Overview
During the 07-08 transition year, the project needs a brochure to provide a first point of contact for instructors who are new to SmartSite.
Audience
Instructors who are not familiar with SmartSite.
Goal
Increase the number of course sites throughout 2007-08
Distribution Points
- New Faculty Orientation
- Mediaworks
- TRC
- Training Sessions
- Departmental Presentations
- Faculty Mentoring Faculty Meetings
- More Thoughtful Teaching Events
- ET Partners
- IT Express
Copy
Cover
Is your course in a class of its own?
Simplify your workload.
Create a SmartSite to meet your unique teaching, research and collaboration needs.
SmartSite can help:
- Reduce paper work
- Share class materials
- Collect and grade assignments
- Communicate with students
- Organize lectures
- And more!
smartsite.ucdavis.edu
Pages 2&3
What is SmartSite?
SmartSite is a sophisticated set of web-tools designed for higher education. It is also UC Davis' new course management and collaboration system powered by Sakai, a software development effort that brings together one hundred plus educational institutions.
Like Mozilla's Firefox web browser, SmartSite is part of an open-source community dedicated to the success of a particular piece of software. This sense of community and collaboration allows UC Davis to participate in the development of useful tools that will help meet the rapidly changing technological needs of academic institutions worldwide.
How are other instructors using SmartSite?
Faculty Profiles (Photo and Quotes on INE Pubs):
Roger MacDonald
Kristina de Korsak
Susan Keen
Milmon Harrison (Need to get Photo/Quote; use place holder if needed)
Pages 4-7
Why should I use SmartSite?
SmartSite can help simplify your workload by providing useful web-tools for your unique teaching, research and collaboration needs.
And for MyUCDavis users (UC Davis' legacy course management system), another, more practical reason to begin using SmartSite is that the campus retire MyUCDavis' course tools in 2008-09. But don't worry! Only MyUCDavis' course tools will be retired, not the portal itself. Also, your legacy content will be accessible past the shutdown date, but the ability to use the tools will not. We encourage all instructors to export it their content from MyUCDavis and import it into SmartSite using a few easy, well-documented steps. Please email smartsite-help@ucdavis.edu for more information.
Which tools are right for me?
One of the strengths of SmartSite is the variety of tools available to instructors. But, this can also be a bit overwhelming when first getting started.
The tools you use will depend on tangibles such as class size, format and course subject as well as intangibles like your teaching style and comfort with technology.
Sites are scalable; so establishing how sophisticated or simple your site will be is a matter of assessing your particular needs. Picking one or two reasons for using a site and then finding a set of tools to match is highly recommended.
Some general reasons for using SmartSite include:
- Communicating with students, TAs and colleagues
- Use Chat during your office hours to answer students' questions online or to stay in contact with your TAs when they are grading papers
- Use the Mail Tool to send notes to groups of students or members of your research group.
- Encouraging collaboration and communication among students
- Create a wiki with your courses' key terms and concepts and have students collectively create a detailed definition
- Promoting independent and self-paced learning
- Assessment, evaluation and feedback
- Collecting, grading and returning assignments
- Sharing resources with students, TAs and colleagues
- Automating processes and reducing paperwork
- Sharing and organizing classroom presentations
For instance, if you'd like to distribute your course materials electronically and improve communication with students, try using the Resource tool to store and share your materials and the Chat tool to talk with students during your office hours.
Resources
Assignments
Mail Tool
Chat
Site Info
How do I create a SmartSite?
Please visit smartsite.ucdavis.edu to learn how to create your sites.
Where do I get help?
Is there training available?
What about one-on-one or drop-in support?
What about my class material on MyUCDavis?