LibGuides Help & boxes for reuse: Creating Course Guides (How-to)

Before you create a new guide, check LibGuides to be sure that it doesn't already exist. If one already exists, ask the owner of the to be made an editor or ask to take over ownership of the guide.  If one doesn't yet exist, use the following steps to create your new guide.

1) Guide Name: Formatting should mirror LibCal specifications for consistency.

• CoursePrefix CourseNumber Full Title Of Course (no abbreviations, no punctuation such as dashes or colons between course prefix and title), for example: PSCI 233 Innovation in Public Service (Jordan)
• For WRTG 105, also include the instructor's last name in parenthesis, for example:  WRTG 105 Robots & Races (Otis)

2) Guide type: Course Guide (your guide will not appear in the course guides list if they are mislabeled as general).  If you forget to set the guide type and it is created as the default type (General purpose), you can change it on the course guide.  Select the settings gear, then Guide type, then select Course Guide.

3) Assign Subject Associations: On the course guide, click on the edit (pen icon) next to subject on the upper left corner of the guide. From the dropdown list that appears, check all the subject associations that apply. Note: WRTG courses should have Writing Program assigned as the subject.

• If the metadata is left blank, students will be taken to the WRT landing page (http://libguides.lib.rochester.edu/wrtg) where they can select their course guide from a list of WRTG classes.
• If the full blackboard course ID is used, this metadata must be updated every semester.
• Please do not use WRTG or WRTG105 in the value field as it confuses the LTI tool functionality and ALL WRT 105 classes will be diverted to your course guide.
• If there are multiple sections and thus multiple course IDs, you should include them all. For example:
  

Check LTI link for a specific course:

Blackboard course shells are automatically populated with a "Library Resources" link that uses an LTI (Learning Tools Interoperability) to point to the appropriate course or subject guide based on guide metadata. If you input your metadata correctly, this process is automatic and does not require additional steps from the librarian or the course professor.

If a corresponding course or subject guide does not exist, the student will be taken to the following "fail over" page that lists all published subject and topic guides: https://libguides.lib.rochester.edu/rcl

A course guide should be created for each WRTG 105 class with the appropriate metadata assigned to each guide (be sure to include the section number and semester code). If a class does not have a guide, the LTI will take the student to the following generic WRTG guide: https://libguides.lib.rochester.edu/wrtg

The form below can help you check to see if the LTI is working properly for a specific course. You will need to first find the Blackboard course URL using the following steps:

1. Log into Blackboard (https://learn.rochester.edu)
2. From the top menu, click "Courses"
3. Use the "Course Search" option to search for the title of a course; or, click "Browse Course Catalog" to search by "Course ID" (e.g. HIST101) or "Instructor" (e.g. Hoffman – last name only!)
4. Find the course in your list of results – be sure it is for the correct semester!
5. Right-click on the course ID link and select "Copy Link Address" (Note: This option may have a different label depending on your browser)
6. Paste the link into the box below and click "Submit"

***This is an internal document created by the LibGuides admins for use by RCL Librarians. Please report any issues to springshare@library.rochester.edu***

Check existing metadata:

When viewing the metadata you have assigned to your guides, be on the lookout for the following potential issues:

• Guide Status
  Unpublished guides cannot be viewed without a LibGuides account; If you provide metadata for an active class on an unpublished guide, students will receive an error that "The requested page could not be found."
• Wrong Metadata Name (i.e. LTI_Course)
  When using the Blackboard LTI, the correct format for the metadata name field is LTI_COURSE (case insensitive); If you misspell or mistype this value (e.g. LTI-COURSE, ITI_COURSE, etc.), the LTI will not work for that guide
• Duplicate Values
  If you include the same metadata value on two published or private guides, Blackboard will point to the guide that was created first; Do not use the same metadata value on two or more private or published guides

Modify any published WRT 105 courses per the instructions on the “Creating Course Guides” box.

1. Rename the Course per the naming convention prescribed in the “Creating Course Guides” box (for consistency & muscle memory, we made it the same as the prescribed naming convention for the Instruction Calendar in LibCal).
2. Add the LTI metadata for the full Blackboard course ID per the instructions in the "Creating Course Guides" box. 
    
3. Merge any courses with multiple guides for different sections into one guide. If the diff. sections required different resources have different tabs/boxes to portion that out for students.