Authoring With Corsbook

By

First published on February 16, 2019

Authoring With Corsbook

By

First published on February 16, 2019



This manual will describe how to author with Corsbook. Authoring with corsbook is similar to composing in a word processor such as Microsoft Word. In fact, much of the time it will be simpler. You will just type and use a few tools. However, there some differences and and added complexity to build a course with multiple lessons and to publish it in multiple forms.

Corsbook is built upon WordPress. There are many online general training tutorial for WordPress if you want more information than this site’s documentation provides. However, even if you already know how to use WordPress, you should still read this site’s instructions, because significant additions and changes and been made.

 

 


This manual will describe how to author with Corsbook. Authoring with corsbook is similar to composing in a word processor such as Microsoft Word. In fact, much of the time it will be simpler. You will just type and use a few tools. However, there some differences and and added complexity to build a course with multiple lessons and to publish it in multiple forms.

Corsbook is built upon WordPress. There are many online general training tutorial for WordPress if you want more information than this site’s documentation provides. However, even if you already know how to use WordPress, you should still read this site’s instructions, because significant additions and changes and been made.

 

 



Table of Contents

  1. Creating Your First Course
  2. Content Entry Fields and Buttons
  3. Universal Design and Accessibility
  4. Special Content Types
  5. Computer Code
  6. Advanced Styling Tools and Techniques
  7. Text Editor Quicktags and Codes
  8. Special Topics

  1. 1. Creating Your First Course


    Instructions for creating a course with lessons

    1. Go to Dashboard. On the left hand side menu, hover over over Courses and click on Add New.
    2. You should be taken to a new page to enter your course. Under the Edit Course label, enter the course title and, in the upper right hand corner, click Save Draft.
    3. Copy the course title.
    4. On the left hand side menu, hover over over Lessons and click on Add New.
    5. Add Lesson title.
    6. Then scroll all the way to the bottom of the window, and paste (or type) the exact course title in the Course Name field.
    7. Enter some content into the large field in your Lesson’s entry view, below the Add Media button and text editing tools.
    8. Then, in the upper right hand corner,  click the Publish button.
    9. In the upper right hand corner of the window, click Save Draft.
    10. On the left hand side menu, hover over over Courses and click on All Courses.
    11. When you see a list of courses, then hover just under your course’s title and click on the Edit link.
    12. Enter some introductory content for your course.
    13. Then, in the upper right hand corner,  click the Publish button.
    14. To view the course as a student or other reader, click on the link to the right of “Permalink:” beneath the title.

    Editing your a course and lessons

    As a Corsbook author, you can go back and edit your courses and lessons at any time. Just go to the Courselist or Lessons list, and click Edit beneath the content item title. Remember save your work by clicking the relevant button, which might be Save Draft, Update, or Publish, all in the upper right hand corner in the Publish pane.

    Suggestion: first create a list of your planned lessons. The create the lessons in reverse order of the order for them to be read. They will then appear in your desired order for readers. If you ever need to change the order, please contact the Corsbook administrator.

    Caveat: if you change your course title, you will need to change it in each of the lessons for that course.

    Backing Up Your Contents

    You should periodically back-up your course by periodically generating a PDF of your course. This is accomplished by clicking the Print book for this course button on the course page. Back-ups are made of the entire Corsbook site, the the availability of such back-ups cannot be guaranteed.

    Setting up course navigation and searchability

    You can go ahead and create a course on your own. Linked titles for all of the lessons for the course should appear on the course page. However, once a reader is in a lesson, there may be additional set-up required for the links to and previous and next lesson to work as desired. The first step is to contact the administrator to set up a category for your course. It could have the same title as your course. However, it does not have to have the same title, but it should be different from any existing category.

    Once the category is set up, then select it for any lesson that you wish to appear in the footer navigation. However, do not select a category if you wish to omit it from footer navigation. For example, you might wish to have break-out lessons for students who need extra practice or background, but which would not be appropriate for all of your students.

    Accessibility

    To maximize the impact of your content, you should make it accessible to a  range of users with diverse abilities, backgrounds and devices. Further, some organizations require content to be accessible per various standards. For further information, see Accessibility and Universal Design.


  2. 2. Content Entry Fields and Buttons


    (Excerpts below taken from WordPress.org.)

    Title/Headline Box

    The title of your post. You can use any phrases, words or characters. Avoid using the same title twice as that will cause problems. You can use commas, apostrophes, quotes, hyphens/dashes and other typical symbols in the post like “My Site – Here’s Lookin’ at You, Kid”. WordPress will then clean it up to generate a user-friendly and URL-valid name of the post (also called the “post slug”) to compose the permalink for the post.

    Body Copy Box

    The blank box where you enter your writing, links, links to images, and any information you want to display on your site. You can use either the Visual or the Text view to compose your posts. For more on the Text view, see the section below, Visual Versus Text View.

    Preview button

    Allows you to view the post before officially publishing it.

    Publish box

    Contains buttons that control the state of your post. The main states are Published, Pending Review and Draft. A Published status means the post has been published live on your blog for all to see. Pending Review means the draft is waiting for review by an editor prior to publication. Draft means the post has not been published and remains a draft for you. If you select a specific publish status and click the update post or “Publish” button, that status is applied to the post. For example, to save a post in the Pending Review status, select Pending Review from the Publish Status drop-down box, and click Save As Pending. To schedule a post for publication on a future time or date, click “Edit” in the Publish area next to the words “Publish immediately”. You can also change the publish date to a date in the past to back-date posts. Change the settings to the desired time and date. You must also hit the “Publish” button when you have completed the post to publish at the desired time and date.

    Publish box

    Visibility – This determines how your post appears to the world. Public posts will be visible by all website visitors once published. Password Protected posts are published to all, but visitors must know the password to view the post content. Private posts are visible only to you (and to other editors or admins within your site)

    Save

    Allows you to save your post as a draft / pending review rather than immediately publishing it. To return to your drafts later, visit Posts – Edit in the menu bar, then select your post from the list.

    Publish

    Publishes your post on the site. You can edit the time when the post is published by clicking the Edit link above the “Publish” button and specifying the time you want the post to be published. By default, at the time the post is first auto-saved, that will be the date and time of the post within the database.


  3. 3. Universal Design and Accessibility


    Good design tends to be accessible by a diverse a range of users, including users with visual and other impairments. This approach is called Universal Design. Further, many schools and organizations require materials to be accessible by all students. While this page won’t cover everything, it will provide some suggestions to improve accessibility.

    Color and Contrast

    Some students are color blind. They can’t differentiate between reds and greens. So avoid pure red or green, or make the colored content clearly differentiable. For example, instead of using red and green check marks, you could wither use blue or orange ones, or use a different symbol for each case.

    Some students can’t read low contrast content. For example, black lettering upon a dark blue background might not be readable. So make certain to include a sufficiently high contrast.

    Image Alternative Text

    The visually-impaired often cannot perceive images. This can be somewhat mitigated by including a description in the Alt Text field for the media (see the metadata fields for media items in the Media Library). Alt Text should not merely repeat the caption. It should add descriptive information for those who cannot see the image. For example, the alt text for a volcano could be “pointed mountain with smoke puffing out of top”.

    Captioning

    To help audio-impaired persons, videos should ideally be captioned. There are several services who will do this as well as software that allows you to enter such. An alternative that might be sometimes acceptable is to provide a transcript of the video that includes some description of visual elements.

    Captioning can also be very helpful to readers whose primary language is different than that of the speakers in the video, or to those accustomed to a different accent.

    Interactive Content

    Interactive content, such as embedded or linked Javascript applets, can be a challenge for the impaired to fully use, and often don’t even work in all platforms for any users. You should provide an alternative for interactive content just in case it won’t work for some users.

    Further Reading


  4. 4. Special Content Types