Support instructors/teachers/professors using DW for class-related projects

[denise]

Title:
Support instructors/teachers/professors using DW for class-related projects

Area:
posting, communities, using DW to conquer the world

Summary:
We get at least three or four instructors per semester asking for promo codes for account creations for their classes (which we're always happy to give!) Since DW is so well-suited to keeping class journals, submitting writing assignments, or requiring class participation, I'd love to be able to code some more support for academic use.

Description:
Obviously each teacher's use of DW would be different, depending on the type of class they're teaching and the level at which they're teaching it (high school, undergrad, graduate work, adult enrichment, etc). This suggestion is less "we should add this" and more "we should brainstorm what we can add that would actually be most helpful".

I'm basically proposing a new category of accounts: "instructor accounts" or "academic accounts" and "student accounts" or "learner accounts" (names obviously subject to change, yadda). This will allow us to set different capabilities for these accounts.

The "academic package" would consist of:

* one promo code per class/class section;
* one "academic community" account per section, with slight changes to the standard community model to make them more appropriate for teacher/class interaction;
* one (or more if co-taught or if class has a TA) "instructor account" to be the admin of the community (or the instructor could use their standard DW account, but all of the instructors I know don't want their students finding their regular DW account!)
* a number of "student accounts" created via the promo code, where the students can choose their own usernames and migrate the student account to a standard account later if they'd like.

Things I can think of, off the top of my head:

* the ability for the instructor to "clear out" a community's posts and comments, moving them to some form of archive (essentially a community rename?) each semester/quarter/marking period/etc in order to store each semester's classwork separately and start each semester with a blank slate

* ability to force a student account created with a specific promo code to be subscribed to/a member of the community for the project, without having to check the checkbox during account creation

* ability to designate an instructor account for each "academic package" that will automatically subscribe to any account created from the promo code (so the instructor won't 'lose' students or have to get them to submit their username to the instructor through some other method)

* ability for the instructor to subscribe to all posts and comments made in the community (without the comm needing to be a paid community, I mean)

What other things would instructors using DW for academic/teaching purposes want to see, or would find useful?

(Edited to remove poll #7997, since this is more of an information-gathering entry than a suggestion!)

Comments

[busaikko]

I teach jr/sr high, so students who are not adults. The ability for the instructor to age-lock the student accounts in some way would be good. This could be difficult if the accounts are non-expiring or if, at the end of the term/year accounts can be rolled over into regular accounts. ("Ms. Teacher, my son used the account you gave him to read porn!") (It might be better to actually make this a university deal at first *ponders*)

Some kind of export function, preferably to PDF, for posts and comments, preferably selectable by tags (so for example, you could print to PDF all posts tagged "Creative Writing Project", but not "brainstorming" or "teacher announcements"). This would be great for making class books, and for keeping feedback.

[denise]

If somebody gives an age that's under 18 when they sign up, their account isn't able to view posts labeled (by the poster) 18+ content, or join a community that sets itself as suitable only for 18+. So that part is taken care of! (Although it does depend on people accurately age-labeling their stuff. Some people do, some people don't, and we don't ever override the account owner's chosen settings.)

[busaikko]

Would it be possible for the instructor to set the whole group as one age? For example, if the youngest kid in a class is 13, then set all accounts to 13? And can an account holder change their first-given age at a later point (change from being 13 in class to the alarmingly sudden maturity of 19 when switching to a regular account 6 months later)?

[denise]

I should first mention: we don't allow kids under 13 on the site, because dealing with COPPA is ridiculous.

That having been said, there's no difference between "13" and "17" -- anybody under the age of 18 can't see material marked 18+. LJ has two levels of "adult content" (14+ and 18+) but we only have 18+ (blocks access to anyone not 18 or older) or "NSFW" ("this post is probably not work safe, are you sure you want to see it?" but not tied to an age restriction.)

Anyone can change their birthday with the site at any time, but the 18+ restriction uses the DOB given at registration, not the one given on the profile edit page. So a kid who switched their DOB on their profile after class was over would get points for trying, but no smut. *g*

[kyrielle]

Hmmm.

I definitely do see the concern with parents deciding to jump all over a teacher because their kid lied and got access they shouldn't.

I can see a couple ways to address it, but honestly, none of them really help, because all the kiddo has to do is wait until they get an invite code distribution (or hit up dw_codesharing if it has any) and create an account for themselves with a different birthday. A parent who was going to blame the teacher would still blame them at that point.

[azurelunatic]

Hmm. Sounds like student accounts should be ineligible for invite code distributions; if they need codes they should be able to ask their teacher.

One can't really do anything about a student getting a code through Other Means (aka dw_codesharing) but I don't see any reason a student account would need extra invite codes.

[niqaeli]

Well, no, there's no reason why a student account currently being used as a student account would need invite codes, but if they roll it from a student account to a standard account after their class, they will be receiving invite codes at distribution time and the kid can do what they like with those invite codes.

That's not the teacher's doing, of course -- but the point is, there's a real limit to what you can do to prevent a parent freaking out at a teacher if a kid is smart enough to get access to porn via DW but not smart enough to keep their parentals from finding out. *shrug*