SETTING UP THE FORUMS FOR A CLASS:


1. Determine which profs want to use forums for which classes. Find out the following:
     how many sections
     any co-instructors/t.a.'s to have access
     will they allow anonymous posting?

2. Contact Mee-You Lee (meeilee@leland) and ask that she set up a forum space for the class.

3. As soon as possible, get a preliminary class list from the faculty member/dept. administrator. Though not required for batch upload, get SUID#'s for student picture requests. Create a tab delimited file, 13 fields, 1 record per line, (DOS or UNIX line breaks) that includes the following information (underlined fields required; others are optional but need a tab to represent them):

userid SUID# password firstname lastname preferredname emailaddress phonenumber permissions class_section smallphoto,largephoto classification userprofile

-I'm not convinced that the password field ever really gets used. In all the records I have seen, password is SUID# with an = before it, or else the word "pass".  But, it is required, so enter something!

-Section # is required, even if it is a default, or 01 because there are no sections. Check the registration list for this, and use the zero. Note that if your first section is section 2, you will need to subtract 1 from the section numbers in order for your students to be assigned correctly. For example, if your first section is section 2, and you are assigning a student to section 4, you would put a 3 in the section # column of your spreadsheet.  This is because regardless of what you call the sections, the forum software "believes" that your first section is section 1, your second section 2 etc. regardless of what you call them.

-Permissions are as follows: write=1, read=2, faculty=4, admin=8: add them together to give whatever permissions you want. In the example below I gave myself all of them. The "faculty" permissions don't give you anything that admin doesn't, except for class email notifications when sent, so you might not want to add yourself there (unless you are a faculty member of course).

-Photo fields can be left blank.  You will be getting photos from the registrar as a batch file, or else assigning them individually later.

-Classification is Student, Faculty, Admin, Other (you can enter other text instead if you want) Be sure to capitalize these classifications or they won't be read properly.

ex.

vszabo	1234567	=1234567 Victoria Szabo	Victoria	vszabo@stanford.edu	3-9364	15	02	(empty photofield) Other (empty userprofile)

or, if you won't use pictures at all:

vszabo	(empty SU# ID)	pass Victoria Szabo	Victoria	vszabo@stanford.edu	3-9364	15	02	(empty photofield) Other (empty userprofile)

See the sample excel file in this folder. Note that you need to use windows/UNIX line breaks, so if you are on a Mac, transfer your files to a pc and resave. This files was saved from excel as a tab-delimited text file. You may find it convenient to use as a template.

Perform the batch upload from the Adminstration menu. You can browse to your file.

4. Get a list of SUID#s to Michael Puff (michael.puff@stanford.edu) in order to get pictures. Include faculty SUID#s in your request, and the foldername for him to FTP them to. Send the pictures to Meei-You, or give her access to your folder so she can come get them. If you have individual pictures to upload, you can do so by clicking on an individual student's record in the Admin menu, then clicking on one of the image icons. This brings up a window where you can browse or upload image files to associate with the particular student in question.

5. Set up Announcement/Home page for the class. Test access to the forum.
See the separate file on this--"Forums Setup: Class and Department" Basically, you will be editing HTML files and changing all of the references to panfora to refer to your specific course. You'll also change links to the course home page, etc.

6. Set up the adminstrative options for the course on the Admin page. by selecting Edit Class. Adjust accordingly, in consultation with faculty member.

7. Meet with the faculty member before class begins. Teach faculty member how to make announcements, start threads etc. Determine whether faculty member will make changes to course list, or if you will.

8. Come to class (or arrange for someone to come) with the demonstration PC, which includes a wireless modem (if the classroom itself isn't already "smart"). Show the students how to use the forum. Provide instructions, point out help features, and demonstrate posting.


3/19/99 
VES