1 Rules for submitting Online Labs and Assignments Index

READ ALL THE WORDS!

You must download, fill in the answers, and upload/submit your assignments online via Blackboard, following these rules.

2 Fetching the Assignment Index

1. Start your Fedora 12 virtual machine. Make the window full-screen. (You may benefit from first adjusting your display settings under your Windows host O/S to increase the screen resolution of your display.)

2. Inside your Fedora virtual machine, download your lab/assignment ODT file (in OpenOffice format) to a directory on your virtual hard drive. Make sure you download the ODT file, not the PDF file. You must download and save the file, not open it read-only via your web browser. Do not change the name of the file - you must upload using the same file name.

3. Inside your Fedora virtual machine, open the lab/assignment ODT file you downloaded using OpenOffice. Do not open the assignment inside Microsoft Word - the layout will be wrong. You must use Fedora’s OpenOffice (or LibreOffice). DO NOT USE MICROSOFT WORD.

4. Also open a Fedora shell terminal window. (From the Fedora 12 menus, select Applications->System Tools->Terminal.)

5. Adjust your lab document window and your terminal window so that you can have both the lab document and terminal open at the same time. (Refer to Item #1 above about increasing the resolution of your display to allow two windows to fit side-by-side.)

   In the FAQ for this course, read the section on Enabling Focus Follows Mouse if you want your typing to go into the window containing the mouse, eliminating the need to click to type in that window. (Highly Recommended!)

3 Entering Answers Index

6. There are two ways to enter answers into this ODT document:

   1. Recommended: You can replace an entire line of red underscores with your answer. To do this, in your OpenOffice document, make sure on “INSRT” (Insert) mode is on (do not use “OVER” mode) and double-click on the line of red underscores to select the entire line and then type/paste on top of it to replace all the underscores with your answer. The answer will retain the red colour. (If the answer is not red, you must colour it red. Answers must be RED.)
   2. Not Recommended: You can type your answers on top of a line of red underscores. To do this, in your OpenOffice document, turn on “OVER” (overtyping) mode and then type or paste your answers on top of the red underscores. The answer will replace some (but not usually all) of the underscores. This doesn’t look as good as method (A) above. Use the (A) method for the best results.

You can change between INSRT and OVER mode by clicking the INSRT/OVER button in the status line at the bottom of the document, or by pushing the [Insert] key. Make sure all your answers are red.

If you make a mistake, use the Undo button or Edit|Undo menu to undo your mistake and start over. It is safer to use Undo than to attempt to backspace over or delete a mistake. Use Undo. Save your document after you enter each answer, in case of machine failure.

7. Enter your name and lab section at the top of the OpenOffice document.

8. Follow the assignment instructions. Type your answers to replace the lines of straight red underscores in each answer in your OpenOffice document. You may be able to cut-and-paste some of the longer answers into your document instead of writing them by hand, but you will learn more by reading the terminal output and copying by hand. If you want to learn the material, do not cut-and-paste.

   When you are entering answers into the OpenOffice document, be sure to pay attention to the following points, otherwise you will badly mangle the formatting of the document and it will not be marked:

   • Answers must be entered in RED so that they stand out clearly from the original document’s text, and your lab instructor can easily read your answers. All answers must be coloured red. Usually, this happens whenever you replace a line of red underscores. If the colour red doesn’t appear in an answer, use the Font Colour menu to change the answer to red.

   • Document pagination must remain the same. Do not add extra lines to the document, and do not delete lines, unless you need to delete the occasional blank line to make room for a multi-line answer. Students must compare the modified version with the original and make sure the answers still have the same numbers or letters and appear on the same page numbers. Don’t change pagination and don’t insert accidental questions that change the question numbering or lettering. If you make a mistake, you can use the Undo button or select Edit|Undo to undo the change.

   • The best way to type an answer into the OpenOffice document is by double-clicking on the red answer underscores to select the entire line and then typing your new answer to replace all the underscores.

   • I don’t recommend copying and pasting, because you don’t learn the output of commands by cut-and-paste. If you must paste lines into the OpenOffice document (not recommended), follow these rules:

     1. Don’t try to copy and paste more than a SINGLE line at a time. Pasting multiple lines may damage the document structure by inserting new paragraphs with question numbers. Damaged documents will not be marked. Use the Undo button to recover from document damage.
     2. First double-click on a SINGLE line of red answer underscores in the OpenOffice document to select and highlight the entire line of underscores that you want to replace. Select only ONE line.
     3. Second, go to your Terminal window and copy the single line of text you want to paste, by clicking and dragging the mouse over the text to highlight it, then right-clicking to open a menu that allows you to select “Copy”. Be careful to select only the one line of text you want to copy!
     4. Move the mouse to the OpenOffice window and right click over the underscores to open a menu that allows you to say “Paste”. (Pasting often doesn’t work. If you don’t see Paste, you’ll have to copy the line manually.)
     5. Paste the line of text from the clipboard.
     6. Save the document. (In case of subsequent errors, you can Reload the document from the File menu.)

   Pasting doesn’t always work between Terminal and OpenOffice. You may have to type those answers manually, which is what I recommend in the first place. You will learn more by re-typing the answers.

9. When you have answered all the questions, and filled in your Name and Lab section at the top of the first page, save the document. Keep a copy of all your lab documents until the course is over. We may need to check your copy.

4 Supplementary Files Index

10. If (and only if) you are uploading more than one file for marking (e.g. if you have a log file to upload as well as the ODT document), make sure the secondary files are complete before you start the upload process. If you have multiple files to submit, always upload both the ODT file and all the secondary files in every submission. I only mark the most recent submission and ignore all previous submissions, so the most recent submission must contain ALL the required files. You cannot upload part of an assignment in one upload and a second part in a later upload. I only look at the latest upload and ignore the earlier ones.

5 Uploading your Completed Document Index

11. Use Blackboard to submit and upload the completed ODT document (and any secondary files, if there are any) to the correct assignment section of this course. Do not change the name of the file when you upload - use the exact same name you were given when you downloaded the file. I mean exact name! To upload the completed files, do this:

    1. Go to your Blackboard Home Page for this course. Select Assignments and Labs in the left side-bar. Open the correct Lab number by clicking on the underlined lab name. (Verify you are uploading to the correct assignment number!) Click on the underlined lab number to open the “Upload Assignment” page.
    2. On the “Upload Assignment” page, locate the “Attach File” line under section 2 “Assignment Materials” and select “Browse My Computer” to locate the completed ODT file you wish to attach for upload. Make sure you upload the correct file!
    3. Repeat the “Attach File” process for every file you need to upload. Only attach each file once. Multiple identical attachments cause Blackboard to reject your submission when I go to mark it. Submit only one attachment for each file name.
    4. Do not enter any Submission or Comments; they will not be read. Use email to comment on your submission, if needed.
    5. Under section 3 “Submit” use the “Submit” button to upload all the attached files. Verify again that you uploaded the correct file to the correct lab number. You don’t get a second chance.
    6. Make sure the file is uploaded! If the upload works, Blackboard will show you a section named 2. Review Submission History that will show your file names beside the Attached Files heading. (Note: Many students think they uploaded the file when in fact they did not. You must see the file uploaded on Blackboard.)
    7. If you are worried that your upload might not have worked, you can download back from Blackboard its copy of your uploaded file (listed beside Attached Files), to verify its contents. You can always get back anything you upload, in case you lose your copy.
    8. If you are worried that Blackboard might lose your submission, keep a screen capture of the whole Blackboard Review Submission History page showing your Attached Files as evidence that you submitted your assignment on time. (Note: Blackboard has never lost a properly uploaded submission yet.)

12. Always upload both the ODT file AND all the secondary files (if any) in every submission. I only mark the most recent submission and ignore all previous submissions, so the most recent submission must contain ALL the required files. You cannot upload part of an assignment in one upload and a second part in a later upload. I only look at the latest upload and ignore the earlier ones.

    If you wish to claim that you uploaded the file correctly but Blackboard “lost it”, you must show me your screen capture of the full Review Submission History page to prove that you uploaded it correctly to the correct course and assignment number.

    Only modified original lab ODT (OpenOffice) documents with original pagination and question numbering preserved will be marked. You cannot submit DOC or PDF answer files, or anything edited using Microsoft Word. Submit only ODT documents edited by OpenOffice (or LibreOffice) that follow these rules.

    No marks are awarded for submitting to the wrong course, or to the wrong assignment number, or submitting the wrong ODT file, or using the wrong file name, or submitting a Microsoft-Word mangled file format. The pagination of the document must not be changed. Be precise; be correct. READ ALL THE WORDS.

6 Right the First Time Index

Assignments are only marked once. You don’t get a second chance. In the real world, if you don’t get it right the first time, your business (or your employer’s business) suffers. You try not to make the same mistakes again, but you can’t take back the fact that you made them in the first place. Do your best the first time. READ ALL THE WORDS.

Author: 
| Ian! D. Allen  -  idallen@idallen.ca  -  Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
| Home Page: http://idallen.com/   Contact Improv: http://contactimprov.ca/
| College professor (Free/Libre GNU+Linux) at: http://teaching.idallen.com/
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