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One of the strengths of SmartSite is its expanding and diverse tool set. But when you are getting started, this can be a bit overwhelming. The tools you use will depend on tangibles things such as class size, course format and subject as well as intangibles like your teaching style and comfort with technology. We recommend picking one or two reasons for using a site and starting with the default tool set. You can always add or subtract tools as they are needed. Sites are scalable; so establishing how sophisticated or simple your site will be is a matter of assessing your course's particular needs.
The Announcements tool is used to inform site participants about current items of interest. Announcements can have multiple attachments, such as documents or URLs.
For the most current list of SmartSite courses, the Assignments tool allows instructors to create, distribute, collect, and grade online assignments. Assignments are private; student submissions are not visible to other users of the site.
The Assignments tool offers multiple grading options, including letter grades, points, checkmarks, pass/fail, or ungraded.
Assignments can also be returned, with or without grades, for re-submission. Instructors can download all submissions to an assignment to their computer at once. When instructors release grades for an assignment, students can access instructor comments and their grades.
You can use the Chat Room tool for real-time, unstructured conversations among site participants who are signed on to the site at the same time.
Instructors can easily create an "Online Office Hours" chat room for student questions and answers. Dispersed collaboration groups can use Chat as a space to have conversations across distances or catch up with conversations that they may have missed.
Each site has an automatically generated site email address, which you can view in the Email Archive feature. Email sent to the site email address is copied to all site participants and owners.
All messages sent to your site's email address are stored in the Email Archive. Each message sent to site participants will indicate if there is an attachment, and provide a link to get the attachment from the worksite itself.
Forums is a communication tool that instructors or site leaders can use to create an unlimited number of discussion forums for their course or project sites. Forums is designed to be an effective tool for both academic and collaborative work, and is integrated closely with other tools (e.g., Resources and Gradebook).
The Gradebook is a tool for instructors to calculate and store grade information and distribute it to students online. Instructors may:
- Autocalculate course grades, with the ability to override any letter grade
- Define course letter grades based on a 100% scale
- Add, view, edit, and release point values of assignments and/or assessments to students
- Enter, view, edit, and release to students scores, grades, and comments
- Transmit scores to the Gradebook from other tools such as Assignments to create an entry and record student scores
- Export class rosters, scores and grades to Microsoft Excel (in .xls or .csv format)
- Import assignment scores from spreadsheet (.csv) files
- Let students view their own scores and grades once instructors have released them
- Submit final grades to the registrar
Mailtool allows user to send a message to the site particpants. It provides wysiwyg editing, file attachment, the ability to select recipients by group or class section
The Site Info tool provides information about the worksite that you are currently in. If you have a role that allows it, you can use this tool to :
- Change information about the site
- Select the tools available in the site
- Display a participants list
- Decide who has access to the site
- Publish a course site after its been developed
- Alter your site's appearance and description
For a complete list of SmartSites course tools, please visit smartsite.ucdavis.edu
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How do I create a SmartSite... Quickly?
If you are an instructor of record and would like to create standard course site, please take the following steps:
- Login at smartsite.ucdavis.edu
- Click "WorkSite Setup" in the menu under "MyWorkspace"
- Create a site by clicking "New"
- Select a course and the sections to be included in your site
- Click "Continue" after:
- Viewing your course's default tool set
- Entering a unique course email address
- Viewing the default "Site Status" page
- Click the Click "Create Site" button
How do I add TA's to my course site?
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