As summer approaches, I'd like to share a few tips for administrators on managing student accounts on My Big Campus. Some of your students will be graduating or moving on to other schools or districts. Most will be advancing a grade or year level, and virtually all will have new teachers and classes.
Removing and graduating user accounts
You don't need to (and shouldn't) delete your student users at the end of every term. When you delete user accounts, all user content disappears — content that students and their parents may want to keep, particularly their files and photos. This is especially important for graduating seniors, whose digital portfolios will be valuable for job and college applications. You can also do this for teachers who retire or transfer out of your district.
District Administrators can manually upload a users.csv file that will disable access and remove accounts from your district, while still preserving student content. You'll find that option at the bottom of the SIS page on the Administration dashboard. Please note that this is not reversible -- only use this if you want to remove these users permanently from your district. After the import is complete, email the file to support@mybigcampus.com, and we'll use it to add these accounts to the new Alumni Portal (coming this summer) so students will be able to access the content they've created in My Big Campus. Access to the Alumni Portal is free.
Updating student grade / year levels
One of the most common questions we get from students at the beginning of each school year is "I'm in grade / year x, but my profile says I'm still in grade / year y. How do I fix that?"
This isn't something the students can change from their Account Info page, however -- it must be done with a SIS import. First, make sure your student grade levels are updated in your Student Information System. Then create a new users.csv file with the updated student info, and import that into My Big Campus. The updated grade goes in column F, as shown in the following table.
| Col. A |
Col. B |
Col. C |
Col. D |
Col. E |
Col. F |
Col. G |
Col. H |
Col. I |
Col. J |
unique_
sis_
user_id, |
User
name |
first_
name |
last_
name |
unique_sis_
school_i, |
Grade |
Email |
user_
type |
Pass
word |
authent
ication |
US: Student grade level or year (1 through 12) Use 0 (zero) for Kindergarten, and -1 (minus one) for Pre-Kindergarten.
UK: Student year (1 through 12). Use -1 (minus one) for Reception, 0 for Year 1, 1 for Year 2, etc.
Changing Schools
It's also easy to transfer students and teachers to new schools within your district. Update your SIS with the new information, then export a users.csv with the people who are changing schools. The updated school ID goes in column E, as shown in the following table.
| Col. A |
Col. B |
Col. C |
Col. D |
Col. E |
Col. F |
Col. G |
Col. H |
Col. I |
Col. J |
unique_
sis_
user_id, |
User
name |
first_
name |
last_
name |
unique_sis_
school_i, |
Grade |
Email |
user_
type |
Pass
word |
authent
ication |
Updating groups
To secure your groups from use while the group owner is away, remove students from all groups.
-
If your groups are auto-populated and memberships maintained with SIS imports, you can use a SIS import to remove group members. In the "memberships.csv" file, if the field unique_sis_group_id matches an existing group, the import will remove all existing users (except the group owner) from the group, and replace them with the list of users in the CSV file. Use "groups.csv" to create new groups or update an existing group with a new group owner. Specify existing group ID to overwrites group settings for existing groups; new unused group ID to create a new group.
-
If group owners maintain the group memberships, group owners can use the Group Maintenance tool to remove members.
NOTE for schools not integrated with the Lightspeed filter: If you have a free account and the students you've given accounts will no longer have you as a teacher, there's a bonus. When your students are removed from all groups, their policy will automatically change to lock down their accounts until they are added to a group again. They'll still be able to log in and browse the Library, but most social activities will be disabled.
Also, speaking of groups, we've made the decision to retire the Bob's Corner group when the redesigned My Big Campus interface goes live early in June. While we recognize that many students enjoy being able to interact with other students on My Big Campus, we also realize that the "drama" that sometimes happens in Bob's Corner can be distracting for both students and administrators.
Updating parent information
If you haven't already deployed the Parent Portal at your district, this is the perfect time to plan the rollout. This series of blog post explains what to do:
If you've already enabled the Parent Portal, you can update parent and child information from your SIS. Remember that parents log into the Parent Portal with their email address -- teachers who have children attending schools in your district will need to provide a personal email address, not their school email address.
| Column A |
Column B |
Col. C |
Col. D |
Col. E |
Col. F |
| unique_sis_student_id, |
unique_sis_parent_id, |
email, |
first_name, |
last_name, |
password |
Note: For parents with multiple students in the district, include each student on a separate row.
Managing student access during breaks
Because users can access their My Big Campus accounts from anywhere at any time, including school breaks and vacations, you will need a procedure for monitoring user actions when staff resources are limited. If staff are not available, you can use policies in MBC to limit or remove access to My Big Campus features during breaks. In addition, I and my staff continue to monitor user activity just as if school was in session. Anyone violating the terms of use will have their account suspended—and our school contacts will be notified in the usual fashion.
Through MBC Administration, you can adjust the policies for students at each school to disable any aspects of the site you don't want them using over the summer, such as student-to-student messaging.
District and School administrators can also disable accounts using policies. You'll see it as just another check box in the list. We hope this won't be necessary, and I want to assure you again that My Big Campus is monitored by my staff even during school breaks.
If this is your choice, however, here's how to turn off My Big Campus for all students, or for specific groups of students:
- In the top navigation bar, click Administration, then click the Policies tab.
- To disable all student accounts, left click the "All Students" policy and choose Edit.
- Select (check) Disable all users that get this policy.
- Click Save
If you only want to disable a subset of students, you can create a Custom Policy and assign it to MBC groups, Active Directory groups (requires Lightspeed filter integration), or individual students. This Tech Note explains how.
Important: Update your Emergency Contacts
When school lets out for the summer, MBC staff will continue to monitor user activity. Occasionally, they find posts that must be referred to local school or district administrators for action. When student safety is at stake, we need to be able to reach someone who can help. As your staff makes plans for summer vacation, make sure your emergency contacts are up to date, especially if you will be allowing students to use MBC over the summer break.
- Make sure everyone on the list is available and willing to be contacted in case of a serious incident.
- Provide alternate contacts if necessary.
- Read this overview of our emergency contact program and procedures.
That's it for now. I'm eagerly awaiting the launch of the newly redesigned My Big Campus website and mobile apps, and our staff is hard at work on training materials to ease the transition. As always, I welcome your comments and questions related to this blog post. I'll see you around Campus!
My Big Campus will be unavailable between 10 and 11 PM Pacific time, Friday February 22 while we upgrade some of our infrastructure.
If you plan to use any of these services, please take care to save your work and log out before the maintenance interval begins.
We appreciate your patience as we work to improve the reliability and performance of My Big Campus and related services.
My Big Campus will be unavailable between 10 and 11 PM Pacific time, Friday February 15 while we upgrade some of our infrastructure.
If you plan to use any of these services, please take care to save your work and log out before the maintenance interval begins.
We appreciate your patience as we work to improve the reliability and performance of My Big Campus and related services.
As those of us in the USA prepare to join our families and loved ones to celebrate Thanksgiving, we tend to reflect on the good things that have happened to us. It's been a great year so far for us, with big and small achievements. We've worked hard, and we're proud of what we've accomplished. But none of this could have happened without your help. So, from all of us to all of you, thank you for joining and participating in our social learning environment, and making My Big Campus a fun, safe place for students and teachers.
I have a few things to tell you about today -- projects we've recently completed and new projects on the horizon.
Extended Maintenance
As you probably know, My Big Campus has grown very rapidly, from one million users last June to just over two million today. We've made significant investments in hardware and bandwidth to keep pace with our growing user base, and we continue to upgrade our capacity regularly. We'll be taking advantage of the upcoming long weekend to make some needed changes to our infrastructure, which means that My Big Campus may be offline for brief periods between 12:00 noon Pacific Time on Friday November 23 and 1:00 AM Pacific Time on Saturday November 24. Once we've completed this latest upgrade, we'll be back, better than ever.
Amazing Things Contest
We've got some great entries in our Amazing Things contest, and there's still time to submit your entries and win up to $1,000 for your school. The contest closes December 1, 2012, so don't forget to visit the Amazing Things blog and vote for your favorites.
Golden Nuggets
Our developers are constantly working on major and minor feature updates, and we like to refer to these as Golden Nuggets because of the value they add to My Big Campus. Some of the small changes we've made recently include support for non-English text throughout MBC, including wall and discussion posts, Bundles, library items, and schoolwork. There are still a few Asian languages we don't yet support, but we're working on those behind the scenes.
We've organized and improved our NROC content, which is free for everyone to test out through the end of January 2013. Teachers can search the Bundle Exchange for "NROC" to find course outlines for NROC's new Algebra course and its Advanced Placement courses. We've also added NBC Learn content to the library for you to preview--just add "nbc" to your keyword search (e.g., history nbc) , and if your school or district subscribes to NBC Learn, you can access the full content directly from My Big Campus. Both NROC and NBC Learn content may be added to your Bundles.
Over the past few weeks, we've also launched the My Big Campus Parent Portal and added iTunes content and subject-area sorting to Bundles. We've updated the iOS app to support the new Schoolwork interface, and we've extended to standalone ("Freemium") schools the full MBC functionality, including SIS imports, unlimited user counts, and unlimited file storage.
We have more Golden Nuggets to come in the next few weeks, including an updated iOS app and new Schoolwork functionality. We'll be previewing these and other new features for you in the next MBC Trainers Update webinar next week. Watch for announcements and signup information here.
Teacher and Administrator Training
I also wanted to remind you that we offer regular teacher and admin training webinars, as well as targeted training sessions on specific My Big Campus features, presented by certified My Big Campus coaches. And, for those who can't attend the live sessions, we've posted recordings of previous webinars here. If you're ready to take a break from the ball games on TV this weekend, the recorded training sessions may be just what you need.
Oh, the Places We'll Go
Lightspeed Systems staff regularly attend conferences and tradeshows to spread the word about My Big Campus and our other collaborative web filtering products. Find out where we'll be in my weekly "Oh the places" blog posts. We're always looking for new opportunities to present our products, so if you know of an event we should attend, just drop us a line at sales@lightspeedsystems.com.
Watch my Blog for news and updates and let me know in the comments if you have ideas or suggestions to improve your My Big Campus experience. For everyone celebrating US Thanksgiving, have a safe, relaxing, and enjoyable weekend. We'll see you around campus!
My Big Campus, Parent Portal, District Websites and Mobile Device Manager will be undergoing a major hardware upgrade to increase performance, capacity and stability. The extended maintenance is scheduled for Friday November 23, 2012 starting at Noon Pacific time. All services will be intermittently affected until 1:00 am on November 24. If you plan to use any of these services, please take care to save your work and log out before the maintenance interval begins.
We appreciate your patience as we work to improve the reliability and performance of My Big Campus and related services.
My Big Campus will be undergoing scheduled maintenance on Friday evening between 10 pm and midnight Pacific time, Friday July 20. During that time, MBC will be offline for approximately two hours while we move files to our new distributed storage system.
During the transition, file requests will be searched at both the old and new locations, and there may be occasional delays retrieving existing files until the file systems are completely synchronized.
You may also notice a brief outage on Saturday evening between 8 and 10 pm Pacific time for a routine software update.
If you have trouble accessing any of your files during the transition, please email support@mybigcampus.com with the file name and your username.
I want to thank you again for your patience as we continue upgrading and improving My Big Campus.
I have a couple of new features to tell you about today, one in Groups, and the other in Bundles. I also have news about another update we'll be rolling out shortly, and some information on some ongoing maintenance tasks as we ramp up the performance and security on the My Big Campus website.
Upcoming maintenance this Thursday evening
Earlier this year, we added our millionth user to My Big Campus, and we expect to grow even more quickly in the coming months. To accommodate our growing population, we are working behind the scenes to upgrade servers, data centers, and bandwidth to handle the increased demand for My Big Campus. We're doing this while most schools are on summer break, to minimize the impact on teachers and students.
Like any major construction project, there may be some temporary slowdowns while we reroute traffic. Our next planned maintenance will take place Thursday evening, so we can relocate some servers. I thank you for your patience while we get My Big Campus ready for the next million users and beyond.
Add Group Resources to your Bundles
Now, let's talk about Bundles. Along with Library content, personal files, schoolwork, and other types of content, you'll see a new option on the Content page when you're editing a Bundle. If you're importing courses from Moodle or Angel, this will make it easier to convert those courses into Bundles.
You'll find the option in the Select type of content dropdown list. Select Your Group's Resources, then type a few letters in the search box to find matching items.
Note that you can only add resources from groups where you are the Group Owner.
Auto-approve Group Membership requests
The next new feature was requested by MBC Coaches and other trainers, who needed a way to add group members from outside their district, without having to approve each new member manually. This is especially useful for conferences and professional development sessions.
Group owners can now create an Auto-Approve Code that they can send to trainees, inviting them to join the group. Create a shortened URL for the group at http://www.mbcurl.me, then add the URL and the access code to the group home page. Project or print the page showing the group information so attendees can view it easily:
Users who visit the group page will see an option to Join with Code. When they click that link, they can copy and paste the code from the message into a form. As soon as they click Join, they'll be added to the group.
Both these updates are live now.
Coming soon: Technology standards for Bundles
The other exciting announcement is that in response to requests, you'll soon be able to link Common Core and State Technology standards to your Bundles. My developers are finalizing and testing the code now to make this happen. When this goes live, you'll see an announcement in the MBC Release Notes topic.
What's next for My Big Campus?
We've got a busy summer ahead, and I'll do my best to keep you updated on new features as they move from development into testing. If you've got requests for new features, this is a great time to share those with us. Feel free to post a comment with your ideas and wish lists, and keep watching my Blog for news and updates.
My Big Campus will be undergoing scheduled maintenance on Friday evening between 10 and 11 PM Pacific time, Friday June 1. During that interval, MBC may be unavailable for brief periods. If you plan to use My Big Campus on Friday evening, please take care to save your work and log out before the maintenance interval begins.
We appreciate your patience as we work to improve the reliability and performance of My Big Campus.
My Big Campus will be undergoing scheduled maintenance on Wednesday evening between 10 PM and Midnight Pacific time, Wednesday April 25. During that interval, MBC may be unavailable for brief periods. If you plan to use My Big Campus on Wednesday evening, please take care to save your work and log out before the maintenance interval begins.
We appreciate your patience as we work to improve the reliability and performance of My Big Campus.
My Big Campus will be undergoing scheduled maintenance on Thursday evening starting at 10 PM Pacific time. MBC will be unavailable for about 30 to 60 minutes while our engineers apply some performance upgrades. If you plan to use My Big Campus on Friday evening, please take care to save your work and log out before the maintenance interval begins.