access code
Pearson Education code required to register in CourseCompass. Students receive their access codes on a student access code card, which is available with a new textbook, as a standalone item in the bookstore, or through online purchase during registration. Instructors receive their instructor access codes from their sales representatives or complete an online request from the CourseCompass home page.
Access codes are nontransferable and look like this: NANTW-FORRM-TIGON-BLASE-PENCL-COLAM.
adoption (of a course)
The step by which you make a course available for student enrollment. When you create a course, CourseCompass lists it as a course you are previewing. When you are ready for students to enroll in that course, click the Adopt button next to the course title on the My CourseCompass page.
announcement
An online posting of information for students. You can use an announcement to inform students about new assignments, for example, or to remind them of upcoming tests. There are two types of announcement lists in CourseCompass:
Course announcement list, which you access from the Course Home page and which contains announcements for only a single course. The course announcement list is one of the content areas in a course.
Comprehensive announcement list, which you access from the My CourseCompass page. This list contains announcements for all the courses that you are teaching or in which you are enrolled.
assessment
The CourseCompass term for all graded quizzes, exams, and tests. You can create assessments from scratch, import assessments from another course, or import tests you create in the TestGen application on your computer. In addition, your course probably includes preloaded chapter assessments. You can use these assessments as is, modify them, or reuse the questions in your own assessments. See also survey, question pool, and TestGen test.
assignment
A description of coursework to be completed by a specified date. Examples of assignments include essays, group presentations, or term papers.
asynchronous communication
Online communication that does not occur in real time. Participants can respond from different locations and at different times. You and your students can use a range of asynchronous communications tools, such as email, Discussion Board, and group pages.
attachment
Any file that you attach to an item, an email message
or to a Discussion Board message. For students to view an attachment,
such as a Microsoft Word
Books
A CourseCompass content area in which you can list recommended or required texts, newspapers, and journals for your course.
To enable this content area, click Control Panel on your Course Home page, click Course Settings, and then click Area Availability. This area is automatically enabled if your course includes a MetaText eBook.
button
An object that you click to perform an action, such as submitting information, or to begin a process, such as modifying an assessment. Buttons typically include either a text label or a picture. Here are two examples:
Contrast to link.
calendar
An online listing of events. CourseCompass provides two types of calendars:
Course calendar, which is accessed from the Course Home page and displays events for only a single course.
Comprehensive calendar, which you access from the My CourseCompass page. This calendar displays events for all the courses that you are teaching or in which you are enrolled. You can also add non-course-related events to it.
content areas
Categories of course content, typically including:
Announcements
Course information
Staff information
Course documents
Assignments
Books
External links
To customize your course by adding content to these areas, click the Control Panel. For definitions, see the entries for each content area in this glossary.
Control Panel
Instructor area for creating and customizing content in your courses. You use this panel to create and customize course content. To access the Control Panel to customize a course, click the link for your course from the My CourseCompass page, and then click the Control Panel button at the lower left of the page. Students cannot see the Control Panel button.
course documents
The materials you use to teach your course, such as student resources, chapters and units, and lecture notes. Typically, you store these materials in the Course Documents content area. Contrast with course information.
Course Home page
The default opening page of a course. The Course Home page displays an outline of your course's content. Each entry in the outline is a link. To open the Course Home page, click the link for your course on the My CourseCompass page. You can also click the Courses tab and then click the course title.
course ID
An alphanumeric code (such as peterson34786) that CourseCompass generates to identify your course. This code usually consists of the instructor's last name followed by five digits. Students who want to enroll in your course must have the course ID to do so.
To locate the unique course ID for your course, click the Courses tab to go to the Course List page. The course ID appears beneath each course's title.
course information
Materials related to your course's organization and requirements, such as the syllabus, a course overview, meeting times, and objectives. In other words, course information materials, which you typically store in the Course Information content area, relate primarily to the logistics of teaching and taking your course. Contrast with course documents.
course map
A tree-like tree of a course's contents. You click through the branches of the course map, which opens in a separate window. Clicking a link in the course map takes you directly to that course content.
Digital Drop Box
A file-sharing tool. You and your students use the Digital Drop Box to send and receive documents electronically. You can access the Digital Drop Box from the Control Panel under Course Tools or from the Tools button on the Course Home page.
Discussion Board
A communications tool that you and your students can use to explore issues or to work together on projects. The tool is asynchronous: participants can contribute to conversations whenever they log in. You access Discussion Board from the Control Panel under Course Tools or by clicking the Communication button on the Course Home page. See forum and thread.
eBook
An online textbook. Depending on the course materials you selected, your course may include a PDF eBook, an HTML eBook, a MetaText eBook, or no eBook. By default, the Books button appears only if your course includes a MetaText eBook.
eBook link
A link, such as in an assignment, to a specific page or page range in a MetaText eBook.
enrolling
The process by which students register for CourseCompass course. During registration, a student enters a login name and password to use to log in to CourseCompass.
exam
A type of assessment. CourseCompass categorizes all graded tests as "assessments." You can also give students surveys, which are not graded.
external link
A link from CourseCompass to resources available on the web, such as references, libraries, and original material. External links are stored in the External Links content area.
folder
A container for grouping items online. You can create folders to group items in most content areas of a course. For example, you could create a folder to store the assignments that make up a project. See also item.
forum
A conversation in a Discussion Board. Within a forum, messages and responses are organized into threads. See also thread.
group
A subset of students in a course. You might set up groups to complete team assignments, for example. You assign students to groups and select communication tools for the groups through the User Management area of the Control Panel.
group pages
CourseCompass page listing the communication tools you have enabled for a group along with the students assigned to the group. To access group pages, click the Communication button on the Course Home page.
homepage
Personal CourseCompass page assigned to each student in a course. By clicking the Tools button and then Edit Your Homepage, a student can fill in this page without any knowledge of HTML. Students access each other's homepages through the roster.
HTML text option
An option for formatting text, such as a question in a test or an assignment. The HTML option codes the text you enter with HTML tags.
item
Any discrete piece of course content. Whether you are working with a syllabus, a project description, lecture notes, or an assessment, you are working with an item. You add content to your course by adding items. You can organize items by storing them in folders or learning units.
learning unit
A set of course items and files you want to present to students as a group. You can allow students to explore these items at will, or you can specify a linear progression through them. You can create learning units in the Course Documents, Course Information, Books, and Assignments content areas.
link
Underlined text that you click to display another page. Here are two examples:
In contrast to buttons, links take you to another page, either in CourseCompass or elsewhere on the web. Links do not initiate a process or submit information that you have entered.
logging in
Entering a login name and password to access CourseCompass. You log in each time you use CourseCompass. Instructors log in at www.coursecompass.com. Students log in at http://students.pearsoned.com.
login name
The name that you create during registration that is used in combination with your password to identify your user account. You enter your login name and password to log in to CourseCompass.
metadata
Data about data. You can store information about the items you add to your CourseCompass course as metadata. Using metadata can help you locate these resources in the future for use in other courses.
module
A content section on a My CourseCompass page or in the Control Panel. My Announcements and News from Pearson Education, for example, are both modules on the My CourseCompass page, while Content Areas and Assessment are Control Panel modules.
page
An HTML document displayed in a browser. There are four main pages in CourseCompass: My CourseCompass, Course List, Services, and Academic Web Resources. You open these pages by clicking the CourseCompass tabs.
path
A series of links at the top of a CourseCompass page.
You can click an underlined link in the path to move back up the hierarchy
of web pages in the course. In this example:
clicking the Courses link would display the Course List page. Paths use the course ID (in this case, oceanus57385) as the link for a Course Home page.
The Instructor Help system also includes paths at the tops of topics. Each component in a path is a link; you can click these links to move back up the Table of Contents hierarchy to a higher-level Help book.
PDF (Portable Document Format)
An Adobe Acrobat
Plain Text option
An option for formatting text, such as a question in a test or an assignment. Plain Text displays the text exactly as it is entered, with no links and no formatting.
previewing
The process of reviewing course content, such as preloaded course materials or a test you have just created. From a course perspective, CourseCompass places all courses you create in the list of courses you are previewing. Before students can enroll in a course, you must adopt it by clicking the Adopt button on the My CourseCompass page.
question pool
A set of questions in no particular order that you can use to build a test or survey. Using question pools reduces the time required to create tests and surveys.
quiz
A type of assessment. CourseCompass categorizes all graded tests as "assessments." You can also give students surveys, which are not graded.
registering
The process of establishing a CourseCompass account. As part of this one-time process, you select a login name and password, which you then use to log in to CourseCompass. Each time students want to enroll in a new CourseCompass course, they must register.
Resource Center
The Blackboard Resource Center, which provides links to relevant web sites, news articles, communities, products, utilities, and an instructor center.
roster
A searchable list of all the students enrolled in your course, along with their email addresses. You and your students can use the roster to send email or to view a student's homepage. To access the roster, click the Communication button on the Course Home page.
slide
Content displayed in the whiteboard area of the Virtual
Classroom. You and your students can use whiteboard tools to draw or write
on a slide. You can also display a web page in a slide. Virtual Classroom
slides are not related to Microsoft PowerPoint
Smart Text option
An option for formatting text, such as a question in a test or an assignment. Smart Text displays the text as it is entered but converts URLs and email addresses into links.
Staff Information
A course content area in which you store profiles of yourself, guest speakers, and other staff. A staff profile serves the same purpose as a student homepage.
survey
A set of questions that students answer anonymously. You use surveys for polling purposes, instructor evaluations, and random checks of knowledge. You cannot grade surveys or provide user feedback. Surveys are listed along with assessments on the Assessment Manager page. To open this page, click Assessment Manager under Assessments in the Control Panel.
synchronous communication
Online communication that occurs in real time. You set up synchronous sessions to occur at a specified time. CourseCompass provides the Virtual Classroom as a synchronous communications tool.
tab
The part of a CourseCompass page that resembles the tab on a file folder:
There are tabs for each of the four main pages in CourseCompass. You click a tab to open a page.
task
An online to-do item. You can create two types of task lists:
A general list, which you access through the Tools module on the My CourseCompass page
A task list for a single course, which you access by clicking the Tools button on the Course Home page.
test
A type of assessment. CourseCompass categorizes all graded tests as "assessments." You can also give students surveys, which are not graded.
TestGen browser plug-in
The program that enables CourseCompass instructors and students to view TestGen tests.
TestGen test
A type of assessment that you create in the TestGen test generator application on your computer and import into your course. You can use TestGen to create Multiple Choice and True/False questions only. CourseCompass students who need to take a TestGen test must have the TestGen browser plug-in installed.
thread
A string of messages about a new topic, issue, or question in a Discussion Board forum. When other participants respond to your message, responses are grouped with your original message in a thread so you can easily follow the conversation.
tool
One of a set of communication and course tools, such as the Digital Drop Box, course calendar, tasks, email, Discussion Board, and the Virtual Classroom. You can access tools from the My CourseCompass page, any page in a course, and the Control Panel. To determine which tools students can use, click Course Settings under Course Options in the Control Panel.
URL
Uniform Resource Locator. The URL is a web page's "address." When you enter a web page's URL in your browser, a request for that page is sent to the web page's server and that server returns the page you requested. A URL looks like this: www.coursecompass.com.
user
Anyone who registers in the CourseCompass environment, including students and instructors.
Virtual Chat
A communications tool in the Virtual Classroom. Students can use Virtual Chat to discuss the contents of the Virtual Classroom whiteboard or to explore separate topics.
Virtual Classroom
An environment in which you can set up real-time online classroom discussions, extra help sessions, and office hour question-and-answer forums. You can even have guest speakers and subject matter experts talk with the class in a Virtual Classroom. You access the Virtual Classroom by clicking the Communication button on the Course Home page or under Course Tools in the Control Panel.
weighting
Point value assigned to a question in an assessment. Questions in surveys are not weighted.
whiteboard
The display area in the Virtual Classroom. You can display either slides or web pages in the whiteboard area. Because a Virtual Classroom session occurs in real time, you can see immediately what anyone draws or writes on the whiteboard.