Welcome to e-sgh.pl system presentation

1. Welcome to e-sgh.pl system presentation Warsaw School of Economics, www.e-sgh.pl

2. The decision about launching the system was made in May 2001. Since then, it has been continuously developed - new functions and modules have been added. From the very beginning the platform was based on PHP scripts, supported by database MySQLand XML language. That let us achieve compatibility with many Internet browsers, such as which makes the system accessible for the majority of the Internet users. To their convenience the system adjusts automatically the size of the displayed elements to the currently used settings of the screen. History and technical solutions Warsaw School of Economics, www.e-sgh.pl

3. During the login procedure each user receives particular rights in the system, a “grade of confidence” which describes the extent of changes which she/he can introduce to the system. These are respectively: guest, student, lecturer and administrator. Setting the group of a user is the next step. The group determines the lectures, which are available to the user. This step might be compared to assigning the pupil to a class, and consequently to a suitable timetable, protector and classmates, whom they will be able to meet in a chat-room or on a forum. Access to the system Warsaw School of Economics, www.e-sgh.pl

4. The last level is verifying the so-called ‘special authorizations’. It is easy to imagine one person in a group, who should have access to one of the lectures more quickly than others. The settings enable to give special rights to each of the students separately. Everything is verified when the login and the password are entered. The data generated during the verification process are stored within the system at each of its levels. Access to the system Warsaw School of Economics, www.e-sgh.pl

5. After a successful login procedure the user will see an individually generated main page of the system. Its main part contains a tree of links connecting to the lectures available for a specified person. The tree has a double level structure. The course is the core unit. It may consist of one or a few lectures (published as a single one or in a cycle). There is as well information about the current events concerning e-sgh (e.g. launching a new subject) displayed on the page. The main page also providesthe lecturers an access to the “virtual registers”, which they use according to the lectures they offer. Already in Warsaw School of Economics, www.e-sgh.pl

6. After choosing the lecture, the system displays the first slide. Each slide has got a similar structure and composes of six fundamental parts (which will be described below). Lecture Warsaw School of Economics, www.e-sgh.pl

7. The upper part provides an access to the “menu”, which enables the connection with several functions (specified and different at the different levels of the lectures). They will be described widely in the following parts of this presentation. There are: chat-room, audio, forum, calendar, register, e-mail to the lecturer, etc. in the menu. Lecture 1-menu Warsaw School of Economics, www.e-sgh.pl

8. Below the “Menu” there is a tree with subjects in each of the lecture. It precisely describes the structure of the given lecture. It contains a list of the issues presented on the particular slides. It is possible to go directly to a chosen part of the lecture via the tree (e.g. to the last viewed slide in the previous session or to the slide which is subject to our special interest) or to the list of the lectures placed at the main page. Lecture 2-tree Warsaw School of Economics, www.e-sgh.pl

9. In order to make the work easier for the users, we prepared an option to personalize the font size. Thereforethe viewed text does not seem overwhelming and isoptimaly legible. Each user may modify these parameters at any moment. Lecture 3-type Warsaw School of Economics, www.e-sgh.pl

10. The comments area is a place on which the lecturer puts additional information referring to a given slide (e.g. source of the quoted information, links to web sites containing resources connected with the given issue, etc.) Lecture 4-comments Warsaw School of Economics, www.e-sgh.pl

11. Lecture 5-contents This is the biggest and the most important area on the entire slide. Here, apart from the text of the lecture itself, there are pictures, animations, links and also interactive tasks and tests aiming at the verification of the knowledge acquired during a given course displayed. Warsaw School of Economics, www.e-sgh.pl

12. Lecture 6-navigation keys and additional functions The navigation keys are used to move within the lecture (backwards and forwards). Below them, there are three keys used to creating and viewing the bookmarks and attaching the notes to a currently viewed lecture. The “Add a bookmark” function (the first key) enables the user to mark the most interesting slides. The “View the bookmarks” key directs the user to a page with previously marked slides. The possibility of taking notes at each slide (the third key) is also very useful. It is possible to edit them later as well. The notes are visible at the comments area. Warsaw School of Economics, www.e-sgh.pl

13. As outlined at the beginning, the system has many various functions which support the studying process. They may be divided into three groups, according to the user profile. The first group is the functions available to the user, very common and easy in use. There are: audio, chat, forum, system of messages, etc. Apart from this, there are also the so-called hidden functions, available only to the users with an appropriate status. These are: the virtual register and the control panel available only to the administrator. Functions for the user Warsaw School of Economics, www.e-sgh.pl

14. Some of the lectures have the sound path attached. All sounds have been recorded in the WAV format and compressed to an MP3 format. They are played by the system through the stream data transmission so as to be easily accessible even with the slow connection. As not every slide is supplied with the sound path, the audio key appears when the sound is available with the given slide. There is a special chat room so that the users may contact interactively the lecturers and other participants of the course. We hope that weekly virtual meetings with the students will become an obligation for the lecturers. It will be then possible to ask questions referring to the lectures and resolve problems. The forum (where each member of the group may ask questions) may be of similar use.What’s more, by this facility all other participants will also be able to become acquainted with new issues, not necessarily in a real time of the meeting with the lecturer. Audio, chat, forum Warsaw School of Economics, www.e-sgh.pl

15. We are aware of the importance of the contact with the author of the lecture, which one is viewing. The doubts or questions may appear at any moment, so this option is available all the time. In order to facilitate the identification of the problem, the message will contain the link to a page from which you sent the message. It therewith allows to identify the moment when doubts arose and the part of the lecture it refers to. "Information" button is the hyperlink to the place where one can get information concerning his/her group. Inside, you can find a list of participants and information about the teacher. Each user can define their own profile where they can put a brief information about themselves (name, surname, e-mail, UIN, webpage address and even a photo attached). E-mail, info Warsaw School of Economics, www.e-sgh.pl

16. Our system enables the lecturers to present the graphs. We herewith present the example of a graph. We also provided the possibility of interactive creation of the graphs (even the most complicated ones). The animation is another form of presenting the graphs. One of the features, which makes this type of course different from the others is the possibility of creating the animations. Generating graphs Warsaw School of Economics, www.e-sgh.pl

17. One of the functions available to a student is a notepad. It can be extended e.g. by calendar or news system. The news introduced into the calendar might be attached to the specified lecture and the slide and be marked with the given day. The user may then view the messages in a form of a daily, weekly or monthly report. The list of the notes is permanently available. Notepad and calendar Warsaw School of Economics, www.e-sgh.pl

18. E-sgh is also equipped with a project management module. Each teacher can divide his group of students into smaller teams (called „case study”). Moreover, each case study can be divided into many stages and tasks, individually for every student. Each solution of individual tasks has to be accepted by the group, then by the teacher. When both conditions are fulfilled, user can be promoted to next stage. Each case study (or even simple task) is provided with its own message board and individual chat-room. Work progress is presented by figures and charts so as to stimulate other members of the group to work more effectively. Project management Warsaw School of Economics, www.e-sgh.pl

19. Another important function of the system is the virtual register. The teacher has an access to the list of his/her students and can evaluate the activity of the members of the group on the discussion forum and during the chat. Also their homework and other forms of the students’ participation in the course may be evaluated. The system automatically records the marks with the date. It is also possible to set the date manually. The virtual register also allows to generate reports for the optionally chosen time (which makes it easier to give the final note). As far as the additional materials are concerned, the final mark may influence the mark for the stationary classes. With regard to the full e-lectures, the mark from the virtual register may influence the mark of the traditional exam. Virtual register Warsaw School of Economics, www.e-sgh.pl

20. The e-sgh.pl system is also equipped with “News” module. There is a table with the latest news available on the left side of the tree with the lectures (the first slide after login procedure). The displayed information is of the individual nature, whereas the ones in the table are directed to the given user. Among the most frequent announcements there are: -> information about the new plots on the forum (the specified message is displayed only once after the first login procedure and e.g. only during the first three days since its introduction) -> information about the chat hours -> information about the new lectures -> other information, e.g. reminder about the deadlines for the homework, test results, etc. News Warsaw School of Economics, www.e-sgh.pl

21. The control panel is an important module of the system. It is a part of the service unavailable to the user, but accessible to lecturers and administrators. The panel allows to add new users, edit their data and assign them the authorizations to the particular parts of our system. It also allows to perform a detailed analysis of all questions to the system via a suitable sorting of the connections list. · Adding new users · User’s data edition · Authorization edition · Global statistics ·Detailed statistics Control panel Warsaw School of Economics, www.e-sgh.pl

22. Thank you for devoting your time to become acquainted with our system. We hope that with the help of this presentation we managed to outline the idea of e-learning and majority of its possibilities. Should you have any remarks or questions, feel free to contact us: Warsaw School of EconomicsCentre for Development of Distance and Permanent Education Building G, room 150Phone: (+48 22) 337 9723 e-mail: cren@sgh.waw.pl www.e-sgh.pl www.cren.pl/eng If you wish to see the activity of the platform, we invite you to view the available parts of the lectures, which you will find at the main page of the system. Thank you Warsaw School of Economics, www.e-sgh.pl