Before Activation
Q1. What content in the Course Outlines application cannot be overridden?
In the Course Outlines application interface, any field that is greyed out cannot be edited. This information is pulled from a central source and is considered authoritative. If any of this information is incorrect, it needs to be edited at the source.
Q2. How do managers provide a URL for faculty to review the outline prior to activation?
Faculty members who are assigned to the course as instructors, or have been given editor access to the outline via the application, can review the outline within the application itself by going to outlines.sfu.ca. (See Viewing All Course Outlines). To share these outlines with other users, departmental managers can provide access via Manage User Permissions.
Q3. How do I save a web page to my computer as a PDF file?
Q4. My course has more than one section, but the content is essentially the same. Can I use a template so I don't have to duplicate the information?
Yes, you can use an existing outline as a template. See Step 4, Section 2 of Selecting the Outline.
Q5. Can I save a partially-finished outline and come back to it later?
Yes, you can use the "Save" button to save a draft of your outline.
Q6. Our information is correct in goSFU, but it is incorrect in the Course Outlines application. If I recently made a change in goSFU (unit change, section change), how long does it take for the change to show up in the Course Outlines application?
The change will appear in the Course Outlines application the following day.
Also, there is no delay over weekends or holidays; it's an automated process. The update happens daily so there should be no more than a 24 hour delay between goSFU and Course Outlines.
Q7. Our course has just now been canceled and has been removed from goSFU. How do we delete the corresponding outline from the Course Outlines application?
Canceled courses will be deleted from the application the following day. If the canceled course is still showing in the application, contact course-outlines-info@sfu.ca.
Q8. How do I attach an application form (in PDF version) to a course outline?
To attach an application form to the course outline,
1. Upload the application form PDF to the DAM folder in your AEM website.
2. Activate the PDF.
3. Find the URL of the PDF document by double-clicking it in the DAM view (camera icon). The URL at the top will read something like: "https://author.sfu.ca/damadmin#/content/dam/sfu/politics/". Replace the first part of the URL ( "https://author.sfu.ca/damadmin#") with "www.sfu.ca" so the resulting URL will be "www.sfu.ca/content/dam/sfu/politics/application-form.pdf"
4. Add that URL to the Details area of the course outline.
If the file is already live and linked on your website, you'll be able to use that URL (it will be identical to the one listed above). Just click on the PDF link in your Firefox browser and copy the file's URL.
Q9. How do I attach an image to a course outline?
The Course Outlines application cannot store images directly in its database, but you can link to images hosted elsewhere. For example, you may upload an image to your website's DAM in AEM and link to it in Course Outlines.
1. Copy the URL for your externally-hosted image into your browser's clipboard.
2. In Course Outlines, click on the "Source Code" button in the rich text editor.
3. Type in the following HTML:
<img src="http://www.sfu.ca/content/dam/sfu/mysite/myimage.jpg" alt="A description of my image">
4. Select the URL (within the double-quotation marks) and replace it with the URL you copied to your clipboard in step 1.
5. Select the content within the alt tag and replace it with a description of your image. This is required for users visiting your site with assistive technology (e.g., a screen-reader).
Q10. If the course has already been scheduled and the instructor information changes, does the information have to be manually added (even if it is updated in goSFU)?
The instructor block will be updated as new information is retrieved from goSFU. It will appear in the Course Outlines application the following day. After the instructor block has been updated, you will need to manually remove the previous instructor as the system will not remove or replace the previous instructor listed.