New to Carmen? Getting Started Guide for Instructors
This information is also available in a PDF version if you would like to print it.
Logging In
- Go to carmen.osu.edu and click "log in."
- Use your OSU internet username (lastname.#) and password (the same password used to check your class roster).
- Locate your courses under My Courses. Click the [+] for quarter and your department to show links to your courses. (Inactive courses are marked with a (!) icon .) If a course is not listed, speak with departmental personnel about course and instructor information maintained in the Registrar's system.
Not all web browsers see Carmen equally. For best results, use one of the recommended browsers. Also, make sure popup windows are enabled.
Logging Out
Be sure to logout when you are finished using Carmen. Also, when using a lab or shared computer, remember to quit the web browser you were using in order to prevent unauthorized use of your account.
Getting Help
- On-Screen Help. Many common problems within Carmen can be resolved by instruction boxes (on the left side of the screen), or by using the Instructor Guide to Carmen, accessible from the Help link (in the upper right corner of the Carmen screen).
- Contact the Help Desk at 688-HELP or carmen@osu.edu. Be prepared to provide specific details about your computer setup, the problem, and your course.
7 Tips for Getting Started
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Activate your course. Your course isn't viewable by students until you say so -- create your course at your own pace, and then activate it when ready for student access. Simply go to your Course Home page, choose Edit Course, click Course Offering Information, and check the box for IsActive. See Activate Courses for details.
- Build your course. Course shells are automatically created at least 6 weeks before the start of the quarter for every course in the Registrar's Master Schedule.
Here are few core tools to use in your course:
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News – Post short news items directly on your course home page to make announcements or highlight reminders. You can also post images. Details...
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Content – Create a course outline and link it to your course materials, such as syllabus, class handouts, study guides, or even library eReserves. Details...
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Classlist and Email – Use the Classlist along with Carmen's email to contact your entire class at the click of a button. Classlists are preloaded, straight from the Registrar's system. Classlist detail... and Email details...
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Grades – Design a Gradebook to reflect your existing grading system. Students can view their grades online, and you can export final grades to the Registrar's system. Details...
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Dropbox – Set up Dropbox folders to collect and manage electronic files from students. Details...
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Discussions – Engage students in online Discussion. Set up forums for specific topics, such as discussing assigned readings or answering general questions. Details...
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Quizzes – Create online Quizzes and, if you choose, provide students immediate feedback on their comprehension. Quizzes can be autograded and linked to the Carmen Gradebook. Details...
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Verify information in the Registrar's system (MARX). Carmen receives course and student enrollment data from the Registrar. If your course is not listed in Carmen, make sure that your department has officially listed you as the instructor. If a student is missing from your Classlist, confirm that the student is officially enrolled. See Classlist: Overview for more information.
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Request to split or merge course shells based on section. If you have a course with many sections that need to be split into separate course shells or
merged under one course shell, write to carmen@osu.edu with the request.
Be sure to list the quarter/year, department, number and title of the course,
along with the call numbers for all of the sections to be changed.
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Edit the Navigation Bar. On the Course Home page, click Edit Course, and then the NavBar icon to change the tools available. (Alternately, click the pencil icon at top left on the Course Home.) For instance, add Quizzes if you wish to use them, or remove Discussions if you won't be using them.
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Preview your course. See your site as a student or another role would by using the Role Switch tool on the left side of your Course Home page.
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Reuse past materials. Use Carmen's Copy Course Components feature to reuse course materials from previous quarters. See Copy Course Components: Overview for details. See Copy Course Components: Overview for details.
User Roles
People access different features and tools in Carmen depending on their roles. A person may have different roles (and, therefore, different levels of access) for different courses.
Basic roles and their abilities are:
|
Content* |
Grades |
Discussions |
|
Add/Edit |
Set-up |
View/Change |
Set-up |
Use |
Instructor |
X |
X |
X |
X |
X |
Lecturer |
|
|
X |
X |
X |
Content Editor |
X |
|
|
X |
X |
TA-Content-Grades |
X |
|
X |
X |
X |
TA-Grades** |
|
|
X |
|
X |
Student** |
|
|
X
(view only) |
|
X |
Guest** |
|
|
|
|
X |
* All roles can view content.
**The TA-Grades, Student, and Guest roles have access only to individual sections; other roles have access to all sections of a course in which they are enrolled. |
See A Quick Guide to Carmen Roles for more information.
Adding and Changing Course Participants
Instructors and some teaching assistants are automatically added to Carmen classlists based on Registrar data, as are enrolled students.
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Adding/Removing Students. Instructors should require students to enroll and unenroll via the Registrar. Adding and removing students manually to a Carmen course does not change their status on the Registrar's roster.
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If a student who has added a course through the Registrar doesn't appear in your classlist after 48 hours, ask the student to contact the Help Desk at 688-HELP or carmen@osu.edu.
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Students who drop a course should disappear from your classlist within 48 hours.
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Adding/Removing Non-Students. Instructors can manually add people who are not associated with their course in the Registrar's data, such as additional instructors, TAs, lecturers, and guests.
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To add participants, go to your classlist, click Add Participant, select Add an existing user, and search by OSU Internet username (lastname.#).
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To remove participants (student role only), choose Edit Course, open Registration, select the participants you wish to remove, and click Unenroll Selected.
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Role Changes. Instructors should go to telr.osu.edu/carmen/rolechange to request changes to the role of any course participants who are added to a classlist via the Registrar's data. Manual changes WILL BE OVERWRITTEN by Registrar's data during nightly updates.
