CourseWork is Stanford's campus-wide course management software. It is an entirely web-based application, though there are ways you can use AFS and other networking tools to access CourseWork data.
Batch uploads. For the first two weeks of every quarter that IHUM courses are active, IHUM's Academic Technology Specialist (ATS) uploads rosters into CourseWork on a daily basis, Monday-Friday. During this time you may notice discrepancies between your online rosters and your roster in CourseWork. This is normal. If you see discrepancies that remain beyond those first two weeks, let the IHUM ATS know.
The use of CourseWork is required for all courses in the Introduction to the Humanities Program. This is partly because of its usefulness as a way to group together all students, faculty, and fellows into one application with a broad array of teaching, grading, and communication tools, and partly so that IHUM may have a record of student assignments if it is ever necessary to retrieve student assignments for any grading disputes years that may occur in the future.
Documentation for Fellows
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Documentation for Students
Common CourseWork Problems and FAQs
Jump to problems with:
Assignments | Materials | Announcements
Q. Students aren't able to submit papers to the assigment I created.
A. There are several possible explanations.
1) You didn't add any file upload "part" to the assignment. The UI for setting up assigments in CourseWork is currently (as of November 2007) more appropriate to assignments that have multiple parts or contain quantitative questions. When creating an assignment you must be sure to add a part that includes a file upload. Assuming you have an assignment already created in CourseWork, do the following:
- In your CourseWork site, click on "Assignments."
- Under your assignment, click the title of the assignment (not "settings").
- You should come to a screen that allows you to "add question." If you do not see any "file upload" part added, from the pull-down list, select "File Upload." When you do so, the bottom of the screen will change.
- Below, leave the point value at zero (unless you intend to use CourseWork's grading tools). You MUST enter text in the field, even if you just refer to a previously-sent email or a posted prompt. If you want, you can add the paper prompts into the course materials section and then click "add attachments" to link to it.
- You needn't tamper with the other settings. Click "save."
- If the assignment doesn't become "active" immediately, "Save settings and publish" should now be an active link under "settings" for the assignment.
2) You didn't set a release date or "publish" the assignment. Though we're still getting a handle on how assignments work, when you set up an assignment you should include a due date, a release date, and a retract date. For reference:
- Due date: the date when the assignment is due (duh). If students submit after this deadline, their paper will be flagged as late. (Note that you can configure your assigment - in "settings" - such that students are not allowed to submit at all after the due date.)
- Release date: when the assignment will become visible to the students. Though we are not currently certain, if you do not enter a release date, we believe it will become visible to the students as soon as you click "save settings and publish." An assignment is visible to students when it is listed under "Active (testing in progress)."
- Retract date: when the assignment will disappear from students' sight. On or after this time, students will not be able to submit papers, even to submit them late.
To fix this:
- In your CourseWork site, click on "Assignments."
- Under your assignment, click "Settings."
- Click the triangle next to "Delivery Dates."
- Click the calendar icon to select due, release, and retract dates. Revise the time of day manually. (You can also manually type all this in, though it has to be in the right format.)
- When you're dolne, click "save settings and publish." (If it is greyed out, see 1, above.)
Q. When students upload their files on Coursework, there's a button called "Mark for Review" underneath the space where they can browse and upload an essay. What does it do? Should it be marked or unmarked?
Mark for Review doesn't apply to paper upload assignments. It's meant for a lengthy or high-stakes assignment. It enables students to bookmark questions they want to review before submitting the assignment. In the Table of Contents, there will be a question mark next to any question marked for review. It is unnecessary to check; it is only an option.
Q. What's the difference between "core," "active," and "inactive" assignments?
Core (which will be changed to "Pending" next release in Spring 2008):
"Core Assignments" contain editable versions of assignments not yet released to students. Only instructional staff can access and see these assignments (Instructor, Course Admin, Head TA, TA).
Published - Active:
"Active" assignments under the "Published" category are available to students in their "Take an Assignment" section. (If the number of submissions are limited, the assignment will be moved out of this section once the student has used up all available submissions.)
Published - Inactive:
Assignments that are published but listed under the "Inactive" subcategory are unavailable to students in their "Take an Assignment" section because the due date has passed or the assignment has been retracted.
There is one exception when a student can still see an assignment that is in the Inactive section: If the assignment is set to accept late submissions and the due date has passed, any student who has not submitted yet will get ONE LAST CHANCE to submit the assignment. However, assignments that have been retracted DO NOT SHOW to students, no matter what the other settings are.
A word about retracted assignments:
If an assignment can be retracted, this implies it has been published already. Therefore, no changes can be made to the content (e.g., to fix a mistake). When you have to change content, you have to retract the published assignment, edit the core assignment (including changing the assignment title to differentiate it from the first version) and publish the new version. This is very different from the workflow allowed in the old system. Retracting does not allow for editing right now.
A retracted/published assignment can be released again by changing the retract date. It will then appear back in the Active section. However, no changes can be made, so I don't think that is what the instructor has in mind.
After the next upgrade (2/28/08), instructors will be able to edit published assignments (as long as no students have taken the assignment yet) to fix content or settings errors.
Q. When adding files or folders into Course Materials, what does it formally mean if you select "Hide" under "Availability?"
A hidden file or folder is only visible to instructor, head TA, or course admin roles. It is hidden from other roles (e.g. students).
Q. What does it mean to make material in course materials "publicly viewable" (e.g. display to non-members)?
Publicly viewable course materials are available for public consumption via the gateway page (i.e. go to coursework- pilot.stanford.edu, click 'Sites' on the left-hand nav bar, locate your course and you should see these course materials posted on that course page).
Q. How do you delete a folder in “Materials” that has material in it?
WebDav is certainly one way to handle this situation. Currently, the system doesn't allow easily removing folders with content in the UI. What you can do is expand the folder to be removed (so you see both folder and items), check the folder and a single item within the folder, and click Remove. You will get a nasty error message, but continue anyway. Then, the content will be removed and you can go back and remove the empty folder. This is not very intuitive, but the only way if you don't want to use WebDav.
Q. In the previous version of CourseWork, I could add a description for uploaded materials. I see that I can still do that, but they aren't displayed in the main list of materials. Where can students find this description?
CourseWork currently does not list "Details" next to materials in the main list. Instead, students must click "Actions" next to the material and then select "Revise Details."