Course Website

Course Website

The programme is delivered by a mixture of online lecture study, virtual group meetings with the course organiser and tutor, online readings and online role-play based exercises. Each course employs a range of assessment types, including video presentations, essays, blogs, and project reports. All lectures, assignment descriptions, readings and discussions will be hosted on the Course Website.

Signing In to the Course Website

To sign in to the course website, please use your internet browser to go to http://www.climate.ed.ac.uk/. Once on the website you will see a green ‘’Login” button in the top right of the screen (highlighted in red box below), click on this.

You can then sign in using your EASE log in information by clicking on the ‘Login with EASE’ button. This will take you to an EASE login screen and then once you enter your correct EASE login information (UUN and EASE password) you will be re-directed back into the Course Website.

Once logged in you can change your email address and password for this site by going to your Profile page (instructions for accessing and editing your profile are provided in the ‘Setting Up Your Profile’ section below). We would recommend you leave your log in details as your EASE log in while you are studying on the Programme as this will mean that once logged into the course website you will not need to log in again to any other EASE restricted sites, e.g. the library, your email, your blog, Learn, etc.

Please note: You will be able to login to the course website from Week 0 although course specific information will not be accessible until the first week of that course. If you are unable to login to the portal at the beginning of week 0 or at any further stage please contact the Support Team: climate-support@mlist.ed.ac.uk 

Only programme students (current and alumni) and staff have access to the Course Website.

Some FAQs for accessing the site:

Navigating the Course Website

There are four main ways to find all of the features on the course website.

1. Many of the key features have a ‘widget’ on the Home page of the site. These widgets give you an overview of key activities.
2. To access specific information or sub-sites you can find links to these either on the main ribbon (blue box) which goes across the top of all pages or use the drop down menu (green box) on the top left hand side of the screen (under your UUN).

3. Page specific links, can be accessed by direct links on the page itself (purple box) or through a panel on the left hand side of the screen (red box), for example:

   

4. Sub-sites can be found and you can go up or down them by using direct links (see above), nested folders (orange box) or nested lists (blue box), for example:

   

5. Sub-sites can also be found using the page numbers listed along the top of the screen when within a lecture. Please note that when on the first level (e.g. the main heading shown in the nested list above), the numbers relate to the order of the first level sites, for example:

 However, when you are within the lecture (i.e. past the main landing page), the numbers refer to the chapters of that lecture, for example:

Setting Up Your Profile

Updating your profile to include information such as your location and contact details are important to ensure that your classmates, tutors and course coordinates know how to contact you and what time zone you are in. If you are comfortable with it, providing a little bio about yourself in the ‘About’ section as well as a photo will help us all get to know each other better. Please note that any information you provide is available to your whole cohort and the staff, but is not public to those outside of the programme or in different years from you. With this in mind, it is up to you how much or how little you would like to share, for example, you do not need to provide your social networking information if you are not comfortable with this, however it might be a good way for you to stay in touch with your classmates once the course is complete.

To update your profile on the course website, you first need to sign in to the Course Website. Once signed in you will see your UUN listed in the top right corner. When you click on this a drop down menu will appear. To edit your profile, please choose ‘My Account’.

Once in the ‘My Account’ area you can change any information you would like, but please don’t forget to click ‘Save Changes’ at the bottom before you leave the page.

To view the profiles of your classmates, go to the ‘Profiles’ tab which you can find on the main ribbon of the Course Website. This will show you an overview of all your classmates, but you can learn more about them by clicking on their name to see their full profile.

Accessing Course Material

To access course materials including lecture notes, assignments and readings you must first sign into the Course Website. Once signed on you can access your courses by either clicking on ‘Courses’ using the ribbon at the top of the screen or by choosing ‘My Courses’ from the drop down menu at the top right (under your UUN).

The lectures and assignments will all be listed within each course and will become available from Week 1 of that course. Readings, slides and any other resources are provided within the ‘Resource’ panel on the left hand side of each lecture.

**Please note that in order to get access to many of the readings you will need to be connected to the University’s Virtual Private Network (VPN). Instructions for how to connect to the VPN can be found in this Handbook under the heading: University of Edinburgh Virtual Private Network (VPN) and Campus Wireless Connection.

Milestones

Milestones work like a checklist of key activities you need to complete for the courses you are registered to take. You can get an overview of all your milestones and your progress against them by signing into the Course Website and then choosing ‘My Milestones’ from the drop down menu in the top right of the screen. A summary widget is also visible on the Home page.

Milestones give you a reminder of assignment due dates (which are fixed) and recommended lecture completion dates. Of course, the courses are designed to be flexible in that you can complete the lectures at you own pace, as long as assignments are submitted on time. The recommended dates only serve to give you a framework to space out the work. By keeping to this schedule it will also mean you are more likely, as a class, to have vibrant and interesting discussions. You will not be penalised for missing lecture milestones, however the assignment due dates are fixed and penalties are associated with late submissions (see Programme Handbook for further information on late penalties).

The Milestones are there for you, therefore it is highly recommended you check off the Milestones as you complete them.

Course Calendar

Once signed into the Course Website, the Course Calendar can be accessed via the ‘Calendar’ link in the website ribbon or a summary of upcoming events can be seen on the Calendar widget on the Home page. The Course Calendar lists a range of events, including course catch-up sessions, library workshops and other University events. The events will indicate whether they are mandatory, recommended or optional. We recommend you check the calendar regularly for any updates. To find out about more details of any event on the calendar, please click on the event, a window will open to give you more details (e.g. specific time, ways to join, description, etc.).

**Please note all times in the Course Calendar are in local Edinburgh time.**

If there is an event that you think might be of interest to your classmates, please contact the Programme Director to ask if it can be included in the calendar.

Bookmarks

Bookmarks are intended to help you remember pages where you had questions, where you last left off or any other pages that you might want to return to later. Only you can see the pages you have bookmarked.

You can add a new bookmark by simply clicking on the bookmark icon on the top of any page within the Course Website (once signed in). This will bookmark the page you are on when you clicked on it. Once selected the bookmark icon on that page will indicate that it is bookmarked by turning red and adding a star.

You can review all your Bookmarks by selecting ‘My Bookmarks’ from the drop down menu in the top right hand corner of the site. You can also delete bookmarks on the ‘My Bookmarks’ page or un-bookmark a page by again clicking on the icon at the top of the relevant page to return the icon to black.

Discussion Board

The discussion board is intended to be a place where you can discuss your opinions and thoughts on a variety of subjects. Some discussion topics have been set by course coordinators and these can be found throughout the lectures.

To access the discussion board you must first sign into the Course Website. The easiest way to see all the discussions is to select ‘Discussions’ from the main ribbon of the site. You will then get a list of all the discussion forums available to you, and within them, the specific discussion topics. You can also gain access to specific discussion topics by clicking on the link provided on the associated lecture page (where relevant).

If there is a subject you would like to discuss with your classmates, but there is no existing discussion topics, you can choose to create your own discussion within any of the forums, for example on a topic related to the lectures, on a general topic (academic or not) or a technical query.

You can add comments to any of the discussion forums by using the ‘Add a new message’ feature at the bottom of the specific discussion page. You may then edit or delete your own comments. You cannot delete or edit other people’s comments, however if you feel the discussion board is being used inappropriately you can mark a comment as inappropriate or speak to the course coordinator.

To manage the discussions, you can also mark messages as read or unread. Unread posts will then be summarised in the ‘Unread Discussion Posts’ widget on the Home page.

Unfortunately you cannot upload pictures to the discussions unless they are already found somewhere on the internet. To add an image from somewhere on the internet right-click on the picture and select "copy image location". This will give you its full url which you can copy paste into the 'Source' box of the 'Insert/Edit Image option of a discussion post.

Comments

On all of the lecture pages there is a ‘Comments’ section at the bottom of the page. This is an area where you can ask specific questions about the content on that page. Lecture specific comments can be found at the bottom on all lecture pages where they have been raised. A summary of all lecture specific comments can be found by going to the ‘Recent Comment’s widget on your home screen.

Please note that all comments made in this way are visible only to staff and students on the course you are commenting on.

Email Digest

The Course Website gives you the option to get an email digest which will show all the new Comments and Discussions. This email digest is sent on a daily basis and will send you one email for Comments and another for Discussions. To choose your preferences for the email digest please use the settings found within your ‘My Account’.

Glossary

A glossary of common terms is provided in the Course Website. To access it, please log on to the Course Website and then select ‘Glossary’ from the main ribbon of the site. If there are any terms which you think are missing or if you find any issues with the glossary (e.g. broken link), please contact your course coordinator to ask for a definition or amendment.

Closed Captions

All lecture videos should have closed captions (subtitles) available. Please note that not all of the closed captions have been verified by our team yet and therefore may not be a true reflection of speech. We apologize for this inconvenience and aim to fix this service in the future. If you have issues with understanding the sound in the video and require closed captions or other aids, please let your Course Organiser and Personal Tutor know as soon as possible.

Blog

For some courses on this Programme you will be asked to maintain a blog. You will only gain access to the Blog site once you have a Course with this requirement. If you feel you need access but have not been granted it please contact your Course Organiser directly. For guidance on how to use your Blog, please see the Blog section of Handbook.

Access to the Site Post-Graduation

Once you have finished your programme your EASE log in stays active for a few months, however once you become alumni your EASE access will change. Therefore if you want to continue to be able to access your course materials, please go to your profile on the course website and change your email address to a personal address that you will still have access to post-graduation. Please also set a new password. You will then be able to sign in with this email and password by using the standard login screen (don’t click Login with EASE).

Please note that post-graduation your access will be the same as when you were a student. The course materials will remain the same and will not be updated year-on-year (you will see an archive), and discussion boards and hyperlinks will also not be monitored or updated over time.

To be sure not to miss the deadline, we would recommend you do this as soon as your final course finishes.