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GUIDELINES FOR INCLUDING THE RDN VIRTUAL TRAINING SUITE WITHIN VIRTUAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS (VLEs)

Paul Smith
ILRT, University of Bristol - September 2003

1. Introduction

This document describes some simple mechanisms for embedding the RDN Virtual Training Suite into Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) All the examples shown in this document are based on Blackboard 6, however it is assumed that many of the techniques will also work in other VLEs such as WebCT.

2. Links to the main VTS pages

Any of the links to the RDN Virtual Training Suite (VTS) may be embedded within a course in the VLE, typically within the 'Course Material' or 'External Links' (also known as 'Web Sites') area of a course. Use the URLs and link texts specified.

For example, to add a link to the VTS home page to the 'External Links' (or 'Web Sites') area of a Blackboard course, do the following:

  1. Select the Control Panel button.
  2. Select the Course Documents link.
  3. Select the Add URL button.
  4. Set the Name to
    5. RDN Virtual Training Suite
  5. Set the URL to
    6. http://www.vts.rdn.ac.uk/
  6. Set the Description as appropriate (see below).
  7. Set the other Options as appropriate.
  8. Select the Submit button.

Linking to VTS home page from Blackboard

3. Embedding VTS tutorials

There are two mechanisms for embedding a VTS tutorial within a VLE. The first links to the tutorial hosted on the VTS Web site, in such a way that the tutorial starts automatically when the VLE course is started. The second simply links to the tutorial, exposing the URL as link within the course materials.

3.1 Linking with automatic start

To link to a VTS tutorial in such a way as it starts automatically do the following:

  1. Select the Control Panel button.
  2. Select Course Documents.
  3. Select the Add Item button.
  4. Set the Name to
    5. Internet for Information and Communication Technology
  5. Set the Text to
A "teach yourself" tutorial that lets you practise your Internet Information Skills

<script language="Javascript">
setTimeout('window.location = "http://www.vts.rdn.ac.uk/tutorial/instructor/";', 3000);
</script>
  1. Set the text type to HTML.
  2. Set other Options as appropriate.
  3. Select the Submit button.

Auto-starting a tutorial

This configuration means that the tutorial will automatically load after 3 seconds (the 3000 setting in the script) and as such will mean that the tutorial will become the main part of this course if course documents is enabled. Note that the 3 second delay introduced by the Javascript shown above is very important. This allows you to select various buttons in the 'control panel' area of the course before the VTS tutorial home page is displayed automatically.

If you would rather embed a VTS tutorial as a single part of a larger course, then perhaps option 2 would be more suitable.

3.2 Embedding the VTS as a linked course

For example, to add a link to the Internet for Information and Communication Technology, do the following:

  1. Select the Control Panel button.
  2. Select the Course Documents link.
  3. Select the Add URL button.
  4. Set the Name to Internet for Information and Communication Technology
  5. Set the URL to http://www.vts.rdn.ac.uk/tutorial/ict/
  6. Set the Description as appropriate (see below).
  7. Set the other Options as appropriate.
  8. Select the Submit button.

Linking to a specific tutorial

An advantage of this linked method, is that you can set the tutorial to open either within your VLE, or to open in a separate browser window. You can also enable the View Tracker so you can at least see how many users follow the link to the tutorial - something you can't do in the auto-start method.

4. Extra information

4.1 URL trimming

So far we have only made suggestions for linking to the main home page of a tutorial. You may want to link to a specific page within a tutorial - let's take for an example the page "Six-step guide to a successful search strategy" in 'Internet for Information and Communication Technology'.

Cutting and pasting the URL from the browser address bar produces:

http://www.vts.rdn.ac.uk/tutorial/ict?sid=1065741&op=preview&manifestid=48&itemid=3109

This length URL should be reduced before using within a VLE (or any other system). There are several attributes used within the URL which are not required for simple page linking. These are as follows:

  • sid = session ID. Should not be used unless you want to provide a link to a pre-prepared Links Basket. However, it should be noted that any changes made to the Links Basket using this session ID will be reflected across all users, so this technique is best avoided for larger groups of users.
  • op = operation. Again, this is purely for navigation purposes, and not required for linking.
  • manifestid = tutorial ID number. This is not required for linking, and is purely for navigation purposes.
  • itemid = page reference. This is required, and is the only attribute that should not be discarded when making a link within a tutorial.

So we can reduce the URL above to the following:

http://www.vts.rdn.ac.uk/tutorial/ict?itemid=3109

And it is this shorter URL which should be used when linking to individual pages within a tutorial, such as:

Deep linking to a VTS tutorial page

  

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