The redesign for Course Reserve will be going live this Thursday morning, July 5th! Course Reserve will get the shiny new template, as well as a bunch of workflow improvements for faculty who want to manage their own courses. You can see the new design (with some limited functionality - you can’t actually get to the items that are on reserve) at https://gvsu.ares.atlas-sys.com/ares/TestWeb
I built a script over the past few months that tries to address the confusion users have around the difference between “Adding a class” (starting from scratch) and “Cloning a class” (copying a class from one semester to the next). We’re stuck with the labels because the developers of Ares thought it would be a good idea to make their scripts dependent on a specific English word they had picked being sent to them (good luck with that translation, folks!) so instead I used data we’ve collected from interviews, support emails and calls, and last Winter’s faculty usability tests.
Basically, if you click “Add a class” my new script will load up to 3 of your previous classes in the background, and then present you the options to “Start from scratch” (with the button text reading “Add a class” to appease the computer gods) or show you yiour 3 previous classes with the option to copy them to a new semester (again, with appropriate deference to the deities of computer code). If you have more than 3 previous classes, you’ll also have the option to see more previous classes. You can see a screenshot of the prototype here. (Thanks to Kyle and Jon Earley for great feedback!)
There are only 2 more systems to do: Omeka (a.k.a. Digital Collections) and the Status Page. Those will be coming soon!
