CSTL Home

Advanced Features of OIS Manager and SharePoint Designer
Thursday, May 21, 2009 from 08:30 AM to 12:00 PM (KL 311).

Description: This workshop will teach current users of SharePoint Designer and OIS Manager some of the more advanced, time-saving features of these applications. Participants will learn how to create and manage student groups, automatically block and release documents, import/export rosters, personalize OIS screens, speed up email tasks, use CSS to modify OIS pages, write web pages for all browsers, back up class folders, use Dynamic Web Templates to apply layouts to all pages, and more. Participants must be existing users of OIS Manager and SharePoint Designer.

Rodgers
Vieira

Manager

  1. Archiving and Reusing an OIS Class

    OIS Manager allows instructors to create a "snapshot" of a class with a few clicks of the mouse.  The archive file contains all the configuration information and student data up to that point.  Class archives can be exported to a file to be burned on a CD for long-term archival.

    At the end of the semester, it's recommended that instructors create a final archive of their classes before removing student information in order to reuse the folder.  This process is described in the "Archiving and Reusing OIS Classes" manual.


  2. Manager email

    1. Email templates - "Spam" your students!

    2. Attachments and OIS - how about the DropBox or a hyperlink instead?

    3. Signature - a template appended to a template, in a way


  3. Protecting files and folders

    Files and folders must be on the "protected" subfolder.  They can be "released" and "locked" at any given time automatically.  This feature is described on page 14 of the "OIS Manager Advanced" manual.


  4. Class and Login template files

    This feature is implemented as a collaboration between SPD and OIS: You will create and save a file in SPD, but refer to the file in OIS Manager.

  5. Importing and exporting rosters
    Look at synchronization:

    OIS Class Properties Sample Page
    "Synchronized" means that the roster is updated by the mainframe. As students add or drop the course, their status in the OIS class changes accordingly. Classes in the online server (http://online.semo.edu/YearSemester/ClassCode) and the courses server (http://courses.semo.edu/YearSemester/ClassCode) ALWAYS synchronize, and thus will have the checkbox grayed out, but courses in the "cstl-AAA server" will allow the user to select synchronization.

     
                Add student(s)  (import and export students)

    You can import your own roster. Be careful, though: because the class is synchronized, the mainframe may duplicate students that you imported.

     Choosing columns

    Synchronized rosters include numerous fields, not all of which may be of interest to you. You can clean up the display by choosing columns.

  6. Creating and managing student groups

    Student accounts can be placed into groups in Manager.  Groups can be used to limit access to resources such as tests, discussions and drop boxes.  Instructors can also create different gradebooks for different groups (for example, when classes have both grad and undergrad students who must be graded in different ways).

SharePoint Designer

  1. Dynamic Web Templates


       Dynamic Web Templates allow you to develop and modify your own templates for a group of Web pages. This is a great way to ensure that all pages on your Website has the same look and feel.
      Example from UI443

      Task: Click to get an activity based on DWT

  2. Forms

    1. HTML Forms/FrontPage Server Extensions

      Simple HTML forms can be created using SharePoint Designer by dragging form components from the "Toolbox" into the page.  Make sure a submit button exists, and that it submits to the FrontPage Server Extensions to either write the results to a file or email the form.

    2. OIS Form Server

      A convenient way to avoid asking the same questions over and over again (name? email?) is to use the OIS Form Server to collect data.  Since it's integrated with OIS, the form automatically inserts the information about the logged on student into the results.  You can also send the results to DropBox to grade.  This "How To Document" from the CSTL Faculty Support pages has examples of how to use the form server.  OIS Form Server pages must be saved within the "protected" folder.


  3. CSS

    1. CSS Primer

    2. Using CSS to modify OIS pages

      Suggestions from Floyd Lockhart:

      In the oistemplate.htm (or whichever file you are using for the class template), edit the CSS source line.

      IE, instead of:
      <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="CSS/BaseCSSofThisPage.css">
      do
      <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://online.semo.edu/2009spring/ch180/CSS/BaseCSSofThisPage.css">

      OR!

      In that file, embed the CSS into that particular file.

    3. CSS/Browser Compatibility Report


  4. Using HTTPS to Access Your Files

    When you access the CSTL servers via SharePoint Designer from your office, the traffic between your machine and the servers is somewhat contained within a secure network segment.  That means it cannot be easily intercepted or eavesdropped.  However, the same is not true when accessing from a hotel network or even from home.  To avoid giving away the credentials to your web site, you should always use the HTTPS protocol when accessing your pages from outside the campus.  All it takes is to replace the http:// prefix of the URL with https:// .