TalonNet Essentials About TalonNet TalonNet is a full-featured system supporting technology-enabled teaching, learning, research and collaboration for education. TalonNet is based upon Sakai which was created by a community of academic institutions, commercial organizations and individuals. Our current iteration of TalonNet is hosted off-campus by rsmart which provides us with back end support, regular updates, daily backups, and cloud based hosting. TalonNet is linked to the college s PeopleSoft system and every class at the college has a course shell automatically created with the student roster and instructor added. TalonNet updates twice daily adding or removing students as required. Course Sites are created 50 days before the term begins, new student accounts are created 10 days before their session begins, and all class sites are published and available to students the first day of their session. For more information on TalonNet please see the FAQ (http://tinyurl.com/tnfaq) or contact TNFacultyHelp@cerritos.edu. Logging in To login navigate to http://talonnet.cerritos.edu and enter your username (your email address without @cerritos.edu) and your Cerritos College network password.
Accessing your class The first page you will see after logging in to TalonNet is the My Workspace Home page. On this page, and all others, you will see a navigation bar listing the sites in which you are a member. If you are in multiple courses you may see the My Sites tab which you may click on to bring up a listing of all available sites. To continue to a course site click the corresponding link. Site Link Myy Sites Tab Syllabus A syllabus normally contains contact information, prerequisites, required material such as textbooks, general and specific objectives, and learning outcomes. To begin creating your syllabus click Syllabus in the left tool menu then click the Create/Edit link at the top of the panel then click Add.
On the next page enter your title and syllabus content. If you are copying and pasting from Microsoft Word use the Paste from Word button, paste into the new window, and click the OK button. Scrolling down the page you will see an option button titled This syllabus item is publically viewable. Choosing this option allows users that are not enrolled in your site to view your syllabus using the Site Search tool on the TalonNet Gateway.
You may also add attachment ts to your syllabus by clicking the Add Attachments button, browsing for your files, and clicking the Finish button. Add Attachment To send the members of your site (students) an email notification choose the appropriate selection from the Email Notification dropdown. Please note that if your site is unpublished your students will not receive the message. Once you have completed creating or editing your syllabus you may choose Post so that it will be available to your students, Preview to view your syllabus, or save it as a draft for later revision and posting.
Announcements The Announcements tool is used to inform site participants of current activities, events or items of interest. To accesss the Announcements tool click the Announcements link on the Tool Menu. To create an announcement click the Add link. Add Enter the title and the announcement message in the Body text area. Title Announcement Body
You may also add attachment ts to the announcement and send an email notificationn to site participants. Attach Email Assignments To access the Announcements tool click the Announcements link on the Tool Menu. To add a new assignment click the Add link. Add
Enter the assignment title and choose the opening and closing date and time. You may also specify that you will accept assignments after the due date in which case if a student submits an assignment late it will be flagged as such. Title, Open, & Closing Dates When creating an assignment you may choose three ways for students to submit work. Inline Only - provides the student with a textt box wheree they may type their response Attachment Only - can be files uploaded from their local machine, a URL to a file on the Internet, or a file from the site s existing resources Inline and Attachments allows for both Next choose the grade scale and enter the value for the assignment. Submission Types Grade Scale
Towards the bottom of the page you will see three check boxes. Add due date to Schedule will automatically create an entry in the Calendar tool. Add Announcement will automatically create an announcement which will be displayed in the Announcement tool and on the homepage in the Recent Announcements section. Add honor pledge forces students to check a box stating "I have neither given nor received aid on this assignment" before they are allowed to submit. Below that you will see the Grading section. Add Assignment to Gradebook will automatically create a corresponding entry in the Gradebook tool. Associate with existing Gradebook entry will send the results to an existing gradebook item. For each of these options once you have graded and released the scores for the assignment, students will be able to view their grade in the Greadebook. Note that these options are only available for assignments with a point value. You may also add attachments to the assignment by clicking the Add Attachments button and choosing a file from your local computer or the site's resources. Students will be able to access the attachment when viewing the assignment by clicking the corresponding link. Once you have completed creating the assignment you may save it by clicking the Post button, at which point, depending upon the release dates, it will become available to students. You may also view the assignment by clicking the Preview button, or save the assignment for later revision by clicking the Save draft button, drafts are not available to students at any time.
Gradebook The Grade Book allows students to view their scoree for assignments and their course grade. The Grade Book will not allow them to see any other student grades. To access the Grade Book click the Grade Book link on the Tool Menu. Notice that three assignmentss are highlighted and two are nott and that to the right of the point value of the highlighted assignments in the Grade Editor column is the tool from which the entry was created and will get its values. If you wish to grade thesee assignments you will need to go to the correspondi ng tool. Add Grade Editor To create a new entry in the Gradebook click the Add Assignment link. Enter the Title, Point Value, and (optionally) the Due Date. Choose if you wish to releasee this item to studentss and if you wish to include this assignment t towards the total available points. When finished click the Add Item(s) button. Title & Point Value Due Date
You will then see that the assignment has been added to the Gradebook. New Item Title To grade a manually added assignment click the assignment title. You will then see a listing of all students in the course. To edit the score enter the desired point value in the areaa provided and click the Save Changes button. Save Changes Score
To view the totals for your students click the All Grades link. All Grades You will then see a list of all of your students in thee class and what they received for each assignment as well as their cumulative score. From this page you may also export you Gradebook to Excel or as a CSV (Comma Separated Values) file. Export
To edit the Gradebook settings choose the Course Grade Options link. The Display course grade to students now is checked by default and will show your students their course grade at this moment. In the "Grade Type" drop-down list, select the type of grade you wish to use, and then click the Change grade type button. The Grade/Minimum % table allows you to view and edit the minimum percentages for each grade. When finished making your changes click Save. Display Course Grade Grade Type Grade Scale If you are having trouble help may be obtained by emailing TNFacultyHelp@cerritos.edu Training and support for faculty and staff is available throughh the Center for Teaching Excellence, located in the Learning Resource Center. For assistance contact the Center during business hours at (562) 860-2451, ext. 2797, or visit the website att www.cerritos.edu/ic.