Drop Box

From CLEW Wiki

In this article:

• Adding, editing, or deleting an item in Drop Box
• Viewing Drop Boxes and their contents
• Moving or copying Drop Box items to another folder
• Uploading files to Resources or Drop Box using WebDAV
• The WYSIWYG editor

Contents 1 Overview 2 Key concepts 3 Things to consider 4 Adding, editing, or deleting an item in Drop Box 4.1 Adding a New folder 4.2 Adding a New Drop Box Item 4.2.1 File upload 4.2.2 URL 4.2.3 HTML page 4.2.4 Text document 4.3 Editing a Drop Box item 4.4 Deleting a Drop Box item 4.5 Optional properties 5 Viewing Drop Boxes and their contents 6 Changing Notification Options 7 Moving or copying Drop Box items to another folder 8 Uploading files to Drop Box using WebDAV 9 Related Articles

Overview

The feature allows instructors and students to share documents within a private folder for each student. The Drop Box works like Resources to allow you to upload many types of files and many files at a time.

Key concepts

• Progress reports: Instructors can use the Drop Box tool to provide private progress reports to each student in the class.

• Adding participants: When you add participants or students to a worksite, either automatically or manually, they will have Drop Box folders by default (if the Drop Box is currently enabled). This folder will remain if a participant is removed from a site, either through course withdrawal or manually.

Things to consider

• A new Drop Box item will automatically go into the folder that you have open when you create the item.
• For plain text documents, HTML pages, and web links that you create in the Drop Box interface, you can edit the content, as well as information about the item, such as its name or description. For uploaded files, you can edit only the information about the item, not the content; to change the content, you must upload a new version of the file.
• Whenever you add an item to the Drop Box, you have the option of sending an automatic email notification.
• Make sure you know the laws and policies regarding the use of copyrighted material. It is now mandatory to select the Copyright Status for file uploads in Drop Box.

Adding, editing, or deleting an item in Drop Box

• Adding a new folder
• Adding a new Drop Box item
• File upload
• URL
• HTML page
• Text document
• Editing a Drop Box item
• Deleting a Drop Box item

Adding a New folder

Your site's Drop Box should contain a folder for each participant. You can add folders to the Drop Box or to an existing folder within the Drop Box. To do so, follow these steps:

• Next to the existing folder, from the Add menu, choose Create Folders.
• Type a name for the folder in the box provided.
• To enter an optional description, click Add details for this item.
• You can add additional folders from this screen by clicking Add Another Folder.

Note: To remove a file from the list of files to add, click the red X next to it.

• Click Create Folders Now.

Note: Site participants cannot see Drop Box folders belonging to other participants. Participants are able to see and access only their own Drop Box folders and subfolders.

Adding a New Drop Box Item

Whenever you add a new Drop Box item, you have the option of sending an email notification. Check Send an email notification to the student/instructor. Follow the instructions below for the type of item you want to add:

File upload

To upload an existing document or other file from your computer:

• Next to the folder to which you want to upload the file, from the Add menu, select Upload Files.
• For each item, click Browse, select a file

to upload, and then click Open. Note: Filenames that include certain characters cannot be accepted. For a list of unsupported characters, see Unsupported Characters.

• Next to "Display Name", type a title for the item (if you don't add a title, the filename will be used for the title).
• If desired, click Add details for this item, which will allow you to enter a description, choose a copyright status and add copyright information, and add detailed descriptors by clicking Optional properties (see the Optional properties section below for more information).
• To upload more than one file, click Add Another File.

You can add any number of files at once, as long as the total file size does not exceed 50 MB. Note: To remove a file from the list of files to add, click the red X next to it.

• Click Upload Files Now to finish.

URL

To specify a URL to a web site as the Drop Box item:

• Next the folder to which you want to add the URL, from the Add menu, select Add Web Links (URLs).
• For each item, type the URL in the box. (You may omit the http:// prefix.)
• Add a title for your URL link item. If you don't add a title, the URL will be used as the title of the item.
• If desired, click Add details for this item, which will allow you to enter a description, choose a copyright status and add copyright information, and add detailed descriptors by clicking Optional properties (see the Optional properties section below for more information).
• To add another URL, click Add Another Web Link.

Note: To remove a URL from the list of URLs to add, click the red X next to it.

• Click Add Web Links Now to finish.

HTML page

To create and display an HTML document:

• Next to the folder to which you want to add the HTML page, from the Add menu, select Create HTML Page.
• Enter the content of your page and click Continue.
• Enter a title and an optional description in the appropriate text areas.
• Choose your page's copyright status, add copyright information, and choose whether or not to display a copyright alert.
• To add detailed descriptors, click Optional properties. See the Optional properties section below for more information.
• Click Finish to add your HTML page to Drop Box.

Text document

To create and display a plain text document:

• Next to the folder to which you want to add the document, from the Add menu, select Create Text Document.
• Type the content of your text document and click Continue.
• Enter a title and optional description in the appropriate text areas.
• Choose your text document's copyright status, add copyright information, and choose whether or not to display a copyright alert.
• To add detailed descriptors, click Optional properties. See the Optional properties section below for more information.
• Click Finish to add your text document to Drop Box.

Editing a Drop Box item

• To edit the name, description, or copyright status, choose Actions, and then click Edit Details.
• Make your changes, and then click Update to save them.

• To update the content of most items, choose Actions, and then click Edit Content. *Make your changes, and then click Continue.
  • For a file, you will have to make the changes and save them on your computer, and then upload a new version.
  • From the Actions menu, select Upload New Version.

Deleting a Drop Box item

To delete an item from Drop Box:

• To remove one item at a time, choose Actions, and then click Remove.
• To remove several items at a time, mark their corresponding checkboxes, and then, above the list of items, click Remove.
• To confirm that you want to remove the item(s) listed, click Remove. Or, to cancel, click Cancel.

Note: You can't delete a folder that contains an item. You must remove (i.e., move or delete) its contents first before deleting a folder.

Optional properties

To add detailed descriptors, click Optional properties. You can then add information to the following fields:

• Alternate Title
• Creator
• Publisher
• Subject and Keywords
• Date Created
• Date Issued
• Abstract
• Contributor
• Audience
• Audience Education Level

Viewing Drop Boxes and their contents

In Drop Box, you will see a list of Drop Boxes of your site participants and/or folders containing them.

• To view the contents of a Drop Box, click the black triangles to the left of "Title", or click the folder icon to the left of the name of the folder or drop box you wish to expand. (If a folder contains items not currently being displayed, a plus sign will appear on the folder icon.)
• To open a Drop Box or folder, click its name.

Changing Notification Options

By selecting the Options link in the tool menu, you can choose whether email notifications should be sent for submissions within the site Drop Box.

Dropbox notification options include:

• Always send email notifications
• Allow email notifications to be sent
• Do not allow email notifications to be sent

Click beside the choice you would like to enable, and then click Update (to save your selection) or Cancel.

Moving or copying Drop Box items to another folder

To move or copy item(s) from one Drop Box folder to another:

• In the menubar of the relevant site, click Drop Box.
• Click the black triangles to the left of "Title" to expand all the folders in the Drop Box, or click the folder icon to the left of the name of the folder you wish to expand. (If a folder contains items not currently displayed, a plus sign will appear on the folder icon.)
• Check the box next to the item(s), and click Move or Copy.
• Click the "Paste copied items" icon next to the folder in which you want to paste the item(s), or from the Actions menu, choose Paste copied items.

Uploading files to Drop Box using WebDAV

See the WebDAV article to find out how to upload or download multiple or large files.

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