Manage Sections
In this section:
Overview
Sections (called "modules" in Great Britain) define the offering of a course and are associated with a term. Sections may also be called "offerings" or "courses". Sections are the items scheduled for capture. You need at least one section per course and can have as many sections as you need for that course. Each section is associated with a term. Using our "Introduction to Economics" course example, Introduction to Economics (ECON101) is the course name. This course has three sections during the Fall 2009 term and four sections during the Spring 2010 term. Each section is created within the course and assigned to the appropriate term. Captures are then based on a section.
If You Want to Display "Module" not "Section"
You can change some terms shown in the ESS interface by changing the language preference in your browser to British English (en-gb). See Show the ESS in British English for details.
Add a Section
Navigate to Schedule > Courses. The Courses page appears.
Click a course link. The Course Details page appears.
In the Sections area of the page, click the Add button. The Add New Section page appears.
Configure the new section by reviewing the configuration details below.
To add or configure default publishers for the course's section, click the Add Publishers button.
Click Save.
Edit at Any Time
You can edit a section at any time by hovering your mouse over the section on the Section page and clicking the edit link.
You may sometimes want to add many sections all at once or to change properties of many sections. You can do this efficiently by using the import and export capabilities with a spreadsheet program such as Excel.
Section Configuration Options
You can configure sections to enable automation and streamline the user interface. Most section defaults are inherited from the organization. Some of these default settings can be changed in the section configuration. See Organization Settings for information on configuring the organizational defaults.
The sections that follow provide details on each of the Section Configuration options available.
Section Information
The figure below shows the Section Information configuration options. Below the figure is a table that describes the settings available.
Setting | Description | Inherited From |
|---|---|---|
Term | Identifies the associated academic term for the section. | Parent Organization > Child Organization |
Name | Defines the name of the section. | N/A |
EchoSystem Identifier |
|
|
Alternate Identifier | The globally unique identifier (GUID) used by an external system (such as an LMS or LDAP) to identify the object. Entering an Alternate ID is optional, but allows you to use the external system's GUID (not the EchoSystem Identifier) when making API or other system calls. See API Documentation for further explanation. A Course and a Section Can Have The Same Alternate ID The Alternate Identifier must be unique for each ESS object type, but you can use the same ID for different types. For example, you can have a course with an Alternate ID of ECON101 and a Section with an Alternate ID of ECON101. This is useful if the external system recognizes courses and sections as the same object type whereas ESS does not. |
|
People and Section Roles
The figure below shows the People and Section Roles configuration options. You must assign at least one person to the section.
To assign a person to a section, select the Person then a Section Role from the drop-down lists, then click Add.
When you create a schedule for the section, you can select a subset of the roles configured here for that particular schedule, if appropriate.
The table below describes the settings available.
Setting | Description |
|---|---|
Person | Lists all users with the Academic Staff role for the organization. You must add users to the organization first as Academic Staff before you can assign that user a section role. The person you select here can publish recordings to this section from Personal Capture (if licensed for Personal Capture) and select this section for Ad Hoc captures. |
Section Role | Lists all section roles for persons assigned to this section. Options are Instructor, Student Presenter, Teaching Assistant, and Guest Presenter. Best Practice: Assign the Teaching Assistant Role if the Section Has Live Webcasting Enabled If the section may webcast live, it is good practice to assign a Teaching Assistant to the section. Some Instructors will manage chat themselves, but others prefer to assign this duty to a Teaching Assistant. |
A Word about "Default Presenters"
In some cases, you will see the Default Presenter assigned to a section or schedule. This occurs when the only person assigned to the section has been deleted from the system. Every section MUST have a person assigned, and to fill the void, the ESS automatically assigns the Default Presenter. The Default Presenter is then also passed through to scheduled captures for the section.
The Default Presenter is not a real person; it is a system generated user and cannot be deleted. Once you assign a new person to the section (to replace the deleted user), you can remove the Default Presenter from the section, and edit any upcoming Schedules to use the assigned person and not Default Presenter.
To see which schedules have Default Presenters assigned, navigate to Schedule > Schedules and then:
Filter the list and sort by Academic Staff.
Specify "Default Presenter" in the Keyword Search text box.
Changing only a few schedules can be done individually. See Manage Schedules with Default Presenter as Instructor. However, if a large number of schedules must be changed, you may want to use the Import Schedules feature.
Media Settings
Setting | Definition | Inheritance |
|---|---|---|
Delete Original Media? | Parent Organization > Child Organization > Section | |
Days to Keep Originals | Parent Organization > Child Organization > Section |