Navigating the Courseware course dashboard

This article is for instructors who want to know where to find key features and how to modify details and settings in their Courseware course. Once you've created your course, you can edit various settings and content by adding assignments, accessing the calendar, inviting participants, adding a course logo, and even sharing your course with others!

Assignments

In the Assignments tab, you can:

1. Create new assignments that will feed into the Gradebook.
2. Bulk edit assignments to change their due dates and release dates, and publish or unpublish many assignments at once.
3. Create folders and reorder folders and assignments to organize your course.
4. Copy whole folders of assignments. Using the dropdown menu on the right, select copy folder, and then select which course to copy the folder into.

Calendar

In the Calendar tab, you can:

1. View the due dates of all published and draft assignments.
2. Search through assignment names and descriptions.
3. Edit/delete published and draft assignments.
4. Publish your draft assignments.
5. Choose whether to show draft assignments using the toggle in the upper right corner.

Manage Class Roster

In the Manage Class Roster tab, you can:

1. View the name and email of all currently enrolled students in the "Active Students", or dropped or transferred students in the "Inactive Students" tabs.
2. Add timed quiz accommodations for individual students.
3. Drop active students from the course and move their entry into the "Inactive Students" tab. 
4. View the date the student was dropped from a class.
5. Transfer students to other courses in which the professor is enrolled by selecting the student's new course in the dropdown menu. You’ll still see a record of the students you transferred in the "Inactive Students" tab.
6. Re-add previously dropped students.

In the Invite People tab, you can find a link to invite new students or other course contributors to join your course. 

Gradebook

In the Gradebook tab, you can:

1. See your students' grades, including any dropped or transferred students in the "Inactive Students" tab.
2. Modify student grades.
3. Give individual students extensions and additional quiz attempts.

Course Resources and Announcements

In the Course Resources tab, you can:

1. Upload resources, such as a syllabus that your students can reference throughout the semester.
2. You can upload PowerPoints, PDFs, Word and .txt files, and Excel files. The maximum file size is 100 MB.
3. Unlike uploading a file assignment, these won't expire!

In the Announcements tab, you can:

1. Set extra reminders for your students to know when their exams will be, or that some new assignments have been posted and are ready for them to complete.
2. A red badge will alert students in the tab:
   
3. You can select a box to send an email notification of the announcement, too.

Add a Logo

You can add your school's logo to your course. It will appear in the top left corner of your course below the Visible Body logo and on the loading screen when you and your students launch quizzes.

For best results, be sure that the logo is on a transparent background. It must be smaller than 4096x4096 pixels and less than 10 megabytes. Your image can be a jpg, jpeg, png, gif, tiff, or bmp.

For a new course:

1. Go to your My Courses page.
2. Select the "Create Course" button in the top right corner.
3. When you reach step four, add a logo.

For an existing course:

1. Go to your My Courses page.
2. Select the arrow on the right side of the page for the course you want to edit.
3. In the dropdown, select "Edit Course Info."
4. In the pop-up, upload your logo image where it says "Course logo" by selecting an image from your computer.
5. Select "Save."

Copy or Share your Course

1. Go to your My Courses page.
2. Select the arrow on the right side of the page for the course you want to copy or share.
3. To copy your course: in the dropdown, choose "Make a copy" to create a new copy of your course. Then, you can customize it for multiple course sections or use an old course again next semester.
4. To share your course with somebody else: in the dropdown, choose "Send a copy" and copy the link in the pop-up. You can send this link to other instructors in your institution, so they can customize it for their own courses.
   Note: If you are a Courseware: Biology Content account user, you cannot receive or open a shared Courseware: All Content course. Instead, you will see an error message. Read here for more information about available Courseware products. 

Where do I edit my Course Settings?

You can edit course settings when a new course is created. Don’t forget to change these settings if needed when you copy a course for next semester!

1. Log in to your Courseware account at courseware.visiblebody.com
2. Select the dropdown arrow on the far right of the course you wish to update. From the dropdown menu, select “Edit Course Info”. The Edit Course Info screen will appear:
   
3. Update the Course Name, Time Zone, Start Date, Course ID (optional), and Course Logo (steps for adding a course logo are here). Be sure to select “Save” before leaving this screen. Note: "Student Purchase options" settings only apply if your students have Courseware access via a student-paid adoption. If your institution has purchased access with bulk codes or a site license, skip this step.
4. From here, select your course on the My Courses page.
5. Use the left-hand menu to manage your course, class roster, student grades, and other course resources.

Now that you know how to manage your course, learn about what else you can do to prepare for next semester using Courseware:

Set up Courseware and Invite Students

Create and Edit Courseware Assignments

Everything about Quizzes and Quiz Questions