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Setting Up Turn-in Areas

Naming the Turn-in Area \ How-To Set Up a Turn-in Area \ Resources

Introduction

The Turn-in Area

  • enables students to submit assignments, projects, and other course material to a secure location that can be accessed only by the instructor; and
  • enables the instructor and student to privately exchange comments about the submitted work

No more e-mail attachments or FTP! The instructor, TA, or other designated participant can view the submitted documents or can download all the documents in single zip archive

Instructors create one turn-in area for their course, setting up separate areas for each course submission/assignment. Students can turn in documents in a variety of formats.

Note: Because access is restricted, student privacy issues (see FERPA laws) on the Web are not violated, and these dropboxes can be reused.

You will follow a step-by-step procedure to set up the turn-in area. When you complete the preliminary step, you will reach a screen that provides the URL, which you will copy into an e-mail and send to your instructional designer—the subject line should include the course abbreviation and turn-in area title (e. g. CEE599 Turn-in Area). Your instructional designer needs the URL to create a working link on the online syllabus.

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Naming the Turn-in Area

Instructors should name the turn-in area with the course abbreviation at the start (e.g. CM 411 Submissions) so that students know they have reached the correct site. Using the actual abbreviation for the course is far more useful than the generic "Course Submissions" and "course" is redundant to the abbreviation.

The link to a turn-in area on the syllabus will read "Submissions." We avoid "Course E-submit Area," "Course Collect It Area," or "Course Assignment Turn-in Area" (consider that not all submissions are called assignments; some may be projects, for example).

Please do not use the application name "E-submit" or "Collect It" in your titles. Several electronic delivery systems have been tried since the inception of UWEO online courses, and you don't want to have to change the title if the name of the tool changes.

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How to Set Up a Turn-in Area

If you need help with any of the following steps, please e-mail the Catalyst Help Desk at catalyst@u.washington.edu between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday.

To set up a turn-in area, you will need a UW NetID and password. If you don't yet have a UW NetID and password, See the Online Learning Instructor Handbook for instructions.

Preliminary Step–Set up the Turn-in Area

  1. Go to http://catalyst.washington.edu/tools/

    Click "Web Tools Log In" from the center top of the page. You will reach this screen:
  2. Click UW NetID University of Washington. You will reach the following screen:

  3. Enter your UW NetID and password; if you haven't yet created a Catalyst account, you will be prompted to do so.
  4. On the next screen, select Collect It from the menu on the left. Collect It enables you to set up a "dropbox" where your students will submit assignments.
  5. On the next screen, type in a title for your dropbox. Notice that from this screen you can also attach files (the actual assignment, for example), and you can set up an e-mail contact different than your own if you wan t.
  6. Click Save.
  7. On the next screen, you will see the URL for your dropbox. This is the URL you will send to your instructional designer to post on the course syllabus.

Final Step–Add Assignments

  1. Notice the sidebar on the right "Manage Dropbox." Click "Add Assignment."
  2. On the Assignment screen, title your assignment and if you want, add a description. If you don't want students to submit the assignment before a certain date, you can set an "open" date; otherwise, click "Now." Set the due date for the assignment, and if you'd like students not to be able to submit assignments beyond the due date, set a "Close" date.
  3. Click "Save," which brings you back to the "Manage Dropbox" menu. From there, you can add another assignment, edit the dropbox, or assign roles. If you assign someone as an administrator, that person will be able to edit the dropbox, collect assignments, and so on.The only thing an administrator can't do is delete the dropbox.

Resources

FERPA: The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (20 U.S.C. § 1232g; 34 CFR Part 99) is a Federal law that protects the privacy of student education records. The law applies to all schools that receive funds under an applicable program of the U.S. Department of Education

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