All courses at NTNU have a dedicated message channel in Innsida which can be used to communicate with students enrolled in the course. This communication option can be used as a supplement to Blackboard.

Main page: All guides for Innsida | Denne siden på norsk: Emnekanaler i Innsida

To use your course channel

As an instructor you can choose to use or ignore this communication option. To use your course channel, all you have to do is:

1. Inform your students that you will be using this communication option. Students who are enrolled in the course will see the message in the course channel when they log in to Innsida.
2. Post a welcoming message to your students. As long as you are registered in FS as a subject teacher or subject manager, you will automatically have access to the channel for the subject.

See this detailed guide if you need help with writing your first message: Post a message on Innsida.

Who can read course channel messages?

• Students registered for the course will see these messages when they check Innsida.
• Registered coordinators and instructors
• Other interested NTNU employees and students who have manually subscribed
• External readers who have found the channel's RSS feed. The feed is found automatically unless you change the reading rights for your topic channel. Use the feed to communicate with those who do not have access to Blackboard or to include information in other websites that deal with the topic.

You can choose to limit access to the channel, so that only registered students and subscribers can access your posts by changing the read access priveleges. The open RSS feed will be removed and new members must be approved by a channel administrator.

Who can post messages to a course channel?

The standard settings for course channels provide edit privileges to:

• subject manager and subject teacher(s) for the subject (and who are registered on the subject in FS)
• others that are entered manually. As a subject teacher, you can change the channel's settings.

If you want students to also be able to write messages on the channel, you can change the channel's settings so that subscribers can also write.

Questions and answers

Will all registered students be automatically added to the channel?

• Yes. Membership is continuously updated based on student affiliations in FS. In some cases, it can take 2 days before the change becomes visible.

Are the channels emptied of members every semester, or do students themselves have to unsubscribe from channels after the exam is over?

• Students do not need to do anything. The channels are updated. Students who are connected automatically do not need to unsubscribe. But if a user has chosen to follow along voluntarily, that person must unsubscribe manually.
• Course channels are automatically visible to registered students. If FS is updated with new students, the students will automatically have access to the subject channel in Innsida, without having to do anything. In some cases it can take up to 2 days.

How is it registered who are the administrators of the channels?

• All professionals – both subject coordinators and subject supervisors – are automatically given write rights on the channel. If FS is updated with new professionals, they will have writing access to the subject channel within 2 days.
• It is also possible to add administrators manually.

Will it be possible to connect course channels to Blackboard?

• No. Unfortunately.

Why are course channels created?

Subject channels can be used as a supplement to information in Blackboard, in cases where it is desired:

• To give professionals a more efficient channel to report changes or publish information and documents according to the subject, also before the start of the semester, and for people who are not registered in the subject.
• To be able to integrate information about subjects in official course pages on the external web.
• To collect information. NTNU's intranet is a natural place to gather information that a student has to deal with. This also applies to subjects. The aim is to collect current information about the course of study, deadlines, lectures that have been cancelled, new exercises, excursions and changing activities in one place.

Students and teachers have been calling for this for several years, because:

• Blackboard is closed, and external parties (partners, PhD students) cannot access information or documents.
• Some information must be available before the start of the semester and after the semester is over. This is particularly important for PhD subjects. Without subject channels, many subject teachers have had to maintain their own subject pages in order to openly publish information and documents in connection with lectures and exercises. Others create additional pages to inform users and groups who are not enrolled in a course and who therefore do not have access to Blackboard. The intranet must collect information and the systems a student must deal with. It is very unfortunate if students have to deal with many different places to get information about their studies and the course of study. Especially if certain subjects use Blackboard, while others use their own subject pages, while the Study Department and study supervisors again use a mixture of LMS, mailing lists and Innsida.

Contact

Do you have questions about the course channels? Contact via NTNU Hjelp.