Course Startup Notes
Hal Perkins, Au09
This is an attempt to write down a list of all the things that go into starting
up a course these days. Partially this is just to see how much junk is really
involved, but also it may be useful as a checklist for others. The specific
inspiration was to write down everything it took to get CSE 444 launched in
Au09.
There are (too) many ways to do many of these things and a lot of it is only
documented by folklore or persists from days when the CSE department rolled
their own and there were no campus-wide facilities for things like online turnin
or mailing lists. This is just personal preference, with a bias towards jettisoning
historical baggage and doing things in standard ways that students see in other
departments and courses when possible. I'd be happy for any pointers about
how to do things better.
TAs
Computing facilities
- General info: support web page: http://www.cs.washington.edu/lab/support/docs/uwcseinstr.html
- Course computing needs: http://www.cs.washington.edu/lab/course-computing/.
Lab coordinator (course-computing@cs) sends out request for info a few weeks
before the quarter and usually wants details and/or confirmation of previous
setups very quickly.
- File space: There is a set of directories in the unix file space /cse/courses/csennn/yyqq
where non-web course files can be kept. Here, nnn is the course number (444,
etc.), yy is the year (09), qq is the quarter (au, wi, sp, su). The unix
file system
is linked as
the O: disk from most windows desktops - map a network drive to \\ntdfs\cs
if it isn't.
- Student project space: See the support web page. Space at /projects/instr/yyqq/csennn.
Unix groups for student projects are csennna, csennnb, etc. Support will
create the top-level yyqq/csennn directory. Instructors or TAs need to create
subdirectories a, b, c, ... for groups csennna, csennnb, csennnc, ..., and
assign students to groups using their CSE account ids.
Communications
- Course web site: In the CSE unix file system. Location is /cse/www/education/courses/nnn/yyqq.
There are aliases so that csennn/yyqq points to the same place as nnn/yyqq.
There is also an alias csennn/CurrentQtr that
points to the directory for the current quarter, and a web browser aimed
at www.cs.washington.edu/nnn goes to this link. Don't use CurrentQtr in
any URLs on web pages since it will move around. Relative
links are best, of course, but hard code yyqq when needed. Support will create
the top-level directory for each quarter and put an almost-empty index.html
page there. Support web pages have information about how to protect directories
so they can only be read by authorized users if desired (.htaccess magic
files).
- Mailing lists: Click on "request class email list" in class resources
box on the myuw page. That automatically sets up a mailman list with registered
students as members, and this membership is updated as students add and drop.
Need to manually add TAs to the mailing list and give them
admin
authority
if you
want
them
to handle
requests.
I like to use mailing lists for low-traffic notes from course staff to students,
not for high-volume discussions from everyone.
- Discussion board: Catalyst gopost (https://catalysttools.washington.edu/gopost/).
I restrict this to uw-only (but no reason to limit to the students in the
class). Be sure to add TAs as moderators/admins. I try to channel generally
useful discussions here, instead of individual email
exchanges.
Idea is that everyone in the class can benefit from what's
posted and help each other out, and keep the course staff from being the
communications bottleneck. Depending on the students this might be a real
discussion, or sometimes just a forum questions and pronouncements from course
staff. Individuals can configure their list options so that postings are
mailed to them if they want that lots-of-email experience.
- Online turnin: Catalyst collectit (https://catalysttools.washington.edu/collectit).
Restricted to only students in the class. Give TAs admin permissions so they
can at least download assignments.
- Grades: Catalyst gradebook (https://catalysttools.washington.edu/gradebook).
Give TAs permissions needed to add assignments and record scores. Students
can look up grades posted here, and tell them they're responsible for letting
us know
if they
find
any errors
in our
records.
Most of these tools use the student's UW netid, which may not be the same as their CSE userid.