O-Space FAQ: Settings for Faculty

How do I notify students that something new is posted?
When creating a topic the user has the option to "notify all". If this option is selected a notification will be sent by email to all participants in the class. If this option is not selected students must either check manually or subscribe to the topic. By subscribing to the topic the student will be emailed every time new content is added to that topic. Teachers also have the capability to create groups of students. A teacher can opt to make certain posts visible to certain groups only.

Why can't I put ALL my course readings into O-Space?
It is the policy of Otis College of Art & Design to follow the US Copyright Law. Course Readers should be used when possible. In no case should more than 20% of required course content be made available through O-Space. Your login acknowledges your acceptance of this policy.

How do I track Attendance?
Faculty can use O-Space Easily keep track of student attendance. You will need to add columns for every day for which recording attendance. To mark the student's status (present, late, excused, or unexcused) you can select an option from the drop-down menu corresponding with each student, or use keyboard shortcuts (p, l, e or u). Use the Tab key to move from cell to cell.

Settings?
The Settings section gives teachers and administrators access to important administrative features for their course or community including User Access, Attendance, Grades, and Settings.

How do I change the color scheme of my course or community?
Unfortunately, this option is no longer available. Only 3% of the total users of the software around the US used this feature. (We bet that 90% of them were here at Otis.)

How do I Add Students to a Course?
To add new users into your course or community, go to Settings tab. Then click on the "User Access" button under Users. Search for a user to be added. Try using last names only and then pick from the list using the + sign.

What are Groups?
Faculty can create topics that are only viewable to a certain group of users. There is a group manager for creating groups, and adding and removing users from groups as needed. To create a group click the "Settings" button under Administration on the left and then click Groups. Type in a group name and click the "add" button. Now you can begin adding users into the group by click the "+" button next the the users name.

How do I add links?
Links can be added to the left hand menu of any course or community as Quick Links. These links provide easy access to websites of your choosing to all those who have access to your course or community. It's a great place to put links to student blogs.

Grade Settings?
O-Space provides teachers with an effective and convenient way to keep track of grades online. A teacher can either enter grades as percentages or as letters. To custom tailor the grade settings click on the "Grade Settings" button in the settings field. Now click on the "Edit" button at the bottom of the list. From this page you will be able to alter the correlation between letters and percentages and visa versa. If you choose to add grades as letters and have the system convert to percentages the system will enter the percentage as the midpoint number entered by the teacher. For example; if a teacher enters a student's grade as a B and a B is between 80% and 90% than that students grade will show up as 85 percent.

What are the Otis grade settings?
When entering grades on assignments in the grade-book make sure you go to grade settings and input the range from your syllabus. Different departments may use different scales. The Liberal Arts and Sciences department grade scale is below:

Be sure to put in the actual value of the letter grade, for example a 95 instead of A. If you only put in an A it calculates based on the range average, for example an A according to Otis grade scale in the syllabus is a 95 – 100 and the average is 97.5 which is used to calculate the student’s grade. This is not so problematic until you come to the difference between an F and a Zero.

An F is from 0-59%. If you do not type in the number, it will calculate based on a 30%. An F does not necessarily equal a zero.

Be aware that when you give a student a zero on an assignment weighted over 20% of the total grade, chances are that student will not pass the class. This is something to communicate with students. Share the examples below with them:

Let us say they have an average of 95 A- for 80% of the coursework; they then receive a 0 on an assignment worth the remaining 20%.

(0.20 x 0) + (0.80 x 95) = 0 + 76 = 76 C+

What if they had a B average for that 80%? (0.20 x 0) + (0.80 x 85) = 0 + 68 = 68 C-

What if they had a C average for that 80%? (0.20 x 0) + (0.80 x 70) = 0 + 68 = 56 F

A zero impacts their grade. This is another deterrent to plagiarism as plagiarism equals a ZERO for the given assignment.

This seems complicated. How can I get assistance?
Kathleen Forrest is the TLC (Library) is readily available to assist faculty in setting up the grade book.

What is the calendar module?
The Calendar allows you to organize events and create tasks for the courses you are in. Setting one of the courses to Hide by default will stop Calendar posts from that course from showing up. On the right side of the calendar you are able to create tasks that only you can see, a to do list. By clicking the "T" you will toggle it to "C" this allows you to create a category. They can be used to arrange your tasks in separate categories.

Where are guidelines for what is appropriate to post in OSpace?
Guidelines for Publishing to Otis Web Spaces