INSTRUCTOR HANDBOOK Trent Online

INSTRUCTOR HANDBOOK Trent Online Trent University 1600 West Bank Dr., Bata Library 202 Peterborough ON K9J 7B8 (705) 748-1011 x7880 online@trentu.ca

Table of Contents Contact Information Contacting Trent Online Who to Contact Trent Online Staff Welcome The Role of the Instructor Expectations of an Online Course On Campus vs. Online Comparison Instructor Support and Development Instructor Responsibilities Availability Student Feedback Office Hours Exams Syllabus Copyright Getting Started Technical Requirements Contacting Students Email in Blackboard Student Registration Preparing an Online Course Accessing a course Setting up a course User Roles Adding TAs and Other Faculty Adding Students Quality Guidelines Teaching an Online Course Gradebook Grading Assignments and Tests Grading Discussions, Blogs and Journals Assignments Assessments Creating a Test Revisions Course Completion Course Evaluation Final Grades Course Backup 2 P a g e

Contact Information Trent Online Instructor Handbook Contacting Trent Online Trent Online staff are available 8:30 am to 4:30 pm Monday to Friday. By email: online@trentu.ca By phone: 705-748-1011 (Trent Online, x7880) Who to Contact Trent Online online@trentu.ca 705-748-1011x7880 Training or support for an online or blended course Blackboard or LearningSystem questions Questions relating to off site exams Information Technology: it@trentu.ca 705-748-1010 Email issues Any Technical or computer related-issues Issues accessing a course Instructional Development idc@trentu.ca 705.748.1011x7254/7255 Information or training on new teaching techniques Teaching and instructor support Academic Department Exams Departmental guidelines Trent Online Staff Dean, Elaine Scharfe Trent Online 705.748.1011 x6142 Coordinator, Mary-Jane Pilgrim Trent Online 705.748.1011 x7653 Instructional Designer Kelvin Conrad 705.748.1011 x6338 Administrative Technician Lillian Chumbley 705.748.1011 x7880 3 P a g e

Welcome Welcome to online education at Trent University! Teaching online is different from your classroom experience and will introduce you to highly motivated learners. The majority of online learners are attending classes on campus as well as working and/or raising families. Others will live across the globe and may even be studying while serving on military deployments. Online courses at Trent offer an interactive, flexible way for students to learn and work toward a degree at Trent. Getting to know the students in your online course will be a challenge. Email and online discussion groups are excellent methods of communication with your students. Your Trent Online Instructor Handbook will serve as a reference to support you during your teaching appointment and provide information about almost everything you may need. All the best with your course! We look forward to working with you and welcome your feedback on how we can enhance the quality of online learning and instructor support at Trent. 4 P a g e

The Role of the Online Instructor When teaching online courses, the learning environment extends beyond the classroom walls and the instructor role changes from one of content expert and information provider, to course facilitator and learning environment manager. The focus moves from teaching to learning. Communication and learner support therefore become key. Face-to-face contact is replaced with a virtual community and a complement of well-prepared learning materials, resources, tools and activities. With a goal of building community and ensuring learner success, it is recommended that instructors incorporate the following elements into their online courses: a communication policy identifying how students can connect with faculty and how quickly they can expect a reply regular attendance (daily login to check and respond to requests) an introductory message welcoming students to the course weekly updates, reminders, and words of encouragement Live office hours, informal conferencing and review sessions using the chat room, vokle, skype or other tool (as applicable) Expectations of an Online Course In an online environment an instructor can expect a different type of interaction with students than what they usually experience in an on campus course. Instructors can expect to hear from more students. In a traditional setting there are always reluctant speakers. The online setting enables some of these students to carefully consider and craft responses, often making them more comfortable voicing their opinions. Consider giving students clear guidelines on posting (limiting to one discussion topic and three responses to other topics per week and no more than 250 words each, for example). This will help keep some of the more chatty students from overtaking the conversations and prevent overload from too many conversations to keep on top of for both instructors and students. Faculty usually find their time spent teaching an online course is spent differently from when they have taught in a classroom. Rather than the bulk being spent lecturing, most find they spend more time answering questions, responding to email and clarifying concepts. Since the lectures and content is already available to the student instructors have the opportunity to guide their students through the concepts. This is often referred to as Guide on the Side or Active Learning. The webcast Active Learning in the Humanities provides more information on how this is currently happening at Trent: 5 P a g e

http://webcast.trentu.ca/coursecast/viewer/default.aspx?id=045358a3-9b23-47f7-9406-66cfdb12e944 One of the biggest differences most faculty notice is that instead of spending infrequent large chunks of time on the course they are working on the course frequently in small chunks. On Campus vs. Online Comparison On Campus Online Primary Activities: Lecturing Responding Primary Communication with: Class of Students Individual Students Time Dispersal: Once or twice a week for several hours Several times a day for 15-30 minutes Class Planning: Can be done the week Must be done prior to prior to the class the semester start Instructor Support and Development The Instructional Development Centre supports faculty, graduate students and staff in their teaching-related roles at Trent University. The mandate of the Centre is to encourage excellence and innovation in teaching and learning and to apply new technologies to enhance Trent s traditional emphasis on studentcentered learning. Visit http://www.trentu.ca/idc/overview.php for more information. Trent Online can offer support relating to the technology faculty use to support the online course. Courses and one-on-one training sessions are available to be booked by any faculty member interested in obtaining additional Blackboard knowledge. Any faculty with technical issues can contact Information Technology. IT is responsible for the implementation and support of all voice, data, multi-media and instructional technology support services within Trent University, excepting student residence services. A complete list of all of the support IT offers can be found here: http://www.trentu.ca/it/faculty.php. Web resources, including technology guides for instructors can also be found on under LearningSystem resources for Instructors or at https://www.trentu.ca/it/learningsystem/faculty_howdoi.php 6 P a g e

Instructor Responsibilities Trent Online Instructor Handbook Availability Online instructors are expected to make themselves available to students. Unlike in a classroom setting where students can ask instructors questions during class and hear the response immediately, in an online setting students must clarify concepts through email and discussion boards. Faculty need to set clear guidelines on how long it will take to reply to student requests student expectations will be based on these guidelines. If the course indicates an instructor will respond within six hours and they send an email at 2 am, the student expects a response by 6 am which is not reasonable. It is more appropriate to set the student expectation to a response within 24 hours and then to make the attempt to reply to all requests within six hours. If an instructor receives a request which cannot be answered immediately or requires more information, they should be sent a short response indicating when the student can expect a detailed explanation. Instructors may also find it is helpful to set the expectation what types of requests they will respond to. For instance many instructors will indicate at the beginning of the course that due dates will be posted in the syllabus. Any questions they receive about due dates will simply direct the student to consult the syllabus. It is important to spend an appropriate amount of time each day responding to student requests; however faculty who are teaching online courses are NOT expected to be available 24 hours a day. Sometimes it can be difficult to find that balance in the beginning. Setting aside time in their schedule and sticking to it can be helpful for online instructors when managing their time. Student Feedback Trent Online students depend upon interaction with and feedback from their instructors. Prompt response and feedback to email, telephone and assignments is important. Lack of timely and helpful feedback is often a concern among students. Comments may be brief but should be clear and constructive. Clearly spelling out communication policies, expectations, and responsibilities for both students and instructors in the course homepage and syllabus helps the course start out on a good note. Plan both the manner and timing for providing feedback for students. 7 P a g e

Instructors may consider posting questions from students to the discussion board (without identifying the students) to cut down on the number of students asking duplicate questions. Students should be directed to check the discussion board prior to emailing the instructor. Instructors may also find it helpful to develop a few standard paragraphs to cover common requests and standard feedback to assignments to reduce the time spent writing comments. These can then be copied and pasted into student responses. Office Hours Faculty should consult with their academic department regarding their policies on office hours. There are many tools and options available for instructors who choose to implement office hours as part of their online course: Blackboard has a built in chat room which can be accessed by anyone with access to the course Skype can be used to conduct live video-calls between students and faculty Vokle is a free video conferencing tool which creates a room and allows others to log into Traditional phone calls For questions on the use of any of these tools, faculty can contact Trent Online for more information. Exams As with all other courses, face-to-face final exams for online courses are the responsibility of the Academic Department. The Academic Department will request an exam for each distance education course on both the Peterborough and Oshawa campuses. It is the responsibility of the instructor and the Academic Department to ensure that exam are printed and available at both exam sites. The instructor and the Academic Department will ensure there is an invigilator at both the Peterborough and Oshawa exam locations. If a course does not have a designated Teaching Assistant, it is the responsibility of the Academic Department to coordinate the room, the exam and the invigilator arrangements for both locations. Departments which are encountering issues making arrangements for the Oshawa campus are encouraged to contact the Trent Online office for assistance. If the exam requires an alternate date students are able to write as a remote student at the Centre for Academic Testing. It is the responsibility of the 8 P a g e

instructor to provide an alternate copy of the exam if they student is to write a different version. Trent Online staff will inform the instructor as to which students will be writing in the face-to-face final exam in Peterborough, in Oshawa and in remote locations. Remote exams are permitted for students living more than 200 km from either Peterborough or Oshawa. The Department of Trent Online will organize the exams for all students writing in remote locations. The instructor will ensure that exams are delivered to Trent Online at least two weeks prior to the final exams are scheduled. Instructors will specify whether remote exams for their course are to be proctored or non-proctored. Proctored exams take place over three business days. Preferred dates for proctored exams will be the same time as the oncampus exam. Students will not be permitted to write prior to the on-campus exam or more than three-business days after without approval by the instructor. SAS students writing with Centre for Academic Testing (Peterborough or Oshawa) will be given the opportunity to write the remote (online) version of the final exam. Digital or paper versions of the final exam will still need to be provided to the Centre for Academic Testing for cases where students prefer a paper-based exam format. Trent Online staff will set up the remote final exam in Blackboard and set the permissions so the exam is only available to remote students during the timeframe specified. For proctored exams the exam is password-protected and the proctor enters the password when the student is ready to write their exam. Students are not given access to the password. Instructors may choose to have a different exam for each day of the exam period. Instructors providing only one exam version will have the exam used for the entire exam period. Syllabus It is the faculty s responsibility to develop the syllabus for their online course just like when teaching an on campus course. Course syllabi must be received by the Trent Online department at least six weeks prior to the start of a course. An online syllabus template is loaded into each online course if it is being taught for the first time and often if there is a new instructor. The template can also be requested from Trent Online if the course has not yet been created. The syllabus should contain: 9 P a g e

Well-defined course objectives and learning outcomes A Detailed Schedule (listing assignments, quizzes, tests, exams) Assignment Information (weighting, expectations, guidelines for completion and submission, due dates) If the instructor plans to apply late assignment penalties or will not accept late submissions this should be clearly indicated Preferred method of contact Required Textbooks or course materials Office hours (as applicable) Student attendance requirements Notes for developing a syllabus: Due dates should not appear anywhere but in the syllabus and the online calendar other references should refer back to the syllabus. This assists the faculty when converting the course to the next offering. Once dates are set and publicized to students, assignments and grading scheme should not be changed. If a change is required, faculty is required to have the consent of all students in writing. Please ensure that assignments and tests are consistent with the learning objectives set for the course and promote academic integrity. Copyright Faculty should be sure that any files imported into a Blackboard course meets Trent s guidelines for copyright. More information on copyright can be found at: http://www.trentu.ca/copyright. It is also recommended that instructors have the appropriate documentation to prove they have followed these guidelines and have permission to use anything which has not been created by the faculty member using the content. This not only protects the university but the faculty member as well. 10 P a g e

Getting Started Technical Requirements Online course instructors must have regular and reliable access to the Internet daily. They should also have an up-to-date browser installed and the latest Java plug-in. Any Trent staff or students who have difficulty updating their browser or Java should contact IT for more information. Contacting Students One week prior to the start of an online course students expect to receive an email from their instructor. This email should include a very brief welcome and a list of any textbooks or materials students will require for the course. Students are expected to start their online course with all of their material and, unlike an on campus course, there is no grace period in the course where they can work without it. Email in Blackboard Faculty are requested NOT to collect hotmail, gmail, sympatico or other external email addresses from student. Students should be required to use their Trent email accounts or to forward those accounts to another account which they use. This ensures a better communication system for all members of the Trent Community. The best way to contact an entire class is by using the Announcements tool or the Discussions tool in the Learning System. Information sent using those tools can never be lost, misdirected or deleted by accident. Students added to a class late can also catch up on all important announcements at the point when they are enrolled into a course. Faculty can now also use the email function within Blackboard to send an email out quickly to all students. It will forward directly to the student s Trent email account. Students are not able to change the default email within Blackboard. Distribution lists are still available as well and can be used to send an email to a specific section within the LearningSystem. For more information on course distribution lists and how to gain access to the list for a specific course please review the distribution list page: https://www.trentu.ca/it/learningsystem/faculty_howdoi.php 11 P a g e

Student Registration Enrolment targets for courses offered through Trent Online are set each year by the department chair or program co-ordinator. When courses reach their maximum enrolment, students may place themselves on the waiting list through mytrent. When students add or remove courses through mytrent they are automatically added or removed from the related course site. Instructors should not need to add or remove students from their courses. 12 P a g e

Preparing an Online Course Trent Online Instructor Handbook Prior to the beginning of term, instructors teaching online courses should update and modify their course to reflect and maintain current knowledge available, instructor research and interest and academic integrity. As students have access to their courses in Blackboard five days prior to the beginning of term, all updates should be completed a minimum of two weeks before the start of term. Accessing a course Instructors have access to their course as soon as it has been created. The faculty who made the request for the creation of the course will be notified by email when the course has been completed. Log into LearningSystem by clicking on the Learning System tab in mytrent. Once into the LearningSystem, all of the courses which an instructor is teaching or enrolled in are listed under course list. Instructors can gain access to any course site by clicking on the link in the list. 13 P a g e

Courses are created in Blackboard once they are created in Datatel/Colleague. If a course you are teaching does not appear in your course list check with your Academic Department to ensure you have been assigned the course in Datatel/Colleague. User Roles Course Instructors can add other instructor users to a course. All of people with access to a course are called either users or members. Different member types have different access to the course. A single user CANNOT be assigned multiple roles (for instance Grader and Builder). The different types of roles are: Instructor CAN: Set properties, email settings and tool availability within the course Use, export, import and create views in the gradebook Add users (excluding students) Add, show, hide and copy content and adaptive release settings Copy, export and import courses CANNOT: Add students TA (same as Instructor, but is not identified as the instructor ) CAN: Set properties, email settings and tool availability within the course View and grade student submissions Use, export, import and create views in the gradebook Add, show, hide and copy content and adaptive release settings CANNOT: Add students Copy, export and import courses Grader CAN: Use, export, import and create views in the gradebook View and grade student submissions CANNOT: Add users Set properties, email settings and tool availability within the course Add, show, hide and copy content and adaptive release settings Copy, export and import courses Builder CAN: Add, show, hide and copy content and adaptive release settings CANNOT: Add users Set properties, email settings and tool availability within the course Copy, export and import courses Use, export, import and create views in the gradebook View and grade student submissions 14 P a g e

Student CAN: Take quizzes, view assignments and content View individual my Grades only Read discussion posts by all students and faculty (provided it is not blocked) CANNOT: Modify or reset any course content or objects Access any files or grades relating to another student Add users For more detailed information on User Roles, please see the chart available at: http://www.trentu.ca/it/learningsystem/documents/userroles.pdf Adding TAs, Instructors and other Faculty There are times when you will need to add a TA, Instructor, Grader or Course Builder. This is done in the Control Panel. The Control Panel is only visible if you are an instructor type within the course and can be found under the regular course menu. Under Course Tools, Manage Users. Select Add Users by Role. From the Select Users page, enter the user name of the individual and enter the course. 15 P a g e

Click Submit. The Success notification will appear at the top of the page to indicate the user has been added. Note that all properly registered undergraduate students will be added to your sites AUTOMATICALLY. Instructors will have to enroll all Teaching Assistants and any Graduate students requiring access to their sites manually. If a "User does not exist:" message is encountered, please double-check the TrentNet ID. PLEASE DO NOT GUESS AT TRENTNET IDs...We have many duplicate real names in our database. Adding Students Students may occasionally ask to be added to a course site for either an on campus or online course. Faculty do not have the ability to add students to regular courses. Since all registered students are automatically enrolled in the course site it should not necessary to manually add a student. Faculty who are responsible for intranet or other non-courses sites will have the ability to add students as any other user type. For information on adding a student to an intranet or non-course sites please see the How do I? section on the faculty resource page. If a course requires completion of the Academic Integrity Module or a Library Skills course it is the instructor s responsibility to notify Trent Online prior to the start of the term. This will ensure that students are automatically added to those sites when they register for a related course. 16 P a g e

If a student has registered for the course and still cannot see the course site on mytrent, they should be referred to IT for support. Setting up a course All courses are created automatically in Blackboard when they are created in Datatel/Colleague. Each course which is created is an empty, blank course. The Instructional Designer will populate the initial course and can course copy previous online versions if needed. 17 P a g e

Quality Guidelines Course Development Faculty should prepare an introduction to the students and invite them to do the same build a community. Add pictures or video to make it more personable. A preferred method for student to contact the faculty should be clearly indicated, as well as the best times to do so. Online courses should be designed to be the same quality as on campus courses and follow the same best practices in pedagogy. Learning outcomes should be clear, measurable and achievable. Online courses should be consistent with all Trent policies for course development. References to dates should be removed from course content. They should be accessible to student through the syllabus. Instead try phrases like: Assignment 2 is due at the end of Week 4, as listed in the course syllabus. This will make the course easier to update for following terms. Keep bright colours and stylized text to a minimum. Students have a lot of reading to do and it gets harder if it content is difficult to read. Teaching Mark assignments quickly and provide detailed feedback. Maintain a record of grades and communication these to students. Use proper netiquette. Communication through the keyboard can be a little tricky at times. Sarcasm and humour should be used carefully as they are easily misunderstood. Instructors should be a user of the features they want students to use. If students should be frequently joining in discussions on the discussion board then the instructor should be part of the discussions. Foster a supportive learning environment. Use variety in assessments, interactions and learning activities. This allows students of all different learning and communication styles to chance to excel. 18 P a g e

Teaching an Online Course Changes should be limited as much as possible after the course has been started. It can be very confusing for students to find objects within their course have moved from one week to the next. Furthermore, changes to some objects may cause data to be lost. Grade Center The Grade Center is a tool in Blackboard which allows instructors to track students, their assignments, quizzes and grades. The Grade Centre will show all members who are enrolled in a course. The instructor will also be listed. The Grade Centre is access through the Control Panel, which is found under the main course menu. Select Full Grade Center to access the Grade Center. It is also possible to have only certain categories displayed, for instance Assignments, Discussions Boards and Tests, by selecting that category. The Needs Grading section will display only those items which have been submitted by students and currently require grading. For more information on the Needs Grading function see the information page at: http://www.trentu.ca/it/learningsystem/documents/needs_grading.pdf 19 P a g e

The Grade Center will show all members who are enrolled in a course. The students usernames and student ID numbers are also displayed. Any instructor users will also be listed. Demo Student is a default member that represents the instructor or designer when they are operating in Student View. This means that any assignments or quizzes completed in Student View will show in the Grade Center as being completed by Demo Student. Clicking on the action button beside a student name will give additional menu items, including the ability to review the student s visibility of each content item within the course. This is done by clicking on Browse Adaptive Release Status. 20 P a g e

To edit a grade in the Grade Centre, click on the cell where the grade is displayed and enter the new grade. Anytime a cell is selected basic column information is displayed at the top of the table. The history of all edits or attempts for this grade can be accessed by clicking on the action button which appears in a selected cells. Assignments or tests which have been submitted by students and have not yet been graded will display as a green explanation mark. To view the details click on the action button the right of the needs grading explanation mark. All attempts for that test or assignment will be listed. Attempts which have not yet been graded will have an explanation mark beside them. Click on the attempt to view details and grade the test or assignment. 21 P a g e

Columns in the Grade Center are two main types: Linked to an assignment or test; or Created by an instructor Only linked columns will display the needs grading explanation mark. To change the setting of a column click on the action button beside the column name and select Edit Column Information. Grading Discussions, Blogs and Journals Discussion topics can be set up to be graded. This is useful for those giving grades based on required discussion posts. To make a discussion, blog or journal gradable you will need to identify this when setting up the tool or edit the tool after it has been created. The process is similar for discussions, blogs and journals. To edit an existing Discussion board click on the action button which will appear after the discussion title when the mouse is over the discussion. Select Edit. 22 P a g e

From the Grade option (under 3. Forum Settings) select Grade Discussion Forum and indicate to the total marks possible for this discussion post. Selecting this option will send every discussion post to need grading. It is possible to have every third post sent to needs grading or leave this option blank all together. Discussion posts are graded from the Grade button, which is found by clicking on the action button beside the forum name and selecting Grade. Note: If the Discussion forum is not gradable, the Grade option will not appear. For more information on grading discussion post, see the How do I? on the topic. 23 P a g e

Grading Blog and Journals are done directly from the post. It is still essential that the Forum be gradable. To edit a blog or journal, select the journal you want to grade. The grading information will be listed on the right-hand side of the entry. To edit the grade, click on Edit Grade. The Edit Grade window will open and grades, notes and feedback can be directly entered or changed. Grading Notes can only be seen by instructors, graders and TAs. They are never visible to students. Once a grade is updated, it is automatically updated in the Gradebook. 24 P a g e

Assignments Assignment due dates are always listed on the syllabus. Due dates should not appear anywhere but in the syllabus and the online calendar other references should refer back to the syllabus. This will assist in converting the course from one term to the next and limit student confusion when old dates are left over in the content. Assignment dropboxes are added to a content area/created under the Assessments tab. These are dropboxes for students to submit assignments to you. If you are accept assignments submitted by other mean other than the assignment dropbox, the assignments tab should be hidden to avoid student confusion. It is recommended that students avoid submission of assignments by email. The assignment dropbox will verify the date and time of the submission. It is also possible to review a student s activities on a specific day to confirm if they accessed the dropbox or not, in case of a discrepancy. Instruction for submission of assignments should be repeated in the syllabus as well as in each assignment outline. Once a student has completed an assignment, the needs grading icon will show in the Grade Center. For information on grading an assignment, view the Grade Center section of this manual. Assessments Many assessment questions types are automatically graded, for instance multiple choice. Essay questions must be marked by the instructor manually, but can be graded directly in the assessment or from the Grade Center. Once an assessment which needs grading is completed the needs grading icon will show in the Grade Center. 25 P a g e

In Blackboard assessments (test or surveys) are created separately from when/where they are deployed. Each test created can only be deployed in one area however it can be linked to other areas. Creating a Test To create a test click on Tests, Survey and Pools under Course Tools in the Control Panel. Select Test (or surveys if you are creating a survey). Note: Survey are anonymous and non-graded. In the test tool select Build Test. If you are have an exported test from another course or LMS you may also Import a Test here. The shell of the course has now been created. The test does not contain any questions however. The green confirmation notice tells indicates the Test was created successfully. 26 P a g e

To add questions, click on Create Question. There are 17 different types of questions which can be created. Publisher test banks can also be directly imported into Blackboard. For instructors who have their test questions in a MS Word, Excel or text file Trent Online can import those questions quickly and easily into Blackboard with a tool called Respondus. Faculty who require this service can contact Trent Online staff directly. All questions which have been added will display in the test area. They can be reviewed and edited from this screen. Once all of the questions have been added to the test it is ready to be deployed. 27 P a g e

To deploy a test, first go to the area which the test will be deployed to this means wherever the students will access the test. It is not necessary to put Test in the assessment menu option, they can be deployed to any content area. Select Assessment > Test. You may also choose to deploy a Survey from tab as well. In the deployment window all tests which have not previously been deployed will be listed. Select the test to deploy and click Submit. Similar options are available for deployment as when the test was created. Other options like setting timers are also available now that the test is being deployed. Ensure Make the Link Available under 2. Test Availability is selected Yes or the students will not be able to access the test. Reminder: Tests and Surveys can only be deployed in one location. 28 P a g e

Changes made to a test after there are students submissions (and related grades) will be automatically updated to reflect the change. There are many things that can be done to assist in making these tests harder for students to cheat on. Detailed information can be found under the Blackboard instructor resources: https://www.trentu.ca/it/learningsystem/quizzes-and-cheating.php Revisions Generally, revisions should not be made to courses which have students currently enrolled. It is recommended that revisions or parts which didn t work out quite how they were intended be changed for the next term. All course sites for the current academic year should already be available to instructors in the LearningSystem. 29 P a g e

Course Completion Course Evaluation After mid-term of a course the Trent Online department releases a notice for evaluation site creation. If a course is entirely online it requires an online evaluation site. On campus courses can choose to use a paper-based evaluation. To request an evaluation site, instructors must complete the request form at: http://www.trentu.ca/admin/it/webct/instructors/eval-request.shtml Faculty are notified by email once the site has been created and they will have access to the site (as a course builder only) to make changes to the questions. New faculty should consult with their academic department on their policies regarding evaluations. Students will not have access to the site until the evaluation period begins. Course Builders do not have access to any submissions made by students. Final Grades Following the end of courses, faculty submit grades to the Registrar s Office. These are posted on myacademicrecord, which is accessed through mytrent. Final grades are to be made available to students only by myacademicrecord and should not be given by instructors: online as part of the course, in hard copy or verbally. Furthermore, faculty must withhold at least two grades, preventing students from calculating their grades manually. Course Backup Trent Online creates and archives backups upon the completion of each course. This contains all course content as well as student activity and information. The archive created from the backup process can be used in the event of an appeal or for sharing course content between courses. After courses are reset, you cannot retrieve information from the course. Trent Online will retain the end of semester archives for a period of 3 years. It is strongly recommended that instructors also export and save the Grade Centre on a regular basis throughout the semester. 30 P a g e