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The OnCourse Class Manager The Class Manager is used to create and modify the school’s infrastructure of courses, sections, and meeting times.
Document Release: April 2012
Overview .............................................................................................................................................. 2 Who can use the Class Manager? ......................................................................................................... 2 Navigating the Class Manager .............................................................................................................. 3 Departments ........................................................................................................................................ 4 Courses ................................................................................................................................................. 5 Sections ................................................................................................................................................ 7
Adding and Editing Sections ..................................................................................................... 8 Selecting Teachers for a Section ............................................................................................. 10 Setting the Meeting Times for a Section ................................................................................. 11 Enrolling Students ................................................................................................................... 12 Dropping/Transferring Students ............................................................................................. 13
Batch Updating Sections ..................................................................................................................... 14
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Class Manager Overview The Class Manager is used to create and manage the school’s infrastructure of courses, sections, and meeting times. This infrastructure will be the foundation for generating student schedules, teacher Grade Books, attendance-‐eligible classes, and more. There are three major components to know about:
1. Departments Departments are often created initially when districts implement OnCourse. Departments are typically organized by grade level (Grade 1, Grade 2, etc.) or subject area (Math, Language Arts, etc.)
2. Courses The entire “course catalog” will be created in the Class Manager. OnCourse recommends creating an entry for each course at each grade level. For example, Language Arts 1 for first grade, Language Arts 2 for second grade, etc.
3. Sections A section will be created in the Class Manager for each instance that a course is taught during the year. This section will hold many important functional details, such as the class roster, the teacher, the meeting times, grade scale, and more. As each section is created, a teacher Grade Book page is also created.
Who can use the Class Manager?
The Class Manager can be activated for any staff member who will be creating or managing course/section/roster information. If you believe you should have the Class Manager tab, but do not, contact your district’s OnCourse Manager or contact the support team at [email protected] or 800-‐899-‐7204.
Department: Grade 1
Course: Language Arts 1
Course: Math 1
Section A: Mrs. Smith
Section B: Mrs. Jones
Section A: Mr. Miller
Section B: Mr. Miller
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Navigating the Class Manager
To find the Class Manager, log into OnCourse and click the Class Manager tab on the toolbar. Use the School drop-‐down menu to select the correct school.
There are three tabs that contain each of the major components mentioned on the previous page; departments, courses, sections. There is also a Student Schedule tab that is useful for pulling up individual students and doing walk-‐in scheduling.
• Creating the Course Catalog from Scratch If you are creating the school’s infrastructure for the first time, start at the Departments tab and work to the right, into Courses, and finally into Sections.
• Maintenance If you are performing maintenance of your school’s existing setup, click on the tab that holds the information that needs to be modified.
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Departments
In the Departments tab, with a school selected, all existing departments will display. To edit an existing department, double-‐click it to launch the department properties. To create a new department, click the Add Department button. Fill out the form (below). Leave OnCourse ID blank unless instructed otherwise. For sort order, OnCourse suggests using increments of 10: i.e. 1st Grade = 10, 2nd Grade = 20, etc. This makes future re-‐sorting easier.
Click Save, and the new department will add to the list.
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Courses
The Courses tab is used to create a school’s “course catalog”, which gives OnCourse a working list of every course offered in the school. Before using the OnCourse Grade Book or Attendance modules, the course catalog must be created by a school staff member. To view the current course catalog:
1. Open the Class Manager, click the Courses tab.
2. Use the drop-‐down menus at the top of the screen to determine which school’s courses to display. The list of courses can be filtered to department or active status using the drop-‐down menus (see highlight box, right).
3. Any existing courses will appear listed on the screen. To modify or inactivate an existing course, double-‐click it to launch the course properties. To add a new course, click the Add Course button. Course Properties When a course is selected or added for the first time, the course properties will appear (see right). The only required fields are Name and Department/Grade Level. The course name will appear on the report card, so it is important to be consistent and display-‐friendly. The optional fields are:
1. Course Description: This field can hold a 100-‐character description of the course.
2. Credits: Enter the number of credits earned for this course, if applicable. 3. Rank Weight: This field acts as a “multiplier” to manually add weight to certain classes, like AP or
honors classes. To make a class worth 120% of its default value, enter 1.2. 4. Report Card Sort Order: By default, the report card will print each course alphabetically. To change
this arrangement, enter a numerical sort order in this field. 5. Academic Level: select “regular”, “advanced placement”, or “honors” 6. Min/Max/Optimal Class Size: OnCourse’s scheduling tools will use the numbers entered in these
fields to optimize the class size. Note that these values can be manually overwritten at any time.
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7. Course Type: OnCourse’s scheduling tools will use the numbers entered in these fields to optimize the class size. Note that these values can be manually overwritten at any time.
8. Active: Uncheck this box to inactivate the course. 9. Calculate for Honor Roll: If this course should be included in the honor roll calculation, check this
box.
Identification Fields If your district uses OnCourse for submitting course information for state reporting (i.e. NJSMART), then the Identification area is very important to complete correctly (see highlight box, right). For instructions on how to correctly fill out each Identification field, refer to your state’s instruction manual. In the example to the right, the user has referred to the State Course Codes manual and has entered the correct subject area, course identifier, course level etc. GPA Variables Calculate for GPA: If this course should be included when calculating a student’s GPA, check this box. GPA Variable: OnCourse will enter these values, or provide the values to enter in order to accurate calculate student GPAs. For more information about the information in these fields, contact the OnCourse Help Desk. When all course fields have been modified/added correctly, click the Save button. Exporting the Course Catalog To export the course catalog at any time, click the Excel Export button on the toolbar.
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Sections
Once courses have been established, then “sections” of each course must be created. A course “section” is the most important object in the Class Manager. It identifies an actual class that is being taught, and links a course to a meeting time, teacher, students, etc. OnCourse uses the section to create a Grade Book page, attendance roster (if necessary), report card, and many other important system functions.
Navigating the Sections tab The Sections tab is separated into a tool bar (1), three filter windows (2), and the sections window (3). To begin working in this area, use the drop-‐down menus at the top of the screen to choose the correct school and school year.
The three filters (Departments/Courses/ Teachers) at the top of the screen control which sections display in the window below. When arriving in the Sections tab, all three filters will be set to All. Because the school may potentially have dozens of sections, using the filters will save time when locating particular sections. In the example to the right, the user prefers to see only Grade 1 sections, so she selects Grade 1 from the Departments filter. In the window below, all 1st grade classes are displayed.
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To remove a filter that you’ve added, simply select the All button at the top of the list (see green arrow, right). To remove the filter windows from the screen at any time, click the Show/Hide Filters button on the toolbar (see highlight box, right).
Adding or Modifying a Section
Every section already created will appear in a row that contains information about its properties, such as the section name, teacher, number of students enrolled, grade scale, grading term, and more (see highlight box, right).
• To modify the properties of an existing section, double-‐click on the section name.
• To add a new section, click the New Section button on the toolbar (see upper highlight box, right).
The section properties will appear. Complete or modify each field as follows:
1. Course: Select the course to be taught. If the desired selection does not appear, return to the Courses tab to enter the course into the catalog.
2. Section Name: Type an identifying label for the section; many schools use numbers (001, 002, 003), letters (A, B, C), or teacher last names. This label will not appear on report cards.
3. Grading Scale*: Select the grading scale used to assess student progress in this course; typical options are A-‐F or OSNU.
4. Grading Term*: If this course section will run yearlong, leave the term set to “Default”. If this class will run for a term, like a semester, or MP1 only, or MP1 and MP2 only, select the appropriate term from the list.
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5. Symbol Set Source: Symbol sets are special codes that can be used in a teacher Grade Book in place of numerical grades. If each teacher should be able to create his or her own desired codes, select the “Teacher” option. If the school or district will be enforcing its own symbol set, select “School” or “District”.
6. Gradebook Type: This item is for OnCourse use only.
7. Homeroom: Checking this box will designate this section as a homeroom, and make it eligible for daily attendance. Important Note: if your school takes class-‐ or period-‐based attendance, you DO NOT have to check this box to activate attendance in this section.
8. Display Number/Letter Grade: These checkboxes determine whether or not a final number/letter grade will appear in the teacher Grade Book.
* -‐ the selections in these drop-‐down menus were created with the Grade Book was implemented in your district; if there are options that are missing or need correction, contact your district System Manager or the OnCourse support desk
9. Client ID: If your OnCourse Grade Book is being integrated with a 3rd party vendor for student management, or if the courses are being synced with any other program, it may be necessary to add the ID from that system into the Client ID fields in OnCourse. Check with an OnCourse team member for guidance with this field.
Report Card/Progress Report Properties
10. Print Class: This checkbox controls whether or not this section will appear on report cards/progress reports.
11. Print Number Grade: Controls whether or not the final numerical grade will appear on the report cards/progress reports.
12. Print Letter Grade: Controls whether or not the final letter grade will appear on report cards/progress reports.
13. # Decimals to Print: if Print Number Grade is checked, this option will determine how many decimal places will print with the number.
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When this form is complete, click the Save button to create the new section. The next steps are to choose the teacher for this class, set the meeting times, and enroll students.
Selecting Teachers for a Section
Next to each section name, there is a Teachers column. If this section has no teacher assigned to it yet, it will read None. To add/remove a teacher:
1. Click the hyperlink under the Teachers column.
2. Click the Link Teacher button (see highlight box, right).
3. Select the teacher’s name from the drop-‐down menu (see arrow, right).
4. If this teacher’s name should be printed on the report card, click the Print on R.C. checkbox.
5. If this is the primary teacher, click the Primary checkbox.
Repeat these steps to add every teacher associated to this class. To remove any teacher, click the red X next to their name.
Note: If your district is using the OnCourse SIS to generate a Course Submission for your state, it’s important to know that OnCourse is automatically tracking teachers as they enter/exit sections. To view or change the transactional history of this course, click the View Change Log button.
The log will appear (see right).
For more instructions on the Course Submission, see the “Course Submission User Guide” in the Learning Center.
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Setting the Meeting Times for a Section
Note: Setting meeting times is only necessary for schools who want to print out student/teacher schedules. Many elementary schools opt to skip this step, because all students will be with the same teacher for most of the day.
Next to each section name, there is a Meeting Times column. If this section has not yet been scheduled, it will read None.
To schedule the meeting times for this section, click the hyperlink in the Meeting Times column (see green arrow, right.)
The schedule grid will appear. If this section has no meeting times yet, the grid will be blank. To begin entering meeting times:
1. Use the Room drop-‐down menu to select the room where the section will meet. If the room does not appear in the list, contact your OnCourse System Manager or the Help Desk.
2. Click in any block of the grid to add a meeting time:
a. Single Class Period: Click in any cell to add a meeting time, which will appear highlighted in green. In the example to the right, the user has clicked on Mon/Period 1 to add a meeting time for this section.
b. All Week Class: To add a meeting time for an entire week, click on the appropriate Period row header (see highlight box, above). In the example above, the user has clicked on Period 3, and meeting times are automatically placed for the entire week.
3. When all meeting times have been plotted on the grid, close this window.
Conflicts
If a meeting time conflicts with another section, it will appear with a yellow alert icon (see arrow below). The panel on the left side will describe the reason for the conflict. To remove any meeting time, simply click it with the mouse, or to delete all, click the Delete All button at the top of the screen.
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Enrolling Students in a Section
To enroll/transfer students in a section, click the hyperlink under the Students column.
The window that appears will display any enrolled students, and a count of students at the bottom of the screen. To add, drop, or transfer students, use the buttons on the toolbar (see highlight box, right). Adding Students
1. Click the Add Students button, the student selector will appear (see right).
2. Use the Available Students drop-‐down menu to select students by class, grade level, or homeroom, then use the next drop-‐down to select which sub-‐population to view.
In the example to the right, the user has chosen to view the students in Mr. Rey’s homeroom class.
Student Multi-‐Select To select the entire class, click the first student, hold the SHIFT key, and click the last student. Every student between the first and last will be selected in blue.
To select individual students, hold the CTRL key (or COMMAND key for Mac users) and click on each student to select them in blue.
3. When all students have been selected, click the Add button.
4. OnCourse will ask for the effective date that the student(s) will enter the course. Select the correct date, then click Add Student(s). OnCourse will perform the addition on the selected date.
Note: This feature will effectively track student exit/entry for state Course Submission. For more details, see the Course Submission Guide in the Learning Center.
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Dropping/Transferring Students
Any enrolled student can be dropped or transferred at any time using the buttons at the top of this screen.
Simply select a student’s name (or multi-‐select using the steps on the previous page) and click either the Drop Students or Transfer Students button.
• Drop: Students dropped from a section will be removed from the course, and their report card will no longer show any grades from this course.
• Transfer: Any final marking period grade earned in the first course will transferred to the “Override” area in the corresponding marking period of the destination course. All assignment/test grades will be e-‐mailed to the new teacher for review, however these assignment/test grades will not appear in the new teacher’s Grade Book.
Before the drop/transfer is performed, OnCourse will ask for the effective date. Select the date when this action should be performed. The drop/transfer will be performed on this date. Note: This feature will effectively track student exit/entry for state Course Submission. For more details, see the Course Submission Guide in the Learning Center.
Class Enrollment Log OnCourse keeps an automated log of every student entered/exited into this course. This feature is helpful is your school is using the OnCourse SIS to submit a state Course Submission.
This tab is located at the top of the student enrollment screen (see arrow, right).
For details about how to use this feature, see the Course Submission Guide in the Learning Center.
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Batch Updating Sections
To batch update several sections at once:
1. Locate the sections to be updated.
2. Use the checkboxes on the left side of the screen to select the course sections to be changed. (see highlight box, right). To select all displayed sections, click the checkbox at the very top of the list (see arrow, right).
3. At the top of the screen, select the Update Sections button.
4. In the form that appears (see below) select the field to be changed, the new value, and type an audit comment to explain why the change is happening.
5. Click the Update button to complete the process. To delete several sections at once, follow the steps above but choose the Delete Sections button.
Auto-‐Scheduling Tools
The tools on the Auto-‐Scheduling Toolbar are used during the scheduling process, which will be described in a future user guide to be available through the OnCourse Learning Center.
