Center for Online Learning

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Vista - Pre-Semester Faculty Checklist

Information

Faculty and courses are loaded without students six weeks before the semester begins. That means that you can begin developing your content well in advance of the semester, without the fear of students seeing it. (Students are not loaded until the week before the semester begins)

Checklist

- (*Before students are loaded) If you would like your content copied over from a previous semester, please complete the Template Request Form. Once the content is copied, you can modify the dates and content to fit the current semester. (If you have copied a previous semester's content into the current one, you MUST change assignment dates before students are imported, or you will need to recreate the assignments.)
or
- (*Before students are loaded) Build your course content from scratch, or use the Template Request Form to request the special Online Course Design Template.

- (*Before students are loaded) If you would like to merge two or more sections into one, you can complete the Crosslisting Request Form. This form expires one week after the semester begins and no crosslisting will be able to take place after this date. (This can be done in conjunction with the Template Request Form)

- As you build your courses, keep in mind that we offer special Online Course Design tips, that will guide you in building an effective online course.

- Once students are loaded, apprize them of special events, such as the Vista Downtime Calendar. NOTE: All downtimes are posted as announcements in the system, and will alert all users a week in advance.

- Once Drop/Add is complete, audit your Vista course roster, using your WINGS roll as the standard. Any students who might have dropped your course should be "Denied Access" to the section.

* - If you cannot complete these steps before students are loaded, you will need to understand that any content changes that occur while students are loaded will be observable by them. Additionally, if you request to have a Template copied, ALL current content in the section that you are copying to will be removed, including student communication like mail and discussion messages.