Getting Started with Illinois Compass 2g

Technology Services is here to help instructors and students effectively use Illinois Comapss 2g in their courses. Many of the topics below contain links to other web pages with more detailed explanations. Links with the book icon next to them will take you to step-by-step instructions in our Knowledge Base .

Getting Started with Illinois Compass 2g Topics

• The Basics
• Requesting a Course Space
• Managing Course Access
• Developing Your Course
• Communication and Collaboration
• Assessing Student Work
• Adding Interactivity and Multimedia
• Learn More

The Basics

• Features of an Illinois Compass 2g Course
• Supported Browsers (from Blackboard's website)
• Illinois Compass 2g Training Catalog

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Requesting a Course Space

We have expanded your choices when requesting an Illinois Compass 2g space. In addition to Registrar-affiliated spaces, you can now request Development, Training, Collaboration, and Non-Registrar-Affiliated spaces providing new ways to use Illinois Compass 2g.

• The Illinois Compass 2g Space Request Tool
• Instructions for requesting a space in Illinois Compass 2g for a registrar-affiliated course
• Video walkthrus for registering various types of Course Spaces
• Edit a Compass 2g Space Request
• Whether or not to copy previous Illinois Compass 2g course content

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Managing Course Access

Illinois Compass 2g space owners assume the responsibility of adding teaching assistants and other guests into their course spaces.

Registrar-affiliated courses will automatically load student rosters daily throughout the term; students who are unenrolled are not automatically removed from the roster, but the course is made unavailable for these students.

• Adding a User
• Roles in Illinois Compass 2g
• Viewing the Course Roster

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Developing Your Course

Illinois Compass 2g allows you to easily customize your course menu and organize your course contents using any format or structure you prefer. Use the links below to explore the available options and features of Illinois Compass 2g as you consider how to best present your course content.

Understanding the interface

• Text in Illinois Compass 2g
• Edit Mode

Customizing your course menu

• The Course Menu

Sorting your Grade Center

• Using Section Information to Create Smart Views

Organizing your files in the content collection

• Copy and Move Content
• Problems Moving Content from a Previous Space to a New Space: Invalid File

Making content available to students

• Content Areas
  • Creating Content Items
  • Content Folders
  • Add a link to a content area
  • Adding a file to a content area
  • Adding a file attachment
  • Course Links
• Assignments

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Communication and Collaboration

Learning is a social process that involves communication and collaboration between classmates, peers, and instructors. Enhance your students' learning using the communication and collaboration tools available in Illinois Compass 2g.

Keeping students informed

• Announcements

Discussions, blogs, and journals

• Creating Blogs
• Commenting on a Blog
• Editing and Managing a Blog
• Adding Tool Links to Spaces

Working with groups

• About Course Groups
• Creating Group Assignments

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Assessing Student Work

Grading student work

• The Grade Center

Creating assignments

• Assignments (generally)
• Creating Group Assignments

Creating and managing exams and quizzes

• Creating and Editing a Test or Survey
  • About Find Questions
  • Deploying Tests and Surveys
• Uploading Scantron Grades to the Compass 2g Grade Center

Detecting plagiarism with SafeAssign

• SafeAssign
• DirectSubmit

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Adding Interactivity and Multimedia

Interactivity in the classroom

• Illinois Compass 2g i>clicker

Streaming media

• About Mashups
  • Creating a Mashup as a Content Item
  • Creating a Mashup Item using the Text Editor
• Adding multimedia files

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Learn More

Contact the Technology Services Help Desk to schedule an individual or group consulation and let us help make teaching with Illinois Compass 2g even easier.

Lynda.com provides more than 6 hours of online video tutorials focusing on Blackboard Learn 9.1. Urbana/Champaign campus faculty, students and staff visit - go.illinois.edu/lynda and search for "Blackboard" for access to these informative videos.

For further information about Illinois Compass 2g from the company providing the platform on which Illinois Compass 2g is built, consult the Help documentation at Blackboard Library or their OnDemand Learning Center.

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