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A web-based bulletin board can serve as a webforum for
discussions about class material, or facilitate
communication between the instructor and larger classes.
There are two approaches available at the University
of Florida: with the software WebCT or via a grove account.
Both approaches allow you to restrict access via password to the
students in your class.
WebCT Approach
The Office of Instructional
Resources (OIR) maintains a site license for
WebCT.
This software is used both for distance education courses
and to supplement courses on campus. In particular, it
can be used to set up a bulletin board and/or a chat room (for
virtual office hours). It also has on-line testing capability.
OIR periodically offers courses to faculty in how to use this software,
and more information is available at the
WebCT support page,
and from the WebCT
Tutorial.
On your grove account
If you have a grove account, then you can set up a bulletin
board using NetForum,
which is based on system developed by the University of Wisconsin
Biomedical Computing Group.
The bulletin board is easy to setup. If you have a grove
account, you only need login to that account and enter the command
netforum-setup
READ the output from this command (!!!) which gives you a webpage
address, and log in on that page as
user: admin
password: admin
Everything else is self-explanatory; you will be guided through the
whole setup process.
In order to restrict access to course members only, you can install
an .htaccess file; see
http://grove.ufl.edu/access.html.
NetForum is based on CGI scripts which cannot completely
exclude the possibility of someone accessing data or even
doing accidental or intentional damage to your grove account.
If there is sensitive information involved, WebCT might be the
better alternative.
University of Florida *
Mathematics
Contact Info
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