Tips on taking online exams

Greetings,

Some students experienced a few issues during the recent online midterm exams.  I would like to clarify and share the following with everyone:

Saving answers: We strongly recommend saving each answer immediately (click Save button below each question) after you make the selection or enter your answers. Don’t wait till the end trying to save all questions at the same time. You risk being timed out for keeping idle for too long and also risk running out of the time at the end of the exam without being able to save the answers you’ve already selected. When exam time expires, you CAN’T SAVE any answers you’ve selected. You may still be able to click answer choices or type in the answer boxes, however those will not be saved if your exam time has expired. You will be able to submit your exam as it is without being able to save any changes or any new answers. So watch your exam clock very closely and be sure to save your answers on time.

Copy and Paste: For the essay type of questions, please directly type into the answer box and save periodically as you go.  If you need to work on Word or Notepad first, you will be able to do Copy and Paste. Please use keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl +C and Ctrl +V on PCs), right-click menu is usually disabled for the exams in WebCT/eLearning.

Course Access:  When you take the online exam, it may also help to directly login to the course at http://elearning.utdallas.edu, instead of accessing course through UTD Galaxy to avoid possible Galaxy time out issue.

Browser and other technical issues: Be sure you run through browser check to validate your browser and with only one correct version of Java installed. Please see the Check Browser link at eLearning login page and also see the course Getting Started page for more information. For any technical assistance, you can reach 24/7 UTD eLearning Support.

Hope these tips may help in your future online exams. Please email som-elearning@utdallas.edu if you have any questions.

Safari 4 Issues in WebCT CE/Vista 8.0

 

The recently released Safari 4 web browser has some compatibility issues with the current WebCT CE/Vista 8.0 version. It’s recommended that users should not use Safari 4 to access WebCT at the moment. Please see below a list of issues:

1) Full course menu icons do not display.  Only smaller icons.

2) HTML Editor doesn’t load and provides error message “You are using an unsupported browser. Please contact your system administrator. ”

3) Chat applet does not load.  Error message is “Session has expired.  Close the program and log in again.” 

4) Incorrect version displayed in Browser Checker pop-up for Safari 4.  (Safari 3.0.x version is displayed.) 

These issues will be getting resolved in a future hot fixor service pack of WebCT system. But for now, please use another browser to access WebCT.

Problems with Lecture Audios

Camtasia Studio Flash content (the format used for our streaming lectures in our online courses) playing on the latest release of the Flash Player may cause audio to sound garbled and/or contain a high pitched chirp, described as sounding like a chipmunk. Flash Players prior to 9.0.115.0 did not exhibit this problem. We contacted the Adobe Flash Player TechSupport team, who was very helpful and responsive. They confirmed the bug and escalated it to their engineering team. We’re hopeful that Adobe will be able to add a fix to a future version of the Flash Player.

To address this issue in the short term, here are some suggestions:

1. Do not update to the most current Flash Player
2. If you have the most recent version of Flash and you are encountering this problem, access the lectures via the “Optional Downloads” link in your course. This link contains downloadable versions (PowerPoint presentations and mp3 audio files) of the Flash lectures.

UTD Library for Online Learners

Hi folks! Not much news currently to report to you guys, so I figured I’d post a little about the UTD Library’s materials that are available completely free to our students, including those of you who are taking online courses from afar. Did you know that you can access full-text copies of newspapers, magazines, journals, and even books? All this without even leaving your home? That’s right — just because you might not be able to physically visit UTD’s library doesn’t mean you can’t take advantage of this resource.

So before you consider paying a subscription to access content on the internet, visit UTD’s Distance Learning page and explore the thousands of resources available free to UTD students.

UTD Library’s Distance Learning Page:
http://www.utdallas.edu/library/distlearn/disted.htm

And remember — if you want to chat with a librarian to get some additional information, remember you can IM a Librarian!

IM a UTD Librarian

Howdy folks. I recently read about a relatively new service the UTD Library is providing to students, and I thought it might be helpful to you guys. You can now carry on an IM (instant message) conversation with several of the libraries here at UTD. They’re available for you to ask questions about any type of research you’re doing for your courses. There is a lot of information freely available to you as UTD students — you just need to know how to access this info, and this is where these librarians are really helpful. The url is below.

http://www.utdallas.edu/library/services/refstaff.htm

Library Resources for Online Students

Many of you guys might not realize this, but you have a wealth of information available to you through the UTD Library’s website. There are thousands of newspapers, magazines, journals, trade papers, and academic documents that are available to you at any time, no matter where you are in the world.

The link below has information on exactly how to access this information and even has numerous video tutorials that step you through exactly where to click. So whether you’re searching for sources for that research paper or wanting to read a recent magazine article, this is a resource you should definitely take advantage of. Let us know if you have any questions.

McDermott Library for Distance Education Students
http://som.utdallas.edu/globalmba/library/web/index.htm

Online tools you can use

As an online student you have more options to communicate and collaborate with your classmates than you might think. While WebCT has the standard Email and Discussion tools, you might like to have an easy way to share files among your group, podcast a presentation, or chat with someone using a different instant messenger than you are. Here are a few tools that we have found that accomplish these tasks.

Google Docs & Spreadsheets: http://docs.google.com/
Group members can work on documents and spreadsheets simultaneously, store them online, and download them to their desktops.

Gcast: http://www.gcast.com/
You can call a toll free number, record yourself speaking, and a podcast is created automatically. MP3 files can also be uploaded.

Meebo: http://www.meebo.com/
This tool allows you to sign in to one place and communicate with people using AOL instant Messenger, Yahoo, MSN, Google, and others.
If you find anything else that may be of use to your classmates, please post it on the blog.

-Darren Crone