<![CDATA[IST eClass Support]]> <![CDATA[Receiving Notifications from Forums (Subscription)]]>
NOTICE: Please be advised that the content of this article may only be relevant for users concluding the final stages of course work on eClass or for users on the eClass External system. The eClass Learning Management System is currently in a read-only state that prohibits new courses, enrollments, and users from being added to the site. Credit courses and co-curricular courses at the UofA are now being delivered on Canvas, and full articles on how to use Canvas can be found here.

eClass allows you to control if and how to notifications from any forums through subscriptions (if these have not been disabled on the forum by an instructor.)
The exception to this is each course's Announcements forum: this is a special forum that instructors commonly use for important course-related communications and are set to forced-subscription so users are unable to (nor should they try to) turn off these notifications.
Most forums are set to ‘Optional Subscription’ which gives users control over what forum notifications they receive; or to 'Automatic subscription' where the instructor feels that all students should receive notifications but has left the option available for them unsubscribe.

In-system alerts

Users receive notification alerts from many events in eClass such as new forum posts, assignments receiving (or needing) grading, messages, and badges awarded. These are highlighted with a red number in the top horizontal green nav bar when any new alerts are received.

 

 

Subscribing to entire forums where subscription is set to 'Optional' or 'Automatic'

Enter the Forum and click Subscribe to Forum to subscribe
If Unsubscribe is the option, that means you are already Subscribed to the forum.

Don't track unread posts - The Read Tracking function will automatically highlight each forum that contains new, unread posts since the last time that you logged in to eClass.
The Read Tracking function is turned on by default.
Discussion Forums that contain new posts will be displayed with the number of unread posts highlighted, indicating the number of new posts that have been added to each discussion thread.


Subscribing to topics within forums where subscription is set to Optional

Users can manually subscribe to specific forum topics by clicking on the mail icon next to the topic which toggles between two states:

  • The 'Off Toggle' means you are not currently subscribed.
  • The 'On Toggle' means you are currently subscribed.

 

Changing your Forum preferences

eClass allows you to configure a few settings relating to forum notifications. To access the available settings first go to your Profile through the dropdown menu at the top right and select Preferences:

Then go to Forum preferences:

Users can specify any of the following preferences for forums:

  • Email digest type - choose to receive a single aggregated email per day containing all subscribed forum posts.
  • Forum auto-subscribe - select whether making a post in an optional subscription forum should automatically subscribe you for future posts into that particular topic (ie. if anyone replies to your post).
  • Forum tracking - choose whether forums should provide you alerts for when new, unread posts have been made
  • When sending forum post notifications - determine whether eClass should count emailing you a copy of a post as it being read (emailed forum notifications would no longer be shown as new and unread).

Ensure you click Save changes after making any adjustments to your settings.

 

Global Notification Preferences

In addition to setting subscriptions for specific forums or threads, it is also possible to disable any email notifications for forums. This option is not recommended for students as it may result in missing important information but may make sense for co-instructors, administrative users, and other course enrollees to whom forum posts do not apply.

To disable forum email notifications, access your profile, then select preferences (see the steps above in changing forum preferences), then select Notification preferences:

The next page shows all of the available events that trigger alerts from eClass. Select the row for Subscribed forum posts, and set the notifications for online and offline under email to Off:

]]> <![CDATA[Receiving Messages from eClass]]>
NOTICE: Please be advised that the content of this article may only be relevant for users concluding the final stages of course work on eClass or for users on the eClass External system. The eClass Learning Management System is currently in a read-only state that prohibits new courses, enrollments, and users from being added to the site. Credit courses and co-curricular courses at the UofA are now being delivered on Canvas, and full articles on how to use Canvas can be found here.

eClass allows you to choose whether to be notified by email and/or pop-up messages for a number of system events such as direct messages, new forum posts to which you are subscribed, and updates for quizzes/assignments. By default, these notification settings are enabled.

Before you change them, be aware that many instructors use the Course Announcements forum, to which you are automatically subscribed, for communicating course information.
If you decide to disable email notification for subscribed forums, you will need to check the Announcements forum regularly.
If you wish to receive email notifications from specific forums, consult with the following article on managing your forum subscriptions: Receiving Notifications from Forums (Subscription)

Setting Message Preferences:

To change these settings, click Preferences from your user dropdown menu on the upper-right. 

To change your notification settings for direct messages between users, click Message Preferences to slide out the message preference settings from the right.

 

You can choose to allow messages only from contacts (users who you have specifically added in the messaging interface) or from contacts and anyone in any curse where you are enrolled.
You can also choose whether or not to receive emails notifying you of new personal messages.

Viewing Messages

The messaging drawer is accessed via the message icon in the top nav bar. There will be a number shown, corresponding to the number of notifications or unread messages you have.

Clicking on the messaging icon will display an overlay with your incoming messages.
The nav drawer is displayed on the left edge of your browser display:


Note: you can also access the messaging preferences by clicking the gear icon at the top right of the messaging drawer.

Changing other notification preferences

To change other notification settings, including subscribed forum posts, click Notification Preferences from your Profile > Preferences area.

You can customize what to be notified about and how, based on your online status in eClass. Checking Disable notifications will silence all communications from eClass.

Choosing to receive notifications through eClass will enable the numeric visual indicator on your notifications icon:

 Clicking this icon will show a list of all your recent notifications:

Changing the email address that notifications get sent to

You could also change the email you get notifications sent to, if you don't want it sent to your UAlberta email. Go to Notification preferences in your Profile > Preferences area, and click on Email at the top of the list.

click email under Notification preferences

You can then add the email address that you want it sent it under "Send email notifications to". Click Save changes when done.

Showing where to enter in the email

]]> <![CDATA[Uploading Profile Pictures]]>
NOTICE: Please be advised that the content of this article may only be relevant for users concluding the final stages of course work on eClass or for users on the eClass External system. The eClass Learning Management System is currently in a read-only state that prohibits new courses, enrollments, and users from being added to the site. Credit courses and co-curricular courses at the UofA are now being delivered on Canvas, and full articles on how to use Canvas can be found here.

To change your profile picture:

  1. Navigate to the user drop-down menu by clicking on your initials in the top right corner of eClass and select Profile.



  2. From your profile page, click on the Edit profile link under User Details to access your profile settings.



  3. Next, scroll down to the 'User picture' area, and in the 'New Picture' field, click on the button 'Add...'.  The 'File picker' window will open, prompting you to browse your computer, select an image, and upload the file.



  4. Users should verify that a correct image file extension (.jpg or .png format) appears in the file name field once they have uploaded their image (and should develop this as a good habit for all file uploads into eClass). Once uploaded, the image will automatically be cropped to a square and re-sized to 100 x 100 pixels. Add a short, but concise descriptor in the 'Picture Description' field.



  5. When you are finished, click Update profile to save your changes.

Notes:

  • These changes will only be reflected once you have refreshed the page at least once or cleared your browser cache. Many users have reported that their image is not updating immediately after saving and the issue is solved after they clear their cache and reload the page.
]]> <![CDATA[eClass Dark Theme]]>
NOTICE: Please be advised that the content of this article may only be relevant for users concluding the final stages of course work on eClass or for users on the eClass External system. The eClass Learning Management System is currently in a read-only state that prohibits new courses, enrollments, and users from being added to the site. Credit courses and co-curricular courses at the UofA are now being delivered on Canvas, and full articles on how to use Canvas can be found here.

Users can switch to a dark-themed version of eClass similar to dark modes found in various modern apps and operating systems. Dark mode can be used to reduce eye strain and improve sleep through lower levels of blue light, improve device battery life, or simply for aesthetic appeal.

To enable the dark theme:

1. Access your profile from the top left drop-down menu:

get profile

2. Select  Edit profile (Click here for a link to your own profile.)

edit profile

3. In the General category, Choose 'Dark theme (beta)' from the Preferred theme dropdown and click Update profile at the bottom of the page.

 

Notes:

The dark theme has been in beta release since 2021 and we have received much user feedback regarding how it looks in some areas of eClass. In the event something is unclear in the dark theme, please switch back to the default Light theme if it becomes an issue. If you find issues with viewing content in the Dark theme, please contact eclass@ualberta.ca or forward your concern to your instructor.

]]> <![CDATA[Editing Your eClass Profile]]>
NOTICE: Please be advised that the content of this article may only be relevant for users concluding the final stages of course work on eClass or for users on the eClass External system. The eClass Learning Management System is currently in a read-only state that prohibits new courses, enrollments, and users from being added to the site. Credit courses and co-curricular courses at the UofA are now being delivered on Canvas, and full articles on how to use Canvas can be found here.

All users have a basic eClass profile that pulls in basic identifying information from Bear Tracks but also allows users to enter additional information and to set some important settings. Entering information into all the profile fields is not required but can be useful for fully online students.The fields that are populated automatically from Bear Tracks are not editable in eClass and any required changes must be made in that service instead.

 

Accessing your profile:

Users access their profile by opening the user dropdown menu in the top right corner and selecting Profile:



Editing Your Profile:

From your profile page, click on the Edit profile link under User Details to access your profile settings:

On the profile editing page, you may enter or modify settings in the following sections:

  1. General - Includes all basic information such as name, contact information, location, time zone, description and other system level preferences. Some settings to note include:

    • First name, surname, email address - These fields are pulled directly from Bear Tracks and cannot be edited.
    • Email display - By default, this is set to "Allow only other course members to see my email address". To hide your email address from course participants, set this option to "Hide my email address from everyone".
    • City/town, country, description - These details are optional and will be displayed on a user's public profile.
    • Timezone - While you may also set your time zone here, please be careful when doing so. If you change your time zone setting, eClass will update built-in times such as quiz times and assignment due dates (any dates that appear in your calendar) into your local time. However, dates entered within documents like the course syllabus, etc. will NOT update. This discrepancy may lead to confusion for submission deadlines. eClass support recommends that you do NOT change your time zone and consider all times on eClass to be set to Edmonton time (Mountain Standard Time or Mountain Daylight Savings Time).


  2. User picture - Allows you to upload a picture. Click on the Add... button to locate the image file on your computer or simply drag & drop the image file into the designated area. For detailed steps on how to upload a profile picture, visit this article.



  3. Additional names - Allows you to set another names.



  4. Interests - Allows you to display your interests as tags on your profile.



  5. Optional contact information - Allows you to list additional contact information. Some fields in this section are pulled directly from Bear Tracks and cannot be edited.



  6. Other fields - Allows you to view your anonymous ID that can be used in courses where anonymous IDs are required on 3rd party applications. This field is pulled directly from Bear Tracks and cannot be edited.

Any changes made to the profile must be saved by clicking Update profile at the bottom of the page:

Change preferred language:

You can toggle your preferred language between English and French via Preferences

Choose Preferences from your course dropdown menu:

Preferences menu

Then choose Preferred language:

Preference options

You can toggle between English and French and Save changes:

Language dropdown

Notes:

  • Some of the regions in your profile are pulled directly from your Bear Tracks account and are not editable. This information is required to remain consistent with your personal records. These include your legal names, email address, CCID, institution, department, and anonymous ID. If you need to edit these fields, you must do it in Bear Tracks.

]]> <![CDATA[Distinguishing Read from Unread Forum Posts]]>
NOTICE: Please be advised that the content of this article may only be relevant for users concluding the final stages of course work on eClass or for users on the eClass External system. The eClass Learning Management System is currently in a read-only state that prohibits new courses, enrollments, and users from being added to the site. Credit courses and co-curricular courses at the UofA are now being delivered on Canvas, and full articles on how to use Canvas can be found here.

Getting started:
Tracking unread forum posts can be set up from within your profile to track unread posts for all forums on eClass where the instructor has enabled read tracking. Please note that it is no longer possible to enable/disable read tracking for individual forums.

To change this setting, navigate to the user dropdown menu by clicking on your name in the top right corner of eClass and selecting Preferences.

From your preferences page, select Forum preferences.

Forum tracking

In this section there are two dropdown options.

For the Forum tracking options, choose Yes: highlight new posts for me. Be sure to click on Save changes near the bottom of the page so that the changes you have made take effect.

After enabling read tracking, unread discussions and posts will be highlighted when viewing a forum. All discussions in a forum can be marked as read using the checkmark icon at the top of the Replies column.

 

Choosing a forum behaviour for when notifications are sent

In the Forum tracking section, in the 'When sending forum post notifications' option, you can choose either:

  • Mark the post as read
  • Do not mark the post as read

 

For more details on notifications:

]]> <![CDATA[Hiding your Email Address from all U of A Users]]>
NOTICE: Please be advised that the content of this article may only be relevant for users concluding the final stages of course work on eClass or for users on the eClass External system. The eClass Learning Management System is currently in a read-only state that prohibits new courses, enrollments, and users from being added to the site. Credit courses and co-curricular courses at the UofA are now being delivered on Canvas, and full articles on how to use Canvas can be found here.

The default e-mail display setting in eClass is to 'Allow only other course members to see my email address'. This setting will allow users who are enrolled in the same course(s) as you are to navigate a list of all course participants and then click on your name to view your e-mail address. If you would like to achieve a higher level of privacy by hiding your email address from all users, you can follow the steps below:

  1. Navigate to the user dropdown menu by clicking on your name in the top right corner of eClass and select Profile.



  2. From your profile page, click on the Edit profile link under User details to access your profile settings.



  3. Under the General settings section, open the drop-down menu next to Email visibility and make sure you select the Hidden option.



  4. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the Update profile button.
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