WebCT bulletin board

Introduction

This page contains instructions for using the Bulletin Board in WebCT. (The instructions are for a previous version of WebCT. The appearance is different but the principles are the same in the current version.)

Keep in mind that these instructions are just an introduction and do not cover all of the possibilities. Explore the on-line help within WebCT for more information.

Logging in

The URL for WebCT at McGill is http://webct.mcgill.ca . Click on Login to MyWebCT to login. Once you have logged in, you will see a list of any WebCT courses in which you are registered.

Your UserID is normally of the form firstname.lastname. If you have trouble figuring out what UserID has been assigned, click on How to Login on the WebCT home page (upper right corner). You will be asked for your student number and your date of birth (in the form yyyymmdd.

Your initial WebCT password is your date of birth (yyyymmdd. You should change it the first time you login to WebCT.

You can also enter an e-mail address after you have logged in. Later that address can be used to retrieve your UserID and password if you forget them, by clicking on Forgot your password? Click here.

Reading messages

Reading messages in a WebCT forum is much like reading messages in a newsgroup. One advantage of the WebCT environment is that the WebCT server keeps track of which messages you've read, from session to session, regardless of which computer you're using to read them.

When you first enter the bulletin board area in WebCT, you'll see a display like this. In this example there are two message threads, with topics Camel animation and Starting time. To read an individual message, click on the author's name, e.g., Instructor. To see all of the messages within a thread, click on the topic of the thread.

Note the text at the top that says . This means that WebCT is displaying only messages that you have not yet read. Note also the button at the left labelled .

If you click on the button then WebCT will display all messages, both read and unread. The text at the top will now say , and the button at the left will change to .

Messages that you haven't read yet will be flagged as .

When you read a message, the flag won't immediately disappear. Similarly, if someone else (or you yourself) post a new message while you're using the bulletin board, the new message won't immediately show up on your display. Click on the button to refresh the display.

Clicking on the button will mark all listed messages as having been read, without your having read them. You wouldn't normally want to do that - at least not in my course!

Replying to a message

When reading a message, you'll see something like this. To post a reply to the message, you can click on the button or, often preferably, on the button. They both allow you to compose a reply, and the latter also quotes the text of the original message.

Starting a new topic

To post a message with a brand new topic (or thread), click on .

If you're replying to a message, it's much better to use the button or the button than to start a new topic by using the button.

Composing a message

Whether replying to a message or starting a new topic, compose your message using the built-in text-editing facility.

Note that the characters < and > may cause text to disappear if you try to use them in your messages. That's because your message will be displayed using a Web browser, and those two characters mean something special in HTML. Use the Preview button to see what your message will really look like. Remember that the appearance of your message may vary somewhat when viewed with different Web browsers.