Post Homework Assignments to TSS

Overview

It's easy and fast to simply post your homework assignments to TSS. While TSS offers many enhancements and features to this process, you can skip all of that and merely post your assignment in about one minute.

Step-by-step instructions

  1. Open one of your courses.
  2. You should see an "Announcements" section at the top of the left column. You might want to post your homework assignments to a separate section (e.g., the "Homework" section shown below). TSS calls these sections "Content Areas." If you do not already have a section created for homework, you can create one in the next step.
    main course menu
  3. Click "Control Panel" in the left column. The Control Panel allows you to change everything about your TSS courses.
    Control Panel
  4. To add a "Homework" content area, look for the "Course Options" section of the Control Panel. Within that section, you will see a link to "Manage Course Menu." Click it.
    Manage Course Menu
  5. At the top of the Manage Course Menu page you will see a row of buttons to the right of the word, "Add." Click the icon to the left of the "Content Area" label.
    Add Content Area
  6. In the resulting screen, Section 1 ("Set Area Properties") asks you to give a name to your new content area. Let's call it "Homework," which you can specify by typing it into the second box or selecting it from the first box, which is a pop-up menu with a pre-made label "Homework," among other choices. Either method works fine.
    Set Area Properties
  7. Now, in section 2 ("Submit"), click the "Submit" button.
    Submit
  8. The next screen should show you a "receipt," indicating that your submission was processed.
  9. You should now see a "Homework" content area link in the list under "Manage Course Menu. Click the link to the name of your course in the "breadcrumb trail" at the top of the right pane of your TSS window:Breadcrumb
  10. Now, to post a homework assignment. Click on "Control Panel" in the left column again.
  11. This time, the first area of the Control Panel should show a "Content Areas" section, with "Homework" in the list. Click "Homework" in the "Content Areas" section of the Control Panel.
    Homework content area
  12. You will see a screen similar to the one you used to add a Content Area. This time, however, you are adding an item to your Homework content area. So, click the icon to "Add Item."
    Homework buttons
  13. In Section 1 ("Content Information"), type a name for your assignment in the box to the right of "Name", perhaps something like "Homework on 12/13/06," or "Homework due 12/14/06." Below the name you typed is a text editing window, just like a word processor, in which you can type your actual assignment. Type away.
    Content Information
  14. Section 2 ("Content") allows you to attach files and links to your assignment. For our purposes here, you may skip this; you're just posting the wording of your assignment.
    Content
  15. Section 3 ("Options") allows you to make the item available ("yes"), track the number of times your students view it (up to you), and specify a date range when this posting will be visible to your students. You can leave all these settings at their defaults, or change them as you wish.
    Options
  16. Section 4 ("Submit") requires you to click the "Submit" button to finalize your post.
    Submit
  17. After you click submit, you should see a "receipt," indicating that your submission was processed.
  18. To see how your post looks, click on your course's name in the "breadcrumb trail" at the top of right column in your TSS window.
  19. Now click the link to the "Homework" content area at the top of the left column, and you should see your post. If you do not, click the "Refresh" button in the left column, below the link to the Control Panel.
    Completed post
  20. You're done!