Welcome

Before we begin our semester of study together, it is important that you review all of the material on the course orientation pages (there are several) and on our course syllabus. These resources will prepare you to be successful in this course and will make the journey over the next 10 weeks significantly easier.

Have you looked at the syllabus? This course orientation will complement and expand on the information provided on our syllabus. Be sure to review that document, too...carefully!

What will we learn about in the Course Orientation?

the structure of GEOG 585
review or ramp-up on HTML and JavaScript skills
an overview of Canvas, Penn State's course management system
technical requirements for GEOG 585
how to succeed in this course

What is due for the Course Orientation?

You should complete the Course Orientation before the first week of class. Please refer to the Calendar in Canvas for specific time frames and due dates.

The following is an overview of those activities that must be submitted for Course Orientation. Detailed directions and submission instructions are located within this orientation.

(You may want to print this page to serve as a checklist as you go along.)

Read the course syllabus [1].
If you have minimal or no experience working with JavaScript and HTML, it is required that you complete the W3Schools JavaScript [2] and HTML [3] tutorials during the orientation week. You may also want to review these again prior to Week 6.
Read and complete the activities for the orientation that are listed in bullets below. Although some of this content may look familiar if you've taken other PSU World Campus courses, some passages are specific to this offering of Geog 585.
Introduce yourself and meet the rest of the class. Please do this on the General Discussion forum on Canvas (in the Modules tab under Orientation & Resources). Please share any previous experience with digital mapping technologies, FOSS, or coding, along with a few things you hope to accomplish in this course relevant to your career or academic training.

Questions?

If you have any questions, please post them to our Technical Discussion forum, located on the Modules tab in Canvas under Orientation & Resources. I will check that discussion forum frequently. While you are there, feel free to post your own responses if you, too, are able to help out a classmate.

Keep reading!

On the following pages, you will find important information about the course structure, requirements, scheduling, and technical requirements and assistance—all of which you'll need to know in order to pass the course. Remember, you are also responsible for the information located on our course syllabus.

The Learning Environment

This course will be conducted entirely online. There are no set class meeting times, but you will be required to complete weekly assignments.

This site

The instructional materials on this site include this orientation and lessons. Each lesson contains an introduction, reading assignments, links, assessments, etc. You can also consult course calendars; communicate with instructors, teaching assistants, and fellow students; submit assignments; receive feedback from the instructor and teaching assistant; take online quizzes and surveys; and check assignment scores and course grades.

Course Website

One advantage to presenting the course in Drupal is that Drupal allows us to publish the text openly for the benefit of anyone who has access to the Internet, regardless of their ability to pay tuition or buy an expensive printed textbook (this is applicable to certain courses in our program).

Canvas Basics

About Canvas, General Orientation

Following is information about Canvas, Penn State's Learning Management System (LMS). In Canvas, registered students may consult course calendars; communicate with instructors, teaching assistants, and fellow students; submit assignments; receive feedback from the instructor and teaching assistant; take online quizzes and surveys; and check assignment scores and course grades.

Quick Guide for Students

If you are new to Canvas, it is strongly recommended that you complete the PSU: Canvas Student Orientation [4].

You may also want to review the Canvas Student Guide [5] to acclimate yourself further, and watch the following video:

Video: Canvas Overview (3:30)

Credit: Canvas Overview for Students [6] from Canvas LMS [7].

Click for Transcript of Canvas Overview

In this video, you will learn how to navigate your Dashboard, courses, and Global Navigation Menu in Canvas.

When you log in to Canvas, the first thing you see is the Dashboard, which provides a high-level overview of your current courses. The Dashboard can be displayed in three different viewing options.

Card View displays a course card for each of your favorite courses. Each card can include clickable icons for Assignments, Announcements, Discussions, and Files. List View displays an agenda view of graded items from your courses, as well as any non-graded items your instructors designate for a course To Do list. You can also add your own items to the agenda.

Recent Activity View displays a stream of recent notifications from all your courses, including announcements, conversations, assignments, discussions, and peer reviews.

You can also access the course grades page from the Course Card and Recent Activity Views by clicking the View Grades button. The Grades page displays grades for all of your courses. To view grade details for a specific course, click the name of the course.

To view a course, click the Courses link in Global Navigation and click the name of the course you want to view. The course opens to the home page set by your instructor.

You can use the Course Navigation links, breadcrumb navigation, or the sidebar to navigate to different areas of the course.

The sidebar includes a To Do list that displays links to announcements and other items that require action in your courses, such as assignments, quizzes, discussions, and pages.

If your course includes student groups, you can view a list of your groups in Course Groups. Click the group name to view the group homepage. View recent assignment feedback in Recent Feedback. Click the assignment name to view feedback in the Submission Details page.

Canvas displays a Global Navigation Menu that gives you direct access to your courses and other areas of Canvas.

Click the Account link to log out of Canvas, specify your notification preferences, upload and view personal files, modify your user settings, manage ePortfolios, obtain a QR code to log in to the Student app, view global announcements, and enable a high-contrast user interface.

Click the Dashboard link to return to the Canvas Dashboard. Click the Courses link to quickly access your favorite courses and view a list of all your courses. Click the Groups link to access groups in which you are enrolled or view a list of all your groups.

Click the Calendar link to view your personal calendar and course calendars. Click the Inbox link to view and send messages to your instructors and peers within Canvas. Click the History link to view a list of course content and content areas you have viewed within the last three weeks.

Click the Help link to access help resources for your institution.

Thanks for watching this Canvas overview video. To learn more about Canvas, ask questions, or engage with other Canvas users, please visit community.canvaslms.com.

Supported Browsers and Computer Configuration

The Canvas Help Center provides extensive, up-to-date documentation [8] on making sure your computer is configured properly for Canvas. Failure to follow these recommendations may result in significant issues while viewing materials, taking assessments, and using drop boxes. Use of unsupported browsers is at your own risk.

Course Communications

Meaningful interactions among students and instructors are the hallmark of a successful online class. Canvas supports several types of communication, as described below.

In addition, registered students have Penn State e-mail accounts (<Access Account ID>@psu.edu) that they need to monitor for any official communications that come from the University or from the Penn State World Campus.

Below is a list of communication tools available in Canvas. This course may or may not utilize all of the options listed.

Announcements [9]

These are messages from your instructor that contain important information. Current announcements can be accessed through the Announcements link in Canvas. Announcements may highlight assignment due dates (also published in the course Calendar), lesson recaps, a preview of an upcoming lesson and other essential course information.

Inbox [10]

The Inbox is the equivalent of e-mail in Canvas. It's great for a quick e-mail to another student, instructor, or a whole team. Keep in mind that the text editor is very minimal and does not have much formatting capability. Please use the Canvas Inbox only for private messages to instructors or fellow students.

Need more help using course mail? Review the Canvas Student Guide section on the Inbox [11].

Discussions [12]

Discussions allow students to interact with the instructor and other classmates. Threaded discussions allow multiple posts and replies. New posts appear in the Course Activity Stream page, so you will know when something has been posted.

In general, questions and comments about project assignments and course content should be shared with the entire class via the discussion forums. That way, everyone can benefit from the discussion.
Need more help using discussion forums? Review the Canvas Student Guide section on Discussions [12].

Note:

Whenever you post a message in a forum or send course mail, please use a descriptive subject line. Subject lines that include the gist of a question or comment increase the chances that students and instructors can retrieve the messages we're looking for. Poor subject lines, such as "Question" or "Lesson 1," are not very useful as search keywords. When replying to a prior message, consider whether or not the subject line should be altered to indicate the content of your reply!

Have questions? Need help?

There are many ways to get the help you need. You can post on the Canvas forums, or email your instructor, or see the "Help!" link in the Resources menu to learn more about the people and resources available to you.

Setting Communication Preferences

Your Canvas Profile and Notification Preferences

Your Canvas Profile and User Settings let you control your personal information in Canvas. Take a few minutes to personalize your Canvas profile and set your Notification Preferences, by following the instructions below.

Setting Up Communications
Task	Instructions
Personalize your Canvas Profile	Go to Canvas. Click on the 'Account' link. Click on the 'Profile' link. Follow the instructions on the Canvas Profile and User Settings page [13] to customize important aspects of your profile including, but not limited to your preferred e-mail address(es) and text (SMS) contact method for course notifications, your time zone, and your profile picture.
If you use PSU OneID	Students who are enrolled with OneID will not receive emails automatically from Canvas due to not having PSU email access. We advise that students set up a personal email address for notifications. Log into Canvas Click on the "Account" link Click on the "Settings" link. In account settings, add a personal email address on the right-hand side. Go to Account>Notifications to set specific notification settings, as described in the next section.
Set your notification preferences	You have the option to select how, when, and for what information you would like to receive notifications. This can be very helpful when keeping track of items such as discussion posts, assignment due dates, and exams. Visit Canvas Notification Preference Support [14] and follow the instructions for setting up your notification preferences. The video below this table provides additional information.
Set your timezone	Go to Canvas. Click on Settings in the Course navigation menu. The Course Details page will open. In the Time Zone drop-down menu, select a time zone for your course. Scroll down and click Update Course Details.
Download the Canvas App	For information on using the app by device, please see the following: Android Device [15] iOS Device [16]

Video Tutorial: Canvas Notification Preferences (2:56)

Click for Transcript of Notification Preferences in Canvas

In this video, you will learn about managing your notification settings for all courses and for an individual course.

To get started, click the Account link in the Global Navigation menu.

Then click the Settings link.

To add an email, click the Add Email Address link.

Enter your email address in the field and click the Register Email button.

After your email has been registered, you will receive a confirmation email. To complete registration, click the link provided in the email.

To manage notifications for all your courses, click the Notifications link in the User Navigation menu.

You can also access your notifications from anywhere in Canvas by clicking the Account link and clicking the Notifications link.

Notification settings are divided into sections including: Course Activities, Discussions, Conversations, Scheduling, Groups, Conferences, and Alerts.

Each section includes notification categories. You can view what triggers each notification by hovering your cursor over the category.

Contact methods linked to your account and push notifications for the Canvas apps are listed in individual columns.

To change how often you receive notifications for a specific category and contact method, click the corresponding notification icon.

You can receive notifications immediately, receive a daily or weekly summary, or turn notifications off completely.

Instructors, students, and observers can also manage notification settings at the course level. To open a course, click the Courses link in Global Navigation and click the name of the course.

In the Course Home Page, click the View Course Notifications button.

You can choose to enable or disable notifications for your course using the Enable Notifications toggle button.

If notifications have been enabled for your course, you can specify how often notifications are sent to a contact method for a specific category. Course notification sections and categories may differ from those available at the account level. However, course level settings will override notification settings at the account level for that course.

To manage how often you receive notifications for a specific category and contact method, click the corresponding notification icon. Then click how often you'd like to receive the notification.

Thanks for watching this Notification Settings overview video. To learn more about Canvas, ask questions, or engage with other Canvas users, please visit community.canvaslms.com.

Credit: Notification Settings [17] from Canvas LMS [7].

Succeeding in GEOG 585

GEOG 585 is hopefully one of the most valuable courses you will take in your online geospatial education career. It will provide skills that make you more productive and possibly save you (or your organization) significant expenses on software. It will also introduce you to technologies that are in high demand in today's GIS workplaces, thereby boosting the interest factor of your resume. Finally, and most importantly, it will provide more choices and resources in your tool belt when addressing geospatial problems.

None of this comes for free. It is anticipated that Geog 585 will be one of the busiest and most intellectually demanding courses that you attempt in this program. From past experience teaching very technical online courses on programming and cloud/server GIS, let me suggest the following keys to success:

Make sure you have the prerequisites. Geog 585 requires past experience with at least one programming language. You are also required to have some familiarity with HTML and JavaScript code, which you can gain during the orientation week by completing the W3Schools tutorials on these subjects.
Start the lessons early in the week, and don't attempt to complete an entire lesson all in one chunk. When working with web GIS technologies and programming, budget some time to address unexpected challenges. I check e-mail and forums at least once each weekday and once on weekends unless otherwise noted. If you begin the assignments early in the week, this usually allows for sufficient back-and-forth to overcome any challenges. If you attempt to complete your project immediately before the due date, there may not be sufficient time for me to see and review any questions that come up.
Use your classmates as a resource. You're all working through the same challenges together. If you hit an issue, chances are that one of your peers has encountered it also. Furthermore, if you find a clever way to make it past a particular challenge, you might want to share your success secrets to make life smoother for your peers who could encounter the same problem. Keep the technical discussion forum buzzing! I recommend checking it at least once a day, even if you don't have a technical problem. You may pick up tips that will be useful later.

Technical Requirements

For this course, we recommend the minimum technical requirements outlined on our "Program Technical Requirements" page [18]. If you need technical assistance at any point during the course, please contact the Outreach Helpdesk [19] (for World Campus students) or the ITS Help Desk [20] (for students at all other campus locations).

NOTE:

Access to a reliable Internet connection is required for this course. If you experience problems with your Internet connection while working on this course, it is your responsibility to find an alternative Internet access point, such as a public library or Wi-Fi ® hotspot.