IS News Blog

StirGate is Stirling’s academic search engine and it can now be directly accessed from Succeed. It will help you locate books and journal articles for your essays, reports and research. It searches many of the library’s electronic resources including the library catalogue, several large databases (including Scopus, Historical Abstracts, Business Source Premier, PsycINFO, CINAHL, ERIC etc) and many of the library’s electronic journal archives (including Science Direct and JSTOR).

On Friday morning (15^th March) a new Succeed panel providing access will be added:

Simply enter your search term in the input box and a new window will open with your search results.

You will have noted that reading lists are now called resource lists (http://blogs.stir.ac.uk/isnews/?p=2688). As with reading lists a Succeed Panel has been developed to display all the resource lists that you have access to:

This panel will be added your My Succeed page after Friday 22^th February (delayed due to an issue with time periods – we hope to add this panel to Succeed next week) — probably appearing below the My Courses panel. It can be dragged to, say, the top of the 2^nd column or where ever you prefer it. If you do not wish to have this panel on your My Succeed page simply click on the X in the top right-hand corner. There will be a confirmation message:

This will remove Resource List from this view. It will not be deleted permanently

And then the panel will be removed but as the message notes it can be added back later.

In modules with a resource list a link has been added that accesses the resource list. The link will be called Resource List and should appear in the table of contents:

Clicking on the Resource List choice will open the associated resource list in a new window unless there are multiple lists associated with a module. In this case the lists are shown — click on whichever one you wish to examine.

Lastly you can choose to have the sections shown for a resource list in Succeed. Click on the Manage Resource Lists Panel Settings  icon and check the sections box. Then the panel will change to look like:

The + symbols expands to show the sections (and the – symbol collapses). The sections also show when using the resource list link within a module.

Further information on resource lists can be found via the Help button in the panel and at http://www.stir.ac.uk/is/staff/library/reading-lists/

Simon Booth
eLD Manager

Remember that modules now open the week before semester starts. This means that Spring semester modules open on the following dates:

• 1^st/2^nd year modules – Monday 4^th February
• 3^rd/4^th year modules – Tuesday 5^th February
• Post-graduate modules – Wednesday 6^th February

Some modules from departments may open on different days (such as History and Politics which open Monday 11th Feb).

Simon Booth

eLD

eLD will be running training sessions for staff who will be building and running courses in Succeed (instructors) over the next couple of weeks. This training is an introduction to Succeed for staff who have not used the system previously (or have made little use)

Four Succeed training sessions have been arranged on the following dates/times:

• Mon 21st January (09.30-12.00)
• Tue 22nd January (14.00-16.30)
• Mon 28th January (14.00-16.30)
• Tue 29th January (09.30-12.00)

These sessions can be booked via Succeed using:

• Learning and Development – > My Learning -> IT & Information Skills -> Succeed Training

And then select the session that you would like to attend. There are ten places for each session and all sessions will be held in Training Room 2, Library, level 4. 

Library floorplan

You can now access Succeed from iPhones, iPad, iPods and Android smartphone/tablets using the Blackboard Mobile Learn app available for both platforms at a cost of $1.99 per year or $5.99 for life. Now the charge is applied when you first access Succeed not when you download the app. You will also be charged in £ and the amount will be shown at the point of purchase. Blackboard is the company that develops the software that Succeed is based on.

From the app you can access a number of Succeed features including announcements, content and discussions. Perhaps the most useful feature is push notifications: this means that news about various events in your modules is sent directly to your phone. To quote Blackboard:

“Students can now elect to receive automatic, personalized notifications delivered straight to their mobile devices to help them stay informed. Students can receive notifications for new announcements, new graded items, a test being posted, and many other course activities. No more constant checking for midterms being available and grades being posted. Now, course activity comes to you.”

Below are some links to some resources from Blackboard about the app including some videos but please note that the Blackberry app isn’t available for Stirling and Stirling don’t use the Blackboard blogging/journal tools but the tools we do use from Learning Objects do work with Mobile devices.

Android:

http://www.blackboard.com/resources/mobile/Mobile-Learn-Demo-Android.mp4

iPhone, iPad, iPod:

http://www.blackboard.com/resources/mobile/Mobile-Learn-Demo-iPhone.mp4

Features of Blackboard Mobile

http://www.blackboard.com/Platforms/Mobile/Products/Mobile-Learn/Features.aspx

To install the app either search in your app store for Blackboard Mobile Learn or use the QR codes below:

Having installed the app simply search for Stirling and login using your normal username and password.

Please note that there are two alternative routes to receive notifications about events in your Succeed modules.

Via Email:

http://www.stir.ac.uk/media/schools/is/documents/succeeddocuments/Notifications.pdf

and/or mStir’s Succeed Notifications feature

http://www.stir.ac.uk/is/student/mobile/mstir/

Simon Booth

Succeed will be unavailable between 7.30am and 9.00am, Wed 24th Oct*, to expand the file store available to the system from 128Gb to 512Gb — the existing store is over 80% full. This should take about an hour but we are booking a little additional downtime as these activities are difficult to time precisely.

Apologies for any inconvenience.

*this is a change from the previously advertised time of Tuesday 23rd October as there was an exam scheduled for that morning.

Simon Booth

Succeed Admin

eLD will be running training sessions for staff who will be building and running courses in Succeed (instructors) over the next few weeks. 

Six Succeed training sessions have been arranged on the following dates/times:

• Wed 22nd August (09.30-12.00)
• Thu 23rd August (14.00-16.30)
• Fri 24th August (09.30-12.00)
• Mon 27th August (14.00-16.30)
• Tue 28th August (09.30-12.00)
• Wed 29th August (14.00-16.30)

These sessions can be booked via Succeed using: Learning and Development – My Learning -> IT & Information Skills -> Succeed Training

And then select the session that you would like to attend.

There are ten places for each session and all sessions will be held in Training Room II, Library, level 4.

Simon Booth

eLD Manager

A reminder about the new module opening dates in Succeed for the Autumn 2012/13 and subsequent semesters.

For Autumn 2012, the opening dates will be:

• 2nd year students – Monday 3rd September
• 3rd & 4th year students – Tuesday 4th September
• Post-graduate students – Wednesday 5th September
• 1st year students – Wednesday 12th September

Please note that for the autumn semester 1st years do not get allocated to their modules until the first Wednesday of semester itself.

If a module has students from more than one year on it, it will open on the date corresponding to the earlier year group. It will not be the case that some students gain access to a module earlier than others, otherwise they could gain advantages such as selecting all the ‘best’ slots on any sign-up times in the module.

The actual time of day that modules become available will vary. Roughly speaking, for every group except the 1st years (where an allocation process must be completed before students can be uploaded to their modules), modules should be available by 8am. For the 1st years it should be 2pm on the Wednesday (12th September).

Succeed will be down for around 30 minutes on Friday 27th July starting at 8.00am to fix a bug affecting the database.

Stirling Connect will be down for most of the day on Wednesday 20th June to install software updates.

The service may appear to be available during the day but don’t rely on the service until after 5pm

Simon Booth
Connect Administrator