Faculty Access for the Web (Faculty Portal) Quick Guide

Faculty Access for the Web (Faculty Portal) Quick Guide Introduction FAWeb is a web based program and works best with a Mozilla Firefox browser. (This browser can be downloaded free from the internet. Google the term Firefox, select Firefox browser and download.) How to Log In Open a web browser and navigate to the Faculty Access for the Web link located on the Columbia website under Academics or on the online access tab. Enter your user name (First Last) and password and click Login. Please contact the Registrar s Office if you don t have this information. How to Log Out To end your session, on the navigation bar, click Exit. Do not close your web browser before you click Exit. When you close the web browser, it does not end your session automatically. Faculty Portal Guide Version: January 5, 2013 1

How to Navigate the Home Page When you log on to Faculty Access for the Web, the home page appears. Use the navigation bar at the top of the page to go to the different areas of the program. On the left side of the page, you can see your Announcements, Alerts, Recently accessed student records, and Resources. My Classes Settings When you work in Faculty Access for the Web, click on Settings to set the academic year and session for which you want to enter grades. Class List On your home page, you see the all the classes for the academic year and session you selected in Settings. From this class list, under the Attendance column, you can quickly select all students as present for today s date or open the class attendance to mark students as absent or tardy. Under the Gradebook column, you can open a class gradebook or if needed, set up your gradebook. Under the grade average column, you see the current marking column grade average for the class. Based on the classes listed, if alerts exist for unacceptable student performance or grades not marked ready to post for the registrar, an Alerts section appears below your class list. Other Tasks The Other tasks section is your way to easily access tasks you need to complete frequently such as class announcements. Faculty Portal Guide Version: January 5, 2013 2

How to Use the Navigation Bar Your navigation bar is your main resource for quickly accessing the different sections of Faculty Access for the Web. If a section name contains an arrow, hover over the name to view quick access options. Home Navigate to the Home page to see an overview of your classes and alerts. You can also quickly access important tasks, reports, announcements, and alerts. Gradebook Under Gradebook, you set up your assignments, shared documents, and more. After you set up your gradebook, you enter grades, and comments for classes. You can also use the View NetClassroom option to see the student s view of their assignments, daily grades, and comments. Attendance Under Attendance, you can enter attendance by grid or by a seating chart. You can also edit seating charts for your classes. Reports Under Reports, you can run a Progress report, Missing Assignments report, or a Performance Comparison report. Email Under Email, you can send and review emails sent. You can also see an analysis of email recipients and undeliverable emails. Students Navigate to Students to search for specific students in your classes or in your program. Options Under Options, you set your spell check settings as well as general options such as, whether to show the left navigation bar how to will display student s names. You can also change your password here. Help Navigate to Help to view the help file for Faculty Access for the Web. The help file contains information about all the procedures and screens in the program. Also under Help, you can access training videos, frequently asked questions, and a Knowledgebase search. Faculty Portal Guide Version: January 5, 2013 3

How to Use Attendance We expect all Columbia instructors to track student attendance regularly. When you have taken attendance change Attendance Taken field to Yes. If student is present, leave column blank. If the student is absent or tardy mark the field with the appropriate code. You can choose one of four codes: 1. Absent (ABS) The registrar s office will notify a student who has received three and five unexcused absences. They will be withdrawn after missing eight classes. 2. Tardy (TARDY) three tardy marks equals one absence. 3. Excused absence (ABS-EXC) instructors can determine whether an absence is excused or not, but a student is only allowed two excused absences in a course. 4. Auditor is absent (ABS-AUDIT) Please mark auditors with ABS-AUDIT rather than ABS. The attendance record of auditors will determine the grade that they will receive for the class. Give auditors who have less than eight absences an AU or AUDIT as their final grade. Give auditors who missed eight or more classes a W AU (withdrawal from an audit) as their final grade. Note: If you teach a three hour block class you will need to take attendance twice as one absence is actually equal to two absences in a regularly scheduled class. Class cancelation: If your class is cancelled simply leave the Attendance Taken field as No. In Faculty Access for the Web, you can enter your attendance in a grid or with a seating chart. You access attendance on the navigation bar or on your home page. On the home page, for each class, you can quickly select all students as present or open the attendance for that class. From the navigation bar, you can set up your seating charts, enter attendance in a grid, and enter attendance with a seating chart. Faculty Portal Guide Version: January 5, 2013 4

Enter Attendance in a Grid 1. From the navigation bar, under Attendance, select Enter attendance using grid. The Attendance page appears. 2. Select the class to enter attendance. 3. In the Show field, you can filter the dates that appear. 4. To see a printable version of your attendance, click Print. To print this printer-friendly page, from the web browser menu, select File, Print. 5. To enter attendance information for a student, click the student s cell and select an attendance code. 6. After you enter attendance, to see a view of student attendance by attendance code, click Summary. 7. To enter more information about the attendance entry, click the student s cell, and then above the grid, click Details. 8. You can edit the attendance code and enter comments. Click OK to return to the attendance grid. 9. After you enter attendance information, click Save. Set Up Your Seating Charts Before you enter attendance with a seating chart, you need to set up your seating charts. From the navigation bar, under Attendance, select Edit seating charts. Faculty Portal Guide Version: January 5, 2013 5

To seat students in the chart, you can either drag and drop the students into a spot or you can click Add student in the chart cell to select the student from a dropdown list. The seat assignments automatically save as you make changes. To remove a student from a seat assignment, drag the student from the seat and drop to the Remove student from seat button. To clear all student seat assignments, click Clear all Enter Attendance with a Seating Chart If you like to visually take attendance based on who is present in his or her seat, use the seating chart to take attendance. From the navigation bar, under Attendance, select Enter attendance using seating chart. The Attendance entry using seating charts page appears. Select the term, class, and date to enter attendance. Faculty Portal Guide Version: January 5, 2013 6

For each student necessary, click the Present button to change the attendance status to the correct attendance code. For example, you change Brian s attendance from Present to Absent because he is out sick. In the seating chart, if you click the student s name, you can view student information such as biographical and class schedule information. Once you complete attendance, in the Taken? field, click Yes. Pictorial Directory Even if you do not use a seating chart for attendance, you can use this option to create a pictorial directory of your class. Simply drop your students into spots alphabetically. To view a printer-friendly version of the seating chart, click Print. The seating chart opens in a new window. To print your seating chart, from the web browser menu, click File, Print. For best results put five students in each row and click Print. Then from the web browser menu, click File, Print Preview. Select Landscape, set scale to 175% and press Print. How to Email Students You can email students in two ways A simply click on student s name will open a window with student info. A click on the student email address will open an email message in outlook. The Email Tab allows you to send bulk emails to classes or groups of students. o Select Academic Year (during the semester this will default to the current semester) o Select either students or advisees o If select students, then you would also need to select the particular class o You can send an e-mail to all students or just to individuals o Hit compose o Put your e-mail address in where it says From o When message is ready hit submit and then confirm o A record is kept of e-mail sent. i. Hard bounce the e-mail address for that student is incorrect (let the Academic Executive Assistant know the name of the student so that a new e-mail address can be obtained). ii. Soft bounce the student s inbox is full or there was a problem delivering. How to Enter Grades All Columbia instructors are expected to enter a Midterm and a Final grade for their students. 1. On the navigation bar, under Gradebook, click Enter grades by class. 2. Select the Midterm or Final marking column Faculty Portal Guide Version: January 5, 2013 7

3. Record the letter grade or percentage for each student 4. When your grades are ready, under Gradebook, click Mark Grades Ready for Registrar. Mark class and appropriate marking column (MT or Final) as ready. 5. Grades for Auditor should be entered as follows: Give auditors who have less than eight absences an AU or AUDIT as their final grade. Give auditors who missed eight or more classes a W AU (withdrawal from an audit) as their final grade. 6. After a grade posted, it can no longer be changed on the Faculty Portal. Email any updated grade changes to the Registrar s office. Note: Grade sheets can be exported to Excel (by clicking the excel icon) and then manipulated as desired. If you would like to set up more sophisticated gradebook, see below. How to Set and Use Gradebook We have tried to make the gradebook setup as simple as possible. Although there are many options under gradebook setup (see illustration below), you can ignore most of them as you only ever need to use Edit assignments, Add shared documents, and Add class announcements. Below are step by step instruction to set up and use your gradebook. 1. Removing Categories In order to simplify the gradebook it is recommended that you remove the gradebook categories. Faculty Portal Guide Version: January 5, 2013 8

1. From the navigation bar, under Gradebook, click Edit categories. The Categories page appears. 2. Choose the class that you want to work with 3. Make sure the Marking Column is set to Final 4. Highlight the first row by clicking on the grey box at the far left of the row. 5. Click Delete. Choose Yes I am sure. 6. Click Save. 2. Creating Assignment 1. From the navigation bar, under Gradebook, click Edit assignments. The Assignments page appears. 2. Set the Marking Column to Final 3. Select the Class you want to create assignments for 4. Enter the information for each assignment. Student date due Student time due Enable dropbox Enter the date the student must complete the assignment. If you are using Dropbox, Enter the time the assignment is due by. If you are using Dropbox, select whether to use a dropbox for students to turn in their assignments online. If you choose to enable the dropbox, you must enter a time in Faculty Portal Guide Version: January 5, 2013 9

Student time due column and a date in the Show assignment column. Category Leave this blank. If the box is highlighted in blue you need to remove categories (see instructions above) Name Enter a short unique name for each assignment, for example, TEST- 1, HW-1, and Essay-1. Maximum points Enter the percentage that each assignment is worth for the class. The total of all the assignments should add up to 100. Factor Make sure this is set at 1. Description Enter a description of the assignment. For example, enter Write an essay explaining the differences in the main characters of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. Provide specific examples supporting each difference. as an essay assignment description. Show assignment Dropbox close date Dropbox close time You can enter hyperlinks in descriptions, such as website links. To enter a hyperlink, you must begin with the applicable prefix. The prefixes allowed in Faculty Access for the Web include http://, https://, ftp://, and mailto:. For example, enter Write a short essay on the great white shark. References are available at http://www.scaquarium.org. Enter the date the assignment details appear in NetClassroom. If you don t want to hide assignment from your class simply enter today s date. If you choose to enable the Dropbox for students to turn in assignments online, enter a date for the Dropbox to close. Leave the date blank if you want to close the Dropbox manually. The date must be on or after the student due date and time. Enter a time for the dropbox to close. Show grade Enter the date the assignment grade appears in NetClassroom. If you don t want to hide this information from your class simply enter today s date. Grades due date Enter the deadline for you to enter grades for the assignment. On your Home page, in your My Classes list, you can see which of your classes contain overdue grades. 5. If necessary, you can attach documents to your assignments (see 3. Attaching Documents below). 6. To set the order of the assignments in the grid, click Up and Down. The order of the assignments in the grid is the order the assignments appear in the grade entry grid when you sort assignments by None. Faculty Portal Guide Version: January 5, 2013 10

7. To save the assignments, click Save. Need a paper back-up of your assignments? Click Print, a printer-friendly page of your assignments appears. From the web browser menu, click File, Print. You can also click the Microsoft Excel button to save a spreadsheet version of your assignments. 3. Attaching Documents 1. On the navigation bar, under Gradebook, click Add shared documents. 2. Click on Add New Document 3. Set Marking Column to Final 4. Select the Class to which you want to attach a document. 5. In the Assignment Field, select the specific assignment that you want the document linked to. Leave the assignment field blank to add the document to the course in general. 6. The Shared documents screen appears. Add as many documents as you need for the assignment. Name Description File Enter the name of the document. This name appears in NetClassroom. Enter more information about the document, such as instructions on how to complete the assignment document. This description appears in NetClassroom. Click Browse to search for and select your document for upload. Faculty Portal Guide Version: January 5, 2013 11

You can upload files of any type, such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint files, Adobe Acrobat PDF files, and image files. Click Open to add the file. Save To upload the shared documents to the web server and return to the Assignments page, click Save. 7. To view a document, click the document name in Add shared documents. The document opens. You cannot save changes to the document when you view it. You need to update the original file, delete the old file, and upload the new document. 4. Entering Assignment Grades 8. On the navigation bar, under Gradebook, click Enter grades by class. 9. Select the Final marking column 10. Select the class for which you need to enter assignment grades. 11. Locate the column with the assignment for which you need to enter grades. 12. For each student, click in the cell and enter the grade. 13. You may choose to add a comment by clicking on Edit Comments. Any grade with attached comments will be highlighted in green. 14. Click Save. We recommend you save often. 9 Important Gradebook Tips #1 Enter M to designate an assignment as missing. The M equals a zero assignment grade in calculations. #2 Enter X to exempt an assignment grade. The X is ignored and excluded from all calculations. #3 In the gradebook, to go to the cell below, press Enter. #4 In the gradebook, to go to the cell to the right, press Tab. #5 In the gradebook, to go to the cell to the left, press Shift + Tab. #6 In the gradebook, to open the comments screen in a grade cell, click F7. #7 In a gradebook cell, to view grade statistics for an assignment based on all students in the class, click View, Class Stats. #8 In a gradebook cell, to enter the same grade for all students below the current student, click Fill Down. The grade appears in the remaining cells of the column and overwrites existing grades. #9 Back up your assignment grades! You can either print the grades or export to Microsoft Excel. In the grid, to open a printer-friendly version of your assignment grades, click Print, Print grid with grades. A screen appears with the gradebook information. To send the file to your printer, from the web browser menu, click File, Print. To export the grade information to Excel, click the Microsoft Excel icon. A screen appears for you to save the file. Select where you want to save the file, enter a file name for the export, and click Save. Faculty Portal Guide Version: January 5, 2013 12

5. Custom Sort your Gradebook When you enter assignment grades, at the top of the grid, you have five options to sort your gradebook. Sort by Last Name A to Z Sort by Last Name Z to A Sort by First Name A to Z Sort by First Name Z to A Custom Sort: highlight a row and use the up and down arrows to sort the students into your preferred order. 6. Track Grades on the Home Page On the Home page, the Alerts can help you stay on top of your gradebook. In the Alerts grid, click Settings. Among the alerts you can select, you can track students with unacceptable performance, students with missing assignments, classes with comments to review, and more. Use the alerts to not only track student performance but to ensure you have all your grades in your gradebook. For example, you can track students with an assignment grade of Blank. 7. Entering Midterm Grades using Gradebook Grades 1. On the navigation bar, under Gradebook, click Enter grades by class. 2. Select the class for which you need to enter Midterm Grades 3. Select the Multiple marking column 4. Copy grade from final column to midterm column Faculty Portal Guide Version: January 5, 2013 13

5. When your grades are ready, under Gradebook, click Mark Grades Ready for Registrar. Mark class and MT marking column as ready. 8. Entering Final Grades using Gradebook Grades 1. On the navigation bar, under Gradebook, click Enter grades by class. 2. Select the class for which you need to edit Final Grades 3. Select the Final marking column 4. Make edits to final grades column as needed. (ie you can lower the total for missed classes) 5. When your grades are ready, under Gradebook, click Mark Grades Ready for Registrar. Mark class and appropriate Final marking column as ready. 6. After a grade posted, it can no longer be changed on the Faculty Portal. Email any updated grade changes to the Registrar s office. Faculty Portal Guide Version: January 5, 2013 14

APPENDIX 1. Problems Emailing Currently Enrolled Students? There is a small checkbox on the first page of creating emails (see pic below). If it is unchecked, all students are included in the email including students who has withdrawn, students on the waitlist and students who have dropped but have not been deleted from the request list (Diane and I usually remember to do this). If is checked, only currently enrolled students appear. The problem is that students are not considered currently enrolled when todays date is outside of the semester dates (i.e. before the first day of classes or after the last day of class). When emailing your students during the semester make sure that this box is checked. If you want to emailing students after or before the semester make sure that this box is unchecked and manually uncheck students that are waitlisted or withdrawn. 2. Want to copy assignments and documents from one class to another? If you are teaching multiple blocks of a course or courses with similar assignments or teaching a course again, you can save time by copying info from one classes to another. A. Before you begin If you did not use categories in the course you are copying from, you need to delete categories from the course you are copying to. 1. From the navigation bar, under Gradebook, click Edit categories. The Categories page appears. Faculty Portal Guide Version: January 5, 2013 15

2. Choose the class that you want to work with 3. Make sure the Marking Column is set to Final 4. Highlight the first row by clicking on the grey box at the far left of the row. 5. Click Delete. Choose Yes I am sure. 6. Click Save. B. Copying courses Select Copy categories/assignments from the menu Choose which semester/course to copy from and which semester course to copy to (make sure you choose the final marking column in both). Faculty Portal Guide Version: January 5, 2013 16

In the Gradebook information check Copy non-assigned documents if you want to copy your general documents and check copy assignments (and choose which ones) if you want to copy assignments. Hit copy button to finish. Faculty Portal Guide Version: January 5, 2013 17

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