Inside a PMI Online Course

Click on a course area to learn more about it. Menu Edit Mode Toggle Navigation Menu Control Panel PMI’s online courses are all built using a standard template to make it easier for instructors and students to find their way around. This video will give you an overview of the areas you’ll see in every course to help you easily navigate them. Note the Edit Mode toggle at the top right side of the screen. To make changes to a course, it must be set to ON. When switched to OFF, you will see what a student sees in a course. The menus are on the left side of the screen. The top part of the menu is visible to students. The Control Panel is only for instructors. Click on a menu item to learn more about it. Click on a course area to learn more about it.

Announcements The Announcements page is the default entry page for PMI’s online courses. Only instructors can post announcements.

Course Syllabus The Course Syllabus includes standard information required by our accrediting bodies. Note that there’s a link to the System Check near the top of every syllabus. The Required Text area has a picture of the books used for the course, along with PDF files of the first few chapters. Students and instructors can use these if there’s a delay in receiving a book.

Course Content Course Content is where all the information and evaluations (assignments, discussions, quizzes) for a course can be found. The first item in the Course Content area is the Student Course Map. This is a printable file that shows all of the lessons, topics, and evaluations in a course. It’s an easy way to keep track of what’s coming up. You can encourage students to print it out and write in the due dates to help them stay on track in your course. PMI’s courses are divided into lessons, which appear as folders on the Course Content page. Each folder will contain topics, which are online lectures in text or video format; and evaluations, which are graded assignments, discussions, and quizzes.

Resources The Resources page contains links that may be useful to students. These may be general links, such as a video on APA format, or links more specific for your course or program. You’re welcome to add links to your course, and please let your faculty coordinator know if you have links that you feel may be valuable for this course in general. These can be added to the master version of the course so they will appear in future sections.

Tools The Tools page contains links to a variety of areas within Blackboard. You can access the Discussion board from here, and you can also Send Email by clicking that link. Students access their grade books here; instructors must access the class grade book through the Control Panel.

Instructor The Instructor page is where you put a brief biography and your contact information, including the hours you’re usually available and when you normally check email. Please include a picture of yourself! Since you and your students will likely never see each other in person, being able to envision their instructors makes them feel a bit more comfortable and welcome in the online environment.

Library The Library link will open the PMI online library in a new window or tab. Students and instructors can access the library directly through Blackboard without needing a separate username and password. Encourage students to use the library when they need to find resources for their assignments.

MyPMI Mail The MyPMI Mail link will open the STUDENT login page for PMI email in a new tab or window. The URL is mail.my.pmi.edu. Note that instructors access email at mail.pmi.edu.

Help Desk The Help Desk link brings up a page with several options for assistance, including links to login directions for Blackboard, email, and Portal, and tutorials for each. Clicking the Online Help Desk link on this page will bring up the form that is submitted to PMI’s Blackboard Help Desk. Please direct students to submit requests via this form, rather than by emailing the helpdesk directly. The information provided in the form is helpful for troubleshooting issues.

Student Lounge The Student Lounge is an ungraded discussion board where students can post whatever they want, within reason! You can encourage students to connect with each other here about school, work, or life in general. As the instructor, you should monitor this area to make sure posts remain appropriate, but you don’t need to post or grade anything that appears in this forum.

Course Calendar The Course Calendar can be found in the Control Panel under Course Tools. You can change your settings to display only the calendar for that course, or for all of your courses. Due Dates are set in the Course Content area. Those dates automatically transfer to the course calendar. Dates can be changed by dragging and dropping the item in the calendar, which in turn changes the date in the course content area. This does NOT change the due dates in the instructions field for an assessment.

SafeAssign SafeAssign, found in the Control Panel under Course Tools, is a plagiarism detection tool. You can upload papers and they will be checked against a database for matching content. SafeAssign generates a report which details the percentage of text in the submitted paper that matches existing sources. The report also shows the suspected sources of each section of the submitted paper that returns a match.

Performance Dashboard The Performance Dashboard, found in the Control Panel under Evaluation, is a table that displays information for all users in the course, including days since last course access and number of posts to discussion boards. This can tell you at a glance whether a student hasn’t logged in for a while.

Retention Center Retention Center can found in the Control Panel under Evaluation. Here, you can set rules to help indicate when students are at risk of failing a course. You can set rules such as number of days since last login, grade below a certain level, or missed due dates. Once you’ve set these rules, the Retention Center will display a table that shows which students are “at risk” based on the criteria you create.

Grade Center The Grade Center links in the Control Panel provide instructor access to the course’s grade book. You can view the full grade center, or you can choose to view only the items that need to be graded. In the grade center you will see all of the evaluations (assignments, quizzes, and discussions) for the course and the names of all students currently enrolled.

Summary This video provided an overview of a PMI online course. You will receive more in-depth training on how to accomplish various tasks within a course, but feel free to refer back to this video anytime you need to remember where something can be found.