Support Guides

What is MS Office 365?

Office 365 refers to a subscription plan that includes access to Office applications plus other productivity services that are enabled over the Internet (cloud services). Office 365 include services such as Skype for Business (web conferencing) and Exchange Online (hosted email), and online storage with OneDrive for Business.

Our Office 365 subscription include the desktop version of the latest Office applications, which users can install across multiple computers and devices. The fully installed applications include: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher, and Access. (Publisher and Access are available on PC only.) And you can install them across multiple devices, including PCs, Macs, Android tablets, Android phones, iPad, and iPhone. In addition, you always have the most up-to-date version of the applications.

Where do I access Office 365 ?

To access the customized Office 365 login page, use the link below:

http://office365.sunyopt.edu

or at the bottom left of the web page, you will see a link for Office 365.

For login purposes only, use the following username format:

Username: userxxxx@sunyopt.edu; the prefix is your Network User Account username

Password: Your computer password

Outlook Web Mobile App

To get the Outlook Web App onto your mobile device, use one of the links below:

• For iOS devices
• For Android phone and tablets
• For Windows phones or tablets

For the Outlook Web App setup instructions for your mobile device, use one of the links below:

• For iOS devices
• For Android phones and tablets
• For Windows phones and tablets

• How to Use Waiting Room
• Host and Co-host Controls in a Meeting
• Protecting cloud recordings with a password
• Joining & Configuring Audio & Video
• Zoom Meeting Security Toolbar Icon for Hosts
• Meet Now vs Scheduled Meetings
• Getting started with Breakout Rooms
• Managing Breakout Rooms
• Annotating a Shared Screen on Zoom
• Sharing with Zoom White Board
• Share your Screen

Panopto URL: sunyopt.hosted.panopto.com

Enter your Moodle credentials to access your Panopto space.

Once in Panopto, follow the below steps to navigate the site and find recordings shared with you.

1. Click on Browse
2. Expand the arrow next to Moodle to open all your available courses
3. Expand the arrow next to the semester name to see the courses for that semester
4. Click on any course name to view the recordings
5. You can search all recordings based on a topic, instructor or a word mentioned within the recording
6. Click on Get Started with Panopto to view tutorials from Panopto

Adding new Categories

1. Click the gear menu, and then click Gradebook setup.
2. Click the [Add category] button at the bottom of the screen.
3. Configure settings for this particular category:
   1. Give the category a name (e.g., Exams, Quizzes, Labs).
   2. Set the aggregation type. This will default to whatever your overall course method is set to, but you can use a different method if you want.
      Note that doing so might have unintended consequences when calculating grades.
   3. Click the [Save changes] button.

Rearranging Grade Items and Categories

1. When you are on the Gradebook setup page, to move a category up or down, click on the move icon  next to the item you would like to move.
2. Select the empty box where you want to move the item to.
3. Click the [Save changes] button.

Adding a manually graded item

As mentioned above, you may wish to create a grade item for, e.g., participation, attendance, or for assignments or activities that are handed in directly/physically (i.e., not submitted through Moodle itself). To add new grade items to the grader report without adding an activity to the course page:

1. When you are on the Gradebook setup page, click the [Add grade item] button at the bottom of the screen.
2. Give the item a name and grade type and adjust any other settings as necessary.
3. Click the [Save changes] button.

Entering/Editing grades

Moodle provides a number of ways to assign a grade to a particular item, depending on what type of grade item it is. Note that it is possible to assign a grade that exceeds the maximum point value for the item.  For example, you may want to assign a grade of 105/100 on an exam. This is fine and Moodle will calculate the score appropriately, taking into account the bonus points.

Grading an activity submitted through Moodle (e.g., Assignment, Quiz)

The easiest and least error-prone way to grade items created and submitted through Moodle, such as an Assignment or Quiz, is through that particular item’s grading interface. For example, if you have an Assignment, you can click on that particular assignment in your course and assign grades through that interface. Grades will be automatically reflected in the grade book.

Grading a manual grade item (e.g., Participation, Attendance)

If you have created any manual grade items, the easiest way to grade them is through the Single view interface:

1. From the main page of your course, click Grades on the sidebar. Typically, but not always, this will take you to the Grader report. If it doesn’t, or if you are already in another page of the gradebook, you can click the Grader report tab near the top of the page.
2. Within the Grader report, you can enter Single view one of two ways:
   1. If you want to assign grades to all students for a particular item, such as a single Assignment, find the grade column for that item and click the grey pencil icon in the column header.
   2. If you want to assign grades to one student for multiple grade items, click the grey pencil icon next to their name.
3. (Alternatively, you can also simply click the Single view tab to go into the single view editor page, from which you can select either a particular assignment or a specific student.)
4. You can then enter grades, feedback, etc. on the page, making sure to click [Save] when finished. Note that if the grade box is greyed out and inaccessible, this means typically that you are attempting to grade something that should be graded through its own grading interface (see above).

Extra Credit

You may want to designate a grade item as extra credit. Please note that extra credit only functions as expected if you are using either Natural weighting or Simple weighted mean of grades. It is not recommended to explicitly designate something as extra credit under other aggregation methods.

Assigning extra credit

1. When you are on the Gradebook setup page, click the Edit drop-down next to the grade item you wish to designate as extra credit, then select Edit settings.
2. Within the Parent category section, place a check in the box labeled Extra credit.
3. Click the [Save changes] button at the bottom.
4. When you return to the gradebook setup page, you will see a little “+” next to the score in the Max grade column; this indicates that the item is considered extra credit. The weights of all non-extra credit items will adjust to sum to 100, and the weight of the extra credit item will be set to its relative weight based on the number of points (you can, however, override the weight just as with regular grade items).

Extra Credit

You may wish to have a grade item that is ungraded; for example, you want students to submit an item through Moodle, but you will not assign a grade to it. This can be useful for, e.g., ungraded rough drafts or other documents that you might want to provide comments for, or have a record of, but that will not carry a grade. In this case, the Assignment becomes effectively a dropbox. To do this, create an Assignment as normal, but within the Grade section, select None as the Type.
Similarly, you may wish to provide a grade for something like a rough draft in order to show a student what they would have received, but ultimately you don’t want the grade to count towards the overall course grade. To do this, within the Gradebook setup page, simply override the weight of a particular grade item and set it to 0. That way, you can grade an item as normal, provide feedback, etc. but the grade will not “count.”

Changing how grades display (e.g., percentage, points, letter, etc.)

It’s relatively easy to control how grades are displayed for an overall course, or even for a single assignment or category. You might want to display the grade for a particular assignment or category as the total points earned, while the overall course grade can show up as the percentage and total points earned:

1. From your course, click the gear menu, and then click Gradebook setup.
2. Click the Edit drop-down under the Actions column on the first row, the one that lists the name of your course (e.g., OD II…), and then click Edit settings.
3. At the bottom of the Category total section on the resulting page, click Show more….
4. You will see a drop-down box labeled Grade display type, which you can set to whatever you prefer; for example, if you only want to show points, you would select Real (‘Real’ stands for the actual points earned, as opposed to a percentage or letter).  And you’ll see that you can set it to one of several combinations, showing points and percentage, for instance.
5. You can repeat this step for any particular item or category as well, depending on how you want to represent the grade to students.

Importing and Exporting Grades in Moodle

Sometimes faculty like to enter grades into Moodle using Excel rather than directly through Moodle gradebook. This method requires one to export then import the gradebook.

Before following the instructions below, be sure to have the assignments or grade items already established in your grade book.

1. From your course, click Grades in the sidebar.
2. Click the [Export] tab, located near the top-right of the page.
3. Click the Excel spreadsheet tab to ensure the gradebook is exported for Excel, or select another format if you wish. Select the grade items you want to export or export them all, and select any other options that apply under the Export format options drop-down.
   1. Click the [Download] button.
4. Open the downloaded Excel file and enter grades in the appropriate columns. Do not add additional columns and do not change the text of any existing columns.
5. If a column doesn’t exist in the Excel file, add the assignment or grade item first in Moodle then export it again.
6. Save the Excel file as a CSV (Comma Separated Values) file.
7. From the course again, click Grades within the sidebar.
8. Click the [Import] tab in the gradebook.
9. Click the [CSV file] tab (if needed, because it should be selected by default).
10. Drag and drop the CSV file you just saved to the File box.
11. Click the [Upload grades] button.
12. IMPORTANT: Within the Identify user by section, set the [Map from] field to Email address or Username and the [Map to] field to Email address or Username.
13. Map the grade item or items to the appropriate item or items you graded in Excel.  Anything you did not modify or that remains ungraded can be left at the default Ignore.
14. Click the [Upload grades] button to finish.

AGGREGATION METHODS EXPLAINED

How does each aggregation method work?

For most aggregation methods, the grades are first converted to percentage values (interval from 0 to 1). They are then aggregated using one of the strategies below. The point or percentage value out of the maximum possible grade of a category is found based on this aggregation.

Important: An empty grade is simply a missing gradebook entry and could mean different things. For example, it could be a participant who has not yet submitted an assignment, an assignment submission not yet graded by the teacher, or a grade that has been manually deleted by the gradebook administrator. Caution in interpreting these empty grades is thus advised.

Natural

This aggregation method is the sum of all grade values, scaled by weight. When its weights are not adjusted, it is the same as points earned divided by points possible.
This is the only type that does not convert the grades to percentages internally. An example for assignments A1, A2, and A3 follows.

A1: 70/100
A2: 20/80
A3: 10/10
Earned: 70 + 20 + 10 = 100
Maximum: 100 + 80 + 10 = 190

Aggregated grade: 100/190

When the natural aggregation strategy is used, a grade item can act as extra credit for the category. This means that the grade item’s maximum grade will not be included, but the item’s earned points will. Note that extra credit will not be awarded beyond the maximum possible grade. The following is an example of two required assignments and one extra credit assignment.

A1: 20/100 (“Act as extra credit” box checked in item’s grade settings)
A2: 70/75
A3: 19/20
Earned: 20 + 70 + 19 = 109
Maximum: 75 + 20 = 95

Aggregated grade: 95/95

Note that even though 109 points were earned, the category’s maximum grade is 95. The aggregated grade is capped at 95/95.

What happens if I change the weights?

In natural aggregation, weights are automatically given to items. If you change the weights in the boxes, natural aggregation no longer functions like the examples above. Natural aggregation functions as a sum of grades only when the weight boxes are left alone.

If a category’s weight is set to 70, that category will be worth 70 percent of the overall course grade. The weights of all other categories will be adjusted to total 30. This occurs because natural weighting forces weights to add up to 100. Essentially, changing the weights changes the aggregation method to weighted mean of grades (see below) where the weight values given are percentage of the total. This is useful for adjusting your gradebook to match the categories and percentages listed on your syllabus, if you have them.

If you want to find the mean of items, each item will have the weight of 100 divided by the number of items. This is the same as the mean of grades aggregation strategy.

Mean of grades

This method is simply the sum of all grades divided by the total number of grades.

A1: 70/100 = .7
A2: 20/80 = .25
A3: 10/10 = 1
Category max: 100
Number of scores: 3

Aggregated grade: (0.7 + 0.25 + 1.0)/3 = 0.65 –> 65/100

Weighted mean of grades

Each grade item can be given a weight that influences the importance of each item in the overall mean. The process is as follows:

1. Multiply each score by its weight.
2. Find the sum of these weighted scores.
3. Divide by the sum of weights.

An example with three assignments is shown below.

A1 70/100 = .7, weight 10
A2 20/80 = .25, weight 5
A3 10/10 = 1, weight 3
Category max: 100

1. A1: .7 * 10 = 7
   A2: .25 * 5 = 1.25
   A3: 1 * 3 = 3
2. Sum of weighted scores: 7 + 1.25 + 3 = 11.25
   Sum of weights: 10 + 5 + 3 = 18
3. Divide sum of weighted sum of scores by sum of weights: 11.25/18 = .625 = 62.5/100

Simple weighted mean of grades

The difference of this method from the weighted mean (above) is that simple weight is calculated as maximum grade for each item.
Simple weighted mean of grades is essentially natural grading, so it is recommended that you leave your aggregation on natural.
Another note about this strategy: it is intended for gradebooks with categories and for categories with curved items.
The process is as follows:

1. Calculate weight for each assignment by finding the difference of maximum and minimum.
2. Multiple each score by its weight.
3. Find sum of weighted scores.
4. Find sum of maximums.
5. Divide sum of weighted scores by sum of maximums

The following examples have minimum grades of 0 for all assignments.

1. A1: 70/100 = .7, weight: 100 – 0
   A2: 20/80 = .25, weight: 80 – 0
   A3: 10/10 = 1, weight: 10 – 0
   Category max: 100
2. A1: .7 * 100 = 70
   A2: .25 * 80 = 20
   A3: 1 * 10 = 10
3. Sum of weighted scores: 70 + 20 + 10 = 100
4. Sum of maximums: 100 + 80 + 10 = 190
5. Aggregated grade: 100/190 = 0.526 –> 52.6/100

When the simple weighted mean aggregation strategy is used, a grade item can act as extra credit for the category. This means that the grade item’s maximum grade will not be added to the category total’s maximum grade, but the item’s grade will. For example, if A3 is marked as extra credit in the above calculation:

1. A1: 70/100 = .7, weight = 100 – 0
   A2: 20/80 = .25, weight = 80 – 0
   A3: (extra credit) 10/10, weight = 10 – 0
   Category max: 100
2. A1: .7 * 100 = 70
   A2: .25 * 80 = 20
   A3: 1 * 10 = 10
3. Sum of weighted scores: 70 + 20 + 10 = 100
4. Sum of maximums: 100 + 80 = 180 (A3’s maximum not included)
5. Aggregated grade: 100/180 = 0.556 –> 55.6/100

Mean of grades (with extra credits)

Arithmetic mean with a twist. Essentially you will find the mean of scores, but you will divide by number of non-extra credit assignments, not the total number.
For weighting, a value greater than 0 treats a grade item as extra credit during aggregation. The weight is a factor by which the grade value will be multiplied before it is added to the sum of all grades.
The process is as follows:

1. Multiply extra credit items by weight, leave other scores as is.
2. Find sum of scores.
3. Find number of non-extra credit items.
4. Divide sum of scores by number of non-extra credit items.

For example:

1. A1: 45/49, weight: 0, as is
   A2: 45/45, weight: 0, as is
   A3: 5/75, weight: 2, weighted: 5/75*2
   A4: 0/100, weight: 0, as is
2. Sum of scores: 45/49 + 45/45 + 5/75*2 + 0/100
3. Number of non-extra credit items: 3
4. Grade aggregation: (45/49 + 45/45 + 5/75*2 + 0/100)/3 = .6839