Frequently Asked Questions

On this page:

Discussion Board Management

Question: How can I make sure my students respond to the prompts on Discussion Board only when I want them to respond, not earlier or later?
Answer: You can set release and closing dates when you establish a topic.

Gradebook

• Question: Help, the gradebook columns have dashes making my students' grades higher!
  • Answer: For students who have gradebook items that have not been graded, a dash mark will appear in place of a score. The dash is not a zero. A dash indicates that the associated gradebook item will not be included in the calculation of that students’ final course grade. This may result in a higher grade for the student. To fix this:
  • Follow the "All Grades" link and look for dashes.
  • For students with dashes either:
  • go to the associated tool and enter a zero, or
  • if the gradebook item was manually created, follow it’s link and enter the zero there.

General

• Q: My students say that the Course Menu is missing. What's wrong?

  • Answer: Their display’s resolution may be set too high. They will get the best results if they reset their resolution to at least 1280 x 1024 for a PC or 1280 x 800 for a MAC.

• Q: My student are telling me that the left side Course menu is not visible on their smartphone or tablet so how do they navigate my site?

  • Answer: On mobile devices, the left side Course Menu has been replaced by the button called "Tools" at the top of the screen: Once they click on the 'Tools' button, a screen will appear showing buttons for all the tools used in a course that they can use for navigation:

Is there a good way to narrate my presentations?

Answer: Yes, there are a few options:

• Use a Screen Recorder for Application-independent Narration
  • Use a screencasting application like ScreenPal, which is free to UH Hilo faculty and easy to use.
  • UH Hilo’s Premier version of ScreenPal can automatically caption your video using speech-to-text, gives you video editing capabilities, and can directly upload your recordings to your YouTube or Google Drive accounts.
• For PowerPoint
  • You can use built-in features to record presentations and capture narrations, slide timings, and ink gestures. Then, the presentations can be exported as a video. Below are some helpful step-by-step guides for Mac and Windows users:
  • Mac: An update has made the process comparable to Windows, however, some of the specifics are different.
  • Windows:
    • Record a PowerPoint slide show with narration and slide timings.
    • Turn your PowerPoint presentation into a video.
    • Add closed captioning or sub-titles in PowerPoint. Because there are many ways this can be accomplished please contact Cynthia “Cindy” Yamaguchi for assistance.

Students and educators are eligible to use the online version of Office 365 Education for free (It’s not a trial), including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and now Microsoft Teams, plus additional classroom tools. All you need is a valid school email address.

Syllabus

• Q: How can I get my online students to read the syllabus thoughtfully -- before the course begins or very early in the term?

  • Answer: There are a few options:

    • As their first assignment, give a syllabus quiz and make it count for a few points. You can use one of Laulima's assessments tools, or you could do use the Assignments tool: post the questions in an assignment and have students type in their responses.

    • Make a video and post it in Laulima. A good creation tool is the free ScreenPal . Walk students through the major sections, highlighting one or two key points for each section.

    • Create an infographic showing the key points of each section. An easy creation tool is Piktochart .

• Q: What is a good statement to include in my syllabus to direct students with disabilities to the Disability Services Office?

  • Answer: Please refer to the Support Available for Students webpage.

• Q: Is there one place that lists all the university policies and service statements?

  • Answer: Yes! You can go to the Support Available for Students webpage.

Testing

Question: How can I reschedule an exam for just one student?

Answer: Depends upon the assessment tool you are using:
Tests & Quizzes - For the specific student, you can create what’s called an "exception" within the test’s settings. View this step-by-step tutorial that illustrates the process (this particular example shows how to give a student a different day and time to take the test).
Tasks, Tests, and Surveys - This tool uses a feature called "Special Access." View this step-by-step tutorial that illustrates the process.

Question: How can I know that the person, who is taking a test, is the very student who registered for the course?

Answer: As much as possible, have a series of assignments throughout the course with students writing that may have life experiences. You will develop a sense of a students' style. Because a student is working continuously throughout the project with frequent feedback all semester long, this leads to the student having no need to plagiarize or cheat on the final exam or paper.

Answer: As much as possible, have demonstrations of knowledge in group projects where the students interact with each other.

Answer: A test can be proctored at a testing site from the link below. Students are required to show a picture ID, and the proctoring staff have a testing code that they put in Laulima for the student. Here is the link to the list of proctors statewide. Faculty are required to submit a proctoring request form to set up this service for their students. Proctoring website.

A Question for You: In a traditional class, how do you know that the person attending and taking the tests is really the person enrolled in the class? You really do not know.