eLab – Project Grading Coming March 13

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We are pleased to announce the upcoming availability of automatically graded, project-based assessments for your Office 2010 courses. Future Office 2013 titles will have similar assessments.

Project Grader exercises are available for the following titles:

MS Office 2010: Brief
MS Office 2010: Essentials
MS Office 2010: Comprehensive Introductory
MS Word 2010: Comprehensive
MS Excel 2010: Comprehensive
MS PowerPoint 2010: Essentials
MS Access 2010: Essentials

Beginning Wednesday, March 13, you will be able to access Project Grader exercises through your eLab™ assignment library. All project grader exercises will include an icon    in the assignment title. In addition to the settings for standard assignments, project grader exercises will include the following options:

• Point Value. You can set a point value for each step in the exercise.
• Partial Credit Scoring. You have the option to provide partial credit for steps having multiple tasks.

All other fields are the same as when setting up other eLab assignments. Students access and submit Project Grader assignments just like they do all other eLab assignments. The only difference is that in Project Grader assignments, students will always download at least one file. Once submitted, projects are automatically graded and detailed feedback can be provided directly to the student.

To explore the new assignments, login in to your eLab account at http://labyrinthelab.com/ beginning Wednesday, March 13. And for a live demo of this new functionality, sign up for one of our upcoming eLab instructor workshops at www.lablearning.com/webinars.

- Best regards from Labyrinth Learning

Adobe FLASH Player Issues with Videos and Simulations

A new concern has arisen where a student may encounter a "you need to have Adobe Flash Player 9 installed" message upon clicking on a video or Simulation question in eLab.   The message may appear randomly at times even though the computer being used appears to have all the latest software updates available.

If the above scenario is encountered, the problem may be that you are running Microsoft Windows 64-bit edition and are using Microsoft Internet Explorer 64 bit Edition web browser but have installed the 32-bit version of the Adobe Flash Player.  Unfortunately, Adobe.com does not verify which web browser bit version you are using when you go to download Adobe Flash Player so the possibility of downloading the incorrect bit version is high.

The issue can be easily resolved by installing the 64 bit version of Flash Player. Please follow the link below for a step-by-step guide in installing the 64 bit flash player version on 64 bit Microsoft Windows computer:

http://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/flash-player-64-bit-operating.html#main_Check_whether_you_have_64_bit_Internet_Explorer

eLab SET – On Demand Enrollment

Instructors now have the ability to create and enroll students into their courses via a simple form.   In you’re my evaluations, navigate to the MANAGE > MANAGE LEARNERS tab and click on the "Add Learner" button, and the following form will appear.  A Student ID field is being added also as an optional field.

eLab Dashboard Upgrade

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Effective November 19, three new usability improvements to your eLab Dashboard will be released. You’ll be able to:

• Organize your Courses and Evaluations. You will now be able to drag and drop your courses/evaluations to organize your dashboard how you want it. Move your courses and evaluations from one category to another. Re-order your categories in the order you want. Or re-order courses and evaluations within categories.

• Collapse or Expand Course/Evaluation View. Simplify your dashboard by collapsing detail for some or all courses or evaluations. One easy click to minimize detail, click again to expand.
   
• Access commonly used pages from menu links. We’ve added short-cut menu links to speed access to often used pages directly from your Dashboard.

                  

You’ll be able to see these changes by logging in to your eLab account at http://labyrinthelab.com/ beginning Monday, November 19!

To accommodate these eLab upgrades, the Labyrinth eLab website will be unavailable between the hours of 12:01 am and 4:00 am EST on Sunday, November 18.

eLab Upgrades Postponed - Network Issues

Notice: The planned October 30 upgrade with new eLab features and eLab Skills Evaluation Tool has been delayed due to network issues unrelated to eLab. We hope to complete the upgrades tonight to be live tomorrow (October 31).

eLab – More new features!

We recently told you about some new eLab features that were released October 17, and our new eLab Skills Evaluation Tool (SET) which was planned for October 29 (this has been rescheduled for October 30). You can read the full announcement of these features on our blog at http://labyrinthelab.blogspot.com/.
As we finalized plans for our eLab SET release, we were able to add some additional educator-requested improvements that will make using eLab even easier. Effective October 30, along with the eLab SET release, the following improvements will be released:

• Gradebook enhancements.

• Resubmissions - the gradebook has been updated to highlight resubmissions so you can quickly identify when an assignment has been resubmitted, and a link will take you to the specific student assignment that was resubmitted so you can quickly evaluate the resubmission and update the grade.
   
• Navigation – you will now be able to click “Back & Save” to return to the gradebook following an update to the grade 

• Student dashboard upgrade. Students will be able to view eLab license key activation history directly from their dashboard.
   
• Registration form improvement. We’ve added an email confirmation field to ensure students are entering their email address correctly when registering. 

You’ll be able to see these changes and all the features previously announced by logging in to your eLab account at http://labyrinthelab.com/ beginning Tuesday, October 30!

To accommodate these eLab upgrades, the Labyrinth eLab website will be unavailable between the hours of 12:01 am and 4:00 am EDT on Tuesday, October 30.
~ Best regards from Labyrinth Learning

eLab - New Release Coming Oct 17th.

We are continuing to improve and extend the functionality of eLab™, and two new releases are coming in October. You will see improvements to eLab for your courses, and the release of a new tool, the eLab Skills Evaluation Tool (SET), designed specifically for creating and delivering computer skills inventory tests and other evaluations.

Phase 1: Beginning Wednesday, October 17, you will be able to:

• Copy Assignments. Now you’ll have the same ability to copy assignments that you’ve had with copying tests. Copy existing assignments to any course in your account.
   
• Send Custom Messages upon Enrollment. You’ll be able to create a custom email message that will be automatically sent to students when they enroll in the course.
   
• Improve your posts in the Discussion Forum. New editors have been added for improved functionality and ease of use for both instructors and students. And now you can attach a file up to 8MB to each post. 

Phase 2: On Monday, October 29, we’ll be releasing our new eLab Skills Evaluation Tool (SET), providing everything you need to create, administer, and grade computer literacy tests to gain an accurate evaluation of student knowledge. This tool is intended for testing only – no course management or training. You can confirm pre-requisite skills for computer or online courses, or demonstrate the skills learned following a course. A few highlights:

• Flexible, Online Access. Testing can be done anytime, on any online computer. You decide when, where, and how often tests can be accessed.
   
• Pre-enrollment or On-Demand Registration. Register students in advance so they are pre-enrolled at the time of test, or register at time of testing.
   
• Comprehensive Question Library. Spanning introductory to advanced topics in computer basics, the internet, email, Microsoft Office applications, and more.
   
• Highly Realistic Simulation Testing Environment. eLab SET uses the same simulation testing environment that you currently use.
   
• Affordable licenses as low as $3 per student. eLab SET is an economical and easy way for institutions to test knowledge outside a regular eLab course.

With this release, we will be referring to your current eLab, with the complete course management functionality, as eLab Course Management System (CMS). Licenses for purchase on our website and elsewhere will be identified as eLab CMS licenses, while licenses for the Skills Evaluation Tool will be identified as eLab SET licenses. You’ll also see a few changes to your eLab interface, including the change from My Courses to My Courses/My Evaluations, and the option to create a new Skills Evaluation Test when creating a new course/evaluation.
For more information on our new eLab Skills Evaluation Tool, visit our website at http://www.lablearning.com/Store/eLab-SET/

To accommodate these eLab upgrades, the Labyrinth eLab website will be unavailable between the hours of 12:01 am and 4:00 am EST on Wednesday, October 17 and on Monday, October 29.
~ Best regards from Labyrinth Learning