If you choose virtual hours, let your students know when you are available and how they can contact you - e-mail, chat room, instant messaging, etc.
Private Discussion Groups will only be seen the members of the "group." The topics are invisible to all other participants.
At times, you will need to manage some of the discussions by moving and deleting postings. However, seriously consider how much you want to manage discussion topics and how many students you have in your course.
Check for changes (such as dates) within your content areas. Modules can be hidden and /or released based on contingencies. Use this to your advantage in setting the pace of the course.
Note: During the period a quiz is available, you probably want the students to only see the score (i.e., not the correct answers). After the quiz period has ended, you may want students to also see which questions they missed as well as see the correct answers. To do this, you need to change the "Quiz Settings" for each quiz.
When using the Assignment drop box, students can upload files, you open the files and enter a grade with comments. This grade automatically appears in the Student Management area. If you choose to allow multiple submissions, you will not be able to access the files until the due date.
Quiz grades, excluding those with paragraph questions, are automatically entered in the Gradebook. Enter other grades (discussions, projects, papers, etc.) manually.
Consider creating surveys to get feedback on your course from students and check the results of the survey.
As part of your computer risk management program, make periodic backups of course. You can only save one backup within Webcourses@UCF, so it is best to download the backups to your computer. A backup is an encrypted, zipped file and will need to be restored to the course account to view it. As an alternative, you may choose to only backup student data (grades, discussions, chats, etc.). These can be compiled and downloaded to your computer.
Use your first semester teaching online to determine how you will manage the course. If you are spending hours of time revising the content and grading, make adjustments. For fully online courses, provide some ungraded activities. Advise students that activities will be included as participation points at the end of the semester.
Don't go it alone. Before attempting to integrate the online environment with your course, talk to others who have experience - we call them web vets. They can share what works and doesn't work.