Quick guide
From EFrontWiki
This is a quick guide to eFront based on a concrete example.
Contents |
[edit] Overview
We assume that by now you have installed eFront and you have in your disposal three user roles (Administrator, Professor, Student) together with their needed credintentials.
In this tutorial you will learn:
- How to create new categories and new lessons (Administrator role)
- How to enroll users to lessons (Administrator role)
- How to describe your lesson (Professor role)
- How to create the basic structure of your lesson (Professor role)
- How to create tests for your lesson (Professor role)
- How to decide what components to activate for your lesson (Professor role)
- How to create rules to restrict and guide the users (Professor role)
- How to track users progress and give grades (Professor role)
- How to register to the system (Student role)
- How to follow the lesson's material and track your progress (Student role)
- How to communicate with your fellow lesson students or with the professor (Student role)
[edit] Create a new lesson
Assume that we want to build a lesson about ancient Maya civilizations. We will call it "Maya history".
We first need to login as administrator and create the lesson. If we want we can create a new category first that provides a logical organization of lessons.
- From the administrator panel select "Categories" and then "Add category"
- We use "Ancient Civilizations" as the name of our new direction. Our new category is a main category (it has no father). By using father categories we could build an arbirartly big list of nested categories but it is not needed for our example.
- We return to the main administration panel and select "Lessons"
- We use "Maya Civilization" as the name of our new lesson. We put it under "Ancient Civilizations" category and save the new lesson.
[edit] Enroll users
The second thing we have to do is to assign users and professors to our new lesson. This is accomplished from the administrator as well. Additional users can be assigned to the lesson from the professor interface later.
When we create a new lesson we can assign new users to it immediately. For our example, immediately after saving the lesson we see the tab with the "Lesson users". We just need to select the users we want to enroll to the lesson and their status will be updated.
[edit] Describe the lesson
We login as a professor. We need to describe the lesson and create the content. From the catalog list we select the "Maya Civilization" and we enter the main professor screen. We select "Lesson information" and we add a Lesson description, Objectives etc.
[edit] Create the lesson's structure
We return to the main lesson page and select "Content". Adding new content or modyfing content is accomplished using the tools on the top of the page. When we select to create a unit an editor appears which allows us to manipulate text,images and other multimedia objects.
Each unit can have a father unit allowing us to build a tree structure for the content.
[edit] Create tests
For this lesson we will create one generic test to ensure that users have understand the basic concepts of "Maya History".
- From the main control panel of professor we select "Tests"
- We move to "Questions" tab and create a number of questions. eFront supports the following types of questions: open answer, multiple choices-single correct answer, multiple choices-many correct answers, match, true/false, empty spaces.
- From "Tests" tab we create a new test and we include several of the created questions.
[edit] Activate components
- Go to "Administration" tab
- Decide what components should be included to the lesson
- As you activate/deactivate components the options on the left menu and on the mail lesson menu change accordingly
[edit] Create rules
Rules ensure that the user sees the content in a certain manner. For example we can enforce a linear way of seeing content.
- Go to "Access rules" on the main menu
- There exist two categories of rules, the "Lesson rules" that define the way of studying the lesson, and the "Lesson completion conditions" that define when the lesson can be considered as completed.
- In order to add a rule or a lesson completion condition, define the properties needed.
[edit] Track user's progress
From the main lesson page we select "Reports". From there we can track the user progress, his info, his total time in system (user level), lessons details, users, tests and projects (lesson level).
- User reports:We select the user and his statistic information is revealed.
There are two tabs, the "Lessons" tab where we can find information about the student's progress, and the "More info" tab where we can track general info concerning his communication through the sustem, the system usage etc.
- Lessons reports:We select the lesson.
Its report is consisted of six categories (tabs).
"Users":info on the users' statistics concerning this lesson
"Tests":we can track info on the lesson's tests results (which users have taken the tests, what is their score)
"Questions":we can track info on the results of every single question.
"More info":it provides some general info on the lesson
"Traffic":we can define a specific period of time to watch the lesson statistic information(traffic).
- Test reports:We select the test that interests us at the moment and we can find info about the number of the correct and false answers given in each question.
All reports can be exported in Excel and Pdf format by using the relevant buttons. |
[edit] Register as a student
Registering can be accomplished either through the Administrator intervention or one can self-registered (if the Admin permits him)
- Through the Administrator intervention:
Admin goes to "Users" tab on his main menu, and clicks on "New user" button. He sets the user's settings and activates him.
- Self registration:
From efront's main page, the student clicks on "New user account" and he sets his personal settings.
[edit] Complete chapters
The main lesson page includes buttons to start or continue lesson as well as review its information. The first time the student access the lesson, the "Start lesson" button appears.
The next time that he access the same lesson, the Start button will be replaced by the Resume button.By clicking on it, he is guided to the first unit he has not yet completed (Colonial period).
[edit] Communicate
There are three communication tools provided by the platform: Forum, chat, personal messages.
- Forum:Each lesson has its own forum, in order to allow users to discuss topics concerning the lesson.Entering the forum page, users can either create a new topic or reply to an existing one.To create a new topic, the user clicks on "New topic" and then he sets its title and subject (message).
- Chat:Using this tool users are able to exchange instant messages, in real time, provided that they are connected to the system at the same time.
- Personal messages:With this tool, users can send personal messages one to another or to a group, something like an internal email.To send a message, go to "Messages", "New message", type % to select the user(s) who will be the recipient,then type the subject and the message(body).As we can see, there is a number of criteria that one can use, in order to send a message to a group of users, without having to select them one by one.
Every time the user receives a new incoming message, a notification appears in his page.By clicking on it, he enters automatically the messages page to read it and reply if he wants to.
[edit] Working with courses
Courses bundle lessons that belong to a concrete study field as one entity. The course professor can organize in many ways how and when students will see each individual lesson inside the course, the exact order of lessons inside the course, a certification upon course completion etc. In order to assign a lesson to a course the administrator must make a lesson available exclusively through courses (usually, during the time the lesson is created).
- Creating a course:The administrator sets the courses name and other necessairy informations and then assigns lessons and users to it.
Next to the course's name we can see the course's functions. Here is an example of a course:
- Course Information:Using this function, the professor can describe the main characteristics of the course such us its general description, objectives, assessment etc.
- Course Order:This option offers the ability to change lessons' order inside the course.
- Scheduling:Through this operation the professor can restrict access to the lesson for a specific period of time.
- Course rules: Through course rules the professor sets the lesson's study order. For example the professor can define that the student must complete Lesson 1 to proceed to Lesson 2 etc.
- Course Certificates: When a student has completed a course the professor can give him a certification. A certification can be issued manually or automatically.
