Faculty: Confidential Password:

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to Virtual Office Hours, a way to communicate with your students using the Internet address at http://voh.chem.ucla.edu. The project has several levels of participation:

I) Online posting of instructional materials

II) Online posting of questions and answers

III) Private Student-Instructor communication

The first level presents static documents such as old exams, exam keys, handouts, and problem sets to students online. Students can read all materials online, download them, or print them from VOH.

The second level is a forum for students to post questions about your class. Using the link "Submit a Question" on your class home page, students can post questions. This link will then post the questions for viewing from the "View Unanswered Questions" link. After questions have been answered, students can view all questions and the answers from the "View Answered Questions" link. These features can be disabled if you do not want your students to submit questions.

The third level provides a way for students to send confidential messages directly to you via email. This feature can be disabled if you do not want your students to submit confidential messages to you.

UPLOADING DOCUMENTS TO VOH

There are several ways to send documents to be uploaded to VOH, but the first is the most convenient. Documents created with Word or ChemDraw on a Macintosh are the easiest to work with, but we will work with whatever form you have. Overall, you will only have to send documents to VOH and we will generally upload them within 24 hours.

ï Attach the documents to an email and send to voh@chem.

ï Archive the files and then email. All of the files to be sent can be compressed into one file with Stuffit (or similar program) and then attached to an email.

ï Copy the files to disk and place in the VOH mailbox in the faculty mail room.

ï If you have handwritten or other non-electronic material for posting, it must be scanned, so send it to VOH. If you have an excessive number of documents, assistance with the scanning from your TA or divisional assistant will be appreciated. Send a message to voh@chem requesting help with scanning.

ANSWERING QUESTIONS AND POSTING ANNOUNCEMENTS

To answer student questions or to post announcements for your class, go to the following URL: http://voh.chem.ucla.edu/profs/qaarf.html. Enter your last name (all lower case) for username and your password, select your class, select "Answer a Question" or "Submit an Announcement" and then click on "Create Submission Form". The "Answer a Question" form will generate a second form which has four fields:

1) A question field that contains the text of the first question to be answered.

2) A check box that allows for deletion of the question without answering it.

3) A check box that allows for skipping the question without answering it.

4) An answer field where you can type the answer to the question.

To answer the question, type in the answer and select the "Submit" button when finished. You may edit the question if the student made a really annoying spelling error, etc. If the question is redundant or inappropriate, it can be deleted by checking the checkbox. If the question is a violation of UCLA's use policy (http://www.ucla.edu:80/campus/computing/policies/) please send a message to voh@chem. After submitting the answer, the question and answer pair are added to the "Answered Questions" file for your class and the original question is automatically deleted from the "Unanswered Questions" file. Changes to your submitted answer require manual editing, so E-mail change requests to voh@chem. To answer more questions click twice on the "back" button on Netscape.

The "Submit an Announcement" form allows you to type in announcements.

Notes: Carriage returns are not recognized in the response fields. Instead, you can format your announcements and answers by typing <br> (including the <>) which is equivalent to a carriage return OR <p> which is equivalent to a carriage return and line feed.

The cache feature of Netscape may make it appear that new information is not instantly uploaded. You can select "Reload" to update a page or change your Netscape preferences to reload for each request.

CONFIDENTIAL MAIL

VOH allows students the option of a "Confidential" post, unless disabled for your class. This will send their comment or question directly to you as email from "nobody@chem.ucla.edu". Respond to these mailings as you wish, but remember that you must use the Student Email Address, since replying to "nobody" will not work.

REMINDER ROBOT

A VOH robot will check your class file every morning at 6:00 am to check on questions to be answered and will email you a note on the number of pending questions.

QUESTIONS

Craig Merlic Project Director 825-5466 merlic@chem.ucla.edu

Craig Monden VOH TA 825-7291 voh@chem.ucla.edu

This document is online at http://voh.chem.ucla.edu/profs/.