 This page is designed for UCLA Faculty and TAs teaching in the
Social Sciences. There can be much more to having a class website than a syllabus and
discussion board, Here is a checklist of other ideas for adding to and using your class
website. While the ClassWeb Admin Tutorial
will give you step-by-step instructions for doing many of these things, please contact
Mike Franks at SSC or your Dept.
WebTech and we'll do it for you.
Biographical Information- Posting information about yourself such as research interests, C.V., and even pictures
can be a nice supplement for the students. If you have a home page, let us know, and we'll
automatically link it to your ClassWeb sites. If you don't have a home page, but would
like one, contact us.
-
Announcements Page- This page can be used for to announce events, homework assignments, extra readings,
rules, regulations, etc. Announcements can be one line or a paragraph. Email sent to
your Class Roster can show up here as well. Additions, deletions and revisions can
be very easily done through the Announcements Easy Edit utility on your Administration
page.
List of Links Page- This page has three columns; UCLA Links, (all classes see these links), Dept Links (all
classes in this dept see these links); and Class Links (you decide what goes there). You
can add as many as you want easily through the Admin page. For more prominence, you can
also add links to the main page class menu.
Lecture & Course Outlines- These might be useful in addition to your syllabus. They can also be a useful way to
organize links to extra materials.
Lecture Notes & Handouts-
Charts- Sometimes charts can be redone very nicely as graphics files. Here are examples of a
complex chart and a simple one.
Reading Lists-
Assignments- Posting web versions of class assignments can be a real timesaver for both you and the
students.
Class Conduct and Policies Statement-
College Library Electronic Reserves- The library will take your reserve material, scan it in and post it to the web.
Flash Cards-
Glossary- Some classes have special terms or vocabulary. Making a glossary of such terms available
on the web is both easy to do and useful for the students.
Unfortunately I have no examples at this time. If you find any,
please let me know.
- Online Practice Quizzes
- Reinforce your lectures with online practice quizzes. Once a week, come up with a couple
of questions on your lecture or the readings that might be put into multiple choice
format. Then use the Multiple Choice Quiz utility on your Admin page to fill out a web
form which will create the quiz immediately. You can go back later and add or edit
questions as well as make other quizzes.
Practice Questions for Mid-Term or Final-
Previous Exams-
Examples of Good Answers to Essay Questions- One Anthropology professor commented that many students do poorly on their first exam
before discovering what is expected in the way of writing. This professor thought that
posting examples of good answers would be a useful guide for students. Here's an example
from Chicano Studies.
Final Exam Study Tips-
Advice on Writing Papers-
Student Projects & Project Ideas- Posting student projects to the web (after getting their permission) can be a nice
reward for good work, as well as a way to motivate and inspire other students.
Unfortunately I have no examples at this time. If you
find any, please let me know.
Comments on Papers- The TA in this Sociology class wrote some helpful comments and advice as feedback after
the first set of papers were graded.
Class Improvement Contest- Prof. Brian Walker offered a Charlie Parker CD to the student who came up with the best
suggestion for how to improve his PoliSci 10 class for next year. He said he got some
decent suggestions.
Photographs- Adding photographs to the web can be extremely enriching.
Audio Clips- Through the use of streaming technology like RealAudio, we can take recordings from a
cassette and put them up on the web so that student can start listening immediately
without waiting for the complete file to download. These audio clips can be a few minutes
to a couple hours long.
Video Clips- Very short clips are better, because of very large file sizes.
Add a Password- You may wish to make a subsection or all of your ClassWeb sites private
Use Discussion Board to Answer Questions- Avoid duplicate questions in your email by advising students to post their questions to
the discussion board instead of sending you email. Accept questions via email but use the
discussion board (or the announcements page) to post the answers to frequently asked
questions.
Use Discussion Board for Student Assignments- for example, assign students readings with summaries to be posted to the discussion
board:
Use Discussion Board as a Free-Form Discussion Area- Between the students, TAs and yourself:
Restrict Discussion Board to Class Members Only- Add a username and password which you announce in class;
this password prompt will appear when students try to enter the Discussion Board:
Annotation Board- This allows posting of documents which others can annotate.
Chat Room- Chat rooms work well when all participants login at the same time and "chat"
with each other by typing messages to each other. This simple Chat Room script is also set
up to log all messages.
If you have any questions on how to do any of the above, or anything else
with the Web, please contact Mike Franks
at franks@ssc.ucla.edu or x62109.
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