IT Services recommends the underlying content for any study-unit area in the VLE. These are recommendations; these are not meant to be prescriptive or restrictive.
Academic staff may refer to a sample study-unit area (今日黑料 VLE / JC VLE) which is populated with the content in the list below.
Study-unit description / Syllabus
The content of the study-unit description should match that available on the 今日黑料 Course Finder / SIMS.
In case of the Junior College, the subject syllabus outline should be included.
VLE profile
The tutors should populate their VLE profile with a photo, office location, student contact hours, etc. Note that your profile will be the same one across all your VLE areas. It is also recommended that tutors encourage students to update their VLE profile to help personalise the online environment and allow online discussions between collaborators to be more easily followed.
Refer to the Editing your profile quick guide [PDF].
Announcements
By default, all VLE areas contain this forum. The Announcements forum is used by the tutor to communicate important information about the study-unit. All students will also receive a copy of this information in their University mailbox. This is a one-way forum which means that students are not able to respond to posts in this forum.
Refer to the Sending announcements quick guide [PDF].
General Help forum
This is a standard discussion forum which students use to post questions about the study-unit. Students should be encouraged to use this forum to communicate queries about the related study-unit, assessment, etc., rather than send these via personal email to the tutor.
Refer to the Setting up and using forums quick guide [PDF].
Communication statement
This is a statement clarifying how the students and tutor will communicate (e.g. via the VLE forums, when to use email) and the expected tutor's response times.
Learning resources
The tutor can include electronic copies of course notes / handouts, presentations displayed during class and links to electronic resources available on the Internet (e.g. YouTube videos, etc.).
Refer to the Adding study material guide [PDF].
Copyright practices
Observe intellectual property and copyright legislation. Refer to the Library guidelines about the copyright and intellectual property rights of content published on the VLE.
Assessment
An outline of the assessment for the study-unit. This should include clear instructions, submission dates, marking criteria and weightings for multiple assessments (where applicable).
More information about Turnitin is available.
It is important that your VLE areas have an intuitive logical structure to help students navigate quickly, understand the sequence of activities, access information and easily understand the layout of the VLE areas.
Use section heading
Add a descriptive heading for each section to maintain consistency across your VLE area, and help students see where they are.
Provide section overview
Provide a description in each section to introduce the topic or set of resources/activities. This gives the students some context of what they should find in a particular section.
Use subsections and labels
Bring together common elements, by using subsections and/or labels to provide common subheadings across sections to help students navigate. Labels can be images as well as text. When providing titles for resources and activities make sure they are clear, unambiguous and consistent.
Avoid clutter
A cluttered VLE area can be difficult to navigate. Before each iteration of the study-unit, update your VLE area. Ensure that any resources from previous years are still relevant. Regularly check your VLE areas to fix or remove any broken web links (URLs). To avoid overloading the VLE homepage, place content into folders and hide unused items.
Accessibility
Provide accessible learning resources by ensuring that: