How To Use Exchange
Student Manual
(August 2005)
Table of Contents
Introduction 1
Working on the Student Homepage 1
Joining a Course 1
Entering an Exchange Course 2
Dropping a Course 3
Getting Help 3
Course Homepage 3
Reading an Instructor Announcement 3
Viewing a Sample Assignment 4
Viewing Your Assignments 4
Uploading (Submitting) Your Paper 5
Identifying Papers You Need to Review 5
Reading Your Peers’ and Instructor’s Comments on Your Paper 6
Deleting Your Paper from Exchange 6
Viewing Your Completed Reviews 7
Moving Around Quickly on the Course Homepage 6
Uploading (Submitting) Your Paper 7
Preparing your paper 7
Creating an Exchange folder 7
Giving your files special labels 7
Saving your final papers in Rich Text Format 7
Uploading your paper 8
Completing the uploading process 9
Paper Review Tool 11
The icons on the Paper Review Tool screen 11
Reviewing a Paper 12
Placing and Adding a Comment 13
Posting a Comment 16
Reading Comments on a Paper 16
Using the Handbook Icon 17
©2005 Pearson Education, Inc
Page 13
INTRODUCTION
What can you do with Exchange? You can view class assignments and due dates (or remind yourself of them). You can read announcements from your instructor. You can read and comment on other students’ essays, read comments and grades from your instructor on your essays, read comments from your classmates on your paper, or compare your responses to your classmates’ comments on an essay (if your instructor makes this option available to you).
WORKING ON THE STUDENT HOMEPAGE
The Student Homepage is your homepage for all of Exchange. You will likely only pass through this page quickly on your way to your Course Homepage. But you can do several important things here:
· Join a course
· Enter Exchange course
· Drop a course
· Get help
Click on this icon to get location-specific advice on how to use Exchange. /· Update your Exchange Profile
Click on this icon to update information you entered when you registered. /· Log Out
In order to maximize the speed of the Exchange site, please click this icon to end your session. /Note: You will see the Help, Profile, and Log Out icons on every screen, even within a specific course.
Joining a Course
If this is your first time using the program, follow the on-screen instructions that ask you to click on the Join a Course icon. When you click on the icon, a new screen will appear asking you to type in an Exchange Course ID.
Type in the Course ID, which you can obtain from your instructor.
Note: The Course ID is case sensitive. Be sure to type it in exactly as it was given to you. (It will contain a mix of capital and lowercase letters and numbers.)
Once you have typed in the Course ID, click on the Join icon. This will take you back to your Homepage, where the course title will now appear in the “Course Title” column.
Entering an Exchange Course
If you are returning to Exchange after having joined a course, the course titles in the “Course Title” column are active links. Click on a title to access the course materials.
Dropping a course
When you have completed a course, you may wish to delete it from your Exchange homepage. To delete, click on the Drop Course icon on the left side of the page. Each course listed will have a separate Drop Course icon.
Getting help
Click on this icon to access a printer-ready .PDF version of this "How to Use Exchange" manual.
Click on this icon for the location-specific Help window. You will find this icon on every page in the site; click on it for information relevant to the particular page.
COURSE HOMEPAGE
After you click a course’s title on your Exchange homepage, you will view the Course Homepage. Each Course Homepage gives you access to announcements, assignments, and due dates, so that you may keep track of work completed and tasks you still need to complete.
The Course Homepage is where you do three important things: 1) upload (submit) an assignment, 2) review and add comments to a classmate’s paper, and 3) read reviewer’s comments on your paper.
Reading an Instructor Announcement
When your instructor sends an announcement to the class, a notice will appear at the top of the course homepage in the Announcements section.
To read an announcement, click on the View all announcements hyperlink. Here you will be able to see the full text of your instructor's message and any older announcements. Announcements appear in reverse chronological order (newest to oldest).
Viewing a Sample Assignment
Some instructors may want to post a sample assignment that shows a paper that has been reviewed. If your instructor has chosen this option, a link to the assignment will appear in the Sample Assignment section.
Moving Around Quickly on the Course Homepage
Click the hyperlinks above each section to move quickly from section to section on the Course Homepage.
Viewing Your Assignments
For details of a paper assignment—especially content, goals, and due date—look for the Assignments To Do section of the course homepage.
Each assignment will have a name and number; click on the name for details. The Assignment Detail screen will appear, telling you the name and number of the assignment and providing detailed instructions. The screen also provides important deadlines: the date you must upload your paper (Paper Due Date) and the date you need to post reviews of peer papers (Review Due Date).
Submitting (Uploading) Your Paper
Click on the Upload Paper icon in the Assignments To Do section to submit a paper. Once you have submitted a paper, the assignment will move from this section to the Assignments Completed section. See Uploading Your Paper (page 8) for complete instructions.
Identifying Papers You Need to Review
The Reviews To Do section of the course homepage tells you which papers have been uploaded for you to review, the date when your review is due and who wrote the paper. It also provides a link allowing you to email the paper’s author.
Click on the Review icon in the first column to see the paper and add your comments. (See Reviewing a Paper [page 12] for instructions on how to add your comments to the paper.) If reviews have already been posted, and if your instructor has chosen the options that allow you to see the reviews by other students and the instructor, you will see them here. Once you have completed your review, the assignment will move from this section to the Reviews Completed section.
Reading Your Peers’ and Instructor’s Comments on Your Paper
The Assignments Completed section of the course homepage provides a record of the paper assignments you have completed, the date you submitted (uploaded) them, your paper titles, the date by which your peers’ reviews are due, paper grades, practice test scores, and instructor comments. You will also see a status column that lists the numbers of reviews posted on each of your papers.
To see the comments others have made on your paper, click on the Review icon.
Reviewer comments are color coded so that you can identify which reviewer made which comment. If your instructor decided that your peers’ reviews should be anonymous, you will see the word “reviewer” displayed instead of names. You will also have the opportunity to take a practice test that is relevant to the assignment. A link for the practice test will appear in the “Reviewer Critiques” column of the Paper Review Tool. See more on Page 13 of this manual.
Deleting Your Paper from Exchange
Until a reviewer posts comments on your paper, you can delete it from Exchange. Just click the Delete icon in the leftmost column of the Assignments Completed section of your Course Homepage. If you delete your paper, there will be no indication that you ever uploaded it. If you upload the paper again or upload another paper, the date and time that you submitted the second paper will be the only date and time visible to your professor.
Note: Once a reviewer has posted comments on your paper, you will no longer be able to delete it.
Viewing Your Completed Reviews
The Reviews Completed section of the course homepage provides a record of the reviews you have completed. To see your review, click on the Review icon.
If your instructor has chosen the options that allow you to see the comments made by other reviewers, you will see them here.
Tip: Once you post your comments, export paper with comments to save a record of your reviews.
UPLOADING (SUBMITTING) YOUR PAPER
Preparing your paper
1. Creating an Exchange folder
Be careful to avoid uploading the wrong file. To limit the chances of doing so, create a special folder on your hard drive. Perhaps label it “Exchange” or a similar name. Keep all of your Exchange work in this folder.
2. Giving your files special labels
Creating a special folder for files to upload is a good start. But it is still easy to confuse files within a folder, especially if you have multiple working and final drafts of an assignment. While you are working on your papers, keep them saved as .doc documents. Make sure your drafts have names that clearly identify them as working drafts (e.g., 04_Mar4_draft.doc). When your paper is final, choose a name that includes the title of the assignment (such as “webevaluation1.rtf) and save the file under this name just before you are ready to upload.
3. Saving your final papers in Rich Text Format
Before uploading a paper, you will need to save it in Rich Text Format (.rtf). The resulting files should end with .rtf extensions rather than .doc or similar extensions. Rich Text Format preserves most text features such as boldface, italics, and underlining. It is important to use standard formatting features when typing your paper. More complicated features, such as tables, may not be preserved when the paper appears in the Preview
Editor (see below), so you should review your paper carefully before completing the uploading process.
To save a document in Rich Text Format, you must click on Save As while the document is open and the select Rich Text Format from the “Save As Type:” pull-down menu.
Uploading Your Paper
Uploading a paper takes place on two screens. To get to the first screen, click on the Upload icon in the Assignments To Do section on the Course Homepage next to the assignment that is due. Then you will see the Upload Paper screen.
The Paper Title you choose will appear on your instructor’s and your peer’s Course Homepages. When you fill in the Paper Title box, keep in mind that others will use it as a starting point and a guide when they read your essay.
To fill in the Upload File box, click on the Browse button to locate your paper using the standard “choose” file or “open” interface from your computer’s operating system. Navigate through your folders to the location of the “file.rtf” you want to upload, highlight the file, and open it. The path to the file’s location on your hard drive will fill in automatically.
Completing the Uploading Process
Click on the Next button on the Upload Paper screen to get to the second screen (Preview Editor) in the uploading process. The Preview Editor screen will display your paper as your instructor and peers will see it.
Look your paper over. If you are satisfied with your paper, click Upload, in the upper right-hand corner of the Preview Editor. If you need to make formatting corrections or other edits, use the tools in the Preview Editor, as shown below. Highlight the text you want to change before using the Preview Editor’s tools.
If you are still not satisfied, click Cancel, a button next to the Upload button in the upper right-hand corner of the Preview Editor. Cancel will stop the process and return you to the Upload Paper screen. From here, you can try the process again.
PAPER REVIEW TOOL
Working in the Paper Review Tool, you can do the following:
· Add, edit, and delete comments on a paper
· Export your paper along with comments to your hard drive
· Export someone else’s paper with comments to your hard drive
· View the assignment description and due dates
· View a checklist your instructor has created to guide peer reviews
· Read reviews
· Link to an online handbook and practice tests
The Paper Review Tool allows you, your instructor, or your fellow students to add comments and annotations to a paper uploaded by another student. The Paper Review Tool is a Shockwave application.
Note: To use the Paper Review Tool, you must have Shockwave installed on your computer. If you need to install the program, follow the online instructions at http://sdc.shockwave.com/shockwave/download/.
You will see the following icons on the Paper Review Tool screen:
1. Assignment
Clicking on this icon gives you the Assignment Details as a reminder.