When contacting CTL for help in myCourses, please have your CRN (Course Registration Number) available. This is a five-digit number that is assigned to your course via Banner. To determine your course CRN, log-in to onCampus and enter the Banner tab. From your Banner for Faculty channel, select the option Faculty Class Schedule under the Registration column. All the courses you are teaching will appear and CRNs will be displayed.

Spring CRNs start with a 1, Summer CRNs start with a 2 and Fall CRNs start with a 3.

This will help us provide more timely service.

myCourses training is available this spring. A listing of the current offerings is available at:

http://www.ctl.msstate.edu/programsandservices/teachwork/

Have you ever wanted to come to a CTL workshop but had a conflict? Did you know that all workshop handouts are available online? Browse through CTL documentation at:

http://www.ctl.msstate.edu/publications/handouts

Additionally, we are happy to arrange custom scheduled workshops for departments that have a minimum of five participants interested in a session. To arrange a custom workshop, please contact the Center at help@ctl.msstate.edu.

If you are planning to use myCourses during the Summer or Fall 2009 semesters, it is your responsibility to mark the course(s) in myBanner. Courses can be marked now which will result in your section being created in myCourses. A factsheet with instructions is located at:

www.ctl.msstate.edu/technologies/mycourses/

Additionally the updated training schedule is posted at:

www.ctl.msstate.edu/programsandservices/teachwork/

If you are planning to use myCourses during the Summer or Fall 2009 semesters, it is your responsibility to mark the course(s) in myBanner. Courses can be marked now which will result in your section being created in myCourses. Marking courses prior to the start of the semester is encouraged and will result in the course appearing quicker in the system.

A factsheet with instructions is located at:

http://www.ctl.msstate.edu/technologies/mycourses/

Additionally the updated training schedule is posted at:

http://www.ctl.msstate.edu/programsandservices/teachwork/

MSU has a site license for the plagiarism detection service, Turnitin.com. Turnitin has had a number of upgrades and interface enhancements this summer. Here are some of the latest changes:

Languages: Turnitin now supports 10 different languages, including English, Spanish, French, German, chinese (traditional and simplified), Japanese, Korean, Malay Bahasia, and Thai.

Performance Imrpvodements: recent upgrades to the application web servers should result in improvements to both performance and system reliability.

New Features include:

An option to exclude quoted (and bibliographic) material from papers' Similiarity Index for an entire assignment (not just individual papers);

An option to exclude small matches in Originality Reports to help streamline the process of evaluating your students' papers for unoriginal content. Instructors can choose the size of excluded matches as a number of words (such as 8 or 11) or a percentage of all words in the paper (such as 4%);

An expanded Similiarity Index that shows multiple sources for highlighted matches in the Originality Report---not just a single possible source;

Automatic check of user's system capabilities and compatability with Turnitin system requirements;

Improved handling of document submissions and multiple file uploads. This includes: double the size limit for individual file submissions (from 10 MB to 20 MB) as well as an increase in the size of zip files (batch) uploads (from 100 MB to 200 MB); improved user notification for submissions that exceed the maximum size (and guidance to help fix the issue); and a new status bar indicating the status of uploads.

As always, you can use Turnitin with your classes via the Web service or through your myCourses class site. The Center for Teaching and Learning can set up a Turnitin.com workshop for your department! For additional information about Turnitin.com, please contact Dr. Deborah Lee at 325-0810.

It's not too late to sign up for additional myCourses training this month! The following workshops are still available:

Introduction to myCourses (8/20)
myCourses: Grades Management (8/20)
myCourses: Assignments (8/20)
myCourses: Assessment (8/21)

To register for these sessions, visit the Center for Teaching & Learning's workshops and seminars website.