Prepare Iowa News
LMS Newsletter
December 2006

Thank you for using Prepare Iowa learning management system!  If you have suggestions regarding the newsletter, or other ideas for Prepare Iowa, please feel free to contact the LMS Coordinators – visit the “Contact Us” page on the Prepare Iowa website.

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Contents:

General Announcements – Prepare Iowa Focus Groups, ICON Migration
New Courses – New Public Health Administrators
Tips – Track your Training, How to Begin an Online Course

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General Announcements

• Focus Groups

We have begun conducting a series of user focus groups in order to better understand how the learning management system can be made a more effective tool in everyday public health, preparedness and emergency management training. You may be invited to participate in one of the groups, which are divided up based on frequency of use, job role, and availability.

If you would like to participate, please contact Graham Dameron gdameron@mail.public-health.uiowa.edu

• ICON Migration

We are excited to be implementing some changes in our course delivery systems, and wanted to update you on a change that will effect some of the online courses.  By December 31, 2006, the content for these courses will no longer be available in WebCT. This means that course content will be migrated over to a new course delivery system, called ICON.  Normally this will have no adverse effects on you unless you are in the middle of the post-test at the time of migration.  In that case, you will need to drop the old course (this can be done in “My Course”, and re-enroll into the new course to finish up at your leisure (simply search for the course in the Course Catalog and register for it).  Normally, this will present no problems, but, as with any migration, certain situations may arise in the migration process.  If you have any questions or problems, feel free to contact the LMS Coordinators, who will be able to assist you.

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New Enhancements

New Public Health Administrator Course program - Now Available!

Click on the Course Catalog link, and the Program Catalog tab to access the New Public Health Administrator Course as a "program of study". The NPHA series consists of 14 modules, each one-hour long, which can be taken individually, or as part of the series.

Intended for public health and nurse administrators who are relatively new to their positions (3 years or less), this course is designed to enhance the knowledge, skills, and abilities they need to succeed.

A sampling of these courses:

• Managing a Public Health Agency
• Basic Epidemiology
• Finding and Evaluating Health Information on the Internet
• Public Health Law
• Grant Writing
• Critical Thinking (available February 2007)

Please feel free to check these courses out and give us feedback on them at prepareiowa@uiowa.edu

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 Tips on Using the LMS

• Track your Trainings - did you know that you can keep track of trainings and education that are outside of Prepare Iowa?  After you log into Prepare Iowa, click on the My Courses link, then click on the Completed Courses heading.  This is where Prepare Iowa will track your completed courses, you can access your certificates, rate the courses you completed, and track trainings/education taken outside of Prepare Iowa.  Click on Add Completed Non-LMS Course box, fill out the appropriate fields, click Save.  This will create a record of the trainings you manually enter.  If you want to print this, click on the LMS Activity Report within the My Courses link.

• How to begin an Online Course – To access an online course, you must first be registered for that course. You can do one of two things:
  
  
  1. Go to the My Courses link (on the blue left side menu), under your Current courses heading, see the course you want to access and click on the Launch Course link underneath the course title and next to the Drop link.
  2. Once logged in, on the Home page in the right column displays your Current, Required, and Recommended Courses - in the Current Courses box and click on Launch Course to access your online course.