Creation of and Uses for Project Sites
From e-Learning Documentation
Anyone with a Gatorlink username has the ability to create a Project Site. A Project site can be a collaboration site for groups of students, faculty, departments, clubs, etc. The Project Site can be made publicly available for anyone with a Gatorlink usernmae. Project Sites do not contain assessment tools such as Assigments and Tests & Quizzes. They also do not contain a Gradebook.
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Use a Project Site as a Collaboration Site
Any group on campus can use a Project Site to collaborate with colleagues. This could be a Department or student organization where files can be shared, Mail and Announcements used for communication, etc,. Since these Project Sites can be made "joinable," other users can find the group with a search of "Workspace Setup" and join the groups they find interesting. Of course, the Project Site can be Private as well, meaning that the only way for someone to access the site is for one of the organizers of the site to enroll him/her.
Students can create Project Sites. Instructors might divide the class into groups and have each group create their own project site where they can collaborate together on a project or assignment. They can keep their site private, or enroll their instructor or fellow classmates to see their finished product.
Use a Project Site as a File Storage Site
You might want to consider using a Project Site as File Storage if you have a course constructed of web pages that link to files in Resources. NOTE: If your course is created by the [1], they will assist you in deciding how to manage your files and you will want to consult them before embarking on this option.
The advantages of this option are that:
- Resources tool can be hidden from students, or even removed from the toolbar altogether in most instances.
- Files stay in the same location rather than being imported from one semester to the next. This prevents broken links inside a web page that links to the files.
- If you use Tests & Quizzes, any images that you attach to your questions are stored in Resources. If you put them in the Project Site instead, students can't access the images prior to the test.
- One common repository for the files means you don't have to search across several course instances (Did I use that file in Spring 2012 or in Fall 2011??).
To use a Project Site for file storage, do not make it public. Enroll anyone who will need to manage the files, such as other Instructors, TAs, departmental helpers, etc., in the course as "Facilitators." Upload the files you are going to use in your courses into the Resources in the Project Site. The files need to be made "publicly viewable" so that they can be seen by the students in your course site(s).
Use a Project Site as a "Parent" Course
A "Parent/Child" setup is one alternative to handling very large courses with multiple sections. The advantages of using Parent/Child set up are:
- TAs have access to their sections only, not being able to access the students or grades of other sections.
- Really large classes can experience slowness in e-Learning as some tools take a very long time to open when there are several hundred or more students. Breaking the huge class into smaller "child" classes can greatly reduce the slowness.
- Content in the Parent Course remains in the Parent course rather than being imported into future semesters. (But the Child courses will have their content copied into future semesters).
A disadvantage to this approach is that there are now multiple sites to maintain, but with good TA coordination, this option works well.
Let's say that you are teaching a Chemistry class with 35 sections. You have 10 TAs and each of the TAs is assigned to manage particular sections. You can request 10 Course Sites (the "Child" sites) and add the appropriate rosters and TA to each site. The TA will only have access to the students in his/her sections. In the Child Sites is where students will hand in Assignments, view grades, take tests, participate in Discussions, etc. The Parent site can contain all the content for the course. The Instructor will see a link to each of the Child Sites in the Parent Site. The students will see their Child Site and a link to the Parent site within the Child Site.
Create a Project Site
- Click Worksite Setup
- Click New.
- Select "Project Site" and click Continue.
- Give your site a title (required) and a description if desired.
- Click Continue
- Choose the tools you want to incluce in your Project Site.
- Choose to use material from another site if you want.
- Click Continue.
- Choose whether or not the Project Site will be public. (Anyone with a gatorlink username can join the Project Site if it is public. If it is not public, the Facilitator will enroll participants.)
- Click Continue
- Click Create Site
