Things you may want to do during a pandemic
If you are absent from class due to illness you may find that your instructor has chosen to communicate with her/his students online - to share information, outside the classroom, while you and/or s/he is out sick. This can be facilitated in many ways electronically, and this website is intended to help you find your course information online.
Although some students may remain healthy and able to attend class, many of your fellow students will miss multiple classes, and have difficulty keeping up with the class or turning in assignments. To help you keep up with the class and not be forced to settle for a lower grade or an “incomplete”, we have recommended to your instructors that they consider using some of the technologies available on our campus. If your instructor has told you which technology they are using, the following links will take you to more information about those technologies and how to get started.
- SmartSite (Contains course sites in our campus collaborative learning environment)
- Podcasting (To subscribe to audio recordings of lectures)
- Webcasting (To view video recordings of lectures or other events)
- Adobe Connect Pro (To participate in online discussions, or attend an online lecture/webinar)
In many cases, IT Express is available to help if you get stuck on something. 754-HELP or ithelp[at]ucdavis[dot]edu
SmartSite puts a lot of online learning services together in one site for a class. There is a very good chance that your instructor has created a SmartSite for your course, so if you are looking for a place to start – that would be a good one.
If you do not know what technology to use but you know what it is your instructor said they were going to do, the following contains a number of frequently asked questions (FAQ’s) to help you get started.
Pandemic FAQ (Students)
Please click the question text below to view the answers.
Q.My Professor said s/he was going to create a SmartSite – where do I go to find it?
A.
- The SmartSite home page is http://smartsite.ucdavis.edu . When you get there, click on <login> in the upper right hand - corner. You will need to use your Kerberos login (this is the same as your ucdavis email login).
- Once you are logged in, you will see tabs across the top of the main window, that are the labels for some of the sites that you are authorized to participate in. If you are allowed to be in more than 3 or 4, then the tab on the end says <my active sites> - click on it, and it will display a list of all the sites you are authorized to have access to.
- Click on any site to gain entry to the site.
- A course site has many different working areas that you can go to, to see assignments, or resources, or other things that your professor has created for you. Look at the list on the left side of your screen to see a list of the various working areas you can click on to move to. These tools will remain visible to you, no matter where you are on the course site. Some common tools that faculty use are:
- Announcements (Watch for announcements regularly. If a class is cancelled, or there is something important that you should know – it will be posted here)
- Email Archive (allows you to view all old emails that have been sent to/from your class from within SmartSite)
- Mailtool (allows you to email your professor and/or your classmates from within SmartSite)
- Resources (This is where your professor can store various files to make them available to the class – e.g. the Course Syllabus, Powerpoint Slides from a lecture)
- Chat
- Podcasting (Your professor may podcast her/his lectures, and place them here. You can create an RSS feed here)
- Assignments (Your professor may have developed an assignment for you to do in here)
- Gradebook 2 (You can go to the Gradebook to see what your current grade is – if your professor is using this gradebook and has released your grades to you)
Q.My Professor is podcasting her/his lectures. Where should I go to find them, and how do I download them?
A.
There are two places that your professor could be podcasting: SmartSite or the Campus Podcasting System
- Campus podcasting system: Go to http://podcasting.ucdavis.edu/ and click on the large icon "Subscribe to a Podcast"
- SmartSite: Login to your course's site in SmartSite, and click on Podcasting in the list of tools on the left navigation bar.
- Most Mac's and PC’s can play the audio files for a podcast directly in the web browser (using Windows Media Player or Quicktime) by clicking on the Download link.
- If you have iTunes on your computer, it knows about podcasts. Both SmartSite and the University Podcast server have instructions on how to subscribe to a podcast in iTunes. Generally you paste the Podcast URL into iTunes using the Advanced tab and "Subscribe to Podcast"
Q.My Professor is webcasting her/his lectures – where should I go to find it ?
A.
- There is probably a link to the webcast located in SmartSite. Try in the Resources tool.
- If it isn’t in SmartSite, then you will need to ask her/him for the URL.
- If you professor is out sick and you can’t reach him, call IET-Academic Technology Services and see if they can track down the URL for you.
Q.My professor is holding online office hours somewhere. Where do I go to join in?
A.
- Instructors will probably use one of two tools: SmartSite’s Chat Tool, or Adobe Connect Pro.
- For SmartSite - go to your course’s SmartSite after logging in at http://smartsite.ucdavis.edu and click on the Chat Tool
- For Connect Pro – Ask your instructor for the URL, then use your browser to access Connect Pro on the web.
- For more general information go to http://onlinelearning.ucdavis.edu/students/ and click on Adobe Connect Pro
Q.My professor is holding a discussion online – what do I need to do ?
A.
- Your professor should have told you whether s/he is going to do this in Chat in SmartSite (see above), or if s/he is going to use Adobe Connect Pro – our campus online collaboration and communications tool. S/he should also have told you what time.
- Adobe Connect Pro can be used for online office hours, group discussions, student tutoring, or even an online lecture in a webinar format. Your faculty needs to give you the URL to their course site in order for you to attend.
- In order to participate, you need a web browser (e.g. Firefox, Internet Explorer), access to the internet, and an inexpensive headset – headphones with a microphone (Cost around $15). You can try to participate without the headset, but you will create echo problems with the audio, and it will be frustrating for you and your class.
