Because a few people always seem to overlook these items each semester, here are three pointed reminders intended to get everyone completely up to speed in a hurry:

THE ORIENTATION EXERCISES LISTED HERE are to be completed during the Fall Orientation period--running from Wednesday, September 2, through Tuesday at midnight (EST), September 8. The normal ETL "work week" for classes begins on Wednesday morning and ends at midnight [EST] the following Tuesday night. The BlackBoard applications will be available on September 8, but some specific course materials may not be activated by the instructor until the actual class week for which they apply.

PLEASE read all of this orientation, whether you are a new student or one who is returning after several semesters.

THREE REQUIRED orientation exercises are specified below. These are to be completed by everyone--before the beginning of classes.

REMEMBER that Adobe Acrobat software is required in most classes. You must be able to create files in PDF format -- not just read them. This is not the free Adobe "reader" software that most people have, but there now is some free software availale (notably, the Sun-sponsored Open Office project) that will create PDF files. Officially, however, the ETL Program still only supports Adobe Acrobat and related Adobe products.

You should now have a GW e-mail account that ends with "@gwmail.gwu.edu". That is the only e-mail address that your instructors should have you using for ETL course-related work and correspondence.

The materials in this orientation explain how we are going to use the ETL Program's Blackboard (Bb) Learning System courseware. They also include instructions for some simple, but essential, exercises that must be completed during the orientation week. Please take a short while now to read these materials carefully, and to complete the exercises, so that you will be comfortable with the new learning environment before classes begin. (Hint: If you find that you are having difficulties, you might want to open two browser windows beside each other -- one to read through the orientation, and the other to follow along in Blackboard as you actually complete the orientation exercises.)

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LATE REGISTRATION NOTE

The new GW system runs an authentication routine nightly, to compare officially-registered students to the e-mail account information that is used for user ID and passwords in such things as Blackboard. What this means is, regardless of when a student attempted to register or filled out pre-registration, it takes one overnight cycle after both a GW registration is actually completed and a GW mail account exists before a student is in the system for Blackboard. Even at that, late registrations must then be manually added to a Bb section, so late students must expect about a 24 hour delay from the time that they finish registration/account creation until they can start in the course. Please keep that in mind and register early every semester!

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In an effort to make this as simple as possible, words highlighted in BLUE (except this one) are "clickable" links that will open a separate window that will show an illustration and/or some further explanation of that item. Keep in mind that the orientation links go to screen shots of Blackboard, and not the actual pages, so you can't click on links that are showing. Also keep in mind that BlackBoard functions are sometimes changed between semesters, without advance warning to us, so there may be some slight differences in how things work and look--but they should not be so different that you will not be able to easily tell what the instructions mean.

Ready? Let's get started ...

Logging On to Your Blackboard (Bb) Account

Although there are many links to Blackboard (Bb) throughout GW's network of Websites, perhaps the most common approach that our students will tend to take is to bookmark (favorite list) the URL that takes you directly to the Bb logon page. That URL is: http://blackboard.gwu.edu.

If you clicked on that link, you went to the actual logon page for Bb. To start the logon process, you would have wanted to click the button indicated by the arrow in this picture.

When you click the "Login" button, you will be taken to another page that will look similar to this one. Here you will enter your login information. In this login, your "NetID" is the username for your GW e-mail account, and the password is the same one that you use for that e-mail account. If you somehow did not actually obtain a GW e-mail account, as directed, you will not be able to login.

Once you've entered that information, click the "Login" button.

The next page that will open shows you a list of the courses that you are registered for. (If this appears to be in error, contact Diane or Sharon at (202) 994-8808. This page will display what the Registrar's database shows as your official enrollment record.)

Choose the course that you want to visit by clicking where the arrow indicates. If a course is listed as "unavailable", and it is after the official beginning of the semester's orientation period, contact Bill Robie at etltech@gwu.edu. If you are a late registration, it may take 24-48 hours before you are added to a course.

Now you are inside the Bb page for the course that you selected. You should be able to see a menu page at this point. Not all of the items available in this menu will be used by all instructors, so we'll discuss the most commonly-used ones in just a minute.

The default menu setting, and the first shown on the menu, is "Announcements". You will notice that you can review current announcements or those posted at various times in the past. Please be sure to check announcements regularly, as that will be one of the main ways that your Instructor gives you important messages.

You will want to click on the Course Syllabus link sometime during orientation period. This document will give you a great deal of information and is a "must read" part of your introduction to the course.

The next button down is "Lectures". There may not be anything posted there during the orientation week, but this is where, beginning in the second week of the semester, weekly course materials will be posted.

We'll skip over "Projects" for the time being.

Moving on to the next item we find one of the most important links -- and one where you need to do an Orientation Assignment. This is the Section Discussions link. Click on that link and you will find a Group Pages link. Click that, too. If a course has only one section, a "Section One" link will be all that's displayed. If there are multiple sections within a course, they all will be shown here. You should only be able to open the section to which you have been assigned, so if you are in doubt as to your section number, try clicking both and see which opens for you.

Here's the first Orientation Assignment. When you have entered your section, click on the "Group Discussion Board" and you will be shown a listing of available disccussion topics. These will usually be listed by week, but the first one showing right now is Student Biographies. Click on that title, and start a New Thread. Tell the class about yourself, as explained. You now have made your first (of many) posting to Bb!

For those of you who are returning students, this area will be similar to NetForum. For new students, this is where you will post discussion messages, and some assignments, to a discussion board. Keep in mind that this is not "real time" chat. Nearly all of the communication in the ETL Program's courses are asynchronous, so that you can participate during the time of day that you choose.

The second Orientation Assignment is to enter your personal data and your Bb privacy settings. We will leave it up to each of you, as individuals, to determine what information you wish to share, but we do want you to at least make your GWU e-mail address available to others.

To do that, we'll start by going to the main menu and skipping down a few places to Tools. Click that option, and then click Personal Information, to edit what others will be able to see. You will then be shown a window with other options, including Edit Personal Information and Set Privacy Options.

Let's start by clicking on Edit Personal Information. By default, the essential fields will already be filled in -- your name and GWU e-mail address. If you wish to add more information, you can at this point. Otherwise, back up one screen and click on Set Privacy Options.

Click on the Email Address check box to make that active. Next, move down that page and check the box for "List my information in the student directory". After you have both of those boxes checked, click the Submit button. Others will now be able to see your e-mail address and any other info that you chose to make available.

The third Orientation Assignment is to send an e-mail message to your Section Leader ("SL"), if you are in a multi-section class, or to the Instructor of Record ("I of R"), if you are in a class that doesn't have section Leaders. Some ETL classes are so large that adjunct faculty, who are usually top graduates of our program, are assigned sections within a course. These "SLs" handle the day-to-day discussions and are the first line of contact for questions about the course materials (NOT about technical and administrative matters). Although the "SL" will be the most visible person in such courses, the Instructor of Record is always available to you. Write them e-mail if you have a question.

To find out if you have a Section Leader, choose the Contact Info menu item. This will show you a list of faculty and ETL Staff involved in your course, along with the e-mail address that you will use to complete your third Orientation Assignment. The body of the message that you send should contain your name and the course and section number for which you are "checking in".

The three required check-in exercises are intended to let everyone involved know that you are able to get into the course in Bb, know how to post a discussion message, know what section you are in, and know how to contact they Instructor or Section Leader. Please do not forget to do these assignments!

About those other menu items ...

So far, we've addressed those that we think that you are most likely to need to use early on in the course. You may not use all of Bb's features in some courses, or an Instructor may add features to one class that may not be found in another. Among those not in use by all classes are: Projects, Electronic Reserves, Testing, and File Sharing. Your instructor will let you know if they plan to use those.

Had enough for right now? Probably so, but be sure to remember where this orientation is, so that you can refer back to it if you need to. And, as always, you can contact Bill Robie at etltech@gwu.edu for assistance.

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