As the end of the quarter nears, we wanted to make sure you are aware of resources available to assist you with submitting grades online via Catalyst Tools.

This 4-minute video from the UW Registrar’s Office walks you through the online grade submission process.

To see the steps outlined in an easy-to-follow bulleted list, see Submit Your Grades Online in 3 Easy Steps (PDF).

Additional Resources

• Online Grading FAQ (UW Registrar’s Office)
• Grade­Book Help Cen­ter (UW Learn­ing & Schol­arly Tech­nolo­gies — Cat­a­lyst Tools)
• Grade Sub­mis­sion Tour (UW Learn­ing & Schol­arly Tech­nolo­gies — Cat­a­lyst Tools)

Questions?

Social Work Course Support Help Desk: To ask a question or request in-person support or training for Catalyst Tools, send an e-mail to course@uw.edu or contact Heather Larson at hmlarson@uw.edu (Hours: 9:15–1:15 M-F)

UW Catalyst Help Center (Odegaard Library): Send an email to lsthelp@uw.edu or call 206–897-1999.

This news is particularly applicable to faculty who don’t use Catalyst’s existing GradeBook tool to track individual assignments, exams, etc.  People who are comfortable with and already using GradeBook can continue to do so.

screenshot of sample GoPost discussion board

If you are an instructor wanting to engage your students using an online discussion board (GoPost if you’re using Catalyst Tools), you may have questions about benefits and best practices.

The benefits of using an online discussion board for your class are numerous. Some key advantages include:

• Builds connections and class community by promoting discussion on course topics and more informal discussion
• Contributes to the development of cognitive, critical thinking, and writing skills
  
• Allows time for thoughtful, in-depth reflection on course topics. Much like traditional writing exercises, students have more time to think about, research, and compose their thoughts before contributing to the discussion.
• Facilitates exploratory learning by allowing students to review and respond to the work of others and approach learning in diverse ways
• Empowers students to express themselves. For students with different learning styles, an online discussion board can be a venue where they feel more comfortable contributing to group discussions.  With positive reinforcement from interactions on the discussion board, an increase in in-class participation may also occur.
  

Best Practices

Becoming informed about best practices will help make you and your students’ experience with the discussion board a rewarding experience and one that contributes effectively to learning. Here are some quick tips:

• Establish and communicate discussion board ground rules. What are your expectations for writing styles in the online forum?  Are students expected to adhere to general rules of netiquette or does anything go?  Including an introductory post that outlines your expectations for students will benefit you and your students.
• Determine and communicate how you will evaluate students’ participation. Students must know how their contributions will be assessed in order to make effective responses; otherwise, they may misunderstand your directions or become unsure of what is expected of them – leading to a frustrating and ineffective learning experience.  
  • What are your guidelines for giving students credit for discussion board participation? Do they need to post a certain number of times?  How often? Any specific length? Is there information they should include or reference? What are your specific evaluation criteria?
  • Encourage students to contact you if they don’t understand the assignment or are having technical difficulties with the board.
• Engage your students by asking good questions to get discussions going. Use open-ended questions and questions that challenge thinking. In-depth guidelines for writing good discussion prompts are included in the Additional Resources section below.
• To encourage informal interaction and connection amongst your students, create an area in your discussion board for personal introductions and discussions.  Your students may learn more about their peers than they would in the classroom — opening new doors of connection and community.

Additional Resources

For more tips and best practices, the following resources provide sound, well-researched guidelines for facilitating discussion boards to enhance learning:

• Teaching with GoPost (UW Learning & Scholarly Technologies)
• Mastering Online Discussion Board Facilitation:  Resource Guide (Edutopia)
• Improving the Use of Discussion Boards (Worcester Polytechnic Institute)
• Generating and Facilitating Engaging and Effective Online Discussions (University of Oregon)

Here at the University of Washington, the Center for Instructional Development and Research (CIDR) provides resources and information to faculty on these topics as well.  See Discussion Resources for information specifically relevant to facilitating discussion – both in class and online.

Always give your Catalyst Tool a clear, detailed name.  We suggest including your Course #, Quarter and Year (if you’re using them for a class).  This will help you find the tool quicker without having to sleuth out its contents.

Here’s an example that demonstrates the importance of using a naming convention:

THE PROBLEM:

Dr. Brown creates a GradeBook to submit grades for his SOC W 999 course for Spring 2011.  He names the Gradebook, SOCW999. At the end of the quarter, he logs into his Catalyst Account to access the GradeBook to publish and submit grades.  He finds 3 GradeBook tools named: SOC W 999, SOCW999 2010 and SW999 Winter.  He has been teaching SOC W 999 for 3 quarters now and can’t remember which name he used for the Spring 2011 quarter.  He has to manually open each GradeBook tool to see if it’s the one he needs.

THE SOLUTION:

Dr. Brown decides that he will use the following naming convention when creating any tools for his courses:

Course #, Instructor Name, Quarter Year

He renames his Spring 2011 GradeBook: SOCW999, Dr. Brown, Spring 2011 and is quickly able to find it on his Account Page after filtering for GradeBook tools and submit his grades for the class.

Additional Resources:

• Insert an Image (Catalyst Tools Help Center)
• Address Diverse Learning Styles (Catalyst Tools Help Center)

WebQ, the Catalyst Web Tool developed for survey, quiz, and research use has a new multiple-choice question type: True/False. When you select this question type, WebQ generates a true/false answer pair. If you want, you can change the responses to a different type (for example: yes/no or male/female).

Instructions for adding a True/False question can be found in the Add multiple choice question page in the WebQ Help Center.

Additional Resources for Online Grade Submission

• Online Grading Resources (UW Registrar)
• Web Grading FAQ (UW Registrar)
• Get Started with Online Grade Submission (UW Learning & Scholarly Technologies — Catalyst Tools)
• GradeBook Help Center (UW Learning & Scholarly Technologies — Catalyst Tools)
• Grade Submission Tour (UW Learning & Scholarly Technologies — Catalyst Tools)
• UW Faculty Resource on Grading