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Welcome to MyDropBox!
This manual provides you with a complete guide to the MyDropBox Assignment Management System.
It will enable you as an account administrator to:
Register instructor and student accounts
Access other users’ accounts to help instructors and students use MyDropBox
Distribute institution-wide announcements to all MyDropBox users
MyDropBox is available online at http://mdb2.mydropbox.com/.
MyDropBox is a learning management system with advanced plagiarism detection capabilities. MyDropBox is centered on facilitating work with written assignments for both students and instructors by automating such functions as
distribution of information about assignments to students,
paper submission,
originality checking and plagiarism detection,
assignment grading,
archiving of submitted papers, and
tracking student progress over time.
Because of its concentration on assignments, MyDropBox is often called an Assignment Management System.
MyDropBox is available online at http://mdb2.mydropbox.com/.
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1.2. User Roles and MyDropBox User Hierarchy
The MyDropBox system is build around traditional principles of instruction, and therefore it has the same set of user roles – Administrators, Instructors, Teaching Assistants and Students. Each role has its own set of responsibilities and privileges in the MyDropBox system.
In addition, every user can have several roles associated with his/her profile. For example, the account administrator can also be an instructor and have an Instructor Account in MyDropBox, or a teaching assistant can also be a student and have TA privileges in one class and student privileges in the other classes. In MyDropBox, it is very easy for users with more than one role to switch between their roles to perform different tasks.
1.2.1 Account Administrators
Account Administrator is the highest role within an institution. Account Administrators have access to all information about their institution’s MyDropBox accounts, including information located in the accounts of other users within the same institution.
Although Account Administrators have the ultimate power in the MyDropBox system, the scope of their responsibilities is limited to few basic functions:
1) Distributing Information about MyDropBox to Potential Users – Account Administrators are responsible for promoting MyDropBox to all instructors who may benefit from using the MyDropBox system. The Sciworth Inc. Company will provide Account Administrators with all information and training materials necessary to facilitate usage of the MyDropBox system.
2) Registering Instructors – account administrators can register accounts for instructors either manually or though institution-wide Join Codes.
3) Making Institution-Wide Announcements – Account Administrators can use MyDropBox’s Announcement system to make institution-wide announcements that are visible to all instructors and students in the institution. For example, such announcements can be about new MyDropBox features or about the availability of new information and training materials.
4) Helping Other Users Resolve Problems with MyDropBox – if any user has a problem using one of the MyDropBox functions, the Account Administrator can easily assume the role of that user to help the user resolve the problem. Account Administrators can enter accounts of other users directly from their administrator accounts, to support users. Please note that all MyDropBox users can also contact MyDropBox’s 24/7 customer helpdesk service directly.
NOTE: An Account Administrator cannot perform functions of an Instructor from the Administrator account. To perform the Instructor functions (e.g. registering classes or submitting papers), an Account Administrator needs to join the MyDropBox system as an Instructor as well, and switch to the Instructor role.
Please keep in mind that the position of MyDropBox Account Administrator is very responsible because Account Administrators have access to private data of all other MyDropBox users in their institutions. Negligence or unethical actions of Account Administrator can jeopardize privacy and security of the entire institutional account.
Although instructors are positioned below Account Administrators in the MyDropBox user hierarchy, Instructors have the most complex role in the MyDropBox system with the widest range of functions available to them:
1) Registering Courses – instructors are responsible for registering their own Courses in MyDropBox. Luckily, registering a Course in MyDropBox is as simple as filling in one short form.
2) Enrolling Students into Courses – instructors can enroll students into their courses by either manually selecting students from an institution-wide list of MyDropBox users or by distributing a class-wide student Join Codes to students in each of their classes.
3) Creating TA Accounts – instructors can enroll teaching assistants in their classes as easily as they enroll students. The number of teaching assistant accounts per class is not limited.
4) Registering Assignments – instructors have to register in the MyDropBox system all assignments that students have to submit through MyDropBox. The assignment registration process is very simple, and instructors can use pre-arranged assignment templates stored in their repositories to automatically create assignments for typical/repeating courses.
5) Posting Announcements – instructors can post announcements either class-wide (e.g. remind all students in one class about readings due for the next lecture) or to individual students and TAs from all of their classes (e.g. notify everybody about unexpected absence).
6) Grading Assignments – in MyDropBox, as in the real life, instructors have the privilege to grade student assignments, and, just as in the traditional educational process, instructors can sometimes delegate this privilege to Teaching Assistants. MyDropBox has a versatile and convenient electronic Gradebook that helps instructors to easily keep track of grades, effectively collaborate with TAs on grading assignments, calculate totals and averages, and report grades to students in real time.
7) Maintaining Archives and Repositories of Classes – instructors have several tools that help them to work more efficiently with MyDropBox. For example, the MyDropBox Archive allows archiving courses that are no longer active to make an instructor’s interface less cluttered. In addition, the Repository tool helps instructors to quickly re-create typical classes using stored templates and pre-sets.
Instructors receive their instructor Join Codes or pre-registered accounts from Account Administrators and are responsible for the security of the institution-wide Instructor Join Codes and their own logins and passwords.
1.2.3 Teaching Assistants
In MyDropBox, Teaching Assistants have the same privileges and responsibilities as Instructors and can act on Instructors’ behalf, but only with particular Courses that they are enrolled into in the role of TA. Unlike instructors, Teaching Assistants cannot register new Courses. TAs are enrolled by Instructors using TA Join Codes.
MyDropBox’s functional designers have put much of effort into minimizing the responsibilities of students in the MyDropBox system, while providing them with a range of useful tools. As a result, students can start using MyDropBox without any training, gradually becoming power-users if they want to master all advanced features. The only responsibility of a student is to get enrolled in his/her class and submit papers on time. However, students can also benefit from more advanced MyDropBox tools available to them:
1) Course Documents and Links – students can get course-related documents (e.g. the syllabus or the instructor’s biography) and links for all their Courses from the Course Content area of their MyDropBox account.
2) Assignment-Related Documents and Links – students can also use MyDropBox to download detailed assignment descriptions and sample data files posted by instructors and associated with particular assignments.
3) Instantly Updated Online Gradebook – students can monitor their grades in MyDropBox through the Gradebook featuring instant updates and automatic calculation of average and total grades.
4) Announcements – students can easily keep track of all news in all of their courses in one place – the MyDropBox Announcement System.
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1.3. The Structure of the MyDropBox System
This chapter is essential for instructors, but it may also be useful for account administrators, TA’s and students willing to have a better understanding of the MyDropBox structure.
Besides the user hierarchy described above, MyDropBox also has a Course structure that helps to keep the entire system more organized. The Course structure is organized around Courses that instructors register in the MyDropBox, and all elements of this structure are available from within the corresponding Course units. The Course structure includes the following elements:
The Course is the main element of the structure. Instructors can create as many Courses in MyDropBox as they need. Courses have such properties as name, start and end date etc. Every Course contains several other elements:
1. Student Join Code – this code, unique for every course, is generated automatically when a Course is registered. The Code should be distributed to all students that need to enroll into the Course.
2. Enrolled Students – every Course has students enrolled in it. Instructors can enroll students in a Course manually, by selecting them from a user list, or automatically with the help of the Student Join Code. Students must be enrolled in a Course to be able to use all course-related tools and features.
3. TA Join Code – this code plays the same role as the Student Join Code, but is used for enrolling Teaching Assistants.
4. Teaching Assistants – each Course can have one or more teaching assistants enrolled. TAs have the same privileges as Instructors, but only within one Course.
5. Course Documents and Links – for each Course, instructors can upload a number of course-related documents to MyDropBox to make them available online. Instructors can use MyDropBox to publish course-related links as well. This feature is great for publishing such documents as the syllabus, instructor’s biography, peer evaluation forms, and/or links to external information sources on the Web.
6. Announcements – instructors can use the Announcements feature to communicate with the students enrolled in their courses.
7. Assignments – assignments are the main element of every Course (after instructors and students). An Assignment is a MyDropBox system unit to which students submit their papers. Every Course can contain an unlimited number of Assignments, and each Assignment has such properties as the name, start and due dates, as well as the following sub-elements:
- a. Assignment-Related Documents and Links – just like a Course itself, every Assignment in a Course can contain one or more documents and Web links associated with it.
- b. Student Papers – students submit their paper into Assignments, and therefore Assignments are the final element in a paper storage hierarchy (Institution -> Course -> Assignment -> Paper). Logically, papers cannot be submitted in Institutions that contain no registered Courses, or in Courses that have no Assignments.
- c. Plagiarism Detection Reports – plagiarism detection reports on student papers are on the same level as student papers in the MyDropBox structure. For more information on the plagiarism detection functionality, please see the MyDropBox.com Web site.
Although the MyDropBox Gradebook is an independent tool, it is locally located within each Course and contains grades of all students enrolled in the Course for all Assignments registered within that Course. Just like its pencil-and-paper sister, the Gradebook is basically a spreadsheet with student names as rows and assignment titles as columns. However, the MyDropBox electronic Gradebook offers some significant advantages over the traditional grade book:
1. Gradebook Views – MyDropBox electronic Gradebook features a set of Views for convenience. For example, an instructor can view and edit grades of a particular student for all Assignments or grades of all students for one particular Assignment.
2. Automatic Grade Conversion and Calculation – being an electronic spreadsheet, the Gradebook can automatically convert point grades into letter grades (e.g. 98/100 points -> A) and calculate average and total grades and point values using a customizable grade weighting system.
3. Import and Export – with the MyDropBox Gradebook, exporting student grades to your favorite spreadsheet processing application is a breeze, because the Gradebook is capable of saving its data to a file recognized by all popular spreadsheet processing applications. Importing data back into the Gradebook is equally easy.
4. Instant Grade Reporting – students are often anxious to know their grades as soon as possible, and the MyDropBox Gradebook can save anxiety by making grades instantly available online. As soon as an instructor posts a grade in the Gradebook, the grade becomes visible to the student who achieved it.
5. Multi-User Capabilities – the MyDropBox Gradebook allows several users to work with grades at the same time, so instructors and TAs can grade papers for the same Course simultaneously, using the same Gradebook spreadsheet updated in real-time.
6. Versatility – the MyDropBox Gradebook is a very versatile and highly customizable tool. For example, it allows customization of ranges for letter grades (e.g. A+ can be set to start at 80%), setting different weights for different Assignments, tracking grades for the assignments that are done outside of MyDropBox, and even keeping track of items not directly related to the final grade (e.g. tracking the number of missed classes).
Please see <Chapter 7> of the Instructor Manual for more information on using the Gradebook.
The MyDropBox Repository is a tool available only to instructors. It is storage where instructors can store their “templates” to make creating typical Assignments and Courses faster and easier. All items in the Repository are arranged in a hierarchy similar to the structure of Courses . Assignment Templates, representing typically created Assignments, are grouped into Template Sets, representing typical Courses.
For example, if an instructor teaches an English 101 class with Midterm 1, Midterm 2 and Final papers, that instructor can create a Template Set containing Assignment Templates for the Midterm 1, Midterm 2 and Final papers, and whenever this instructor will be teaching the same English 101 class again, he/she will just have to export this Template Set into a Course to get all the Assignments set instantly.
For more information about using the Repository tool, please see the <Chapter 9> of the Instructor Manual.
Archive is another important element of the MyDropBox structure. Archive stores all Courses that are no longer active. Courses are sent to Archive automatically on their Expiration Date (therefore instructors should not set the Course Expiration Date to the last day of classes to leave some time for grading the finals). Alternatively, Instructors can send Courses to the Archive manually, when those Courses are no longer needed for active usage.
In Archive, Courses preserve their structure and are still viewable, but no data can be changed. Instructors can delete Courses from the Archive, but doing so is not recommended because keeping Courses in Archive is a necessary condition for enabling matching of all newly submitted student papers to the previously submitted papers and thus preventing peer-to-peer plagiarism.
Archive is an important part of MyDropBox because it allows keeping the main MyDropBox interface less busy, while preserving all data for future reference and for preventing peer-to-peer plagiarism.
MyDropBox features a powerful internal communication system called Announcements. Announcements enable MyDropBox users to quickly pass any information to related groups of users. For example, an instructor can send an Announcement to all students enrolled in one or all of his/her Courses, or an Account Administrator can create an Announcement visible to all MyDropBox users in the corresponding institution. Announcements are visible to users of all levels of the MyDropBox user role hierarchy. Moreover, users can receive copies of the MyDropBox Announcements related to them in their electronic mailboxes after enabling the corresponding option in their user profiles.
Announcements have three hierarchical levels:
1. System-Wide Announcements – these Announcements are created by MyDropBox representatives and are visible to ALL MyDropBox users. Such Announcements are extremely rare, but they contain very important information about the MyDropBox service.
2. Consortium-Wide Announcements – these Announcements are created by an Account Supervisor for a group of institutions using MyDropBox as one consortium (e.g. a college district). Consortium-wide Announcements are visible to all MyDropBox users in all institutions belonging to one consortium.
3. Institution-Wide Announcements – these Announcements are visible to all MyDropBox uses within one particular institution. Such Announcements can be created by institutional Account Administrators and consortium-level Account Supervisors.
4. Course-Wide Announcements – these Announcements are intended for students that are enrolled into a specific Course and are usually created by instructors or TAs.
For more specific information about using the MyDropBox Announcements system, please refer to the <Announcements section> of this manual.
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2.1. Obtaining Your User Profile
As a MyDropBox user, you have a unique user profile containing your contact information, preferences and authorization data – login and password. Your email is used as your login.
In case your institution is using MyDropBox as a part of a Consortium (e.g. a university system or a high school district) you need to obtain your login information or a Join Code from your Account Supervisor. Otherwise, if you are licensing MyDropBox directly, you should get your login information from your MyDropBox account representative.
There are several types of accounts with corresponding user roles in MyDropBox, namely, Supervisor (Consortium Level), Administrator (Institutional Level), Instructor, Teaching Assistant, Student (Course Level) and Parent accounts. You can join several accounts and use them within a single profile, switching from one role to another when you need.
To create a user profile and join an account:
1. Go to http://mdb2.mydropbox.com/.
2. Follow the Create Profile link.
3. Fill in the profile creation form. Please enter a valid email address, as it will be used both as your login and for communication purposes.
4. At the bottom of the form, enter the Join Code that you received in advance.
5. Click the Submit button. Your profile data will be emailed to you, and you will be redirected to the Login Page.
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To log in:
1. Go to http://mdb2.mydropbox.com/.
2. In the Login form, enter your email address in the Login field and your password in the Password field, and click the Sign In button.
3. You will be forwarded to the homepage of your default account.
To log out:
1. Assuming you are logged in, click the Logout icon in the upper-right corner of any MyDropBox page.
2. You will be logged out of the system and forwarded to the Login Page.
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The Top Bar is essentially the horizontal line located at the top of every MyDropBox screen. This bar has several simple but useful functional elements:
1) Greeting Line – the greeting line is located right next to the MyDropBox logo in the upper left corner of the screen. This line displays the current user’s real name, letting you know if you mistakenly logged in to someone else’s account. In addition, clicking on the name brings up the current user’s profile page.
2) Breadcrumbs – the Breadcrumbs is the dark text line located right below the Greeting Line. The Breadcrumbs help users not to get lost in the MyDropBox system providing users with a quick way back to any of the upper levels of the user interface. The Breadcrumbs string is a chain of links that lists all interface levels above the current level separated by the “/” sign, with the Homepage being the highest level. Basically, you can use Breadcrumbs to get back to a higher level of interface hierarchy with just one click or to find out where exactly you are in the MyDropBox interface.
3) Account Select Box - if you have several MyDropBox accounts (roles) associated with your user profile, you can use the Account dropdown list at the top of the screen to quickly switch between your accounts.
4) The Join Account Link – clicking on this link brings up a form where you can enter a Join Code to join a new MyDropBox user role. For example, if you are an Account Administrator, you can also add a role of Instructor to your profile by clicking this link and entering the Instructor Join Code for your institution.
5) The Log-Out Button – this button does nothing more than logs users out of the system. It is highly recommended to log out at the end of every MyDropBox session to prevent unauthorized access to your MyDropBox account.
The Main Menu is the horizontal graphical menu located right below the top bar. The menu consists of four tabs that open the corresponding sections of the system: Your Homepage, Instructors, Students and Announcements. Each section is described further in this manual. Some sections may have a submenu (see Instructors for example) that is basically a context-based extension of the Main Menu and is often referred to as a sub-menu.
Upon logging in, you get to your Homepage. If you have joined several MyDropBox accounts, you have several homepages, one per account. In this case, you will see the homepage of your default account. You can change your default account on your Personal Preferences page (see <Chapter 3.1>).
The Homepage is you entry point for all MyDropBox services. Your Administrator Homepage consists of three main zones:
1. Statistics – a box displaying the number of students, instructors and courses at your institution.
2. Common Tasks – a box with quick links to the most common operations you may want to perform: Create Profile, Add Instructor, Post Announcement or Edit Institution Info.
3. Latest Announcements – a box listing the latest announcements visible within your Consortium, Institution and Courses, posted both by you and/or other users.
On the right side of the screen, there are the Tips and the Calendar boxes that are visible on every page of the MyDropBox system.
The Tips window displays random advices about effective work with different MyDropBox tools.
The Calendar window displays the current month with announcements and assignment due dates for the courses in your institution highlighted. Clicking on any highlighted date will open a separate page listing all events for that date. Announcements are highlighted in blue, and assignment due dates are highlighted in red.
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4. Joining Accounts and Join Codes |
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There are several types of accounts and corresponding user roles in MyDropBox, namely, Supervisor (Consortium Level), Administrator (Institutional Level), Instructor, Teaching Assistant, Student and Parent accounts.
You can join several MyDropBox accounts and quickly switch between them within a single user profile. You do not have to keep a separate login for each account.
To join an account, a user needs a key called Join Code. Typically, users get their Join Codes from the administrator of the account they want to join. For example, to join a Teaching Assistant account a user should obtain a Join Code from the Instructor teaching the corresponding class; to join an Institutional Account as an Administrator, a user needs to obtain a code from either MyDropBox account representative or the Consortium Account Supervisor (for system-wide, district-wide or multi-campus licenses).
To join an account:
1. Click the Join Account link located in the page header.
2. On the following page, enter the Join Code that you have.
3. Click the Submit button.
To switch between your accounts, use the Account dropdown list located at the top of the screen.
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There are three ways of setting up instructor accounts:
A. Use multiple-use instructor Join Code
1. Find the Instructor Join Code by clicking the Edit Institution Info link in the Common Tasks menu on your Administrator Homepage.
2. Send this Join Code along with the Instructor Quick Start Guide to all potentially interested instructors or make this information available in an area that only authorized instructors can access.
Note: If the multiple-use instructor Join Code leaks out, unauthorized persons may gain access to your institutional MyDropBox account. Please use this method only when you are absolutely confident in the method of delivery of Join Codes to instructors. Never post multiple-use Join Codes onto publicly accessible web site.
B. Use single-use instructor Join Codes
This method is similar to the previous one but is more secure because each Join Code can be used only once. The downside of this method is that every instructor has to receive a different Join Code. To use this method:
1. Click the “Generate Single-Use Instructor Join Codes” link in the Common Tasks menu on your Administrator Homepage.
2. Enter the number of Join Codes you need and click the Generate button.
3. Important: Click the “Activate Join Codes” link to finalize the operation. The batch of codes will be emailed to you.
4. Deliver the Join Codes along with the Instructor Quick Start Guide to all potential users. Please keep in mind that each such Join Code can be used only once.
C. Register instructors manually
To manually create a new Instructor-level account within your Institution:
1. Click the Create Instructor link in the Common Tasks menu on your Homepage.
2. Fill in the Instructor Profile form and click the Create Account button. The only required fields in the registration form are the Login (email) and the Password. You may leave the rest of the fields empty, as instructors will be able to update their profiles later.
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7.2. Viewing Instructor List
To view the list of instructors registered within your Institutional Account click the Instructors tab in the main menu. If you want to narrow the scope of the list, you can enter several filtering parameters, such as Last Name or Email Address, in the corresponding fields above the instructor list and press the Filter button.
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7.3. Viewing and Modifying Instructor Profiles
To view or modify an Instructor Profile:
1. Click the Instructors tab to open the page that lists all instructors registered under your Institutional Account.
2. Click the Info icon next to the instructor you need.
3. On the following screen, you will see the profile modification form filled with the selected instructor’s profile data.
4. Edit the necessary fields and click the Submit button to save changes.
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7.4. Dismissing Instructors
To delete an Instructor Account from your Institutional Account:
1. Click the Instructors tab in the main menu to open the Instructor List page.
2. Check the checkboxes next to the instructors you want to delete from the MyDropBox system.
3. Click the Delete button to remove the selected instructors.
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7.5. Logging in as an Instructor
As an Account Administrator, you can login as any Instructor registered within your Institutional Account. To login as an Instructor:
1. Go to the List of Instructors.
2. Find the instructor that you want to login as.
3. Click the Login link located between the name and the email address of the instructor.
After logging in as an instructor, you will be able to perform all the functions of that instructor.
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The MyDropBox Announcements system provides all MyDropBox users with an effective communication channel, enabling Account Administrators to pass information to all users registered within the Institutional Account.
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9.2. Creating Announcements
To create an Announcement:
1. Click the Announcements tab to open the Announcements section.
2. Click the Create tab in the second level of the main menu.
3. In the Create Announcement form, enter the following:
a. The title of the Announcement;
b. Start and End dates, specifying the period of time when the Announcement will be displayed;
c. The text of the Announcement.
4. Click the Submit button.
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9.3. Reading Announcements
You can read announcements from several places in the MyDropBox system.
On your Homepage, you can see the list of the latest announcements, visible consortium-wide (if your institution is a part of a larger group of MyDropBox users), institution-wide and/or course-wide.
Clicking on a highlighted date in the calendar will open a page listing all the events (announcements and assignments) for that date.
To view older Announcements:
1. Click the Announcements tab in the main menu.
2. Choose the month and the year from the dropdown lists located in the upper left area of the page to view all Announcements for the selected period.
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9.4. Modifying Announcements
You can modify any of the Announcements you created at any time.
To modify an Announcement:
1. Click the Announcements tab to open the Announcements section.
2. From the list of the announcements, choose the Announcement you want to modify and select it by clicking on its title.
3. Click the Edit icon next to the Announcement.
4. In the Announcement Modification form, edit the fields you need to update.
5. Click the Submit button to save changes.
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Close
