Guidelines for Staff - Using Learning Resources

Please read thoroughly and understand this before

attempting to create Learning Resources on the network.
The functionality of shared resources has easy menu driven
procedures for creating your own shared resources. Just a
few simple clicks will quickly and easily allow you to
distribute pictures and documents, create a homework
‘handing in folder’ and add web links to help with research.

Please remember, it’s our Students who will ultimately be

using these resources, so let’s make it as easy to use for
them as possible; always fill-in the Subject, Member of Staff and Year fields
then please give the resource a ‘friendly’ name (easy-to-spot & remember)
and make the titles short and meaningful – A much larger box appears for
a detailed description.

OK, now follows “the good guide” to creating your own resources…
We will start by double clicking the Learning Resources Icon on the
desktop.
When the program launches, it will validate your user details, to check if
you have the rights to edit/create resources. If so, you will then be
presented with a screen similar to the following:

This initial screen will display all the learning resources currently available.
It is possible to reduce the size of the list, by selecting a Teacher’s name,
Subject or both.

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How to Create a Learning Resource
To create your own learning resource, you should first prepare all the
material you are going to use; i.e. ensure you know where to find any files,
make notes of website addresses (URLs) etc.

First, click on Create a

Learning Resource

You will now be prompted to add some details to identify the resource
you are producing.

The name must be short,

meaningful, but as
descriptive as possible, as
this is what will be
displayed to Students.

Note: It is not your name

that goes in here!

The description box should be

used to add extra information
that appears when the title is
selected.

The attributes area must be

used to make your resource
easy to identify. You MUST
indicate ownership of resources by using your Faculty/Department name
and your Member of Staff name. You must not leave thes as ‘none
specified’. Using the Year option may be useful also.

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Once created, your resource should appear on the list (like below).

Double click it to start editing.

Once you open your new resource, you
need to click on it with the right mouse
button to get the menu of options, as
shown here:

You could place files directly into this

folder, these files would be read by all
users, but students can not change, re-
name, or delete files, nor does it give the
resource any ‘depth’.

A far better way is to use a structured approach and have ‘top-level-down’

folders, with different types of sub-folders that can be added to the
resource. Don’t be tempted to create each learning resource as a separate
top-level folder, use folder nesting. Imagine the confusion if our students
find 275 top-level resources to look through (and that’s just from 5
Teachers with 5 Resources from each faculty)

When the new folder option is selected,

you will see this dialogue box.

You must first decide on the purpose of

your folder from the options.

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A Read only folder does exactly as it says and is ideal for handouts and
resources. Students cannot alter or save anything here.

A Collaborative folder allows students full access (read write delete etc)
to all of the files inside it, and should be used very sparingly (so it doesn’t
become a chat room). This type of folder is ideal for groups working
together on a project, but should be deleted as soon as the project is over.

A Handing in Point is a write only folder. This is ideal for the handing in
of finished projects or homework, but be aware, if two students hand in
work with the same file name; the second will overwrite the first. Students
should add their names to the file name to prevent this happening.

Once added, you will see your

new folders like this:

Now that you have defined and created your resources’ structure, you can
add some content.

Pointing at the relevant folder and

clicking with the right mouse button, you
will again be presented with the options
menu for that folder.

Select the Add Files option, and then

use the Browse button to navigate to
the required files

Each file you select a file it will appear

in the box and will be added to the list.

Select OK when you have all the files

required, and they will be added to the
folder structure

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 You will now see your files
listed

Adding Web Links

Point anywhere within the Shared Links section, then click the right mouse
button.

Select the New Link option from the menu.

You can now give your link a logical

meaningful name, and enter its
address in the URL box

This can be typed, or cut & pasted

from Internet Explorer.

Now use the Check Link button to

test the URL link works!

Your link will now appear in the Shared Links area of your resource.

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This concludes the Learning Resource Guide

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