ark learning management system training manual...

University of Divinity ARK Teacher Manual v2.1

ARK Learning Management System

Training Manual (Teachers)

Version 2.1


Project Documentation Information

Revision History

Revision date Updated by Summary of changes Version

5-7/12/2013 Josephine Chan Original documents by Jo Chan

@ Androgogic

0.1

10-12-2013 George Pana Changes made for University of

Divinity training delivery

0.2

17-01-14 John Capper Adapted and expanded for

Teachers (CBC)

0.3

28-01-14 John Capper Adapted post first test usage 0.4

31-01-14 John Capper Update of changed details 0.5

25-05-2014 John Capper Updated Data Flow Diagram 0.6

02-02-2015 John Capper Updated access details, added

Key Terms, updated data flow

diagram and access

instructions. Updated roles

table. Clarification re meta

units. Note re linking to meta

units. Update Turnitin material,

added weighting assessment

tasks. Updated support contact

information.

1.0

Nov-Dec 2015

20-01-2016

Released as draft

John Capper Updated for ARK Mark 2 (based

on Moodle 2.9)

2.0

22-02-2016 John Capper Checked and finalised

Language to EngAUS

Grading section updated

2.01

08-02-2017 John Capper Revised to link to Turnitin

feedback studio.

Big Blue Button included.

2.1


Contents

1 Key Terms ...................................................................................................................... 5

2 ARK TAMS Integration .................................................................................................. 6

3 Accessing ARK ............................................................................................................. 7 3.1 URL for ARK ............................................................................................................................. 7 3.2 Real Time Authentication ....................................................................................................... 7

3.2.1 Username and Password ................................................................................................... 7

4 Navigation ...................................................................................................................... 7 4.1 Key navigation items and places ........................................................................................... 7 4.2 Dock or minimise menus ........................................................................................................ 8 4.3 Contextual Help ....................................................................................................................... 8

5 ARK Roles ..................................................................................................................... 8 5.1 User Profiles .......................................................................................................................... 10

5.1.1 To change your user profile: ............................................................................................ 10

6 Create a User ............................................................................................................... 11

7 Create Unit ................................................................................................................... 11 7.1 Backup and Restore Units .................................................................................................... 11

8 Meta Units .................................................................................................................... 11 8.1 Child Units and Meta Units when teaching ......................................................................... 12

8.1.1 The Child Unit .................................................................................................................. 12 8.1.2 The Meta Unit ................................................................................................................... 12 8.1.3 What Child Units are in a Meta Unit? ............................................................................... 13

9 Changing Unit Appearance in ARK ............................................................................ 13 9.1 Unit Settings .......................................................................................................................... 13 9.2 Unit Format ............................................................................................................................ 15

9.2.1 Unit Sections .................................................................................................................... 17 9.2.2 Topic Names .................................................................................................................... 17 9.2.3 Editing .............................................................................................................................. 18

10 Creating Unit Content in ARK................................................................................... 20 10.1 Activities and Resources available ................................................................................... 21 10.2 File ........................................................................................................................................ 22 10.3 Folder .................................................................................................................................... 24 10.4 Book ...................................................................................................................................... 24 10.5 Page ...................................................................................................................................... 24 10.6 Label ..................................................................................................................................... 25 10.7 URL ....................................................................................................................................... 25 10.8 Forum ................................................................................................................................... 25

10.8.1 Types of forum ................................................................................................................. 25 10.9 Big Blue Button ................................................................................................................... 26

11 Assessment tasks and Turnitin ................................................................................ 26 11.1 Marking as a percentage (out of 100) ................................................................................ 27 11.2 Turnitin Assignment ........................................................................................................... 27 11.3 Weighting Assessment Tasks ............................................................................................ 27 11.4 Grader Report ...................................................................................................................... 28 11.5 Exporting marks .................................................................................................................. 29

12 Further help ............................................................................................................... 31 12.1 Generic Moodle Help ........................................................................................................... 31 12.2 Particular ARK Help ............................................................................................................ 31 12.3 Contacting Androgogic ...................................................................................................... 31

Please note that headings IN ITALICS address areas that are not directly relevant for teaching staff. They are included to provide a fuller picture of ARK and its place in University systems. Some material of less relevance has also been included in grey text.


This is a blank page for notes. Two more pages for notes are provided at the end of this Manual.


1 Key Terms

Androgogic The system providers, host, and support company for ARK

ARK University of Divinity Learning Management System, based (2014) on Moodle

software

Integrator Software which takes information from TAMS and processes it into ARK, and

vice versa

OVC Office of the Vice-Chancellor

TAMS Theological Academic Management System, the University’s SMS (Student

Management System) based on Paradigm software

SRU Supervised Reading Unit

Unit A unit is a discrete quantum of study, organised around a topic, contributing to

a course leading to an award. A unit is defined by its Field and Discipline,

level of study, and home College.

In ARK a

CHILD UNIT or UNIT WEBPAGE is related to this type of unit, and a

META UNIT combines Units, or Child Units, and a

PARENT UNIT relates to processes within TAMS.

User A person able to log in to ARK, whether student, teacher or administrator.

User data is entered into TAMS and transferred via the Integrator into ARK.


2 ARK TAMS Integration

The high level University of Divinity Data Flow Plan shows the conceptual placement of

various current University data systems, as well as others in development or planning.

Key systems are shown with blue outline.

Key elements of integration are highlighted with red ovals.

Highlight Point: TAMS is the fundamental repository for user, unit and enrolment data. ARK

only contains unit and enrolment data based on TAMS.


3 Accessing ARK

3.1 URL for ARK

ark.divinity.edu.au

This is also linked from the University Website

3.2 Real Time Authentication

Access to ARK is granted through real time authentication from TAMS.

No access is possible without this authentication (that is, there is no guest access).

University and College access to ARK is strictly controlled, and is managed through TAMS.

3.2.1 Username and Password

The username is the user’s email address as recorded in TAMS.

The user’s password is as set in TAMS.

This is a standard protocol for University systems.

4 Navigation

4.1 Key navigation items and places

DASHBOARD: Lists Units available to logged in Student/Staff

MY UNITS: Lists same units, however, units are available from the menu

ADMINISTRATION: Allows logged in user to perform permitted administrative tasks.

The BREADCRUMB TRAIL (beginning below the College/University logo) assists with navigation backward and forward between where you are and your home page.

The MENUS can be Docked (at left of page) or Expanded to their assigned places on the page.


PROFILE, GRADES, PREFERENCES and MESSAGES can be accessed from a drop down menu when you click on your name (in the top right of the screen).

4.2 Dock or minimise menus

Use the to minimise (and to maximise). Use to dock (and to undock).

4.3 Contextual Help

If you’re not sure about something, or want to find out more information:

click on the in-context help ( ) for further details.

You can also refer to moodle.org at http://docs.moodle.org/ for an explanation of that

setting.

5 ARK Roles

Not all people in ARK have the same level of access to the system. Levels of access are

managed by ‘roles’. The configuration of roles is very complex and it is important to know

that the permissions associated with roles cannot be changed easily. Any changes should

undergo a managed process and be documented. Currently, roles are documented in the

Learning Management System Site Design Blueprint, developed and signed off by the

ARK project team.

The following table is an extract from the Blueprint; it shows key roles (coloured) configured

in ARK and briefly describes how they differ.

ARK role Description/Objectives UD role and names Level (Site, Unit, User)

Allocated by

Site Administrator

Responsible for ARK management (hosting, maintenance and support)

n/a Site (Used by Androgogic)

Androgogic

http://docs.moodle.org/25/en/Course_settings


ARK role Description/Objectives UD role and names Level (Site, Unit, User)

Allocated by

Technical Administrator

Technical Administrators can access and troubleshoot all aspects of user accounts and content on ARK.

OVC (DLT) Site Androgogic

User Administrator

User Administrators are responsible for user management including grades. However, they do not manage units.

ARK Liaison Officer or Registrar or Coursework Coordinator

Site

OVC on College request

Unit Administrator

Unit Administrators are responsible for creating new units and can enrol users (usually teachers and tutors). However, they do not manage any other user aspects or grades.

ARK Liaison Officer or Registrar or Coursework Coordinator

Site

OVC on College request

College Unit Administrator

College Unit Administrators are responsible for creating new units and can enrol users for their college. However, they do not manage any other user aspects or grades.

not used College

Auditor Auditors are able to view all units and users but are not able to participate in activities.

e.g. Senior execs, for copyright auditing

Site

Support Staff Support Staff are responsible for providing support for all users in any unit. However, they do not manage users, units or grades.

not used Site

Editing Teacher Editing Teachers can do anything within a unit, including changing activities and grading students.

Lecturer Unit Colleges, by Registrar

Teacher Teachers can teach in unit and grade students but may not alter activities.

Guest Lecturer Tutor

Unit Colleges

Student Students are responsible for engaging in learning and assessment activities within a unit. They generally have fewer privileges within a unit.

Students Unit Colleges by enrolment in TAMS

Table 4.1: Roles

The majority of users will have the ‘student’ role.

“Editing Teachers” will be able to see what students see, by choosing to view a unit as a

student would. A Registrar who teaches may be a Unit Administrator, but will also have

editing teacher role in the unit/s she teaches.

Registrars and eLearning administrators will typically have Unit Administrator and User

Administrator roles (in blue in the Table above).

Where a person is both a teacher and an enrolled student in different units in the University,

they will have two entries in TAMS, one as student and one as teacher, each with a different

email address. This allows the different ARK roles to be managed appropriately.


5.1 User Profiles

Teachers and students are encouraged to edit their user profile in ARK to provide information about themselves. This is the kind of material which may have been part of a first class in a face-to-face unit. It is useful to set the example in this both in face-to-face and online units, to encourage students to share something about themselves, and perhaps to add a picture.

Users can edit some elements of their profile.

Those which are direct copies of data in TAMS cannot be edited in ARK, though some data elements can be hidden.

The following shows what can be edited by most ARK users:

1. Email Display (defaults to "Hide my email address from everyone") 2. Email Format 3. Email digest type 4. Forum Auto-subscribe 5. Forum tracking 6. Skype ID 7. Description 8. Picture 9. Picture description

The following fields are visible in ARK, but not editable.

These values are derived from TAMS. Once changed in TAMS, these values will be available in ARK after the scheduled daily data sync at 11.30am, 3.30pm and 6.30pm

Field Visible to: User Students Teachers

- Username (Email Address) YES NO YES

- First Name YES YES YES

- Surname YES YES YES

- Country YES NO YES

- Phone (not work phone field in TAMS) YES NO YES

- Mobile phone YES NO YES

- Group (if assigned and “visible”) (within the unit where the Group is set up)

YES YES YES

5.1.1 To change your user profile:

1. Log into ARK 2. Click on the "Dashboard" menu (top

right of screen) 3. Click on 'Edit profile' 4. Make changes to the profile 5. Click the "Update Profile" button on

the bottom of the screen.


6 Create a User

People can become ARK users ONLY by having their user account created in TAMS and

then automatically created on ARK via the Integrator. (This ensures that there are no data

discrepancies between ARK and TAMS.)

7 Create Unit

Given the ARK TAMS integration will create all units in ARK, Unit Administrators will seldom

need to manually create units. There are some instances where a unit will need to be

manually created, for example:

- Create a library guide

- Create a ARK guide

- Create a unit for a training session

Important note

The ‘Unit Administrator’ role is one of the highest level roles in ARK. These roles are

assigned to trusted users only!

Unit Administrators are given this advice in their training:

Be very cautious with your new access to ARK as you now have the ability to make changes (and delete things) that affect users across the entire site. If you’re unsure about something, don’t do it / don’t click on it until you have researched it or tested it thoroughly.

In the light of this, you will understand why Unit Administrators are reluctant to simply “whip up a new unit” to meet a teaching need.

7.1 Backup and Restore Units

Following sections describe setting up units for the first time, and the role of Meta Units. If you have a unit that was set up in ARK in the past, and if it does not have a Meta Unit, the contents can be transferred to a new location, such as the current year, by using the Backup and Restore process. This is described in the Registrar and Online Managers Manual.

8 Meta Units

‘Meta units’ are units that can contain content, usually generic resources and activities, but

no direct enrolments. Instead, users are fed through from other units where a ‘Unit meta link’

has been created. Another way of describing it is the ‘meta unit’ is a ‘parent unit’ while a unit

joined via a meta link is a ‘child unit’.

Figure 6.1: Meta unit and child units


8.1 Child Units and Meta Units when teaching

If you are teaching a unit which has students enrolled in different levels (Undergraduate and

Postgraduate Foundational, for instance) or different modes (face to face and online,

perhaps) then there will be a child unit in ARK for each particular enrolled unit, and one Meta

Unit.

You can identify the enrolled (child) unit on the Dashboard because it has the Unit Code at

the start of its name, and the Meta Unit because it does not and has “– Meta Unit” in its

name.

For instance, this is a child unit:

This is a meta unit:

8.1.1 The Child Unit

The material provided in child units will be relevant to the particular enrolled unit and will only

be visible to students in that enrolled unit.

The material in the child unit should include:

the particular learning outcomes

the assessment tasks (information and submission)

any resource material relevant only to that child unit

any learning activities only for students in that unit.

8.1.2 The Meta Unit

The material in the meta unit is available to all students in each of the child units.

This is the best place to place readings, schedule of classes, links to resources, information

on group activities and anything else that is relevant to all students.

Both child and meta units are created with a news forum so that you can contact the whole

class or just students in one particular child unit.

HINT: You can link from within a Child Unit to Meta Unit by inserting a link to the Meta Unit’s

URL in the Child Unit. (You can also link to sections of a Meta Unit, if you wish. Students

will only have access if the meta unit is associated with the Child Unit in which they are

enrolled.) In Detail: Copy the URL (for example,

http://ark.divinity.edu.au/course/view.php?id=517) from the address bar of your browser

when you are in the Meta Unit. In the Child Unit, with editing on, add a URL. Paste this URL

and you have a link from the child unit to the meta unit. (Label it something like “Meta Unit –

Resources”.


8.1.3 What Child Units are in a Meta Unit?

A Unit Administrator can see which units feed into a meta unit.

If you are not certain that the units are linked as they should be, please consult your

College’s Registrar.

NOTE: When new units are created, they are linked to an existing meta unit, if one exists.

9 Changing Unit Appearance in ARK

ARK is very user friendly for teachers.

Anywhere you see this icon:

you can click and find out more about the particular options.

It is useful for first time users, but is also useful to check out occasionally to see if there are

more options (perhaps better options for your purposes) than those you are using.

9.1 Unit Settings

You can change the appearance of the child or meta unit in ARK. This can only be done by editing teachers.

To change the Unit settings, go to the Administration menu:


Choose “Edit settings”

You will be presented with a list of options:


Not all of these can be edited by editing teachers. These notes will only address the ones you are likely to use.

9.2 Unit Format

ARK has two built in formats: - Title Format - Topics Format


Tile format will give you a unit that looks like this:


Topics format gives you a unit that looks like this:

Each format has a range of options to allow you to customise the student experience of the unit. For instance, you can make hidden sections completely invisible, or you can allow them to be seen but not opened.

9.2.1 Unit Sections

You can change the number of Sections. An intensive unit may have 5, a weekly class may have 12. There will always be one unnumbered section at the top for generic information about the unit.

9.2.2 Topic Names

You can leave the sections named Topic 1, Topic 2, and so on or you can change the name of the section. This is done in the unit. At the top right of the ARK page, you will always see the Editing toggle provided that you are logged in as an editing teacher.


9.2.3 Editing

When you turn editing on, the appearance will change. You will be able so see a number of buttons that allow you to make changes to the page or to items on it.

When you hover over an item, it will give you a description of what that tool does. For example:

When clicked, this screen appears:

To enter a name for the section, uncheck the “Use default section name” checkbox, then enter the name you wish to give the section. You can also provide a summary of what the section is about.


Hover over the toolbars in the editing box to see what the tools do.

The left icon ( ) opens up a further editing menu bar.

If we edit the section in the editor like this:

Then the unit page will look like this:

Or in topics format, like this:


The same sort of processes apply to editing and adding content in ARK.

10 Creating Unit Content in ARK

To create or edit content, you will need to have editing turned on. (Whether your unit is set up in Topic or Tile format, the editing page looks the same. To edit existing content, choose Edit To add content, choose Add an activity or resource

This will give you a pull-down list of options:


10.1 Activities and Resources available

(You may need to scroll to see the complete list.)


10.2 File

The file module enables a teacher to provide a file as a unit resource. Where possible, the file will be displayed within the unit interface; otherwise students will be prompted to download it. When you choose “Add a file”, the following screen appears:

Enter the name and any description (to display for students on the unit page, or as a reference).

Then add a file, or create a folder or selecting files previously uploaded or by dragging and dropping where indicated. You then have a number of choices which are common to many of the task and activity modules. In almost all cases you will find that the defaults give you what you are wanting. However, there are times when attention to these is important.


You can also choose to show or hide a resource from the unit page with editing turned on. There may be reasons that you do not want a particular resource available until a particular date (or after one) or you wish to set up some other condition that must be met to allow access to the resource or activity. Selecting “Add restriction” opens a new dialogue which allows you to set limits on access to that resource.

This allows the development of complex criteria to allow (or deny) access to this item. At the end of adding a resource or an activity, you have three choices:


The second of these is helpful when setting out with ARK, as it lets you see what the student will see when they click on what you have added.

10.3 Folder

The folder module enables a teacher to display a number of related files inside a single folder, reducing potential clutter and the need for scrolling on the unit page.

10.4 Book

The book module enables a teacher to create a multi-page resource in a book-like format, with chapters and subchapters. In some cases this may prove more useful and user-friendly than a folder with many files.

10.5 Page

The page module enables a teacher to create a web page resource using the text editor. A page can display text, images, sound, video, web links and embedded code, such as Google maps. The Content section is likely to be the most used and most useful in setting up a page.

Most of the items on the two lines of icons are likely to be familiar from other programs. A mouse over will tell you what each does.

The icons in this group insert media into the page you are creating. Each will guide you through a number of steps. If you wish to link to another site you can enter the url in the text box, or add a word or phrase. For instance, to link the College name, highlight it:


Then select Next, paste the URL.

You can choose to have this open in the same or another window.

10.6 Label

The label module enables text and multimedia to be inserted into the unit page in between links to other resources and activities. They can help provide signposts within a unit, and clarify layout of materials.

10.7 URL

The URL module enables a teacher to provide a web link as a unit resource.

(Note above under Meta Units, the option of linking from a Child Unit to a Meta Unit, or part of that unit.)

10.8 Forum

The forum activity module enables participants to have asynchronous discussions i.e. discussions that take place over an extended period of time, and which do not require all participants to be online and connected at the same time. The forum module provides a wide range of options for setting up a number of different types of forum.

10.8.1 Types of forum

Five options are available:


These are well described in the help material:

It is likely that the “standard forum for general use” will be what is required for most forums in units. NOTE that the Q&A forum is not the type that you should use if you wish to respond to student questions. That is a standard forum.

First time users typically report problems with forums and this is partly due to the number of options available. It is useful to talk with more experienced users and to read the help material carefully.

New users are strongly advised against using forums for assessment until they have mastered some of the subtleties of this kind of activity.

10.9 Big Blue Button

Big Blue Button is an online classroom software add-in to ARK. New in 2017, its roll-out will be progressive over the year. Users are requested to not use BBB until they have had instruction. BBB provides sharing and communication processes with video, audio and text options in real time. Our installation also allows the recording of BBB sessions. A new manual will provide fuller instructions in use of BBB.

11 Assessment tasks and Turnitin

Creates a Turnitin Moodle Direct assignment which links an activity in Moodle to an assignment / assignments on Turnitin. The alphabetical list of activities provides for both “Assignment” and “Turnitin Assignment”. The former Turnitin Option is now accompanied by a more developed Turnitin 2 Option. This new option should be used in future (the accompanying Turnitin Manual describes this).


The former option is provided so that you can access previous assessment tasks set up prior to the Tii2 option. From 2017 the GradeMark aspect of Turnitin will be replaced by a similar but more usable feedback studio module. The Turnitin Manual sets out use of this.

11.1 Marking as a percentage (out of 100)

Whenever an Assignment is set up in ARK, the ability is present for Teachers to record the

marks for each student for the task. Once entered, students can see their marks. When an

assignment is marked in GradeMark or feedback studio (part of Turnitin) the result is

recorded, as well as the overall comments from the marker.

By default, all assessments are marked out of 100. It is recommended that this be retained.

11.2 Turnitin Assignment

Where a paper or an essay is submitted, this is the submission mechanism that will normally be used. It allows the student to benefit from originality checking and is a means of compliance with the University’s obligations to check for plagiarism. A further benefit is that the marker is able to access the GradeMark resources for providing feedback. Submission through ARK permits a copy of the original assignment to be kept (as well as a copy of the one returned to students). ARK is fully integrated with Turnitin, so the editing teacher or marker does not need to do any further setting up.

Note that there is a Turnitin Training Manual in the ARK Support Unit (under “Teacher Support Materials/ARK Related”).

Turnitin Assignments are expected to become the norm if they are not already. Each College will advise on its own progress rate towards the goal of using Turnitin for all assignments.

In time, Turnitin will be the only way in which tasks can be submitted. Please consider this to be the default for written assignments, such as essays.

11.3 Weighting Assessment Tasks

Within Unit Administration, the Grades option allows weightings to be set.


Within the Grade Administration, select “Setup” and "Categories and Items".

You will then see a list of the Assessment Tasks in the Unit, and can set the weightings:

At the end of the table, you will see a Unit total row:

(It is a happy thing when these add to 100.00 overall!)

11.4 Grader Report

You can view the overall grades for a unit by selecting View, then Grader Report.

This allows you to see the marks for each student for each task:


Note that Generic Student did NOT submit task 4, and the result has defaulted to zero. The bottom row gives average mark for each task – in this case taking the non-submission as a zero. (Power users may wish to explore further and change settings to ignore blank cells.) The unit total (weighted) for all tasks will be found in the far right column – here shown next to the student names:

When a student selects Grades, they will see their own grades and the running weighted total grade so far.

11.5 Exporting marks

To export the results for a unit, select the Export Tab 1, choose the file type (probably Excel

Spreadsheet) 2 and select the items to export 3. (What is needed for TAMS is simply the

Unit total. This will be exported for each enrolled student.) When finished, Download 4


(Registrar note: This data can then be imported into TAMS.)


12 Further help

12.1 Generic Moodle Help

There is a massive resource at moodle.org as well as many helps across the Internet.

12.2 Particular ARK Help

Technical support within the University is provided in three Tiers: Tier 1 Problems that you have using ARK (Moodle) in your College. You should first approach the person whose role it is to provide Tier 1 support. This is likely to be the IT person, Registrar, or one of the teachers designated for the purpose. This person should be able to help you and students with login issues, finding the right page, and so on. They should also be the person to whom you turn when you are not sure about the best way to do something in ARK, or whether something can be done. This person (who will be identified in your College) will be the one who is able to access Tier 2 support. Tier 2 When something in ARK is not working as it should, or all normal steps to resolve an issue have failed, the designated officer in the College (the ARK Liaison Officer, in many cases) will make contact with the helpdesk set up by our software vendor, Androgogic. The issue will be escalated, and advice provided through the designated contact person. Androgogic provides the following description of Tier 2 support:

Androgogic supports Androgogic client-partner staff who contact the Androgogic service desk for help with both their own issues in administering the systems as well as for escalation of incidents encountered by staff and students which are not able to be resolved in-house. Some examples of Tier 2 support requests are as follows: ● show how to configure an application ● minor changes to existing site configuration such as setting language pack string Androgogic client-partner staff in turn support LMS Client Administrators and LMS Administrators support their students and staff.

12.3 Contacting Androgogic

The ARK Liaison Officers, from 11 December 2014, have access to the Androgogic Help Desk: http://androgogic.livetime.com The login page will allow each College’s designated contact person to raise a support ticket with Androgogic. Please provide all possible information to your contact person, to assist with speed and clarity in making the request. You can add screen shots, provide descriptions, or copy a link (url) to provide the most and best information you can to assist the Androgogic technical staff. In the ongoing correspondence on an issue, you will automatically be included in email correspondence, and you can update the ticket by reply to the email. PLEASE add [email protected] in the “notify others” field when you raise a ticket. Note that requests for development and change are managed through the OVC. Tier 3

http://moodle.org/

http://androgogic.livetime.com/


Infrastructure support and future developments will be managed by the Office of the Vice-Chancellor. Suggestions for improvement and development, refinement or support are welcome. Please direct these to the Director of Learning and Teaching, John Capper. [email protected] preferably through your College’s ARK Liaison Officer.


NOTES

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