Exploring a Vista Course

Content Start

Exploring a Vista Course

Accessing Your Course

The Course List on My Vista provides access to your courses. When you mouse over the title of a section, you see a pop-up tool tip that indicates your role.

Coures List

The Course Interface

Upon entering the course, you'll notice that the interface is organized into three tabs: Build, Teach, and Student View. Related tasks are grouped under the relevant tab.

Tabs

Build Tab - The designer creates, manages, and organizes course content from this tab. The designer can change the visual presentation of the course, add tools, and create content items such as quizzes or discussion topics.

Teach Tab - Instructor activities such as reviewing student work, managing grades, or interacting with students occur on the Teach tab. Access to instructor tools such as Assessment Manager, Assignment Dropbox, Grade Book, and Group Manager are found only within this tab.

Student View Tab - allows you to experience the course as a student, including assessment and assignment submission.

Users can also be enrolled in single roles: 

  • Users enrolled as Designers see only the Build tab and the Student View tab.
  • Users enrolled as Instructors see only the Teach tab and the Student View tab.

Content Home

By viewing the graphic above, you will see that all three tabs contain these elements:

  • Logo Bar Course
  • Content Home
  • Course menu

Course Content Home

Course Content Home may contain links to:

  • content items (e.g., learning module, discussion topic, chat room)
  • content folders, which contain related content items
  • content files (e.g., a single HTML page)

From any tab, you can access a link on Course Content Home by clicking it. The view of the link and the privileges that you have will vary depending on the tab from which you clicked the item. For example, if you click the Syllabus icon from the Build tab, you can both edit and preview the syllabus; from Student View, you can only view the syllabus.

An interactive tutorial, Exploring the Interface (requires Macromedia Flash Player), will give you a more information on the system interface. The video was based on the WebCT class management system, which NAU used prior to converting to Blackboard Vista. You will find references to "WebCT" rather than "Vista" throughout.