Archive for July, 2009
You might not be seeing all messages from your students–Please read–Important Information
If you have multiple accounts in WAOL ANGEL, your students can choose from any of your existing accounts when sending you a message in ANGEL. Students might be sending messages to you in an account you are not using this summer.
WAOL is consolidating all faculty accounts in WAOL ANGEL to a single account based on the Employee ID (EID) number as the user name. During this transition, many instructors have multiple instructor accounts in WAOL ANGEL.
Take these steps right away to make sure you do not miss student messages:
1. Use the same external email in all accounts (your college or hotmail email address)
2. Log into ALL your ANGEL accounts to check for student messages
3. Log into WAOL ANGEL using your EID account when you teach or work on classrooms because by Fall 09 the EID will be your only account.
*****If you do not have an account in WAOL ANGEL based on your Employee ID number, please let your college elearning department know right away. You will need one.
*****If you do not know if you have more than one account in WAOL ANGEL, check with your college eLearning department to find out.
*****If you have an account in WAOL ANGEL based on your Employee ID number, but not all your classrooms are attached to that account, please let your college elearning department know right away so we can get everything you need attached to the EID account.
Help us make sure everything you need in WAOL ANGEL is attached to your EID-based account so we can make sure all student messages will go to the same place.
We will send another message soon with next steps for the permanent solution. If you are interested in more background on this problem, see below.
We apologize for this problem and for the confusion for you and your students. Please help us make sure no student suffers while we work through this problem.
Background:
In developing a single installation of ANGEL with administrative access for 34 colleges, WAOL chose an instructor account user ID name that would identify instructors by WAOL or college name. So most instructors got accounts named waol_first initial last name or college name_first initial last name (Example: waol_cbroughton or pierce_cbroughton).
Some instructors ended up with two accounts as we moved from Blackboard to ANGEL and college ANGEL administrators began creating instructor accounts or as we tested our systems.
After a few months, we realized that this naming method for instructor accounts across 34 colleges would not work over time. We must use the only identifier that is unique across colleges– the Employee ID number (EID). So WAOL began a process of creating NEW accounts with EID numbers with the intention of moving all faculty activity to those accounts.
Before Fall quarter begins, all active faculty accounts will be based on the EID—that is how all faculty will log into WAOL ANGEL.
In the meantime, we discovered this potential problem with missed student messages. Since the display name is not the same as the user name, you cannot tell your students to choose the EID account—they will not know which one it is. You can change the display name in your other accounts to “DO NOT USE,” and that will tell students not to use that account.
We are developing a series of steps to make sure no student or instructor work is lost when we complete this transition.
WAOL Advisory Group Meeting: June & July recordings
Click here for access to a list of all Advisory Group meeting recordings and slideshows.
UPDATE: ANGEL Discussion Forum/browser issue
Since last week, ANGEL users all over the country are seeing error messages in their discussion board or are not able to see information in ANGEL.
- WAOL ANGEL still has a ticket open with ANGEL. (ANGEL closed it but we reopened.)
- We have heard from students that some instructors do not believe the student had trouble getting to the discussion board and will not allow them to turn in late work. Let your instructors know that this is a real problem for some users.
- I’m pasting below the current solutions that have worked for some users—do you have anything to add? Anyone with more or better information, please share.
Please advise users to call WAOL ANGEL Help Desk for assistance. Since this is not a problem that everyone is having, the quick solution is going to depend on the particular computer set up. The toll free number is 1-866-425-8412. Or you can go here: http://waol.org/general_info/help_desk.aspx
So far we have found several solutions that have worked for some users, but no one solution that has worked for every user.
- If you are using IE8, click the compatibility button in ANGEL . Please click here to see the screen-shots on how to do this. If you don’t click the compatibility button IE 8 will not work in ANGEL.
- You can try uninstalling any versions of Java on your computer and reinstalling the latest version of Java.
(If you use Windows XP)
- Click Start, click Control Panel, and then double-click Add or Remove Programs.
- In the Currently installed programs box, click Java, and then click Remove.
- If you are prompted to confirm the removal of the program, click Yes.
(If you use Window Vista)
- Click on the Start button to open your Start Menu.
- When the Start Menu opens, click on the Control Panel menu option.
- When the Control Panel window opens click on the Uninstall a program option under the Programs category. If you are using the Classic View of the Control Panel, then you would double-click on the Programs and Features icon instead.
- Select Java from the list and click Uninstall link. (When you complete uninstalling your Java, go to http://java.com/en/ and download free Java. Please make sure to restart your computer to activate the change).
- Try clearing your history in Java
- Try using Firefox 3.5.1 for your browser.
