What's New in CE 6

What's New in CE 6
Course Preparation
Quick Start Page
You can use the new Quick Start page in CE 6 as a launching pad to rapidly set up a new course, quickly adding the communication, organizational, and learning activity tools that your students will use most.
Interactive Student View
CE 6 includes one-click access to an interactive student view so that you can experience your unit exactly as your students will. You can review content, submit assignments and take quizzes without manually updating the student view, logging in separately, or affecting course tracking data.
Easy Content Upload
CE 6 allows you to easily move files — more than one at a time — using intuitive desktop-style navigation and place them directly on a page, in a folder, or in a learning module for presentation in your course.
My Files Area
Students, designers and instructors have a My Files folder where they can store files privately. The My Files folder can be accessed from anywhere through My WebCT or through any course section.
Distinct Designer and Instructor Roles
Each designer for a unit can be given a distinct identity. Under the Build Tab, designers have access to all of the tools they need for unit design, but do not have access to instructional tools, such as the Grade Book. Under the Teach Tab, Instructors have access to all of the tools they need to manage a unit and interact with students, but do not see the palette of course design tools. Faculty can be given one or both roles.
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Content Presentation
New Link Annotation Feature
Links in your course can now be annotated with a description to give students a better sense of what is available in each of the associated areas.
New Course Content Area
All folders (formerly Organizer Pages) can be easily accessed with a single click through the Course Content area at the top of the Course Tools menu. Folders can be used to organize and present materials and can now also include links to specific activities such as an assignment or discussion topic.
New Learning Module Features
The Content Module functionality from CE 4.1 has been expanded in the CE 6 Learning Module, making it easier for instructors to present materials in an engaging manner. In CE 6, specific learning activities such as individual assignments, chats, or discussion topics can be included in Learning Modules so that students navigate them in a defined sequence. Using the Selective Release functionality, instructors can, if they wish, personalize the path that students take through the materials and activities. The *Printable View* button in learning modules allows students to selectively save or print the content of a learning module.
Personalized Content Delivery
Nearly every type of content and activity in CE 6 — including individual assignments, discussion topics, chat rooms, and media library collections — can be selectively released to individuals or groups of students. You have the option of adding multiple types of release criteria to a single item and combining the criteria using Boolean logic for maximum flexibility. There is also a new Selective Release tool where you can manage all release options from a central location and can view selective release criteria by student.
More Flexible Web Links
Web Links, previously called URLs, can be annotated anywhere they are added to a course. 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.
New Media Library
The Media Library extends the Glossary functionality with powerful multi-media capabilities. You can create multimedia collections of terms, definitions, or images related to specific course topics and link these to words throughout the unit. Whenever a student clicks on these terms, a window will pop up displaying the "definition," which can include text, an image or a media file.
Communication
Announcements Tool
The Announcements tool lets you deliver important information to other unit participants. You can send a tailored announcement to all users with a particular role (for example, all students or all teaching assistants). and you have the flexibility of choosing where or how announcements will be delivered (for example, automatic pop-up in the course).
Integrated Chat and Whiteboard
Chat and Whiteboard are combined into a single integrated Chat tool that offers a great degree of flexibility. There are many new options when setting up chat and whiteboard rooms, including the ability to mute or deny access, the option to use the new "hand raise" mode, and the option to upload, save, and create slides using the whiteboard.
New Discussion Management and Navigation
New discussion management options include the ability to add instructions for each discussion topic, edit postings, and re-order discussion topics and categories. Discussion topics in CE 6 are gradable. They may be set up as threaded discussions, as blogs, or as journals. You can control student behaviors in threaded discussion topics and also enable peer review. The Discussions tool is easier to navigate, making it simple for students and staff to communicate and find the information they are looking for. Discussion topic can be sorted by message subject, author, or date and can "expand all" to view all posts within a topic.
Enhanced Mail System
The mail tool has been updated to incorporate a range of standard e-mail features, including the ability to send mail to groups. Users can also access a global view of mail categorized by course through My WebCT.
Who's Online Tool
The new Who's Online tool allows unit participants to see who else is logged in to any of your courses at a given time and chat with them, facilitating greater instructor-to-student and peer-to-peer communication. Who's online can be accessed from inside the course (when the tool is added) and also from the My Blackboard page. Instructors have the option of masking their online status if they do not wish to make their presence known at a given time.
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Assessments
New Question Types
CE 6 includes four new question types for all assessments: combination multiple choice true-false jumbled-sentence fill-in-the-blank
Additional Grading Options
CE 6 features two new grading options. With grade-by-question, you can quickly see every student response to a particular question, allowing you to evaluate specific responses in the context of those provided by other students. With anonymous grading, you can evaluate student responses anonymously making grading more efficient while helping to minimize the chance of bias.
Simplified Assessment Creation
It is now easier to create assessments, including a new option for organizing assessments into different sections and grouping questions by concept (part) to enhance the presentation to students. You can now also "road test" your assessments — take a quiz from the Student tab and experience it just as your students will.
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Assignments
New Setup Options
You can create individual assignments, group assignments, or custom assignments with different instructions for each individual or group receiving the assignment.
Submission Publishing
You and optionally your students have the ability to publish completed assignment submissions in CE 6 so that the entire class can see them and learn from them.
Submission Management
The CE 6 Assignment Dropbox organizes assignments in one central place so that you can see which assignments have been submitted, graded or published. You can sort by assignment name, student name, or date submitted.
Offline Review
You can select multiple assignment submissions, save them as ZIP files, and download them for offline review. This saves time and makes it easier for you to review and return assignments to students.
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Course Management
Group Management
The new Group Manager makes it easy for you to create and manage class groups. You have access to a central place where you can create groups and set up private group discussion boards and chat rooms in one easy step.
Group Sign-Up
With the addition of group sign-up sheets in CE 6, students can be given the option of joining their own class groups. Group sign-up sheets offer a new way to engage students in a dynamic, interactive learning process. There is also the option of allowing students to see who has already signed up in each group.
Discussion Grading
A central grading area has been added to the Discussions tool where you can assemble and review a student's posted messages, review total participation versus the class average and assign a grade to each student that is automatically recorded in the Grade Book.
New Grade Book
The Grade Book can now be accessed with a single click from anywhere in a course. The Grade Book now provides spreadsheet-style ease for organizing and managing information. You will have easy access to key statistics for each column in the Grade Book (including average, median, maximum, minimum, and standard deviation), which offers a quick snapshot of class performance on a particular item.
Grade Change Tracking
When a grade is changed, it is now automatically marked as such, creating an audit history of grade changes. You can also add notes or comments to explain grade changes as necessary.
Expanded Activity Tracking
Student tracking has been significantly expanded to include new information that can be viewed per student or per student per session. New events tracked include number of Mail messages read, Calendar entries viewed, files viewed, pages viewed in folders, number of assessments and assignments started and completed, and total time spent on assignments and assessments.
Summary Reports
CE 6 includes reports that contain summary information for a course with details on total sessions, session length, and most active hours and days. This information can be viewed in table format and can be displayed graphically as well.
New Auditor Role
In CE 6, there is a new learner role called the Auditor. Auditors can fully participate in a course just like a student, but they do not receive grades.
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