Up to 5 Student Hierarchy Levels Supported

The single most significant enhancement in WBT Manager™ 1.8 is the expansion of the student hierarchy to five organizational levels. This change frees larger organizations from the constraints imposed by the original two-level scheme and the awkward workarounds needed to accommodate it.

• User-configurable number of hierarchy levels
  You can choose to display between two and five levels. This feature gives you complete flexibility in setting up WBT Manager™ to correspond to your organization's hierarchy.
  
  
• User-configurable names for hierarchy levels
  We have provided generic names (corporation, region, district, organization, department) for the hierarchy levels, but you can easily change them. For instance, if your students are grouped into "teams" or "workgroups" instead of "departments," just provide the desired terminology and it will be displayed throughout the system.
  
  
• Backward compatibility
  You don't have to change your existing hierarchy when you upgrade. A two-level configuration looks and performs just like its counterpart in previous versions.
  
  
• Tree view enhancements
  Tree view functionality in both the system and local administrator modules helps keep the expanded hierarchy manageable.
  
  The system administrator navigation tree now automatically scrolls when dragging and dropping elements. This feature compensates for the increased space taken up by the added student hierarchy levels.
  
  In the local administrator module, tree views of the student hierarchy have been added to all appropriate screens. These simplify browsing for students or other hierarchy elements.
  
  
• Drag-and-drop restructuring
  You can drag and drop elements of the student hierarchy as needed to restructure it. Any element, along with all the elements beneath it, can be moved to another location at the equivalent level in the hierarchy. In other words, you can move a department with all its students to a different organization, or an organization and all its departments to a different district, or make an equivalent change at any higher level. This feature makes it easy to restructure an existing installation to take advantage of the new hierarchy levels.

New System Administrator Features

In addition to the features associated with the expanded student hierarchy, version 1.8 of WBT Manager™ introduces a wide range of other new system administrator features and enhancements. These include:

• Group operations in the Student Selector
  The enhanced Student Selector allows you to perform actions involving groups of elements in a single operation. These include:
  disabling the accounts of a selected group of students
  dropping a selected group of students from one or more courses or certificate programs
  
  
• Date selector calendars
  Pop-up calendars replace text entry fields for dates to eliminate confusion about the appropriate date format.
  
  
• Student hierarchy element certificate programs and reports
  You can now associate certificate programs and reports with student hierarchy elements in the same manner as courses. Certificate programs have the same options as courses, including automatically enrolling new and/or transfer students. Use of both certificate programs and reports can be restricted to local administrators from their respective hierarchy element(s).
  
  
• Improved local administrator listing
  Local administrator records are now displayed in a special "Administrators" node beneath their respective student hierarchy elements. You can add, edit, or delete administrators from this location. You can also display and access their records under the main Administrators node.
  
  
• Multiple administrator assignments
  You can assign local administrators to additional student hierarchy elements at the same level as their primary assignment. This change greatly increases your flexibility in deploying local administrators.
  
  
• Administrative categories
  You can now create categories of administrators based on any desired criteria. You can streamline locating desired administrators by using categories as search terms.
  
  
• User-defined administrator fields
  Administrator records now have fields available for customizing in the same manner as student records.
  
  
• Enhanced student/administrator display name options
  Display names can now include a user title, such as "Ms" or "Dr." Display format and sort order options have been expanded to allow you to create your own template.
  
  
• Copying and pasting (cloning) course elements
  Standard Copy and Paste commands can now be used to create duplicates of courses, instructional blocks, lessons, and reference items. This feature allows you to build templates for frequently-used course element structures and settings.
  
  
• QuickEdit for courses
  This new context menu command displays an editable table listing all the elements in a selected course. Within the table, you can review and change the element name, launch URL, and provider's name for each of the course elements. This feature is particularly helpful in preparing courses for export or dealing with a reorganization of your content storage locations.
  
  
• Single Lesson, 1-click menu style
  This new menu style was created for courses that have only one lesson. It saves the student time by causing the lesson to be automatically launched when the student clicks the course link on the main menu.
  
  
• Target completion date for courses
  This "soft" deadline can be set when assigning a course. It encourages completion within a specific time frame without locking the student out when the end date is reached. Reminder e-mail and special icons on student menus help keep the student on track.
  
  
• Secure Socket Layer (SSL) flag for lessons
  With this security enhancement, you can launch individual lessons in secure (SSL) mode without the overhead of running the entire system under SSL.
  
  
• Non-standard interface scripts for lessons
  The standards conformance of some commercial lessons is slightly out-of-spec, causing communication problems. In some cases, a custom interface script can be used to correct the problems. You can now easily integrate such a script by providing its URL in the lesson definition.
  
  
• Dropping certificate program courses
  When you drop a certificate program from a student's curriculum, you now have the option to drop all program courses in the same operation. This time-saving option is available for both single and multiple drops.

New Web Administrator Features

Version 1.8 of WBT Manager™ introduces a number of new Web administrator features and enhancements. These include:

• Expanded student hierarchy
  The most significant change in version 1.8 is the expansion of the student hierarchy to five levels. The number of visible levels can vary from two to five, depending on your organization's preferences. The default designations for the levels, starting at the bottom, are department, organization, division, region, and corporation. However, your system administrator may have changed these names to better match the actual structure of your organization.
  
  The new student hierarchy structure is supported by changes in the Web administrator module, including:
  
  Modify Student Hierarchy menu item - The Add/Edit Organization and Add/Edit Department menu items from earlier versions have been replaced by a single item called Modify Student Hierarchy. This item allows you to add, edit, or delete student hierarchy elements at any level to which you have access.
  
  Tree views - The portion of the student hierarchy to which you have access is displayed on many of your screens in a tree view. You can use tree views to browse for students or other hierarchy elements and to limit the scope of searches and other actions.
  
  
• Multiple administrative assignments
  Local (Web-based) administrators may be assigned to more than one student hierarchy element. If you have been assigned to multiple elements, you will see more than one top level element in your tree views. Your responsibilities for each assigned element are the same.
  
  
• Administrative categories
  Administrative categories are used to group administrators by some criterion other than their position in the student hierarchy. If your system administrator defines administrative categories, you can use them in searches.
  
  
• Target completion date
  When you assign a course, you can now set a target date for the students to complete it. Students will receive reminders as the date approaches. However, unlike a cutoff date, a target date does not lock students out of the course if they don't finish on time.
  
  
• Flexible detail display
  You can now choose to display or hide specific details about students, administrators, courses, or certificate programs.
  
  
• Enhanced searches
  Search screens for students and administrators now include a tree-view-based browsing mechanism. All searches now provide a comprehensive set of search criteria.
  
  
• Date selection calendars
  Pop-up calendar windows are provided for entering dates. This guarantees that dates are entered in the correct format.
  
  
• Enter ILT Attendance menu item
  Attendance-taking for instructor-led lessons is no longer the sole responsibility of the instructor. Using this new main menu item, this task can be delagated to other administrators.