On May 15, Information Technology Services upgraded Penn State's Course Management System, A New Global Environment for Learning (ANGEL), to version 6.0. The enhancements featured in the new version "really add up to easier and faster ways of doing things for both instructors and students," said Brett Bixler, lead instructional designer and member of the ANGEL support team.
The modifications CyberLearning Labs, the developer of ANGEL, made to the system are not sweeping changes. Although several new course tools have been added, for the most part CyberLearning Labs made a series of smaller enhancements to existing tools designed to give faculty more flexibility and streamline administrative tasks. Users familiar with ANGEL 5.6, the previous version, will need only a minimal amount of time to learn the new version.
A brand new course tool in ANGEL 6.0 is the "milestones" tool. This allows an instructor to select key course assignments as milestones and specify the due date for each. In a color-coded table accessed via the "Tools" tab, the instructor can monitor for each student which milestones are completed, pending, or due. A student can also check his or her own progress in completing course milestones. As an added feature, the instructor can specify that the due date for each milestone appear on the course calendar as a reminder.
Navigation within a course is now aided by an optional course "map." When a user selects the "Show Map" link, the far left of the course screen displays a map, or tree structure, of all the course tabs and the folders and content items on the "Lessons" tab, providing a visual cue to the organization of the course. A user may navigate directly to an item on the map by clicking its name.
The course map panel is accompanied by the "What's New" panel, which lists new lesson items not yet viewed. While "What's New" is not a new feature, it is now easier to access. Bixler said, "I find the ÔWhat's New' tool to be invaluable," preventing the need to click on each tab and hunt for what may have been added.
In previous versions of ANGEL, when a user entered a course, the top and left menu frames remained. In version 6.0, when you enter a course, the course now occupies the entire screen. "That's a good thing for pedagogical reasons," said Bixler. "It structurally anchors you within the course. One of the problems we've had from day one with ANGEL is that people would be within a course and then accidentally hit a link on that left frame, and they'd be out of the course. Then they'd have to find the course again, go back into it, and navigate back to where they were. That doesn't happen now."
Enhancements to existing ANGEL tools have added functionality and flexibility, and in some cases, reduced confusion. For example, when a student downloads a course file, it retains its original file name, rather than being assigned a long, mysterious file name by the ANGEL database. In a user's personal calendar, events pulled in from course calendars are now labeled with the course name. Previously, a student looking at "My Calendar" may, for example, have seen a "Midterm Exam" entry, but would not be able to tell which course the exam was in. This is a feature CyberLearning Labs added in direct response to a Penn State enhancement request. Another new course calendar feature is the ability to add repeating events.
Enhanced quiz setup options that provide instructors with greater administrative control have been added in ANGEL 6.0. In addition, a new question type, the "Calculated Question," is now available for questions that involve the use of formulas in their solutions.
"CyberLearning Labs definitely responded to our requests," said Bixler. He noted that they implemented approximately 75 percent of the enhancements Penn State requested and that they are addressing the remainder in a timely manner.