Posting Documents

Word | PowerPoint | Other | Organizing Documents

The Course Information section and Course Documents section are the most commonly used content areas for posting prepared course materials. The following conventions are recommended for posting documents in these two areas.

* Homework assignments should be distributed and collected through the Assignments feature. Click here for more information.

Posting Word Documents
Because of a software agreement with Microsoft, all current students enrolled in an undergraduate or graduate degree program, as well as faculty and staff, can obtain Microsoft software for a minimal charge. Students enrolled in the Continuing Education program, taking 5000-level courses, do not qualify for this offer at this time.

You can post Word Documents directly to your course site. If your Word Document contains only normal text, it is possible to save it as a faster-loading HTML document (a web page). If your Word Document has unusual fonts or special characters, you may want to have us post it as an Acrobat PDF file. To post a Word document to your course site, please do the following:

1. Enter the Control Panel.
2. Under Content Areas of the control panel, click on the content area in which you want to place the document (i.e. Course Documents).
3. If you want to post your document to a specific folder, click on that folder. Click here for a guide on organizing your documents using folders.
4. Click on the Add Item button.
   
5. Enter a title for the document you want to post.
   
6. You can also add a short description or message to accompany your document in the "Text" field.
   
7. Next, scroll down to the "Content Attachments" section, and click the Browse button. Locate the file you want to post in the window that appears and click Open.
   
8. In the "Name of Link to File" field, enter the type of file you are posting, which in this case is "Word Document."
   
9. Scroll down to the Options section and make any desired changes. If you do not set a date of restriction, the document will display indefinately within the course site.
   
10. When you're finished, click the Submit button at the bottom right of the page.

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Posting PowerPoint Files

Because of a software agreement with Microsoft, all current degree-seeking students, as well as faculty and staff, can obtain Microsoft software for a minimal charge. Accordingly, you can post PowerPoint files directly to your course site. If you want your students to be able to print out note-taking sheets from the PowerPoint presentation only, you may want to have us post it as an Acrobat PDF file. To post a PowerPoint file to your course site, please do the following:

1. Enter the Control Panel. Under the Content Areas section of the Control Panel, click on the name of the area in which you want to place the document (i.e. Course Documents).
2. If you want to put your document into a specific folder, click on that folder. Click here for a guide on organizing your documents using folders.
3. Click on the Add Item button.
   
4. Enter a title for the document you want to post.
   
5. You can also add a short description or message to accompany your document in the "Text" field.
6. Next, scroll down to the Content Attachments section, and click the Browse button. Locate the file you want to post in the window that appears and click Open.
7. In the "Name of Link to File" field, enter the type of file you are posting, which in this case is "PowerPoint Presentation."
8. Scroll down to the Options section. Chose the Yes option for "Do you want to track number of views?" Leave the remaining options at the default setting.
9. When you're finished, click the Submit button at the bottom right of the page.

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Posting Other Files

Microsoft Office Documents

Because of a software agreement with Microsoft, all current degree-seeking students, as well as faculty and staff, can obtain Microsoft software for a minimal charge. Accordingly, you can post any Microsoft office-generated files directly to your course site. If you're not sure about whether you should post a file directly to your site, contact us.

Journal Articles and other Printed Materials

We can scan and post printed media, such as journal articles, as Acrobat PDF files. Before we do this, however, we need to make sure we are following fair use copyright regulations. We'll do our best to help you sort through the issues and post your materials. If you are interested in posting a journal article or other printed media in your online course site, please contact us.

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Images

Images can be displayed on your course web site. You must have your image in a web-compatible format (JPEG or GIF), and it should be a reasonable file size as well. If you aren't sure if your image is the right format, contact us. In addition, we can scan photos or slides and save them as image files. Once you have an image, follow the same directions for posting a word document.

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Other Documents or Files

Please contact us if you need something posted online that hasn't been covered in this document.

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Organizing Posted Documents

Re-ordering Posted Documents | Using Folders

Documents posted in an online course need to be organized so that students can quickly find what they are looking for. The simplest way of organizing your posted documents is to rearrange the order in which they appear on the page. Using folders to group your documents is also beneficial, especially if you post many documents.

Re-ordering Posted Documents

By default, documents appear in the order that you post them, with the most recent postings added to the bottom of the document listing. To change the order of documents;

1. In the Control Panel, go to the content area in which you want to rearrange your posted files. Click on the pull-down menu located to the left of the title of the posted file, and select the number indicating where you want the document to be listed. For example, if you wanted the document to appear at the top, you would select 1.
   
2. The page will refresh, with the document moved to the place you selected. It will displace other documents down one number

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Using Folders to Organize your Documents
The online course system uses a folder system for organizing documents. You can create folders within folders (these are called "nested folders"). Each of the content areas--Course Documents, Course Information, External Links--can be considered master folders. You should add folders within these areas as you deem appropriate for good organization. It is often appropriate to group documents by type of content (i.e. Lecture Notes), course chronology (i.e. Week 1 Documents), or subject matter (i.e. Resources about Plato)
To add a folder;

1. Go to the Control Panel, and click on the content area in which you want to work.
2. Click the Add Folder button.
   
3. Type a title for the folder.
4. You can enter a short description of the folder contents in the "Text" field if you wish.
5. Scroll down and click Submit.

To Add Items to a Folder:

1. Go to the Control Panel, and click on the content area in which you want to work. (i.e. Course Documents).
2. Click on the name of the folder in which you want to post documents or add another organizational folder.
3. Post the documents as you normally would.

Moving Items to Another Folder:

Here you have the option of moving a document from one folder to another. You can also move the document from one course to another. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Go to the Control Panel and click on the content area in which the document is located.
2. When you have located the document, click the Copy button to the right.
3. Next to Destination Course, choose the course in which you want to document posted.
4. Next to Destination Folder, click the Browse button to locate the folder in which you want to post the document. In the dialog box, click on the folder where you want the document to be posted and click Submit.
5. Click the Submit button at the lower right of the page and then OK.
6. Next, go to the new area where the document has been posted. Make sure everything has copied correctly. When you have verified that all is correct, you may remove the document from the original location.
7. Return to the original location and click the Remove button to the right.
8. When prompted, click OK.

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