Let's add beta testers to the current section on Testing Your Course. The first step is viewing live (already covered), but the real testing of your course is done by going through it as a student, doing the work, and making sure everything works as it should.
Beta testers get early access to the course and can go through the course ahead of time to make sure everything works as it should before it goes live. Beta testing catches issues, bugs, or errors before students in the world-wide course do. It's very valuable and highly recommended for all courses.
Note that beta testers see the entire course as students would see it, only earlier. All of the content that is set to public will be visible. Anything still in draft or set to private will NOT be visible to beta testers.
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Select the beta testers
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Ideal beta testers are 1) at least one person who knows the content well enough to recognize something wrong or missing and 2) at least one person someone less familiar with the content to be able to notice something that's not clear. Both should have a list of all correct answers for all problems.
* Beta Testers can view the course before the Course Start Date.
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Add the beta testers
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Only course staff can add beta testers.
Basic outline for setting up beta testers:
1. In advanced settings, set days_early to the number of days before launch you would like the course to be accessible to beta testers.
2. To enroll beta testers in the course, they must first be registered for the course. There are a couple of options, depending on whether they've registered.
a) Not registered? Not sure? Manually enroll usernames or emails from the instructor dashboard (enrollment) and check send link, then go to (manage groups) and add beta testers using same usernames or emails.
b) Already registered for the course? Just add a beta tester (instructor dashboard > manage groups) with the same username or email associated with their edX account.
While still in manage groups, verify your beta testers by clicking List Beta Testers.
NOTE: Course staff as beta testers must add themselves as beta testers using a different username or email than the one associated with their course staff role. When beta testing, log in using the beta tester account.
3) Once a beta tester is registered for the course and added as a beta tester, they will see the course on their dashboard and the Access Courseware button will appear.
4) Go to course and start testing!
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What to Test
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Test everything in the course:
all links, watch all videos, click video/transcript download links, and do all problems. Make sure everything works as it should, that the correct answer for assignments gets a green check for correct, and non-correct answers (anything other than the correct answer) gets a red X for incorrect.
Log any issues, changes, errors, or questions for the course team.
After you create a course, you can access information about it from the Instructor Dashboard.
After you create a course, you can access information about it from the Instructor Dashboard. You can find:
* Identifying information for the course.
* Whether the course has started or ended.
* The defined grade cutoff for passing or failing.
To view course data:
...
...
@@ -13,6 +19,9 @@ To view course data:
#. Click **Instructor** then **Try New Beta Dashboard**.
#. Click **Course Info** if necessary.
The page that displays shows the number of students who are currently enrolled, which includes all of the staff members you have defined for the course. It also lists identifying information for the course, indicates whether it has started or ended, and the the defined cutoff for a passing grade.
You also use the Instructor Dashboard to set up the staff for your course, enroll and get information about students, and initiate and review grading.
The Basic Course Information section of the page that opens lists information for the course.
.. You also use the Instructor Dashboard to set up the staff for your course, enroll students and access student data, and initiate, review, and adjust grades.
**Question**: I initially thought that there was enough information available about the course as a whole to make this into a longer chapter. Am I missing features or tasks that instructors use to get information about a course? It doesn't have to be something accessible on the instructor dashboard, but just info that might be useful while a course is running...
Course authors and instructors can enroll students in a course, see how many people are enrolled, and, when necessary, unenroll students.
Students can enroll themselves in a course during its defined enrollment period. For a ``www.edx.org`` course, enrollment is publicly available to anyone who registers an edX account. For other courses, such as those on ``edge.edx.org``, enrollment is limited to the students that you explicitly enroll and the students to whom you give the course URL.
* :ref:`registration_enrollment`
* :ref:`enroll_student`
* :ref:`view_enrollment_count`
* :ref:`unenroll_student`
.. _registration_enrollment:
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Registration and Enrollment
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Before a student can be enrolled in a course, he or she must:
#. Register a user account, which includes supplying a valid email address, on ``www.edx.org``, ``edge.edx.org``, or your implementation of the edX platform.
#. Activate the registered account by following the emailed instructions.
Students can then enroll themselves in edx.org courses, or can enroll in other courses if they know the URL. For a more detailed description of this process from a student's point of view, see :doc:`appendices/c`.
Course authors and instructors can enroll students in a course either before or after the students register their user accounts.
To work on a course, all course staff members must also be registered and enrolled.
.. _enroll_student:
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Enroll Students in a Course
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You enroll students, and other course staff members, in your course by supplying their email addresses. After the **Enrollment End Date** for a course students can no longer enroll themselves; however, you can still explicitly enroll students.
When you enroll students, you have options to:
* **Auto Enroll**. Enrolls any student who already has a registered user account in the course immediately. Students who are not registered are enrolled as soon as they register and activate a user account for the same email address. As a result, students do not need to complete the explicit course enrollment step.
* **Notify students by email**. The email message includes the name of the course, a link to the registration page, and a reminder to use the same email address to register that you supplied for the student. Whether you choose to send a notification or not, enrolled students see your course on their dashboard when they log in.
An example of the email message that students receive when you select this option follows.
.. image:: Images/Course_Enrollment_Email.png
:alt: Email message inviting a student to enroll in the EdX 101 course
To enroll students or staff members:
#. View the live version of your course.
#. Click **Instructor** then **Try New Beta Dashboard**.
#. Click **Membership**.
#. In the Batch Enrollment section of the page, enter an email address or multiple addresses separated by commas or line feeds.
You can copy and paste data from a CSV file of email addresses. However, note that this feature is better suited to courses with smaller enrollments, rather than courses with massive enrollments.
5. Optionally, select **Auto Enroll** to streamline the course enrollment process for the students.
#. Optionally, select **Notify students by email** to send students email.
#. Click **Enroll**.
.. _view_enrollment_count:
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View an Enrollment Count
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After you create a course, you can access the total number of people who are enrolled in it. When you view an enrollment count, note that:
* In addition to students, the enrollment count includes the course author, course team members, instructors, and course staff. (In order to work with a course in Studio or the LMS, you must be enrolled in it.)
* Students can unenroll from courses, and course authors and instructors can unenroll students when necessary.
**Note**: The enrollment count displays the number of currently enrolled students and course team staff. It is not a historical count of everyone who has ever enrolled in the course.
To view the enrollment count for a course:
#. View the live version of your course.
#. Click **Instructor** then **Try New Beta Dashboard**.
#. Click **Course Info** if necessary.
The Enrollment Information section of the page that opens shows the total number of people who are currently enrolled.
You can also view or download a list of the people who are enrolled in the course. See :ref:`Student Data`.
.. _unenroll_student:
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Unenroll students from a course
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You can remove students from a course by unenrolling them. To prevent students from re-enrolling, course enrollment must also be closed. You use Studio to set the **Enrollment End Date** for the course to a date in the past. See :ref:`Set Important Dates for Your Course`.
To unenroll students, you supply the email addresses of enrolled students.
**Note**: Unenrollment does not delete data for a student. An unenrolled student's state remains in the database and is reinstated if the student does re-enroll.
#. View the live version of your course.
#. Click **Membership**.
#. In the Batch Enrollment section of the page, enter an email address or multiple addresses separated by commas or line feeds.
#. Click **Unenroll**. The course is no longer listed on the students' dashboards, and the students can no longer contribute to discussions or the wiki or access the courseware.
You can designate a team of people to help you run your course. Two roles are available to give your team members access to different options for working with students, grades, and other course staff.
* Staff members
*
* Instructors
*
.. **Question**: how does this team, set up on the Instructor Dashboard, differ from the "Course Team Members" that you add in Studio (Settings > Course Team)?
You can also designate people to help you beta test a course and to moderate and manage discussions. Beta testers and discussion administrators must be enrolled in your course, but you do not need to give them a staff role. For more information, see :ref:`Assigning_discussion_roles`.
.. insert ":ref:`Beta_Testing` and " above after "see"
You can also designate a team of people to help you moderate discussions. For more information, see :ref:``.
You use these roles to define the team that helps you run your course. To help you develop a course in Studio, you set up a team in Studio. For more information, see :ref:`Add Course Team Members`.
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Staff roles
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To provide access to features on the LMS Instructor Dashboard you assign the Course Staff role or the Instructor role.
**Course Staff** can:
* View the course before the Course Start Date.
* Course Staff . Discussion responses and comments made by course staff are marked as "Staff".
* Enroll and unenroll students.
* Instructors
* Access student grades.
* Beta Testers
* Reset student attempts to answer a question correctly.
* See course HTML errors.
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**Instructors** have access to all of the same options for running the course as the course staff. They can also:
* Add and remove course staff.
* Add and remove other instructors.
* Add and remove beta testers.
* Add and remove discussion forum admins, moderators, and community TAs.
.. 12 Feb 14 Sarina: This all sounds right but there are other tasks (rescoring, etc) not mentioned. Probably worth nailing down what tasks can and cannot be done by a course staff.
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Assign staff roles
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Before you can assign the course staff or instructor role to a team member:
* You need the email address of each team member.
* Each team member must register a user account for that email address and enroll in your course.
To :
To assign a staff role:
#. View the live version of your course.
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@@ -38,4 +66,10 @@ To :
#. Click **Membership**.
#. In the Administration List Management section, select
\ No newline at end of file
#. In the Administration List Management section, use the drop-down list to select **Course Staff** or **Instructors**.
#. Under the list of users who currently have that role, enter an email address and click **Add** for the role type.
To remove an assigned role, view the list of users and then click revoke access (the **X**) next to that email address.
