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myCourses is a robust learning management system (LMS) that allows faculty to easily
prepare and deliver course content either through web enhanced, blended or fully
online course environment. myCourses provides a "shell" to upload
course content using a variety of course tools that easily help organize the
structure of the course as well as integrate communications, assessment and
course management components.
myCourses Training (Revised Training Policies effective Septemebr 21, 2009)
Web-Enhanced Training
Faculty wishing to create a web-enhanced class are required to complete a self-paced, asynchronous online training workshop facilitated by the Instructional Development Team. This workshop will be offered several times each semester and will require a 2-3 hour commitment by faculty, and less time for those faculty with prior LMS experience. As the workshop is self-paced, faculty can decide how to move through the training. This training is conducted online asynchronously and will prepare faculty to upload course content materials and use basic communication tools. Faculty will have access to face-to-face training sessions if desired. This training is required to ensure that faculty will be able to demonstrate their proficiency in the learning management system and are self-sufficient users of the LMS.
Blended/Fully Online Training
Faculty wishing to teach a blended (meets in a classroom no less than approximately 24% and online no more than approximately 75%) or fully online course are required to complete a 5 day, asynchronous training focused on online teaching and learning strategies facilitated by the Instructional Development Team. This training is conducted online asynchronously and will include an introduction to current research in best practices for blended and online teaching, as well as examples of successful blended and online teaching strategies. Faculty will be asked to develop a course development plan and template; in addition, the course will teach faculty how to self-assess course site design so to ensure student ease of access to course content and to facilitate student learning. Faculty will have access to face-to-face training sessions with the ID Team if desired; in addition, ID team members will provide hands on course site consultation and design feedback. Blended/Fully Online training should be completed at least 30 days prior to the start of a course.
More training information
Request Training
Acceptance to the myCourses training session(s) is on a first come, first
served basis and is limited to 15 participants.
Technical Requirements
Basic Computer Skills
Online teaching and learning requires a certain level of comfort using the computer.
You should feel comfortable with:
- creating, opening, saving, and closing files
- using your mouse to navigate around your desktop/laptop
- sending, replying, and forwarding email messages
- sending/saving an email attachment
- using a browser and searching the web
- using a word processing application such as Word
- copying and pasting text
- minimizing and maximizing your application windows
- navigating between several open software applications with ease
If you need further training with some of these common tasks you can access
online tutorials here, Entry
Level Computer Skills
Computer Requirements
The minimum technical requirements for access to myCourses System are:
PC Users:
Pentium II processor or better
Windows 98/NT/2000/XP
128MB Ram
Macintosh Users:
Power PC G3 or better
Mac OS 8.6 or higher or Mac OSX 10.1 or higher
128MB Ram
Internet Connection
An internet connection of 56K or better is required for both the faculty and
students. A DSL or cable modem connection is highly recommended but not required. Remember
that not all users have access to high speed internet, and this should be a
consideration for faculty as they design their online courses.
AOL subscribers:
AOL and certain other Internet service provider browsers – the Web browser provided with AOL's software and certain other Internet service providers is, in fact, either Internet Explorer or Netscape, depending on the provider. These Internet service providers, however, have changed some of the functionality of the browser. We recommend that you connect to the Internet using your Internet service provider account; minimize the account’s window, and then launch one of the above supported web browsers (depending on your computer platform).
Browser Requirements
Access to the myCourses learning system requires a Java capable web browser.
Internet Explorer,Firefox, or Safari are the browsers recommended
by the ID team as the most reliable and are the supported browsers of the myCourses system.
myCourses Supported Browsers
(myCourses runs on Blackboard Vista Enterprise 8 software)
Blackboard "validates" browsers for use with their system by extensively
checking and testing the software versions with various browsers on the
standard platforms. For a listing of supported browsers and versions, please visit Supported Browsers.
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