Research Guides: * Faculty Quick Start: Set Up Your Course

Overview

Approximately two months before the term begins, you will gain access to your upcoming courses in LATTE. This has been delayed in 2020-2021 as the university upgrades its technology services. Once you have been notified that the course is ready for you, you can start updating the course and the materials.

This page outlines each item you need to create or update to prepare your course and a recommended timeframe for doing so. We strongly recommend working through the items according to the timeline rather than waiting until the last minute.

IMPORTANT Many boxes in this guide contain multiple tabs, each with important information. Make sure you click on each tab to update all items completely. We will be updating this guide regularly with more detailed guidance and screenshots to help your development process.

Timing

Courses should open for students one week before the start of the term. See the bottom of this page for instructions on opening the course. At this time, students should have access to:

The Course Overview and Resources section
Weeks 1-3

We recommend hiding Weeks 4-10 at this time. If you hide the weeks, you will need to re-open them two weeks before the start of that week.

Review Course

Three weeks before the course starts

As soon as you have access to your course

Once you have access to the course in LATTE, take some time to familiarize yourself with the course even if you’ve taught it before. Open all of the sections, click each of the links, and read through the assignment and evaluation criteria. Please update any typos or broken links that you encounter.

After your initial review of the course, work through each item in this guide to update and prepare your course.

Update Content in LATTE

Four weeks before the course starts

Top Section

Add your name and credentials in the placeholder
Update your contact and availability information

Course Overview and Resources

Your instructor welcome message has been migrated to the "Welcome to the Course!" section. Please review it and make any adjustments necessary since it may have been a few years since you last changed it.
Do not hide, delete, or change the Find Help section since this contains important support information for students.
Share the course textbook information under Course Materials and Tools. This is especially important if you're using an ebook through the Brandeis Library so students can have easy access through LATTE rather than constantly going through the syllabus document. If you're primarily using journal articles, blogs, or other external websites, you can either remove the textbook placeholder area or change it to indicate that all materials will be available within each week's section.

Weekly Sections

Enter brief descriptions for the week's overview, the discussions, and the assignments. You should be able to pull this from your syllabus or your prompts.
Set due-dates for assignments
Check that all links to content still work and are relevant, including PDFs, websites, videos, podcasts, etc.
Optional: Set or update section restrict access dates

Whole Course

Review the gradebook to check that the grade distribution is correct.
Set up Private Forums and any other groups

Update the Syllabus

Three weeks before the course starts

Four weeks before the course starts

Make a copy of the syllabus from the last time you taught the course. If this is your first time teaching the course, download or make a copy of the syllabus in LATTE.
Compare your syllabus to the template linked below to make sure you have all the sections and required language. This may have been updated since the course was last taught. The current syllabus template was designed to be accessible for students.
Update the term that the course is being taught. Update the date ranges for the week and the assignment due dates throughout the document.
Save your document. We recommend two options for saving and sharing your syllabus, choose one:
1. Upload your syllabus document to Google Drive. Adjust the sharing settings for the document to either "Brandeis University: Anyone with the link can view" or "Anyone with the link can view." The benefit of this approach is that you can make updates to the syllabus as needed without needing to update LATTE each time. Additionally, you can set the link to open in a new window so it doesn't replace the course site in their current tab.
2. Save your document as a PDF and upload it to the course as a File resource. We don't recommend uploading Word documents because students will be forced to download a new copy each time they want to view the syllabus; PDFs will open in the browser without downloading.
Update the top section of LATTE with your new syllabus document.

Managing Groups and the Private Forum

Most GPS courses will use groups. Each course comes with a Private Forum with Professor that uses groups for easy and secure one-on-one conversations between you and each student individually. Some instructors have found that their students prefer to keep all communication within the course and its Private Forums rather than via email or other LATTE messaging options. As busy working professionals, many GPS students prefer consolidating all course communications in one place so they're easier to find.

You can also use LATTE groups for team assignments and conversations within your course. If you use any other groups in addition to the Private Forums, you will need to set up Groupings as detailed on one of the tabs in this box.

Accessing Group and Grouping Settings

If you keep the drawer menu on the left side of the course page closed, click the icon in the upper left corner of the page to expand it.
Click Participants in the left-side menu.
Click the Actions menu icon in the upper right of the Participants block (above the gray Enrol Users button) to expand the action menu, then click Groups. This will take you to the Groups page.

Create Groups

Click the gray Create group button.
Input the title of the group and save changes (the other options can be ignored). You will be taken back to the Groups window.

Delete a Group

Select the group you want to delete from the list of groups in the left box.
Click the gray Delete selected group button.
Confirm that Yes you do want to delete that group

Add Students to a Group

Select the group you want to add students to from the list of groups in the left box.
Click the gray Add/remove users button below the list of members on the right. This opens a page that displays the group’s current and potential members.
Select the name of the student in the right box to add to the group.
1. To highlight multiple names, hold down “Ctrl” (Windows) or “command” (Apple) and click on each student’s name who should be added.
Click the gray ◀ Add button between the two boxes and all the highlighted names will move to the left box.
After all the designated names are moved into the left-hand box, click Back to groups to return to the group page.

Remove Students from a Group

Select the group you want to remove students from from the list of groups in the left box.
Click the gray Add/remove users button below the list of members on the right. This opens a page that displays the group’s current and potential members.
Select the name of the student in the left box to remove from the group.
1. To highlight multiple names, hold down “Ctrl” (Windows) or “command” (Apple) and click on each student’s name who should be removed.
Click the gray Remove ▶ button between the two boxes and all the highlighted names will move to the right box.
After all the designated names are removed from the group, click Back to groups to return to the group page.

Set up groups according to the instructions in the previous tab. Each group should contain a single student and the instructor (you). Do this before adjusting the settings of the forum itself.
Navigate to the Private Forum with Professor forum from your course's main page. Edit the settings of the activity. Scroll down to the Common module settings section and expand it.
Change the Group mode to Separate groups

IMPORTANT Private Forums must be set up in a grouping if additional groups are created for assignments. Set up a grouping for the Private Forum groups according to the directions in the Groupings tab, then change the Grouping setting in the screenshot above to the appropriate grouping.

A grouping is a cluster of related groups. For example, all of the Private Forum groups are related, as are groups you would create for an assignment. If you don’t create groupings to organize your groups, students would be able to submit their assignment using their Private Forum group or post to their assignment group in the Private Forum.

Create Groupings

Follow the steps in the Overview tab to access the Groups page.
Click the second tab Groupings
Click the gray Create grouping button
Enter a Grouping name (e.g., Assignment 1, Private Forum) then click Save changes.
Click the Person icon under Edit for the grouping you want to add or remove groups for.
Select the name of the group in the right box to add to the grouping.
1. To highlight multiple groups, hold down “Ctrl” (Windows) or “command” (Apple) and click on each group name that should be added.
Click the gray ◀ Add button between the two boxes and all the highlighted groups will move to the left box.
After all the designated groups are moved into the left-hand box, click Back to groupings to return to the grouping page.
Repeat steps 4-8 for each grouping in your course.

Assign Groupings to Activities

Return to your course main page. Edit the settings of the activity that uses a group.
Scroll down to the Common module settings section and expand it.
Change the Grouping to the one you created for this activity. Save changes.

Welcome Announcement

Three weeks before the course starts

Draft the Welcome Message

Sunday prior to first week of class

The Course Announcements forum allows you to push emails to all enrolled students. Instructors are strongly encouraged to send an announcement welcoming students to the course on the Sunday prior to first week of class. Many faculty members choose to write their announcements in advance and schedule them to appear on their preferred days of the week (see the next tab in this box for instructions).

The exact content of the Welcome Message is up to you. We recommend including:

A welcoming of the students to the course
How you would prefer students to refer to you and/or your gender pronouns
An introduction of yourself, your professional experience, and some things about you as a person
An explanation of your interest in the course
An overview of the course and goals
What you hope students get from the course

IMPORTANT You must open the course before sending any announcements. If scheduling announcements, you must open the course before the display start date of the Welcome Message.

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Scheduling Announcements

You can send announcements instantly or schedule them in advance. Scheduling announcements gives you the flexibility to send messages at a set time, even when you're busy with something else. The announcement will be stored in LATTE but hidden from students until the display time. There is no limit to the number of announcements you can schedule.

Access the Course News & Announcements forum at the top of the course
Click the blue Add a new topic button
Type the subject line and message (order can be switched with step 4)
Click the Advanced link (order can be switched with step 3)
Expand the Display period settings if not already expanded
Enable Display Start. Set it to the date and time that students can see the post.
Do not enable Display End.
Click the blue Post to forum button

Open the Course

Three weeks before the course starts

At least one week before the course starts

All courses are hidden by default so students cannot access them before they are ready. Faculty are responsible for opening their own courses at least one week before the term starts.

IMPORTANT You must open the course before sending any announcements. If scheduling announcements, you must open the course before the display start date of the Welcome Message.

Click the gear icon in the upper right corner of your course then click Edit settings.
Change the Course visibility from Hide to Show.
Scroll to the bottom of the page and click the blue Save and display button.