what's new

The new eLearning Vista 4 version comes with greater functionality and enhancements to many of the WebCT tools and a simplified user interface for the designer/instructor and student. Some of the new tools include Blogging and Journaling functionality, Profiles for Social Computing, Grading Rubrics, and Peer Review discussions.

Version 4 provides a cleaner, more user-friendly interface design with fewer clicks and a collapsible user menu to increase course design space. Faculty will also have the ability to add tools quickly to their course through the new quick start page. Additionally, this version provides built-in interactive tutorials to assist new users.

 

new features at-a-glance

New Quick Start Page for Course Set-up: Faculty can use the Quick Start page as a launching pad to rap­idly set up your courses by quickly adding tools to get courses prepped and ready to teach.

New Course Preview Area: Includes a Course Preview area with the flexibility to link to mul­tiple Web pages, allowing faculty to provide a preview of their course for public viewing.

More Flexible Web Links: Previously called URLs, Web Links are now easier to manage. Whenever a Web Link is added to a course, it is automatically added to a comprehen­sive Web Links page, giving instructors and students a central place to easily access and review all Web Links used within a course.

Additional Learning Module Options: Learn­ing Modules used for presenting content in a pre-defined sequence can now be included on the Course Menu, making them accessible to students from anywhere in the course. If desired, the first page of a Learning Module can display the table of contents for that module. Designers have a choice of displaying elements within the mod­ule as numbered items or simply as a list.

New Assessment Presentation Choices: Designers can determine whether they want an assessment to appear in the same window or to open in a new window when it is started. Design­ers can also determine whether or not they want to give students the ability to view quiz statistics.

New Group e-Mail Options: Send mail to users by role or by group affiliation.

Enhanced "My Grades" Area: Instructors can now provide students with more information in the My Grades area. For example, Gradebook column statis­tics can be released to give students a better idea of their performance relative to the class. Instructors can also choose to have their comments on an assignment or assessment appear in the My Grades area.

Easier Course Customization: Color palette has been extended and the process of customizing the look-and-feel of a course has been streamlined, making it easier for designers to create the appearance they want for their courses.

New "Web Folder" Functionality: Users allowed to open any folder in the File Manager as a Web Folder. Web Folders leverage WebDAV technology, which lets users easily drag-and-drop files between their desktops and the eLearning Vista interface. Users can open Web Folders within the eLearning Vista interface, and no set-up is required.

More Flexible e-Pack Adoption for Faculty: Instructors can import e-Packs into their existing courses without over-writing their own content -- giving them the flexibility to add publisher content to their courses at any stage of the course design process.

Faculty Tools for Course Content Upgrade: Instructors can now move their own content into and around within eLearning Vista. The content upgrade process has been significantly enhanced and now includes a log that makes it easy for instructors to determine exactly what has occurred during the upgrade.

Improved Backup and Restore: New options to create online backups, to restore from an online backup and to control the number of allowed online backups via quotas.

Improved End-of-Term Processing: Reset sections, copy content from one section to another and more easily assign templates to sections. These functions can be performed by the instructor.