The New Content Experience (NCE) in VIULearn makes it easier to see places where content may not be well contextualized or accessible. One of the content types where this is most obvious are direct links to external resources. In this blog post I am going to look at best practices to make your links clear and accessible for students. If you have questions or want to talk about more ways to share resources with students, please contact CIEL.

Links as content items

This type of link has the biggest visual change in the NCE. Previously, the placeholder page with a button to open the resource wasn’t very prominent. It usually appeared for students only after they closed the new tab or window for the external resource.

In the NCE, the link launch button displays in the reading pane and external links don’t open until students choose to launch them. This makes it more obvious when links don’t have contextualizing information to help students know what to expect when they open the link. Here are some best practices you can follow when adding a link as a stand-alone content item:

• Keep the default setting of opening the link in a new window or tab.
  • Many websites block embedding for security reasons. Blocked pages result in students seeing a grey page instead of the desired content if you embed the website.
• Give links a clear title in the table of contents and insert that title as a header in the description field.
• Add a concise description that lets students know what you want them to do with the linked resources.
  • For example: Read this case study before Wednesday. Pay close attention to the methods section. We will be discussing this study during class.

Links in files

Including links within an HTML file gives you the most options in terms of creating context around likes to help your students. Links in an HTML file or page behave the same in the NCE as they did previously. Best practices when putting a link in an HTML file include:

• Add your link to meaningful text rather than a URL or generic text.
  • “Read Example Article in a new tab” rather than “click here” or “https://example.article.com”
• Make links open a new window or tab.
  • Opening links in the same window will embed the link in content and may result in errors for many websites.
  • You can add text to the link to let students know to expect the content to open in a new tab.

Help students track their progress

The default setting for content items in VIULearn is to mark an item complete as soon as a student opens it. With links, this can be misleading and make it harder for students to know what they need to revisit.

To help, you can set links to require manual completion by students. This will give students a “Mark as complete” button on the link launch page. When they are satisfied that they have reviewed the linked content they can mark it as complete. If they know they need to revisit it, they can leave it as incomplete so VIULearn reminds them they haven’t yet reviewed that content.

Links in activity or content descriptions

Just like in HTML pages, you can add accessible links to the description field for your modules or on uploaded documents. This is especially useful if you want to provide multiple file types for a document.

For example: I have a PDF handout that is also available as a Word document so students can choose the option that best works for them. I could add these as separate content items, or I can load one type into content and link the other in the description for that item. This reduced redundancy in my table of contents without taking any flexibility away from my students.

There is no content tracking for module descriptions. While this can be a great place to add links to recurring online meetings, appointment booking and other resources, we recommend not using module descriptions for links of

Have any questions?

If you have any questions about VIULearn or anything else to do with your teaching, please contact CIEL at learnsupport@viu.ca.