CTools Help Document
Description
Includes
What is CTools?
What are the main parts of CTools?
The CTools screen
CTools is an advanced web-based environment that combines course management features with project and research collaboration features. It is a set of tools designed to help instructors, researchers and students create sites on the web.
Using a web browser, site creators choose from the many tools in CTools and combine them to make a site that meets their needs. Here are a few examples of websites made with CTools:
-- a website where an instructor or project director can make announcements and share resources, such as electronic documents or links to other websites
-- a website where researchers can collaborate on a project
-- a website that serves as an online discussion board
-- a website where students can work on and submit assignments electronically
To use CTools, no knowledge of HTML is necessary.
What are the main parts of CTools?
All of the parts below are described in greater detail in other parts of this online help guide.
CTools Gateway -- When you first open ctools.umich.edu or click a link to CTools, you will see the CTools Gateway. When you are on the gateway page, you are not yet logged onto the actual CTools application. The gateway is the "public face" of CTools and is viewable by anyone with web access. From the gateway, it is possible to access a variety of information through the left-hand navigation menu. In the upper-right corner of the gateway window is the Login button that you use to log into the actual CTools application.
My Workspace -- When you log into CTools using your uniqname and Kerberos password, you will automatically open a site called My Workspace. This is your personal workspace in CTools -- all CTools users have one.
Course sites and project sites -- A course site is a website created in CTools for a particular course. A project website is one that has been set up for projects, research, or other activities involving collaboration. A course or project website can have just a few or several tools depending on which tools the site's creator has chosen. Only instructors can create course sites, while anyone with a uniqname can create project sites. You can access a course or project site in which you are a participant by clicking its site tab along the top of the window. (If there are more tabs than will fit across the top, they will be listed in pull-down menu in the upper-right corner.) If you are not yet a participant in any sites, you will only see a tab for My Workspace.
Tools -- CTools provides many different tools, including discussions, resources, schedule, chat, news, syllabus, and many more. Some sites created with CTools will have many tools and others will have just a few, depending on which tools the site's creater decided to include. You can access the tools by clicking the links in the left-hand menubar.
The CTools Screen
CTools was developed at the University of Michigan in conjunction with the other members of the Sakai Project, which is a a multi-university community-source CLE (collaboration and learning environment) development project. CTools is UM's implementation of the Sakai CLE.