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This guide covers linking to or uploading your SoftChalk lessons into the Jenzabar learning management system.
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For your instructors, you may want to post the URLs for our guides (see below). As we update the guides, the URLs will remain the same.
Item | Description and URL |
Search our FAQs | |
This web page lists the system specifications for instructors and students. | |
This guide has step by step instructions for linking your SoftChalk Cloud lessons into Blackboard. Please note that scores from SoftChalk lessons can go into your Blackboard gradebook. | |
This Student Guide includes a Troubleshooting section. | |
SoftChalk Create is SoftChalk's content authoring program. It is available in both a web launch version (as part of a SoftChalk Cloud Account - see the section SoftChalk Cloud) and in a desktop version. | |
SoftChalk Cloud is an award-winning, multi-function platform that combines a learning object repository, content authoring, hosting, and management features. https://softchalk.atlassian.net/wiki/download/attachments/129404604/cloudguide.pdf?api=v2 |
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As mentioned in the previous table, SoftChalk Cloud is an award-winning, multi-function platform that combines a learning object repository, content authoring and hosting and management features.
With a SoftChalk Cloud account, you can:
- Create and update your content in one place by logging into your SoftChalk Cloud account whether you are at work or at home. (SoftChalk Create is part of your Cloud account.)
- Link to your content in many places.
- Search for content in SoftChalk Share (SoftChalk Cloud's public content repository) and add it directly to your lessons. You can modify the content you find with a SoftChalk Cloud account.
- Collaborate with other instructors on SoftChalk lessons. For more details, see the section Collaborate with Other Instructors on SoftChalk Lessons in the SoftChalk Cloud Guide.
- Collect scores using the SoftChalk ScoreCenter Feature. Grades from your SoftChalk lessons can appear within the gradebook of your learning management system.
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To take advantage of volume purchasing (or if you plan to purchase a SoftChalk Cloud account with a purchase order), please contact sales@softchalk.com.
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Your institution also has the option to purchase an Enterprise SoftChalk Cloud. Please contact sales@softchalk.com
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A SoftChalk Cloud account is available as a yearly subscription. You can purchase a SoftChalk Cloud account on our Buy Now page. Fill out the information and submit your credit card information.
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Try out a SoftChalk Cloud account for 30 days. Click the Free Trial button (see above below) and fill out the information.
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- Create Content: you will use a SoftChalk Cloud account to create and save your lesson in the Cloud (see the SoftChalk Cloud User Guide for additional information about this). After creating and saving a lesson in SoftChalk Cloud, your lesson will be assigned a unique hyperlink that you can use to share your lesson with your students in Jenzabar.
- Link Your Lesson: you will copy and paste the link to your lessons into your Jenzabar course(s). Additional step-by-step instructions for adding the SoftChalk link are provided below. A single SoftChalk lesson can be linked into as many Jenzabar courses as you wish. If you wish to collect scores in your Jenzabar gradebook, student scores for your lesson will pass into each individual course gradebook.
- Update Content: if you should need to update your lesson, you will login to SoftChalk Cloud, edit your lesson, and save it. Immediately and simultaneously, all courses in Jenzabar that are using that lesson will be automatically updated.
- Student Access: your students do not need to have accounts on SoftChalk Cloud to use your SoftChalk content in Jenzabar. Students will login to your Jenzabar course and click on your SoftChalk lesson links to view your content. To the student, the content is seamless with Jenzabar and appears to be native Jenzabar content. If you are tracking student scores, the SoftChalk lesson scores will pass directly into the Jenzabar gradebook for students to view the same way they view native Jenzabar gradebook information.
- Collect Scores: Before linking your SoftChalk lessons into your Jenzabar course, you will decide if you want to collect scores from your students or if you want your lessons to be "practice" lessons and you do not need to collect scores. Each time you link a lesson into Jenzabar, you can decide whether or not to collect scores. Many instructors use both "scored" and "practice" lessons within a course. NOTE: a single SoftChalk lesson can be linked into multiple Jenzabar courses simultaneously and can be set to report scores in some courses and set to not report courses in other courses. In other words, the same lesson can be used simultaneously in different ways in different courses.
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See the section Get the Hyperlink or LTI Hyperlink for Your Lesson in the SoftChalk Cloud Guide. IMPORTANT: As mentioned previously, be sure to get the LTI hyperlink and NOT the hyperlink for the lesson.
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Before you can put an LTI Hyperlink into Jenzabar, you must Add a Learning Tool. You will only have to do this once. See the section Jenzabar Administrator to do so. *Note: We recommend and have tested with Jenzabar version 1.6.4 and higher for using LTI.
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After getting the LTI hyperlink for your lesson, (see the section Get the Hyperlink or LTI Hyperlink for Your Lesson in the SoftChalk Cloud Guide), log into your Jenzabar account and choose your course (see below).
- At the left, click Coursework (see below).
- Click Add an assignment (see below).
- Select the Basic format (see below).
- Name the assignment, enter a Due date, select Now next to Open, and type in 100 for the number of Points (see below). (The points must be 100 because the LTI only supports passing a percentage score into the gradebook.)
- Click the dropdown arrow for Step Two (see below).
- Select SoftChalk Cloud as the learning tool (see below).
- Under My tool location, paste in the LTI hyperlink of your lesson from SoftChalk Cloud (see below).
- Under the Step Three dropdown click Save your new assignment (see below).
- Be sure to see the section Set the Scoring Method and Maximum Attempts.
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When a SoftChalk Cloud lesson is linked into a Jenzabar course as a scored lesson, the instructor can use SoftChalk ScoreCenter to view detailed student score results, as well as configure various scoring options for the lesson. Instructors access the SoftChalk ScoreCenter directly in Jenzabar.
Note that although you can view student scores via the SoftChalk ScoreCenter, the student's grades are also passed directly into the Jenzabar course gradebook, where the instructor also has access to view and edit individual student grades.
The SoftChalk ScoreCenter serves a variety of functions that allow the instructor to:
- Set the Maximum Attempts: Determine how many times a student can access a lesson (unlimited times or a specific number of times).
- Set the Scoring Method: Determine which attempt score is sent to the Jenzabar gradebook (i.e., first attempt score, highest score, most recent score, or average score).
- View all student attempt details and see how many students have completed the lesson, how many total attempts have been made, average score, etc.
- View individual detailed student scores. All student attempts are saved and are viewable. You can see how many attempts each student has made, how long the student spent on each attempt, start and end dates/times for each attempt, and detailed score data (lesson scores, which questions or activities were attempted, etc.)
- Modify scores. You can update individual student scores, and you can force completion for all students (this closes out a score for any student who has unfinished attempts or no score.
- Clear Attempts and Re-Open Attempts
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An instructor accesses the SoftChalk ScoreCenter in Jenzabar by clicking on a SoftChalk lesson link that is scored.
- Click on a SoftChalk scored lesson link in your Jenzabar course.
- The instructor view of ScoreCenter will appear. Once students have accessed the LTI linked lesson, the instructor will see a list of Learner names and will have access to the details of their attempt.
The following sections describe how the SoftChalk ScoreCenter features work.
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At the top of the ScoreCenter, you will see a 'Class average' summary of all learners attempts on the lesson. This summary will include:
- the total number of Learners
- a visual representation of scores obtained
- the overall lesson high and low scores obtained
- total score possible
- Scoring Method and Max Attempts setting for the lesson
The next section will display the total number of attempts that have been made on the lesson. This section will also list Average Score and Class Percentage for the overall lesson and for each scored Activity, Quiz Popper, or Quiz Group in the lesson.
At the top, click to identify which Activity, Quiz Popper, or Quiz Group was scored in the column. The tooltip will also display the 'Question' and 'Possible Answers' for Quiz Poppers and Quiz Group questions. Each interactive will display if the 'Allow Retry' option was enabled, offering Learners another chance at the interactive to improve the score.
Learners that have accessed the lesson will display listed at the bottom of ScoreCenter. Quickly see the number of attempts the Learner made, attempt score, and details of their attempt. An asterisk next to score helps to easily identify scores made on a previous version of the lesson.
| The Learner made the correct answer choice and obtained full credit for the Activity, Quiz Popper, or Quiz Group. |
| The Learner made the incorrect answer choice and did not obtain any score for the Activity, Quiz Popper, or Quiz Group. |
| The Learner obtained a partial score for the Activity, Quiz Popper, or Quiz Group by making correct and incorrect answer selections. |
| The Learner did not make or 'Complete' an attempt on the Activity, Quiz Popper, or Quiz Group. |
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You will need to set the scoring method (i.e. first attempt, last attempt, average attempt or highest attempt) and the maximum attempts allowed (unlimited or a specific number of attempts).
All the student attempts will be collected, and you can view all the attempts for each student for each lesson. You can change the scoring method and maximum attempts at any point. If you want to allow your students only one attempt for the lesson, you need to set that option right away.
- Log into your Jenzabar account and choose your course (see below).
- At the left, click Coursework (see below).
- Select your Assignment from the list (see below).
- Click the More dropdown and click Launch learning tool (see below).
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- Select the number of maximum attempts from the drop-down menu and be sure to click Save changes (see below).
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To test the lesson, you need to be logged into your course as a student.
IMPORTANT: Be sure to LOG OUT of your SoftChalk Cloud (htttps://softchalkcloud.com/) account when you are taking your lesson as a student to test the ScoreCenter feature. (If you are logged into your SoftChalk Cloud (htttps://softchalkcloud.com/) account while logged into Jenzabar and taking a lesson, then the scores won't be recorded.)
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- Log into your Jenzabar account and select your course from under My Courses (see below).
- At the left, click Coursework (see below).
- Select your assignment from the list (see below).
- Click the More dropdown and click Launch learning tool (see below).
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A quick check of the Status icons helps to identify learner attempts that successfully completed the attempt by clicking on the Finish button on the last page.
IMPORTANT: Instructors can manually 'Complete' individual and/or all incomplete attempts using the Actions menu. See the section Complete All Attempts for All Students for a Lesson below.
Below are Status icons you may see in ScoreCenter.
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Completed Attempt
The learner has successfully completed the lesson by clicking on the Finish button located on the last page of the lesson or the instructor has manually completed the attempt using the ScoreCenter Actions menu.
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Changed Score
The instructor has manually changed the score for the attempt. See steps 7-8 below to learn how change a score using the ScoreCenter Actions menu.
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Cleared Attempt
The instructor has manually cleared the attempt. This attempt is not reflected in the gradebook or calculated as part of the Average Score. See step 9 below to learn how clear an attempt using the ScoreCenter Actions menu.
- Click on an attempt to see additional attempt data (see below).
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- Activity, QuizPopper, and Quiz Groups in the lesson will be listed at the bottom. The
icons let instructors quickly know if the learner received full, partial, or no points for their attempt at each Activity, QuizPopper, and Quiz Group question.
- Notice you can view detailed information about this attempt at the bottom.
- If you need to change the score for an attempt, use the Actions menu to select Change Score from the dropdown.
- Enter a new score and click Change Score (see below). IMPORTANT: An attempt has to be complete before you can change the score.
- Notice that you also have the option to Clear an attempt (see below). If you clear an attempt, it will not count as part of the grade calculation. If needed, you can also Restore the attempt.
- Notice that you also have the option to Complete an attempt (see below). If a student starts a lesson but neglects to click the Finish button at the end of the lesson, then that attempt is incomplete. An incomplete attempt does not count as part of the grade calculation. You can cause the attempt to be completed so that the score for the attempt is part of the grade calculation.
Be sure to click Complete Attempt.
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You have the option to complete all attempts for all students for a lesson. You may find that your students have neglected to complete their attempts (i.e., they have neglected to click Finish on the last page of the lesson – clicking Finish sends a completion status to the gradebook).
IMPORTANT: You may want to do this procedure after the availability of your lesson has expired. After you do this procedure, future attempts can be incomplete.
IMPORTANT: This procedure cannot be undone. (You can change individual scores if you need to.)
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If you use essays in your lesson, you can view the essays within the ScoreCenter area (see the previous section View or Change Scores). Please note the following important information.
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Essays that you have assigned points to must be manually scored for each student's attempt.
Please read the important information below:
You will go into the gradebook (i.e. ScoreCenter) and evaluate and score the essay. You can also provide feedback to the student on the essay.
For example, you may have a lesson worth 100 points including one essay worth 10 points. (You assigned the points for the essay and other items.) Let's say a student completes everything correctly, completes the essay, clicks the Finish button for the essay and then clicks the Finish button on the last page of the lesson to submit his or her score. At this stage, the student has a score of 90 out of 100 because you will need to evaluate the essay and assign points.
(You may want to explain the above process to your students; as mentioned, you also have the option to assign 0 points to an essay if you like.)
In ScoreCenter, click on a student's name to view a list of attempts they have made on the lesson link. Select one of the attempts to view the Learner Details page. (See the View or Change Scores section above.)
Scroll down and click on an Essay QuizPopper and choose to Grade Essay. Here you can evaluate and score the essay. You can also add feedback for that Essay question here.
When you launch ScoreCenter, a scored Essay will appear with a yellow 'partial credit' icon until graded. A non-scored Essay will immediately appear with the green 'check mark' icon.
Students can launch the lesson link and click on the Feedback and Previous Attempts link available in the initial popup to view the score and any feedback received for each Essay question from their previous attempt.
Here students can view the Feedback from instructors of their overall lesson feedback (from the Actions menu Give Feedback option) or the individual Essay feedback.
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This section explains how to have your students access "practice" SoftChalk lessons. In other words, you do not plan to collect student scores from these lessons. [You can have items that have points assigned to them within your lesson, but if you want to collect the scores, see the section Scored Lessons (Cloud Users).]
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- At the left, click Coursework (see below).
- Click Add an Assignment (see below).
- Select the Basic format (see below).
- Name the assignment, enter a Due date, select Now next to Open, and select Not graded (see below).
- Click the dropdown arrow for Step Two (see below).
- Select SoftChalk Cloud as the learning tool (see below).
- Under My tool location, paste in the hyperlink of your lesson from SoftChalk Cloud (see below).
- Under Step Three click Save your new assignment (see below).
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If you used the LTI hyperlink or hyperlink to your lesson, then you can easily replace your lesson within your SoftChalk Cloud account. (You do not have to put in a new LTI hyperlink or hyperlink; simply edit or replace your current lesson in SoftChalk Cloud and the LTI hyperlink or hyperlink for this lesson will still work.)
- Open your lesson in SoftChalk Create.
- Make your changes and save your lesson back to SoftChalk Cloud. Your lessons will be automatically updated with any changes in all linked instances within Angel. (For details, see the section Modify a Lesson in the SoftChalk Cloud Guide.)
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The web link for this guide is below. As we update this guide, the URL will remain the same. (You may want to bookmark this guide link in your web browser.)
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The steps below are for your Jenzabar administrator to enable the LTI/ScoreCenter feature for your Jenzabar server. For details on the LTI/ScoreCenter feature, see the section SoftChalk Cloud Users.
As a Jenzabar administrator, to use the ScoreCenter feature, you need to register with SoftChalk and configure the ScoreCenter for your system. IMPORTANT: Notice the domain for your tool will be softchalkcloud.com (do NOT enter https://www.softchalkcloud.com which appears in your email – Jenzabar just wants the domain name – softchalkcloud.com).
- Please contact help@softchalk.com and provide the following information to register with SoftChalk and receive authentication credentials (i.e. an OAuth Consumer Key and an OAuth Consumer Secret). If you have a test server and a production server, you may send us two LMS URLs and we will register both of them. (You will receive a separate email with a unique key and secret for each registered URL.)
- Your institution name
- LMS URL
- First Name (optional) of the person registering with us
- Last Name (optional) of the person registering with us
- Email for this registration (the email can be a specific person's email or a generic email such as lmsadmin@myinstitution.edu)
- After registering, you will receive an email from SoftChalk with information to enter into your Jenzabar system (see the steps below).
- Log into your Jenzabar administrator account.
- Select LTI Management at the top of your screen (see below).
- Under Learning Tools Portlet, click Add another tool to this page (see below).
- Click Add a new learning tool (see below).
- Under Basic tool info, enter SoftChalk Cloud in the Name section, select SoftChalk from the Category dropdown, and type in a Description of your tool (if you choose) (see below).
- Under Connection information, in the Location section type in https://www.softchalkcloud.com (see below).
- Under Connection information, enter the Key and Secret/Password that you received when you registered (see Registering with SoftChalk) (see below).
- Under Tool display, select Show the tool within the JICS page (see below).
- Click Save your new tool (see below).
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If you are testing out your own graded LTI linked lessons in an LMS to confirm the gradebook connectivity, there are a couple of things to be aware of as the Cloud account owner/course instructor:
- If you are logged into SoftChalk Cloud, you will not be able to establish a connection to ScoreCenter. The two sessions interfere with one another, and you need to ensure that you have logged out of your Cloud account to produce a valid test. (Using the SoftChalk Link Selector will automatically log you into your Cloud account.)
- If you are logged in as the 'Instructor' role in the course, you will not launch the 'Student' view of the LTI lesson, and it will not connect to ScoreCenter in such a way that it will pass any grades. Be sure to log in as a test student or impersonate a student user enrolled into the course.
- If you are logged into the LMS 'Admin' account and attempt to access an LTI link, it will likely fail. LTI is only intended to work with users assigned 'Faculty' or 'Student' roles in an LMS. Oftentimes an admin is also enrolled into the course as the instructor, but it is best to test things with an instructor account if possible.
To test the Jenzabar as a student and confirm the grade has passed to the Jenzabar grade book:
- Add your SoftChalk Cloud lesson LTI link to your Jenzabar course using the steps shown in this guide beginning on page 7.
- Open another web browser tab. Navigate to https://softchalkcloud.com and click Log out next to your SoftChalk Cloud account username in the upper-right corner. Close the tab.
- Impersonate an enrolled student in your Jenzabar course or log out of your Jenzabar course as the instructor and then log into your Jenzabar course as an enrolled student.
- Navigate to and click on the SoftChalk assignment in the Jenzabar course.
Students can expect their attempt will be recorded when they see the below screens. With a successfully connected ScoreCenter lesson:
- Students will see the connection to ScoreCenter message (with instructions to click Finish) when they access the lesson (screenshot below):
- Students will see the Finish button at the end of the lesson.
- Students will receive the successfully completed message after clicking on Finish (screenshot below):
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Issue | Description/Resolution |
I am the Instructor. I used the SoftChalk Link Selector to add my lesson, but scores are not collected in ScoreCenter or the Jenzabar gradebook. What could be wrong? | When copying the SoftChalk lesson link, be sure to copy the LTI link to add your SoftChalk lesson. Selecting the Hyperlink will not capture scores in ScoreCenter or the Jenzabar gradebook. |
I am the Instructor. I do not see a 'Finish' button on the last page. What should I do? | When testing scored LTI linked lessons in an LMS to confirm the gradebook connectivity, there are a couple of things to be aware of as the Cloud account owner/course instructor:
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Some students report they do not see a 'Finish' button on the last page. What can I do? | If there is a record for a student's attempt in ScoreCenter, the course instructor can 'Complete' a student's attempt and push the score to the grade book. |
A student's name is not listed in ScoreCenter. What should I do? | If a student is not showing in the ScoreCenter gradebook, their submissions to ScoreCenter were not tracked and SoftChalk does not have a record of their work. Ask the student to access the assignment again, confirm that they see first message reminding them to click 'Finish' on the last page, and make a new attempt. |
Some students receive an Empty Attempt ID error when accessing the lesson. What should I do? | This error is intended to display when there is an issue detected during the LTI launch, a missing Attempt ID value, which would prevent the student from successfully completing the ScoreCenter attempt and posting a score to the LMS gradebook.
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Your students can print certificates of their scores and/or your students can email you within the lesson to send their scores. The basic steps are:
- Create scored quiz questions and/or activities within your SoftChalk lesson and assign points for each quiz question or activity.
- Add the email feature within your SoftChalk lesson. For SoftChalk Create, choose Properties/Lesson Certificates.
- Make the appropriate selections under Properties/Lesson Certificates.
- On the last page of your lesson within the web browser (e.g. Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Safari), is an area for students to type their name or identifier and then click Email Score, Print Certificate and/or Print Score Summary. (You can preview your lesson on your local computer to see how this works.)
- For more details, please search on Options for Tracking Scores within the SoftChalk Create Guide.
With the email option, you will get an email from each student for each attempt the student made for the lesson. As mentioned previously, we recommend the use of the ScoreCenter feature as you will not have to manage individual emails.
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Within SoftChalk, you can package a lesson in a common cartridge format. Then upload this common cartridge file into Jenzabar and upload it. See the steps below.
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- Within your lesson in SoftChalk Create, choose File/Package Lesson. Under Package type, choose Common Cartridge. Under Track score using choose None (see below). (We have tested using the Common Cartridge version 1.0, the other versions may work, but we have not tested those versions.)
(If this option is disabled, then save your lesson or open a lesson.)
- Your packaged file has your lesson name with a .zip extension. With SoftChalk Create, your .zip file is saved by default to your Documents area. With earlier versions of SoftChalk, the .zip file is saved within the lesson folder. (If your file extensions are not showing, you will not see the .zip at the end of the filename. Look for a folder with a zipper or package icon with your lesson name.) Notice the eye_anatomy_cc1-0.zip file in the image below.
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After packaging your lesson within SoftChalk (see the previous section), then you're ready to upload the lesson zip file into Jenzabar.
- Login to Jenzabar. Select your My Courses tab at the top of your screen (see below).
- Select your course (see below).
- Select the page. (If you need to create a page, see Adding a Page below.)
- Select Edit page (see below).
- Select the Content tab (see below).
- Select Add a portlet (see below).
- Select Bookmarks and Course Content Import and click Add Portlets to page (see below).
- If you choose, you can rename the portlets by clicking the pencil button next to it (see below).
- Navigate back to the main menu for the page (see below).
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- Click Browse (see below).
- Select the common cartridge package (see below).
- Click Upload (see below). This may take several minutes.
- Click the Manage Content link (see below).
- Select the checkbox for the lesson name (index.html). (See below).
- Below the lesson files, find the section for "Integrate Content Into:" Select your Page, choose Bookmarks for the Portlet, and select a Heading). (See below.)
- Click Process (see below).
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- When in the course, select Add a page on the left side bar.
- Name the page and click Create.
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- In SoftChalk, edit and save your lesson. Package the lesson (see the section In SoftChalk: Package a Lesson).
- In Jenzabar, delete your lesson folder in the My Courses area.
- Upload your lesson again (see the section In Jenzabar: Upload a Zip File.)
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