It is standard practice for our CNS department to back up the WebCT server once a day, but the purpose of these files is to restore the server in case of a massive failure, not to restore individual courses for instructors.

Faculty at any college or university are expected to back up their own online courses in case something goes wrong with that course, and this does occasionally happen.

There is a quick, simple solution: Back up your course every now and then! Backing up your WebCT courses once a week is recommended. Here's how you do it:

Log in to WebCT, and you will see your list of courses on your MyWebCT page. At the top of the page, click on the "Course Functions" button. You will see a list of your courses with check boxes next to them. Put a checkmark in the boxes next to the courses you would like to back up. Then click the "Create backups" button on the right. There's no need to type in a description on the next screen unless you want to--just click "Create." Wait for a moment to allow the backup to be created, and when the "Success" screen comes up, click "Continue."

This will take you back to your Course Functions screen, and you can download your newly created backup to your computer, which I highly recommend! This ensures that you have a copy of it no matter what might happen to WebCT.

To download your backup, just put a checkmark in the box next to your newly created backup (it says "backup" in parentheses next to the course title). Click on the "Download backup" button over in the right margin. Click "Save" and choose a place to save your file. Click "Save" again. Now you have a copy of your course including your current students, grades, e-mails, and anything else that is in that course at that time. This is a wonderful way to keep a record of your course at the end of the quarter also! When the quarter is over, download your backup and burn it to a CD so that you have a record of everything that happened that quarter should you need to go back and see that information for any reason.

Two important notes:

(A) You cannot open that backed-up file you just created in the normal way you would open a zip file. It just won't open for you. It will need to be restored to an empty course, and the Online Learning Office will need to help you with that. Please do not attempt to restore a backup file on your own. We don't want you to accidentally overwrite something you don't intend to overwrite!

(B) You can store only two backups at a time. The reason for this is that they take up digital space. Please delete your old backups when you make new ones. Try to keep only one backup at a time on WebCT. You can download as many as you want to your computer, but please don't take up more space than is necessary on our WebCT server.

This is very easy.  First, you need to create a backup of the course that is your current version, i.e., the one that you want to save and use to overwrite with. Please refer to the instructions in the question above this one: “How do I back up my WebCT course?”  In the end, both courses will look like this course you are backing up.  (Remember:  It is recommended that you make a backup of every course, including the one you are overwriting, just in case you need to go back to that version for some reason.)

Now, put a checkmark next to the backup course you just made.  Remember that this is the good copy of the course, the one you want your course to look like.  On the right side of your screen, click Restore course. 

Now, put a checkmark next to the course you want to overwrite.  Remember that this is the old version of the course, the one that you want to overwrite and replace with your newer version.

Next, choose one of the four options on the right side of the screen. Read the descriptions carefully because these four options do different things with the students who are in both courses (the one you are overwriting and the one you are using to overwrite with). If you are updating your master course, you will almost surely want to choose “Reset course.”  This option removes all students but keeps you as the designer in the course.

If you feel uncomfortable with going through this procedure on your own, please feel free to ask one of us in the Online Learning Office to go through it with you the first time.  We will be happy to do this with individuals or groups.

Yes, there is! Go to your WebCT mail for the class that you want to e-mail. Select Compose Message. Click the Browse button. A list of your students will appear.

Left click and release one time on the student name at the top of the list so that it is highlighted (the course instructor’s name probably appears first in the list). Now, hold the Shift key down on your keyboard. While you are holding the key down, left click and release one time on the last student name in the list. All student names should be highlighted in blue. Now click Select.

This should populate the "Send to" field in the e-mail message with all of your students’ WebCT IDs, and they will all get a copy of your message. Type something in the subject line and in the body of the message like you would on any other e-mail and click Send.

You can e-mail a select group of students in your class also. When you click Browse and your list of students appears, left click and release on the first student you want to select. Now, hold the Control key down on your keyboard. While holding down the Control key, left click and release one time on the other students’ names that you want to select. Now, the students’ names that you want to e-mail should be selected. Click Select and finish your e-mail in the normal way.

Just let the Online Learning Office staff know which course and section number you would like to have created in WebCT, and we can do that for you. Near the end of every quarter, this office sends out an e-mail asking faculty who already use WebCT to tell us which courses they would like to have created. It is important to tell us the course number and section number of the course that you want in WebCT every quarter for course enhancements. Your courses will always be created from your master course. This is your template for all future courses, so if you make changes to a course you are currently teaching and you want to preserve those changes for future courses, you will need to let us know that we should update your master course from your current course.

The staff in the Online Learning Office will be happy to help you learn to use WebCT. We encourage you to make an appointment with us to learn about the functions and possibilities in WebCT. Fully online course instructors are required to meet with us in order to get oriented to WebCT. Instructors using course enhancements are not required to meet with us, but we are more than happy to work with you at your convenience to help you use WebCT to its fullest potential.

There is an instructor course resource (a work in progress) that we have set up on WebCT to help you get started and to use the most common tools, and there is a “sandbox” course that we can sign you up to “play” in and experiment with WebCT and try out the tools. Just give us a call to arrange to enter either of those.

The Help menu in WebCT (aqua tool bar at the upper right) is also a very useful resource if you have a question or two and want to look up the answer yourself.

Every student in a fully online course is required to fill out an online course agreement before they can start accessing the course materials. If a student does not answer all of the questions correctly on the online course agreement, they may not get credit for it. Their attempt will need to be reset. Most students mark all questions correctly on the first try.

Sometimes, they don’t click the “View results” button at the end of the quiz (there are instructions to do this), and the quiz does not get processed in the grade book. Sometimes, the quiz grade just does not get processed for reasons that cannot be explained. This causes the student to not be able to access the course material even though they filled out the Online Course Agreement.

To fix this, go through your Online Course Agreements periodically and make sure they all “went through” and got a grade. First, go to your Quizzes and Evaluations page, and click on the “Submissions” button under Online Course Agreement. This will show you each student’s name and whether they have done this quiz or not. If it says “Not graded” or “Partial” next to any student’s quiz attempt, this is a problem. Click on the submission number (usually 1 or 2 or a low number) and you will see that student’s quiz. Make sure they answered all questions to your satisfaction, and then click “Update grade” at the bottom of the page. This will process their quiz and allow them access to the course materials. You can also erase the student’s attempt on this quiz if you want to by using the “Reset attempt” button. They will then need to redo the quiz.

Several pages in WebCT including the grade book will show only about 15 student names at a time. This setting can be changed. If all of your students do not appear in your list when you are looking at your grade book (to go to your grade book, click on “Control Panel” and then “Manage students”), you will want to make sure that all pages of your roster are showing. At the top of the list of student names, there is a drop-down menu with the word “Page” next to it. Click on the arrow, and choose the word “All.” Now click “Go” next to the drop-down menu. This should cause all of the students registered for your class to be listed.

Students will not show up in the WebCT roster until about 24 hours after they register for the class.

If a day has passed since the student registered and if you have already made sure your entire student roster is showing in the grade book and you still do not see a particular student or students, please call or e-mail the Online Learning Office so we can track down the problem

There are a variety of potential reasons for this. Most commonly, a student is not entering the WebCT ID and password information correctly in the log-in screen. Please refer them to the student FAQ link on this web site for instructions to sign in to WebCT. If the student seems to be logging in correctly and he or she still cannot log in, please refer the student to the Online Learning Office in JL 256 for further assistance.

To view the grade book, click on “Control Panel” in the upper left corner of your screen. Click on “Manage students.” You will see your class roster and a few columns. This is your grade book. You will need to add some columns for your assignments, or if you create a quiz in WebCT, the column in the grade book will automatically be created. To modify these columns or add new columns, choose “Manage columns” from the drop-down menu under the heading “Organize” and click “Go.”

Working with the grade book is something you will want to do according to your individual needs, and your support staff in the Online Learning Office will be very glad to help you set it up. Please give us a call or e-mail us and let us know you are interested. Once your grade book is set up for a particular class, it is saved in your master course, and you do not have to set it up again for every quarter.

In your grade book, click on the column heading “Last Name.” This will put your students in alphabetical order by last name. When you click on any other column heading, that arranges the student in order by that column. For example, if you click on a heading that says “Unit 1 Quiz,” all of the entries in that column will be highlighted, and the students will be arranged in the order of their unit 1 quiz grades from highest to lowest.

Exporting grades from WebCT into Excel is very easy. Go to your grade book in WebCT by clicking on Control Panel > Manage Students. In the first drop-down menu under "Options: Records," choose Download. Click Go. Choose Tab from the drop-down menu, and click Download. A dialog box will appear, and you should choose Save. Save your file where you can locate it later (on your desktop or somewhere convenient). Note the default name of the file under which it is being saved, or change the name of the file to whatever you wish.

Now, open Excel. In a blank worksheet, click on Data (at the top) and point to Import External Data > Import Data. A dialog box will appear in which you will browse for the file you just saved from WebCT. Open that file, and click Next, Next, Finsh, and OK. Your grades are now in Excel, and you can arrange your worksheet by resizing/adding/deleting columns and choosing your print layout. Save a copy of these grades for your records.

If you click on a student’s name, you can enter all of the grades for that student. If you click on the word "Edit" under a column heading such as the title of an assignment or quiz, you can enter the grades for all students for that particular assignment or quiz.

First, the instructor must enter some grades in the WebCT grade book. Then, the student can click on the “My grades” link to check his grades. The student will not be able to see any other students’ grades as long as the instructor uses the WebCT grade book to post grades.

Yes! There are many options to choose from, so give the staff in the Online Learning Office a call. We will be happy to help you figure out what the best option for your particular needs might be.

Your staff in the Online Learning Office will be happy to help you with any question about WebCT or any other question about online learning in general. Call us or e-mail us by using the information at the Contact Us link, or come visit us in JL 256. We are here Monday through Friday from approximately 7:30 a.m. until 4 p.m. We look forward to working with you!