CE 6 Resources: Start of Semester Procedures

You should follow these procedures at the start of each semester to set up your CE 6 courses for use with students.

The Semester Before: Request your CE 6 Course Shell

Whether you are teaching a course with CE 6 for the first time or teaching a new section of an existing course, you should request your course shell before the semester begins.

Complete and submit the online Course Request form. You will need information from the class schedule in PantherSoft in order to complete this form.
Once you develop a CE 6 course, you will need to submit the Course Request form each subsequent semester that you teach the course. Each time you submit the request, we will create an instance of the course for the term and section you specify.

You will be able to log in as soon as your course is created and you have been added as a designer. Your students will be able to view the course beginning with the first day of the semester.

NOTE: Until you add content to the course, students will only see a message stating the course content has not yet been added.

After the Course is Created: Prepare the Course for Students

Add content to your course.

When you enter a course which has not had content loaded into it yet, you will be given three options: create a blank course, upload the course content from a file, or copy the course content from another course. Following is a description of each option

Create a blank course:
Choose this option when you are developing a new course that has not been taught in WebCT 4.1 or CE 6 before.

Upload course content from a file:
Choose this option when you are migrating a course from WebCT CE 4.1 to CE 6. See the migration web site at http://ce6migration.fiu.edu for instructions.

Copy course content from another course:
Choose this option when there is another section of the course you want to use as a template for your section. All of the content, but none of the student activity, will be copied from the course.

If you are creating a new course or teaching with CE 6 for the first time, Educational Technology Services (ETS) provides training and instructional design assistance to members of the FIU instructional community. For more information on workshops, see CE 6 Training.

Upload or revise your course content as necessary.

Once a course is developed for CE 6, most instructors choose the option to copy the course content from another section, either the initial “development course" or a section offered in a previous term. If you include this information in the Course Request form, we will perform this step for you; i.e., copy the appropriate content to your section when we create it. After the content is copied from another section, you will need to prepare the new section for teaching. For example, under "Manage Course" use the Date Rollover function to adjust dates for all assignments, quizzes, etc. Revise the course syllabus and other content to include any new information specific to this term.

Before the Semester Starts: Check the Course Coding in PantherSoft

FIU uses the PantherSoft student information system. Within PantherSoft, course sections can be coded to enable CE 6. This coding tells PantherSoft to include the students registered for this section in a file that is transferred several times daily during drop-add from PantherSoft to CE 6. Your CE 6 course will not be populated with your students until this coding is correct. Contact your class scheduler before the semester starts to ensure that your course is coded correctly. It should be coded XML on the LMS page in the schedule.

NOTE: Your class scheduler is the individual in your academic department that creates the classes in PantherSoft.

Assistance
If you need assistance with any of the above steps, or have further questions, please e-mail ets@fiu.edu, call 305-348-2814, or drop by the Resource Center for Educational Technology in Room 150 of the Green Library.

Instructor Start-of-Semester Procedures