Atutor Quickstart

ATutor Quick Start for Instructors
1. Before you start
You will first need to create an account on the system through the Registration screen.
Then you will need to have the account status change to Instructor. See “Creating a
course” below for details on having your account status changed.
Context sensitive help is available with many ATutor tools. Look for the Handbook link,
like that shown below for the Create Course handbook page. This will open the selected
page alongside ATutor and provide an explanation of that particular tool. .
The Handbook is also available through a link in the ATutor footer area, and through a
link on the Help screen, which can be accessed through the Help link at the top right of
the screen. Use the Search tool within the handbook to find the topics you need
information about.
2. Creating a course
After you have logged into ATutor, from My Start Page choose Create Course in the
sub-navigation links, as shown below. If you do not have an instructor account, you will
(normally) be presented with a form asking you to describe the course you wish to create.
This will be sent to the system administrator for approval. When approved (or
disapproved) you will receive an email from the system notifying you of the status change
to your account.
Note however that if the ATutor installation has been set to demo mode, the instructor
account request will be skipped, and the act of creating a course will automatically assign
instructor status to your account.
If you already have an instructor account, you will be presented with a form that allows
you to set the initial properties for the course. Once the properties have been selected,
press the Save button, after which you will be taken directly to the newly created course.
Initial properties can be changed through the Properties tool on the instructors Manage

screen, described below. See the Handbook page for details of the various properties that
can be set.
3. Managing course tools
A newly created course will be setup with a default set of tools enabled, as
predetermined by the system administrator. The tool icons on the course home page, the
main navigation tabs across the top of the screen, and the menu blocks down the side of
the screen, can all be added and removed by an instructor as required by a particular
course.
Most of the course management tools can be found under the Manage tab, as shown
below, when logged into a course as its instructor.
To add and remove tools, choose Student Tools from the Manage screen, then check or
uncheck the appropriate checkboxes to either modify the tools available on the Home
page, or modify the tabs that appear across the top of the course area. To change the menu
blocks that appear down the side of the screen, choose Side Menu from the Student Tool
sub-navigation links.
4. Managing Content
ATutor has many ways to add content to a course, all of which can be found by choosing
Content from the Manage screen.
Instructors can use the built in authoring tools in the Content Editor, shown below, by
choosing Create Content from the content sub-navigation links. Either HTML or plain
text content can be created using this editor. Near the bottom of the editor is a Paste from
File tool that allows you to import HTML pages you have created in an external HTML
editor. See the notes in the Content section of the Handbook for more about setting
content properties, adding glossary items, and checking content accessibility.

Other files can be added to a course through the File Manager, accessed through the
Manage screen. After uploading files to the File Manager, they can be inserted into
content pages by opening the Popup File Manager (shown below) from within the
Content Editor, then clicking the Insert button next to the file. This will either create a
link to the file, or it will embed the file in the content page if it is an image. The Popup
File Manage works in a similar way when creating test items, allowing authors to link
files and embed images in test items.

Prepackaged content can also be imported into ATutor as a standard IMS/SCORM
Content Package. Content packages can either be uploaded from a local computer,
retrieved through a URL location on the Web (both shown below), or imported from a
content repository (see TILE and TLE repository in the Handbook). See the Handbook
notes for further details on importing prepackaged content. Imported content, and content
created in ATutor, can also be exported as content packages, to be reused in other
courses, or imported into another learning management system or content repository.
It also possible to import SCORM Sharable Content Objects (SCOs) using the SCORM
Packages tool found on the Manage screen. This type of content is generally authored in
a SCORM authoring tool such as Reload (http://www.reload.ac.uk.), or eXe

(http://exelearning.org/), then imported into ATutor as a self-contained content unit.
Unlike content packages imported into ATutor, which can be modified after importing,
imported SCOs are generally not editable. Note that Java must be installed on the
instructor's and students' computer in order to view SCORM SCOs in ATutor.
For example content that can be imported into ATutor, visit:
http://www.atutor.ca/atutor/content.php
5. Managing course members
There are a variety of ways to add students to a course, either having students self-
register, by importing a course list, by manually creating and adding new students, or by
manually adding students from those already registered on the system. It is also possible
to automatically authenticate students through an external registration database using a
customized bridge application that allows ATutor to draw user information from an
external source. The four manual methods will be outlined here.
If the Registration form is enabled, students can Self-Register themselves on the system,
then browse through the available courses, and enroll themselves in a course. If it is a
private course (see Course Properties in the handbook), an enrollment request notification
will be sent to the course instructor, after which s/he can approve the enrollment through
the Pending Enrollment feature in the Enrollment Manager, shown below.
Other enrollment methods are all managed with the Enrollment Manager found through
the Manage screen. Instructors can Import a Course List using a comma separated
values (CSV) file in the format “Firstname”,”Lastname”,”Email” like that below. Click
on Import Course List in the Enrollment Manager sub-navigation to open the import
screen.
CSV Formatted course list
"Bill","West","bwest@utm.edu"
"Karen","Byer","kbyer@utm.edu"
"Ali","Usami","ausami@utm.edu"
"Vito","Rabasca","vrabasca@utm.edu"
"Uwe","Schaffer","uschaffer@utm.edu"
The imported list will be checked to ensure there are no errors, and to see if any of the
persons listed are already registered on the system. The list will be displayed on a screen
like that shown below, where you may choose to make adjustments if necessary. Press

Add to Enrollment List to immediately enroll students in the course, giving them access
to the course. All students added to the enrollment list will receive an email with
information on how to enter the course.
It is also possible to add students to a course by choosing the Create Course List link in
the Enrollment Manager sub-navigation. This method works much the same as the Import
Course List method described above, except names and email addresses are entered
directly into the form, instead of being imported from a list. This method can be useful
for adding single students who may be starting a course late.
It is also possible to select students from the Not Enrolled list (next to Pending
Enrollment described above) and add them to a course. All students registered on the
system are listed here.
Another function of the Enrollment Manager is to create assistants. Once enrolled in a
course, a course member can be assigned any of the Management Privileges available to
an instructor, so they can be responsible for marking tests, moderating groups, managing
content etc. In the Enrollment Manager select the checkbox next to the enrolled course
member you wish to give privileges to, then select from the privileges available the ones
this person will manage. In the example below, the course member “a_usami”, is being
given the three privileges just described.

The system administrator has all these tools available as well, so instructors do not
necessarily have to enroll students themselves.
5. Managing Groups
Students enrolled in a course can be divided into groups using the Groups tools linked
from the Manage Screen. Using the Create Groups link in the Groups sub-navigation,
choose to manually create groups, or to automatically generate groups from the student
enrolled in the course. Then, on the screen that follows, define the type of group, and the
group name. The group type could be project, assignment, or perhaps a tutorial group
type, and the group name might be Group1, Ben's Group, Course Assignment1. Groups
types and names are arbitrary, so you may use whatever labels work best for you or the
course. Note that course members can only be added once to a particular group type, but
may belong to multiple group over several group types.
A group can include all members of the course. In the example screen below, a single
group is being created and the Blog tool is being enabled. All students in the class will
then be assigned to the group to create a course blog (as opposed to a private group blog).
Other tools that can also be made available to groups, so only group members (and the
instructor) have access to them.
After the group has been create, you will need to add course members to the group if you
are creating the groups manually. The new group will be listed on the Groups manage
page, below which the Members button can be selected to choose enrolled student to add
to the group. Choose from the groups menus listed next to each student, the group they
should be assigned to, as shown below.

Assignments can also be group specific. To create an assignment, first create a group, and
make the File Storage tool available to the group. This will create an entry in the
workspaces in the File Storage tool through which course members can submit their
assignments.

Tests can also be assigned to groups, if for example an instructor wanted to have different
groups take different tests, or if a make up test had to be given to students who had
missed a test. See the Handbook pages when creating questions and tests for more details.
6. Additional help sources
In addition to the the ATutor Handbook included with every installation, help is also
available through the support forums on the atutor.ca Web site.
http://www.atutor.ca/forums/index.php
7. Modules
ATutor includes a core set of feature modules, as well as a collection extra module which
link third party applications into ATutor or perhaps add custom functionality to the
system. Extra modules are listed on the atutor.ca site. Modules can add such features as a
whiteboard (Marratech), audio and video conferencing ( Elluminate, Userplane), content
repository (The Learning Edge, TLE), and Webcasting (epresences), among other
extensions to the system. In the case of third party modules, documentation is often found
through the Web site of the third party software itself.
ATutor Modules
http://www.atutor.ca/atutor/modules.php

Atutor Quickstart

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