information, such as module number, section letter, and document number for each document in the course. Go to the Outline View page for more details.

If you have any questions about this material, please click on the ASK A QUESTION link below. Now go to the next document to continue this module.