Instructions for Faculty to Download Class Lists using eLion

EXPANDED INSTRUCTIONS

This document represents expanded instructions for faculty who need the support based on their level expertise using eLion, Eudora mail, MS Excel and Notepad.

Materials Needed: Troubleshooting Contact:

Computer w/ internet capabilities (Mac or PC), Kim Auker, 949-5356

Eudora/email, Notepad/clipboard, Excel/

Spreadsheet software

PSU Access/Email ID & Password Kim Auker, 949-5356

List of courses assigned to you for semester https://soc.our.psu.edu/soc/

Note: faculty are not required to use their SecurID token to download class lists as of the publication date of this document.

Other helpful contacts:

Questions about class list downloading process Jean Lasinski, 949-5086

Any other questions re: course section assignments Division Office

Beginning in the spring 2003 semester faculty will be responsible for printing their own class lists. The Registrar's Office will no longer be responsible for distributing such lists. The greatest advantage for faculty to pull their own class lists is accuracy. Class lists provided by eLion are accurate as of the time lists are requested. Faculty may choose from one of three options, view/print, downloading email addresses of currently enrolled students, and spread sheet view, which includes items such as name, social security number, campus of record, semester classification, registration status, audit status, graduation indicator, phone number, etc., and more closely mimics the paper copy of the class lists previously distributed from the Registrar's Office.

It is recommended that faculty review class lists at least three times during the semester. Once immediately before the initial class meeting, once immediately after the drop/add period ends--10 days into the semester, and once immediately after the late drop deadline--12 weeks into the semester.

More detailed instructions can be printed from this website: http://www.altoona.psu.edu/clist_instr/ (Note the space between "clist" and "instr" is an underscore, not a space.)

On-going training for the class list downloading procedure can be provided by Jean Lasinski. Please call 949-5086 for additional information.

ACCESSING E-LION

Open NETSCAPE or your internet browser. Type the following into the location bar:

https://elion.oas.psu.edu/

From the eLion home page, select the Faculty module from the menu in the left frame. Immediately, users will be asked to authenticate by entering their access ID (your PSU email ID) and password. If you do not yet have a user ID and password, please inquire at the computer center, 949-5356.

Note: users must click "OK" to complete the authentication process. Users cannot use the Enter key to move to the next step.

This is the front page for the Faculty module of eLion. To request your class lists, select Class Lists from the menu in the left-hand frame.

REQUESTING YOUR CLASS LISTS

Users will first be prompted to request an appropriate semester. Highlight the semester and click on Get Courses. Once again, the eLion system will not recognize your request if you use the enter key.

Notes:

ELion shows all semesters for which faculty may currently download class lists, even if the instructor who authenticated will not or is not teaching for one or more of the semesters listed.

Should you select a semester for which you do not have class lists to download, you will see an error message asking for the selection of another semester.

Faculty must be officially assigned to teach the section prior to being able to download the class list. If you have been assigned to teach a course for the semester yet you have not been formally assigned, you will get an error message if you try to download the class list. To rectify, please see your division head. If eLion shows that you have been formally assigned to teach the section (see the section on Confirming your Meeting Days and Times for current assignments), and you are still unable to move to the next step, then please contact the Registrar's Office, C109 Smith.

This frame allows you to select the appropriate course and section if you have more than one section.

You'll need to make two selections on this page: one for the course, and one for the data format.

Note: There is a third format that has become available since the initial development of this document. There is no frame to show here.

The three options now available are:

· Email IDs—to set up a group email list for your entire section.

· Spreadsheet view—contains the same information about students as on the paper copies previously provided by the Registrar's Office.

· Print/View—newly available, a quick way to view your lists. Contains student name and a few other fields. It is the quickest way to print your class lists if time is a factor.

Here you'll see that we're selecting spreadsheet format.

You'll need to select the section even if you only teach one section. We recommend that you request each format separately. Then click on Email Class List.

This is the confirmation page that shows your request has been submitted. It also allows you to select another section or another format for the semester in question.

We recommend that you select and print the link at the top of the page for Spreadsheet Format. You'll need it to finish downloading your class lists. The title of the document once printed will be "Help for Class Lists." We've included a copy of the printout as Appendix A. It is current as of the printing of this document.

You may then select another section or a different format. To select an email distribution list, under Data Format, select Email distribution.

After making your next selection, select Email Class List.

We recommend printing "Email Distribution Format" from the link on this page only if you did not print the "Spreadsheet Format" link, above. Both links take users to different locations in the "Help for Class Lists" document.

When you are finished, don't forget to EXIT. The appropriate button is in the top, left-hand corner of the frame.

IF YOU ARE INTERRUPTED WHILE USING E-LION:

This is the error message you will get if you are interrupted prior to completing your request.

You will need to exit Netscape or your internet browser, and access eLion from the beginning of the process. Until you exit your internet browser and reconnect, you will not be able to immediately access the Class Lists or any other module in the menu of the left-hand frame with the exception of Menu Help.

RECEIVING YOUR LISTS VIA E-MAIL

Class lists are sent to your email account, aka, your PSU access account.

Regardless of the format you selected to receive your data, it will be sent to your PSU email account. The email containing your class list will be from registrar@psu.edu.

SPREADSHEET FORMATTING

Before opening the email, turn off the "wrap long lines" feature in your email software. To do this, from the Menu bar (File Edit Mailbox . . .) select Tools, Options, Sending Mail or Composing Mail, depending upon your software. It will open an Options dialog box. Then Click the word wrap feature to OFF, then Enter or OK.

Open the email.

When viewing the email that contains your class list, you'll see the confirmation of the semester, campus, course, section, and schedule number.

You will NOT, however, see the meeting days and times, nor the classroom assignment. You will be able to confirm when and where the course meets using this website: http://soc.our.psu.edu/soc/

See page 43 of this document for more information about confirming your class meeting days and times, and room assignment.

Highlight the portion of the email that contains your raw data. To highlight, click, hold and drag the cursor to the end of the selected text.

Copy the data using one of the following methods:

Ctrl+C,

OR

Edit, Copy from the file menu,

OR

the Copy icon if your software has one.

Note: the link shown in the above diagram goes to the "Help for Class Lists" document described on page 7.

Open a NOTEPAD file. From the Start button in the bottom left-hand corner, go to Programs, Accessories, Notepad.

Paste the highlighted information from your email into the blank document using Edit, Paste from the Menu Bar.

Save the NOTEPAD file as a TEXT file (.txt). From the menu bar: File, Save As. This will open the Save As dialog box.

In the Save In section, use the pull down menu to go to the desktop.

In the File name, give your NOTEPAD file an appropriate name.

Under Save as Type use the pull down menu to select "Text Documents (*.txt)

Click Save or enter to save your file.

Open EXCEL, using the icon on the task bar (icon with green "X" in top right corner of the previous page's frame. Or use the START button in the lower left corner of your screen and go to Programs, Microsoft Office (or MS Office, depending upon your set up), the Microsoft Excel. See the frame on page 14 as a guide.

Then open a new document using one of the following methods:

From the Menu bar: File, Open OR Ctrl+O OR the open icon

In the Open dialog box:

Use the pull down menu in the Look In section to go to the desktop files (or to the directory to which you saved the text file).

AND from the lower left corner, use the pull down menu to define Files of Type as "Text files." You will not see the file appear until you define Files of Type as "Text!"

When you see the text file you want to open, either click once, then Open or enter, or open the file by double clicking on the name of the file.

Immediately a dialog box called Text Import Wizard will appear.

Step 1

As the Original Data Type, you will want to select "Delimited." Excel will guess (correctly!) that your

Start Import at Row and File origin should remain as their default values.

Then click Next at the bottom.

Text Import Wizard, Step 2

Will ask you to select a type of delimiter. In the Delimiters section, deselect "Tab" and select "Comma."

Treat consecutive delimiters as one should not be checked.

Confirm that the Text Qualifier if a double quotation mark (").

Then go to the next step by clicking Next.

Text Import Wizard, Step 3

This step allows you to define the columns appropriately. Highlight the column to define the column data format by either:

Clicking the radio button in the Column Data Format section

OR

Highlighting the column and using the appropriate letters as defined in the Column Format Data section:

G= General

T= Text

D=Date

I=Skip

Note: it is extremely important that you select the first column, student ID, as a "text" column. If you do not define this column as "text," you will lose all leading zeros.

Continue to highlight columns and select each column as "text." Click on Finish.

Microsoft Excel automatically puts the data into columns.

The next step is to add column titles. Refer to the printout called "Help for Class Lists" that you printed earlier for field names and descriptors. Or see Appendix A.

To add the necessary blank row for column titles:

The active cell should be A1. There are two ways to tell which cell is the active cell: the cell will have a heavy border around it. AND the active cell will be referenced above column A. A1 is the active cell in the frame below.

To insert a row, from the menu bar: Insert, Row

A row of blank cells will appear in line 1.

Type column names per the "Help for Class Lists" that you printed from eLion earlier. Abbreviate as you see fit.

NOTE: You'll see in the example below that Columns I & J contain no information. We do not recommend that you delete the columns at this time. We do recommend that you title them as indicated in the Help for Class Lists document.

If you prefer not to view the empty fields, we recommend hiding the blank columns of audit and Graduation Indicator.

To hide columns, you'll need to highlight the columns first. Place the cursor over the column letter you'd like to hide. If hiding more than one consecutive column, you may click and drag.

Then from the menu bar, select Format, Column, Hide

Note: To once again show these columns, highlight the shown columns before and after the hidden columns, then select, Format, Column, Unhide. If Columns I & J were hidden, you'd highlight Columns H & K to unhide columns I & J.

To make your list easier to read, resize your columns. There are several ways to do this.

Method #1

Highlight your entire document. To do this, place your cursor in the empty space above Row 1 and to the left of Column A, then click. The empty cell will be the same color as the column letters and row numbers when highlighted correctly.

Then place your cursor on the dividing line between any two column letters, e.g., between the columns heading rows "A" and "B" and double click. You'll know that your cursor is in the correct location when it changes from a white cross to a thin black cross with left-right arrows.

Method #1 has the advantage of speed—it resizes all of your columns to fit existing records at once.

Method #2

This method is similar to Method #1, but resizes columns individually.

Place your cursor on the dividing line between any two column letters without highlighting the entire column, e.g., between the columns heading rows "A" and "B" and double click. Again you will know when your cursor is in the correct position because it will change from a white cross to a thin blank cross with left-right arrows. When you double click, excel resizes the column immediately to the left of where your cursor lies.

This method is useful when you've resized the entire document and one column is wildly out of kilter with the rest of the document. Example, one of the student's names is extremely longer than the others. Even if the field length was shorter, and part of the field contents were not shown, you would still know which student's record you'd be viewing.

You may also click the right boundary of a column header letter and drag to resize the column.

Method #3

This method is the most cumbersome to use, but the easiest to explain with diagrams.

Highlight the column you'd like to resize by single clicking on the empty rectangle above row 1.

From the menu bar, Format, Column, [make appropriate selection from options].

Here's what the document looks like resized using Method #1, above:

Optional Enhancements using the Page Setup function:

Change the page orientation to have the entire list print on one page. There are a few ways to do this.

Method #1

From the menu bar: File, Page setup

This opens the Page Setup dialog box. In the Page section, change the Orientation from "Portrait" to "Landscape."

In the Margins section of the Page Setup box, you'll need to experiment with what margins will fit the printout onto one page. If you've decrease the margins as much as possible, and are still unable to fit the entire printout onto one page, you'll need to go back to the previous step to resize the columns to fit.

Hint: You can also change the margins from the Print Preview command.

Use Print Preview button in the dialog box

OR

icon on the toolbar

OR

from the menu bar: File, Print Preview.

In the Header/Footer section of Page setup, you can add titles, file names, dates, etc, to appear at the top and bottom of each page of your printout.

The Sheet section of Page Setup contains many features you may choose to or choose not to use.

The most commonly used features on this page are "Rows to repeat at the top" and "Gridlines."

"Rows to repeat at top" is especially useful if you have a long list of students in your class that won't print all on one page. The format to define the rows to repeat is n:n. If you only want to repeat row 1 at the top of each page because it contains the column names, the format is "1:1." Entering "1" results in an error message.

The other nice feature on this page is whether or not you'd like to show gridlines. Simply click the feature on or off to your liking.

Click OK when finished.

This is a sample of the document after cosmetic changes have been made.

Save your document using the save command above.

In the Save As dialog box, under Save as Type, don't forget to save your document as an "Microsoft EXCEL Workbook", not as a "text" document. For instructions to change the file type, refer to page 17.

To print your class list, either

From the Menu Bar: File, Print, OK

OR Ctrl+P

OR use the print icon

E-MAIL DISTRIBUTION FORMATTING

When viewing the email that contains your class list, you'll see the confirmation of the semester, campus, course, section, and schedule number, followed by the link to the "Help for Class Lists" document, followed by the names and email Ids of the students.

You will NOT, however, see the meeting days and times, nor the classroom assignment. You will be able to confirm when and where the course meets using the following link:

http://soc.our.psu.edu/soc/

In EUDORA, create a new address book entry/new nickname. From the menu bar: Tools, Address Book, New

Name the address book entry as requested by the New Nickname dialog box. EX: "PL SC 1 s1 FA02" or "FA02sec1."

Decide whether or not to "Put in on the recipient list" or to "Make it an address book." Use the help topics in EUDORA to help you to decide whether or not each option is appropriate for your use.

Click OK or the Enter key.

Go back to the original email in your in basket and highlight the names and email addresses in the email. To highlight text, click, hold and drag to the end of your selection.

Go to the new address book entry/Nickname you just created. Place the cursor is in the "Address(es)" section as shown below, and paste the highlighted information into your address book entry.

Save the changes using the menu bar functions for: File, Save.

You may then close the address book. From the menu bar: File, Close OR click the appropriate "X" in the top right corner of the screen.

To send an email to the students in your section, create a new message using one of the following three options:

From the menu bar: Message, New

OR

Cntl+N

OR

The icon for a new message.

With your cursor in the "To" section of the email, begin typing the nickname of the address book entry. Once you've typed enough letters, Eudora will anticipate which entry you're attempting to select and will add the remainder of the name for you.

To navigate from one section of the header information or from the header to the body of the email, (the blank box below "Attached:"), use the TAB key on your keyboard.

Once you tab to the next field of the email, or to the body of the email, the Nickname changes to the email addresses contained in the nickname.

See below for an example.

From here, you can continue to type and send the email as you would any other email.

VERIFYING COURSE MEETING DAYS, TIMES, ROOM ASSIGNMENT AND INSTRUCTOR

It is the instructor's responsibility to be aware of when and where the course meets. Changes are approved by the appropriate division head only.

Here's the URL: http://soc.our.psu.edu/soc/

Select a semester AND the 5-byte course abbreviation (department code) OR the first letter of the course abbreviation code. To view the selection, click View Schedule or enter.

The course location will be "Altoona Campus (AA)" for all resident instruction courses. If you see a location code for AA followed by three numbers, ex: AA780, it is a continuing education course, and most likely, it is offered off-campus.

Here's an example for the PL SC 1.1 used in earlier demonstrations.

Reminder: faculty should see their division head to request any changes. The registrar's office does not make changes without the written approval of the appropriate division head.

UNIVERSITY CALENDAR

When clicking on the link for the semester in the previous frame, "Fall 2002," a new window in your internet browser is opened and the University calendar for the semester is displayed. It is in the best interest of each faculty member to print and save the calendar. It contains important deadline dates for faculty and students.

Example, the late drop deadline for Fall 2002 is Wednesday, November 20. Many faculty arrange their syllabus to assess student performance shortly before the deadline, so students have the results of tests, quizzes, and other projects returned to them in time to make an informed decision whether or not to late drop the course before the deadline.

Note: the calendar dates are predicated on full semester courses only. Please contact the registrar's office for drop/add and late drop deadlines for partial semester courses.

Faculty can review the University calendar for any semester at this URL:

http://www.psu.edu/registrar/calendar/calendar_index.html

COURSE DESCRIPTIONS

Upon exiting the University Calendar, if you click on the course number, your browser open another window that will take you to the short course description. Clicking on the course number again, your browser will open yet another window that will show you the long course description, as well as the (UP) faculty who teach the course. This is a particularly useful feature for students and advisors.