The OLI environment includes a sophisticated scheduling feature that allows you to set the dates when activities in the course are available to your students.

When you have chosen to schedule assignments, these options are used to assist the Course Builder in tailoring schedule values to the needs of the course.

Note: Do not use the browser’s back button while you are making changes to your course schedule.

Scheduling Options

Preferred Due Days

Indicates which days of the week that you prefer assignments to be due (such as class days, or the day prior to class days, etc.)

Check boxes next to days the builder will allow as due days.

Time of Day for Due Dates

This time will be used on all due days for closing assignments.

Select the desired time of day from the pull-down menu.

Blockout Days

These are dates that the builder should omit from scheduling. It will not schedule anything due on these dates, and will also factor them out when calculating time between assignments. These are handy for holidays or long breaks during the run of the course.

Enter any dates or date ranges, as specified, into the text box.

Next you will see the Schedule Course screen. There are two basic operations that can be performed from this page: scheduling an assignment and scheduling availability of sections of content (units, modules, etc). Generally speaking, these operations are identical when you build the course and when editing the schedule of a running course.

Click the links next to assignments or sections of the course and set scheduling as desired. When you click on an assignment or section, The Schedule Activity window for that activity will open.

Schedule Activity

This window will display when using the course builder to set the schedule for an assignment, either in course creation or course editing. It can also be launched from the syllabus page for items listed there.

The popup will display the current scheduling information on the left and available actions on the right.

Change Graded Status

This allows you to change the “stakes” of an assignment between “high” and “low.” “High Stakes” assignments are graded. They provide feedback to the student and are recorded in the gradebook for the instructor to review. “Low Stakes” assignments do not report their scores in the gradebook, though students will receive feedback. Some activities behave differently, such as the assessments which allow students to continually retry their answers in low stakes mode.

Click “Make graded” to make assignment high stakes or “Make ungraded” to make it low stakes.

If you are changing an assignment from high to low stakes after the course is built, you are prompted to press another button to confirm your choice since it cannot be undone.

Note: After the course has been built, assignments can only be changed from high stakes to low stakes. They cannot be changed from low to high after the course has been built.

Change Schedule Type

You may change between using dates to schedule your assignments, or use just-in-time manual release/close of assignments on a per assignment basis.

Click “Make Just-In-Time” to switch, or “Make not Just-In-Time (Scheduled)” to switch to using dates to control the release of this assignment.

Change Scheduled Dates

When not using just-in-time mode, this option is present to allow you to set the release and due dates of an assignment.

Set Available and Due Dates and Times

1. Leave the date field clear for available if it should be available immediately
2. Leave the due date field clear if it should not have a due date
3. Click Update

Note: You can make this activity always available by clearing both date fields or open ended by clearing the due date field.

Release/Close This Activity

When using just-in-time mode, this option is present instead of “Change Scheduled Dates”.

If you have not yet released the assignment to students, a “Release now” button is present. Clicking this button immediately releases the assignment to students. Revisiting this option later shows a “Close now” button instead

Clicking the “Close now” button immediately closes the assignment. Once closed, an assignment cannot be reopened.

When you make any of the changes above, you will see a green bar at the top of the “Schedule Activity” window that confirms your change.

When you have finished changing the activity, click the “close window” button in the “Schedule Activity” window and you will be returned to the Schedule Course screen.

When you have finished Scheduling your course, click either the “Next” button (if first building your course) or the “Update” button (if you are editing an existing course) at the bottom of the screen.

Schedule Course Structure

The OLI delivery environment allows you to block access to entire portions of the course by date. The availability of course material defaults to “Always open,” as displayed on the course scheduling page. To restrict the availability of a portion of the course, click on the “Always open” link next to the unit/module/subsection title on the course scheduling page.

The Availability Scheduling window for that portion of the course will pop up. The popup window that schedules this availability is described here.

To restrict the availability of a portion of the course, enter the dates and times for the content to open and close.

• Leave the “open date” field empty if the content should be available immediately.
• Leave the “close date” field empty if the content should not close after opening.
• Leave both date fields empty if content should be always open.

Note: Setting a unit as unavailable in this way will cause all modules, sections, content, etc., contained within that unit to be unavailable as well.