WolfWare Web-based Course Management is entering its third year as a campus-wide system of automatic course-locker creation and configuration. The Departments of Computer Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering display full course listings at http://courses.ncsu.edu/, and other engineering departments are rapidly adding course lockers there as well.

Faculty request lockers from the Add a Course to WolfWare link at http://wolfware.ncsu.edu/. Documentation is available at http://wolfware.ncsu.edu/help/. Old-style and manually configured course lockers in /afs/eos/info/ will eventually be replaced by WolfWare lockers. WolfWare is tightly integrated with Registration and Records to deliver updated course data to the locker nightly. In addition, WolfWare lockers can be created, configured, and managed through the web without any need to go to the command line.

Locating WolfWare Courses on the Web and in AFS File Spac

WolfWare courses are created in AFS file space with web URLs to their location. This placement of materials is standardized across all courses, although instructors may use any tools they wish to create materials in the assigned space (Dreamweaver, WebCT, etc.), or link to other web space as desired.

Location of a course:

URL: http://courses.ncsu.edu/xxxyyy/
e.g. -> http://courses.ncsu.edu/csc200/

A boilerplate home page (index.html) listing all sections of the course is created automatically from data downloaded from Registration and Records.

Location of common web materials shared by all sections of a course:

URL: http://courses.ncsu.edu/xxxyyy/common/
e.g. -> http://courses.ncsu.edu/csc200/common/
AFS: /afs/eos/courses/xxx/xxxyyy/common/www/
e.g. ->/afs/eos/courses/csc/csc200/common/www/

All course instructors (and support people they assign) may write in this file space and create a common home page (index.html) and web materials for the course.

Location of an individual lecture or lab section of a course:

Lecture:
URL: http://courses.ncsu.edu/xxxyyy/lec/zzz/
e.g. -> http://courses.ncsu.edu/csc200/lec/001/
AFS: /afs/eos/courses/xxx/xxxyyy/lec/zzz/www/
e.g. -> /afs/eos/courses/csc/csc200/lec/001/www/

Lab:
URL: http://courses.ncsu.edu/xxxyyy/lab/zzz/
e.g. -> http://courses.ncsu.edu/csc200/lab/001/
AFS: /afs/eos/courses/xxx/xxxyyy/lab/zzz/www/
e.g. ->/afs/eos/courses/csc/csc200/lab/001/www/

Only the section instructor (and support people s/he assigns) may write in this space and create a home page (index.html) and web materials for the individual section.

The WolfWare Faculty Toolbox

By selecting Faculty Links: WolfWare Toolbox from the http://courses.ncsu.edu/ page and authenticating to the specific course and section s/he wants to administer, an instructor accesses the Main Menu of WolfWare web-based tools. Each section of a course has its own 100MB locker. The course "common" locker shared by all sections is 100MB as well.

User Management

View Class Roll: Shows full class roll, which includes name, Eos/Unity ID, and preferred email address of all currently enrolled students.
Manage Support List: Allows instructor to give support personnel (e.g., TAs) access to the locker. People added to this list have exactly the same access rights to the locker as the instructor.
Manage Extras List: Allows instructor to add "extra" students to the roll, people who do not yet (or may never) appear on the roll, e.g., audits, late adds, incompletes, etc.
Configure User: Allows instructor to get user information and/or add a user to the extras or support list.
Change Locker Owner: Requests Reg&Rec to change locker ownership to someone else on the Support List.

Webpage Management

Edit Boilerplate Page: Allows instructor to set the location of the section's home page to the section locker (default), to the common course home page, or to another URL. Content can also be added to the course boilerplate page at http://courses.ncsu.edu/xxxyyy/, but the course description itself, which is downloaded from Registration and Records, cannot be altered through WolfWare.
Request Boilerplate Update: Applies the Edit Boilerplate Page changes in ~15 min. rather than during the daily system update.
Configure WRAP Access: Allows instructor to set access to materials placed in the section's wrap directory, e.g., copyrighted materials, unpublished research, etc. Options include all NCSU, section only, combination of sections, or support people (default). The location of the wrap directory for a course section is:

Lecture:
URL: http://courses.ncsu.edu/xxxyyy/lec/zzz/wrap/
e.g. -> http://courses.ncsu.edu/csc200/lec/001/wrap/
AFS: /afs/eos/courses/xxx/xxxyyy/lec/zzz/www/wrap/
e.g. -> /afs/eos/courses/csc/csc200/lec/001/www/wrap/

Lab:
URL: http://courses.ncsu.edu/xxxyyy/lab/zzz/wrap/
e.g. -> http://courses.ncsu.edu/csc200/lab/001/wrap/
AFS: /afs/eos/courses/xxx/xxxyyy/lab/zzz/www/wrap/
e.g. ->/afs/eos/courses/csc/csc200/lab/001/www/wrap/

The current WRAP access web tool appears below for the made-up course, WolfWare 101.

Mailing List Management

Set Mailing List Access: Mailing lists are automatically created for each section from the class roll and extras list. This tool allows the instructor to determine who can send mail to the class mailing list (xxxyyy-zzz@wolfware.ncsu.edu).

Other Tools

Message Board Admin: Set up and administer class discussion forums.
Submit Admin: Set up and administer secure assignment submission and retrieval by students to/from the locker.
Electronic Reserves: Set up e-reserves for section through NCSU Libraries.

WolfWare is a course-administration facility that provides the campus with a standard way of placing and locating course information on the Web. It will be refined until it interfaces fully with the online course catalog, TRACS, and Registration and Records for a streamlined and consistent course infrastructure across campus.

Keep up with developments at http://wolfware.ncsu.edu/. For more information or help with moving your COE course to WolfWare, contact Ellen McDaniel in ITECS, or write to help@wolfware.ncsu.edu or wolfware@help.ncsu.edu.

Information Technology and Engineering Computer Services (ITECS)
College of Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695
Comments to eoshelp@ncsu.edu. URL: http://www.eos.ncsu.edu/

This support page is for students, faculty, and
staff at North Carolina State University.