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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 instructor to:
Register courses and enroll students
Collect written assignments from students online
Use online Calendar and Announcements to help your students follow their courses
Make any course- and assignment-related information available online
Keep your online courses organized and archive old courses
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.
There are several types of accounts and corresponding user types in MyDropBox, namely, Supervisor (Consortium Level),
Administrator (Institutional Level),
Instructor,
Teaching Assistant,
Student (Course) and
Parent accounts.
You can join several accounts and use them within a single profile, switching from one account to another as you need.
To get access to the MyDropBox services as an Instructor you need to join an Institutional Account. Your Account Administrator or Supervisor may have already created a user profile for you. In this case you only need to log in to MyDropBox using the login and password provided by your Account Administrator. Otherwise you have to create your profile and join the institutional account yourself. To join an account, you need to obtain a Join Code from your Account Administrator.
To create a user profile and join the Institutional 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. If it is your first time to use MyDropBox, you will see the Startup Wizard described below. Otherwise you will get to the homepage of your 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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When you log in to MyDropBox for the first time, the system will launch the Course Creation Wizard for you. The wizard will guide you through the process of creating a Course, enrolling Students and adding Assignments. The wizard is described in detail below (see <Chapter 5.1.1>).
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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 five tabs that open the corresponding sections of the system: your Homepage, Courses, Archive, Repository and Announcements. Each section is described further in this manual. Some sections may have a submenu (see Announcements for example).
Most of your common activities in the MyDropBox system will be performed within a particular Course. A Course is the main organizational unit for structuring and organizing Assignments, learning materials, students, paper submissions and the Gradebook. Once you select a Course to work with, you will see the Course Menu consisting of four tabs: Assignments, Students, Course Materials and Gradebook. You can quickly switch between courses using the Switch Course dropdown lists available on most MyDropBox pages.
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 Instructor Homepage consists of three elements:
1. My Courses – Direct links to all of your registered Courses with notifications showing the number of non-graded papers in each Course.
2. Common Tasks - Quick links to the most common operations you may want to perform: create a new Course, Assignment or Announcement.
3. Latest Announcements–The list of the latest Announcements visible within your Courses and institution, 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 page listing all events and Announcements 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 the MyDropBox system, 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 and remember passwords for all of them.
To join an account, a user needs a key called Join Code. Typically, users get their Join Codes from the manager of the account they want to join. For example, to join a Teacher Assistant account a user should obtain a join code from the Instructor teaching the corresponding class; to join an Institution Account as an Instructor, a user needs to obtain a code from either the Institutional Account Administrator 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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A Course is your main organizational unit in MyDropBox. Most of your activities take place within the Courses you create. You can manage multiple Courses and easily switch between them while browsing the system.
The course creation wizard will guide you through the process of creating a Course, enrolling Students and adding Assignments.
To create a Course:
1. Click on the Courses tab.
2. Click on the Add Course tab in the submenu located to the lower right from the main menu (note that you also can launch the Course Creation Wizard by clicking on the Create New Course link in the Common Tasks box on your Homepage).
3. On the first step of the wizard, enter the following info:
- a. Course name;
- b. Course end date;
- c. Semester (optional);
- d. Course description (optional).
4. Click the Next button.
5. On the next screen, you will see two different Join Codes - one for the students of this course and another one for your teaching assistant(s). These codes will also be sent to your email address. Please distribute the codes among the people you want to enroll in this course as students or teaching assistants.
6. If you prefer adding students manually, proceed (scroll down) to the Enroll Students section of the page. Click on the “Select from existing users” link to open the pop-up window with an institution-wide user list. Please note that the list can consist of many pages, and you can use Filtering to help you find necessary users faster. To enroll students from the list, check the checkboxes next to the names of all necessary students and press the Enroll button. You can click the Enroll button several times if you did not enroll all students at once. After enrolling all students, close the pop-up window. The students enrolled manually from the list do not need a Join Code to login to the corresponding Course.
NOTE: The Student List in the MyDropBox system contains all students from your institution that already have accounts in MyDropBox, so students not using MyDropBox may not be in the list. Students can get into the list in one of the following ways:
1. A student used a Course Join Code from any of the courses to create his/her user profile in MyDropBox;
2. Your institutional account administrator registered a user profile for a student;
3. Student list was imported by a MyDropBox representative (please contact your MyDropBox account representative if you want to arrange importing student accounts into the MyDropBox system).
7. Click the Next button
8. On the last screen of the wizard, you will be asked to create an Assignment. At least one Assignment per Course is necessary. Fill in the following fields:
- a. Assignment title
- b. Start and Due dates
- c. The highest possible grade for this Assignment in points
- d. Assignment description (optional)
9. Click the Next button to create the Assignment. Alternatively, you can skip this step by clicking the Skip button if you prefer to create Assignments later. Please note that students will not be able to upload papers to this Course if no Assignments are created.
10. You will get to the Assignments page of the Course you have just created.
5.1.2. Viewing and Modifying Course Info
To view or modify course information:
1. Click the Courses tab to open the page with all your courses listed.
2. Click the Edit icon for the Course that you want to edit (the rightmost column of the Course List).
On the following screen, edit the necessary fields in the form and click Submit. You can also see the join codes for the course on the Course Info page.
To delete or archive a Course or several Courses:
1. In the main menu, click the Courses tab to open the Courses page, listing all your Courses.
2. Check the checkboxes next to the Courses you want to delete or archive.
3. Click the Delete button to permanently remove selected Courses and all their data from the MyDropBox system or click the Archive button to move them to the Archive. It is highly recommended to use the Archive feature instead of deleting Courses because if you delete a Course, MyDropBox will not be able to compare the papers submitted in the future to the papers that were submitted to the deleted Course.
5.1.4. Viewing Course Statistics
To view the Course statistics:
1. Click the Courses tab to open the page with all your Courses listed.
2. Click the Stats icon for the corresponding Course.
3. On the following screen, you will see the number of students, assignments and papers in this Course, average grade among the students of the Course and the Course end date.
5.1.5. Assigning Teaching Assistants
You can assign TAs to help you with your routine course activities. To have the TAs enrolled in your Course, provide them with the TA Join Code for the Course. You can find the TA Join Code on your Course Info page (see <Chapter 5.1.2>).
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5.2.1. Enrolling students
You can enroll students in a Course in using two different methods:
The first way is to distribute the Course Join Code to the students that are enrolled in the corresponding Course. You can find this Join Code on your Course Info page (see <Chapter 5.1.2>). Students will create their profiles using the Join Code and will be automatically enrolled in the corresponding Course.
You can also add students to a Course manually, selecting them from the list of existing MyDropBox users registered under your Institutional Account.
To enroll students manually:
1. Click the Courses tab in the main menu to open the Courses section.
2. Select a Course by clicking on its name in the list.
3. Click the Students tab in the second level of the main menu to open the page that lists all students enrolled in the selected Course.
4 Click on the Enroll Students link located above the Student List table.
5. To enroll students from the list, check the checkboxes next to the names of all necessary students and click the Enroll button. You can click the Enroll button several times if you did not enroll all students at once. Please note that the list can consist of many pages, and you can use Filtering to help you find necessary users faster.
6. After enrolling all students, click the Students tab in the second level of the main menu to return to the list of enrolled students. NOTE: The students enrolled manually do not need any Join Codes to login to the corresponding Course.
NOTE: The Student List in the MyDropBox system contains all students from your institution that already have accounts in MyDropBox, so students not using MyDropBox may not be in the list. Students can get into the list in one of the following ways:
1. A student used a Course Join Code from any of the courses to create his/her user profile in MyDropBox;
2. Your institutional account administrator registered a user profile for a student;
3. Student list was imported by a MyDropBox representative (please contact your MyDropBox account representative if you want to arrange importing student accounts into the MyDropBox system).
5.2.2. Viewing Student Info
To view information in a student profile:
1. Click the Courses tab in the main menu to open the list of your Courses.
2. Select a Course by clicking on its name in the list.
3. Click the Students tab in the second level of the main menu to open the page that lists all students enrolled in the selected Course.
4. Click the Info icon (the rightmost column of the table) of the corresponding student account.
5. On the following screen, you will see the profile information of the student you selected.
5.2.3. Dismissing students
To dismiss a student or several students from a Course:
1. Click the Courses tab in the main menu to open the list of your Courses.
2. Select a Course by clicking on its name in the list.
3. Click the Students tab in the second level of the main menu to open the page that lists all the students enrolled in the selected Course.
4. Check the checkboxes next to the students you want to dismiss.
5. Click the Dismiss button to remove selected students from the Course.
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5.3. Managing Assignments
You can view and manage your Assignments and paper submissions from the Assignments section of any of your Courses. To get to the Assignments section:
1. Click the Courses tab to open the list of your Courses.
2. Click on the name of any of your Courses to display the Assignments section of this Course.
5.3.1. Creating Assignments
To create an Assignment:
1. Once you are on the Assignments page of the appropriate Course, click on the Create New Assignment link located above the list of all registered Assignments. Note that you can also create Assignments by clicking on the Create New Assignment link in the Common Tasks box on the Instructor Homepage.
2. In the Create New Assignment form, enter the following data:
- a. Assignment title;
- b. Start and Due dates;
- c. Highest possible grade for this Assignment (in points);
- d. Assignment description (optional);
- e. The Course to create this Assignment for (leave unchanged unless you used the Common Task link).
3. Click the Submit button. You will be forwarded to the Assignments section of the corresponding Course.
5.3.2. Viewing and Modifying Assignment Info
To view or edit assignment information:
1. Once you are on the Assignments page of the appropriate Course, click the Edit icon next to the Assignment you want to view or modify (the rightmost column of the list).
2. In the Edit Assignment Info form, find the necessary data and/or edit the fields you need to modify.
3. Click the Submit button to save changes.
5.3.3. Deleting Assignments
Once you are on the Assignments page, check the checkboxes next to the Assignments you want to delete.
Click the Delete button to remove the selected Assignments and related data from the course. NOTE: If you remove an Assignment from a Course, you will lose all the data related to this Assignment. Therefore, it is recommended to avoid deleting any Assignments except those Assignments that were created by mistake.
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5.4. Managing Paper Submissions
The recommended usage scenario for MyDropBox is to let students submit their own papers online (see the Student Manual for more information). However, instructors can submit individual papers from their instructor interfaces as well. To submit a paper, please go through the following steps:
1. Once you are on the Assignments page of the corresponding Course, click the Submit icon of the corresponding Assignment in the list of Assignments.
2. In the paper submission form, choose the student you want to submit a paper for, enter the title of the paper, choose the submission option and either click the Browse button to select the file for upload or copy and paste the test of the paper into the text area of the form (use the copy-pate method only if you cannot upload a file of a supported format).
3. Click the Preview button to preview the text of the paper before submitting it or click the Submit button to submit the paper without previewing.
IMPORTANT: MyDropBox supports the following types of uploaded files only: Microsoft Word Document (.doc), Rich Text Format (.rtf), Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (.pdf), HTML (.htm) and plain text (.txt) files. Files of all other types will not be processed.
All papers submitted to an Assignment in MyDropBox are listed on the Submissions page of the corresponding Assignment. To get to the Submissions page:
1. Click on the Courses tab in the main menu to will see the list of all your Courses.
2. In the list of the Courses, click on the name of the Course that you want to work with, and you will see the list of the Assignments registered in the selected Course.
3. In the list of the Assignments, click on the name of the Assignment you want to view.
Once you are on the Submissions page, you can see the student name, paper title and submission date for each paper listed.
To download the source file of a paper, click the Source icon corresponding to the paper.
To delete a paper or several papers:
Once you are on the Submissions page (see <Section 5.4.2> for info on how to get there), click the checkboxes next to the papers you want to delete.
Click the Delete button to remove selected papers from the system. Please note that the papers will be permanently deleted from the system. It is not recommended to delete any papers except the files that were uploaded by mistake, because MyDropBox needs to keep all papers in the Archive to be able compare them to the future submissions.
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In MyDropBox, instructors can maintain collections of Web accessible documents and content links, organized according to the structure of Courses and Assignments.
All operations with Course Materials are preformed from the Course Materials page. To open the Course Materials page, click the Course Materials tab in the Course menu.
All Course Materials added within a particular Course will instantly become available online to all students enrolled in that Course.
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6.2. Managing Course Materials
6.2.1. Uploading Course and Assignment Documents
To add a document related to a Course or an Assignment (e.g. a course syllabus or a description of a written assignment):
1. Open the Course Materials page.
2. In the menu on the left side of the Course Materials page, choose the Assignment you want to add a document to (e.g. when adding an assignment description or additional data) or click the General Materials to add a document related to the entire Course (e.g. the course syllabus).
3. Find the Add Document form below the Course Documents list, click the Browse button to select the file for upload, enter the title of the document into the Document Title field and click the Add button.
6.2.2. Adding Course and Assignment Links
To add a link related to a Course or an Assignment:
1. Open the Course Materials page.
2. In the menu on the left side of the Course Materials page, choose the Assignment you want to add a link to or click the General Materials to add a link related to the entire Course.
3. Find the Add Link form below the Course Documents list, enter the URL (Web address) and the title of the link into the corresponding fields and click the Add button.
6.2.3. Deleting Documents and Links
To delete documents or links:
1. Open your Course Materials page.
2. Use the Course Materials menu on the left side of the Course Materials page to get to the folder you want to delete documents and/or links from.
3. Check the checkboxes next to the documents or links you want to delete.
4. Click the Delete button.
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The MyDropBox Gradebook lets instructors manage student grades online. All Assignments created in MyDropBox automatically become available through the Gradebook. Instructors can also create additional custom Gradebook items for assessments done outside of MyDropBox (e.g. in-class Quizzes). Instructors can specify the weight for each Gradebook item to enable automatic final grade calculation.
To open the Gradebook, click the Gradebook tab in the Course menu, which becomes available when you select a Course to work with (see <Chapter 2.4> for more information on using MyDropBox menus). The View Spreadsheet section of the Gradebook will open, allowing you to see all course grades at a glance.
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The MyDropBox Gradebook uses a point grading scheme. Each Assignment and custom Gradebook item that you create in MyDropBox has a Highest Possible Grade property, which is basically the highest possible number of points that can be awarded for the assignment. After you grade each assignment by specifying the number of points between 0 and its Highest Possible Grade, the system will calculate Weighted Grades (percentage values) and symbol grades (e.g. C-, B, A+) using customizable ranges and display settings.
There are two ways to enter points into the Gradebook: you can enter your grades directly in the Gradebook, using the View by Item or View by Student pages described below, or you can grade papers while viewing the Originality Reports.
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7.3. Creating Gradebook Items
To create a Gradebook Item:
1. Click the Add Item link in the Gradebook menu (located right above the table on the Gradebook: Spreadsheet View page).
2. On the Add Gradebook Item page, enter the name, maximum point value and description (optional) of the new item.
3. Click the Submit button.
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7.4. Managing and Scaling Gradebook Items
To manage and/or scale Gradebook Items:
1. Click on the Manage Items link in the Gradebook menu (located right above the table on the Gradebook: Spreadsheet View page) to open the Gradebook Management page.
2. To scale your Gradebook items, edit the “Weight, %” fields of the corresponding items to adjust item weights in the total grade. The total of all weights must be equal to 100%. If you want to reset weights to the naturalized values, click the Reset Weights button at the bottom of the page.
3. To modify a Gradebook item, click the Edit link corresponding to the proper item. If the selected item is a MyDropBox Assignment, you will be forwarded to the Edit Assignment page. Otherwise, the Edit Gradebook Item page will open.
4. Edit the necessary fields and click the Submit button to save changes.
5. To delete a Gradebook item or several items, check the checkboxes next to the item(s) you want to remove and click the Delete button.
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7.5. Managing Gradebook Preferences
The Gradebook Preferences form allows defining the format (letter, point scale, percentage) for displaying grades and customizing the percentage ranges for letter grades.
To set up the Gradebook Preferences, click the Prefs link in the Gradebook menu and edit the necessary fields. When you are done, click the Submit button to save changes.
NOTE: When modifying percentage borders, please make sure that the specified ranges account for all possible percentage values (i.e. there are no “gaps” that do not belong to any letter grade).
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There are three different views of the Gradebook. Each of them is described below.
Spreadsheet is the initial (default) Gradebook view. It presents all the course grades visible at a glance. Instructors can quickly switch to this view by clicking the Gradebook tab in the Course Menu or by clicking the View link in the Gradebook Menu.
Clicking on the title of any Gradebook Item in the spreadsheet will open the View by Item page. The View by Item page displays the list of all students enrolled in the corresponding Course and their grades for the selected Gradebook Item. You can also add/edit grades and grade comments in this view.
Clicking on any student name in the spreadsheet will open the View by Student page. The View by Student page displays the list of all grades of the selected student.
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To submit or modify grades from within the Gradebook:
1. Open either View by Student or View by Item page.
2. Enter point grades in the corresponding fields.
3. Click the Submit button.
NOTE: Please make sure you click the Submit button to save any changes that you made to the Gradebook before you leave the Gradebook section.
To comment on grades:
1. Click on the Comment icon next to the corresponding grade.
2. In the Comment on Grade form, enter your comments into the Comment field and click the Submit button.
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7.8. Exporting and Importing Gradebook
You can upload and download Gradebook data to transfer it between the Gradebook and different applications.
To export your Gradebook data:
1. Click on the Export/Import link in the Gradebook Menu.
2. Click the Download button.
3. Choose the Save option in the Download pop-up window and specify the location where you want the file to be saved.
4. Open the file with any application that supports the CVS (Comma Separated Values) format (e.g. MS Excel).
To import data into your Gradebook:
1. Save the data into a CVS (Comma Separated Values) format file.
2. Click the Browse button in the Import section of the Import/Export page.
3. Browse for the CSV file on your local hard disk and click the Upload button.
NOTE: Prior to importing grades into the Gradebook, it is recommended that you first export (download) the Gradebook, open the exported data, modify it, and then import the modified file. This measure will prevent corruption of the Gradebook data. Also, please keep in mind that students cannot be added via the grade importing procedure. Students must be added to your course through the standard enrollment procedure using Join Codes.
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Repository helps instructors to organize and store their reusable data. In the basic MyDropBox package, there’s a single Repository section that stores Assignment Templates.
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9.2. Assignment Templates
The repository of Assignment Templates is designed to save time on creating new Assignments. Instructors can create Assignment Templates and then export them into Courses as many times as needed. Assignment Templates can be organized in sets. Instructors teaching the same courses each semester/year can create and reuse assignment template sets for setting up typical courses quickly.
To open the Assignment Templates page, click the Repository tab in the main menu.
9.2.1. Creating Assignment Sets
To start working with the Repository, you have to create at least one Assignment Set.
To create an Assignment Set, enter the name of the new set into the field labeled “New Assignment Set:” and click the Add button located next to the field.
The new set will be added to the list of available sets. You can switch between different sets using the dropdown list filter located in the upper right part of the Assignment Templates page. You can view templates from all sets on one page by selecting the “All” option in the dropdown list.
9.2.2. Creating Assignment Templates
To create an Assignment Template:
1. Make sure you have at least one Assignment Set created.
2. In the View Set dropdown list, select the Assignment Set that you want to add a new Assignment Template to.
3. Click the “Add Template” link located in the upper left area of the Assignment Templates page
4. Fill in the Add Template form.
5. Click the Submit button.
9.2.3. Modifying Assignment Templates
To modify an Assignment Template:
Choose the necessary Assignment Set using the View Set dropdown list located in the upper right part of the Assignment Templates page.
Click the Edit icon corresponding to the Assignment Template you want to modify.
Edit the necessary fields of the Edit Template form.
Click the Submit button to save changes
9.2.4. Deleting Assignment Templates and Sets
To delete a template or several templates:
1. In the View Set dropdown list, choose the set you want to delete Assignment Templates from, or choose “All” to view all templates.
2. Check the checkboxes next to the Assignment Templates you want to delete.
3. Click the Delete button.
To remove an Assignment Set, just delete all the Assignment Templates it contains. You will be asked whether you want to remove the set itself.
9.2.5. Exporting Assignment Templates
To export a template or several templates to a Course or to several Courses:
1. In the View Set dropdown list, choose the set you want to delete Assignment Templates from, or choose “All” to view all templates.
2. Check the checkboxes next to the Assignment Templates you want to export.
3. Click the Export button.
4 On the following page, choose the Course(s) you want to export the Assignments to using the dropdown list on the top of the form. To select multiple Courses, use the Control and/or Shift keys while selecting the necessary Courses.
5. Specify start and due dates for the Assignments you are exporting.
6. Click the Submit button to finish.
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The MyDropBox Announcements system provides instructors and other MyDropBox users with an effective communication channel. Instructors can create Announcements for the students in their Courses and read Announcements created by Administrators.
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10.2. Creating Announcements
To create an Announcement:
1. Click the Announcements tab in the main menu 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 Course that the Announcement is addressed to (in the “Visible to:” dropdown list);
- b. The title of the Announcement;
- c. Start and End dates, specifying the period of time when the Announcement should be displayed;
- d. The text of the Announcement.
4.Click the Submit button.
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10.3. 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), institution-wide and/or course-wide.
Clicking on a highlighted date in the calendar will open a page listing all events (announcements and assignment dates) 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 the Announcements for selected period.
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