Overview
Student Learning and Licensure's (SL&L) Activity Scheduler is a feature that allows SL&L to automatically create activities in future course sections, based on a schedule set by SL&L administrators.
Activities can also be thought of as assignments. In SL&L, an activity template is created, which defines the content of an activity, such as what a student submits and the rubric that will be used to assess. Once a template is created, it can be “pushed out” to course sections as an activity. SL&L’s activity templates are useful because the actual content of an activity only needs to be created one time, and then can be used to create an activity any time necessary.
While activities can be created manually anytime, it can be cumbersome and time consuming, especially when creating a lot of activities. For example, it’s very common for the same activity to be conducted in the same courses term over term. In fact, key assessments are often designed this way so that similar data is gathered at the same time each term, and then that data can be analyzed and compared over time. Using manual creation, an admin would need to create those activities at the beginning of every term.
So rather than using a template to manually create an activity each term, SL&L administrators can use the Activity Scheduler to designate a template, choose course sections, and select a time to have SL&L automatically create the activities.
For example, if a Written Communication activity is conducted in ED-101 every time the course is offered, the Written Communication template is created. Then, a Written Communication activity can be scheduled to be automatically created in every future instance of ED-101. Next semester, next year, in 5 years… every time ED-101 is offered in SL&L, the activity will be added to it.
Prerequisites for the Activity Scheduler
The Activity Scheduler uses the same basic structure as manual activities. However, there are a few key differences.
Templates and Template Workflows
The Activity Scheduler follows the same “tier down” hierarchy rules as a manual activity. only templates created with the following workflows can be used with the Activity Scheduler:
- Standard workflow
- Observational workflow
- Form workflow
- Internship workflow
- Internship Observational workflow
- Internship Form workflow
Aligning Course Member Roles
Just as with manually created activities, the template (or built-in) roles need to be aligned with a course’s member roles. When creating an activity, SL&L provides a dropdown menu for each template role that the template requires, and you choose which member role will act as each template role. Likewise, the Activity Scheduler needs to know which member roles are aligned to the template roles.
There are two ways to align course member roles to template roles:
1. Roles can be aligned through the Membership Import.
2. Roles can be aligned manually.
Aligning Roles using the Membership Import Matching
When importing course members using the Membership Import, each imported user is given a Role. For course-based courses, the most common label is student. For internship courses, common labels include intern, Cooperating Teacher, and University Supervisor.
The role field is an open text field, allowing institutional terminology to be applied as a label, or role, to each course member. However, if you choose a commonly used role label, SL&L can automatically match and align the imported member role to a template role.
We encourage you to use a common role label in your Membership Import so that you will not have to manually align member roles to template roles for every course.
NOTE: SL&L’s automatic role matching only works when member roles are created using the Membership Import. Role matching does not occur when member roles are created manually.
Below are some examples of common member roles, and the template roles that SL&L will match and align (a complete list can be found at the end of this guide):
NOTE: The Mentor and Supervisor roles only exist within the Field Experience workflow. Therefore, they are only available in an Internship course.
Aligning Roles Manually
While most alignment of user roles will take place during a membership import through automatic matching, there are unique instances that may require these roles to be aligned manually.
In existing courses that already have a member role, aligning the role to a template role happens on the individual course's Members tab.
NOTE: This is the same process currently used for aligning intern, mentor, and supervisor roles in Internships.
To align roles manually:
1. Navigate to the Course containing the course section whose members you will be aligning.
2. Click the Settings icon (gear icon).
3. Click the Members tab.
4. Choose an existing role, and click the role’s edit button
5. In the popup window, click the Select a Value dropdown menu and choose Student.
Creating a Schedule
Schedules are created at the Course level. This means that any schedule will apply to all future course sections in the course. To get started, navigate to the Course in which you would like to create an activity schedule.
To create an Activity Schedule:
1. From the Course screen, click the Activity Scheduler tab.
2. Click Create Schedule.
1. In the New Activity Schedule popup, give the activity a title.
2. Select a template from the dropdown menu.
3. After selecting the template, the activity settings options will appear.
4. Select the activity options.
5. Set the Visible date, the Open for Submission date, and the Due date.
6. When you’re finished making settings, click the Schedule button.
Schedule Settings Details
Creating an activity schedule requires many of the same settings as a manually created activity. However, since the schedule can automatically create activities for sequential course sections, the date fields work differently from manually creating activities.
When creating activities manually, you select specific dates for the activity to become Visible, Open for Submission, and to be labeled as Due.
- Visible Date: This defines the date that an activity will be viewable to students, mentors, and/or supervisors on their In Progress tab.
NOTE: Administrators and Instructors will see all activities, regardless of the Visible Date.
- Open for Submission Date: This defines the date that an activity will be submittable by students, mentors, and/or supervisors. By default, Open for Submission is the same date as the Visible Date. To select a different date, uncheck the “Visible and Open Submission dates are the same” checkbox.
- Due Date: This defines the date that appears to activity participants as the date the activity is due. It’s important to note that the Due Date is just an on screen indicator, to remind participants of the expectation of completion. While this indicator will display “Overdue” once the date passes, all participants will still be able to submit or assess.
NOTE: An activity schedule will create the scheduled activity in course sections as soon as the section is created/imported. However, the activity will be in Draft status until the section’s Start Date.
Editing / Deleting a Schedule
To edit an existing Schedule:
1. Access the Course and Click on the Activity Scheduler tab
2. The far right column, labeled “Operation”, has two icons. To edit the activity, click the paintbrush icon
3. You may edit any fields other than the template and submitter fields
a. Any changes made will only apply to activities that have not yet been created (i.e., for sections that have not yet
been imported/created in the system)
To delete an existing Schedule:
4. To delete a Schedule, click the trashcan icon.
a. You will receive an “Are you sure” popup
b. Of note, this will delete the Schedule but if existing activities that were created by the scheduler need to be
deleted, you will need to go to each activity to do so. Deleting a Schedule does not delete existing activities.
Complete List of Automatic Role-Matching Values
Student roles
Mentors roles
Supervisor roles
