How do I get started?
You start by getting an instructor access code and registering. After you register, you create a course by selecting a course. CourseCompass automatically copies all the materials for the course textbook you select into your course.
You make the course your own by tailoring the course materials after you create the course. When you are ready for students to enrol in the course, you must adopt it. This process is also easy in CourseCompass - you simply click a button. Students should click here to access the online student guide. Please note that you will need Adobe Acrobat in order to view the student guide. If you do not already have a copy of this programme, go to the Adobe Acrobat site to download a free copy.

How do I get a CourseCompass instructor access code?
You can request an instructor access code from your local Pearson Education sales representative. Or, you can click the Register button on the left-hand navigation bar, and then click the link for the access request form.
From the CourseCompass site, http://www.coursecompass.com, click the Instructor Registration link. Then click the link for the access request form.

After I submit a request for an instructor access code, how quickly will my request be processed?
After you submit a request, you will receive your instructor access code within four business days. Watch your e-mail for notification! As soon as you have your instructor access code, you can register and begin building courses.

Can I pass along my instructor access code to a colleague who wants to try out CourseCompass?
No. Instructor access codes cannot be reused. If your colleague tries to enter your access code during enrolment, CourseCompass will display an error message, indicating that the access code has already been used.
Every instructor should get an instructor access code - filling out the request form takes only a couple of minutes and the access code is free! There is no obligation associated with requesting an instructor access code. You and your colleagues can create and preview as many courses as you want, without the need to share access codes.

If I adopt a CourseCompass course, are textbooks automatically ordered for students?
No. You will need to work with your sales representative to place a textbook order for your campus bookstore.
Adopting a course indicates to CourseCompass that you are ready to teach that course. CourseCompass will then accept student enrolments in the course. Students cannot enrol in courses you are previewing.

Where do I find the course ID?
For students to enrol in your course, you must give them the course ID. You will see the assigned course ID, which is composed of your last name and five digits, when you create your course. You can also find the course ID in several places as you work in CourseCompass, including:
· Click the Courses tab to view detailed information about your courses, including the course IDs.
· Go to the Course Home page, and look in the upper left for a breadcrumb trail such as this:
COURSES > MCKEON20839
In this breadcrumb trail, MCKEON20839 is the course ID. CourseCompass uses the course ID in breadcrumbs to identify the pages belonging to a specific course.

What is the CourseCompass Instructor Quick Start, and where can I find it?
The CourseCompass Instructor Quick Start is a short guide including step-by-step procedures for key tasks, such as using the online gradebook, adding a course syllabus, and setting up course assignments. You may want to look through the guide to become familiar with its contents before you begin building a course. Or you may want to use the CourseCompass Instructor Quick Start to tour CourseCompass, practising each procedure to become familiar with this online teaching environment.
The CourseCompass Instructor Quick Start guide is available online in Portable Document Format (PDF). From the My CourseCompass page, click the Getting Started with CourseCompass link in the How to Use CourseCompass module.
To view this PDF document, you need Adobe Acrobat Reader. You can download and install this free program from the same page as the CourseCompass Instructor Quick Start guide.
You can view the CourseCompass Instructor Quick Start guide online, clicking links to move between sections. Or, you can print the guide by clicking the Print icon in the Acrobat Reader toolbar.

How do I access online Help?
CourseCompass provides a comprehensive Help system. In this Help system, you'll find a wealth of information about using CourseCompass, including step-by-step procedures for every task.
Help is available from any page in CourseCompass. Simply click Help in the upper right. You can also launch Help by clicking the Online Help for Instructors link on the My CourseCompass page.
The Help system opens in a separate browser window. If you have a slow connection to the Internet, the Help system may take a few minutes to open. In this case, consider opening the Help system as soon as you start working in CourseCompass. You can also see a subset of Help information quickly by clicking the How Do I...? button on the Course Home page.

How long does it take to create a course? How do I know when it is ready?
The time required to create your course depends on the number of requests in line ahead of you and the size of your course materials. Your course may be ready in as little as one hour. On the other hand, a large course that is created at a busy time may take up to one business day.
When your course is ready, you will receive e-mail from CourseCompass Support. You will also see a link to the new course when you log in to CourseCompass.

What happens when I create a course?
When you create a course, CourseCompass automatically handles a number of behind-the-scenes tasks, such as:
· Copying content associated with your textbook into your course
· Setting up the pages for the course
· Placing a link to the Course Home page in the list of courses you are previewing
· Setting up the database to store information, such as student grades and announcements, for the new course
You incur no obligation by creating a course, and no textbooks are ordered. Any course that you create is considered to be a course that you are previewing. When you adopt a course, it moves to the list of courses you are teaching on the My CourseCompass page. No students can enrol in the course until you adopt it.

Can I create a course from scratch?
Yes, of course! You can take advantage of the powerful features and online tools of the CourseCompass environment without using a Pearson Education title. When you create a course, you are given the option to create it from scratch, which means without a Pearson Education title. You can then upload or provide links to whatever content you want to use as the backbone of your course.
CourseCompass refers to courses created from scratch as personal editions. Remember to order personal edition student access code cards for the campus bookstore and to tell your students to buy these standalone cards when they purchase the required textbook for your course.

What is the difference between previewing and teaching a course?
When you create a course, it is added to the list of courses you are previewing on the My CourseCompass page. You can customise the content of any course you are previewing as well as how the course looks.
When you are ready to teach a course, you must adopt it. Students cannot enrol in your course unless you adopt it. After you adopt a course, it moves to the list of courses you are teaching on the My CourseCompass page.
You can continue to customise a course after you adopt it. In CourseCompass, you can make course content available or unavailable. Students cannot see unavailable content. So, even after you adopt a course, you can keep content unavailable while you are working on it, and then make it available when it is ready for students.

How long can I preview a course?
At this time, there is no time limit on how long you can preview a course. If this policy changes, CourseCompass will notify all instructors who are previewing courses.

Where do I go to view the content of my course?
You can view all the content of your course, both preloaded and custom, from the Course Home page. This page displays a dynamic table of contents for your course. Every entry in this table of contents is a link.
You'll notice that almost all of the preloaded content is in a folder called Course Documents. Quizzes and tests are the only preloaded content that is not in this folder. Why? When you create a course, the preloaded quizzes and tests are typically defined as unavailable to students. You don't see them on the Course Home page because the table of contents displays only available content.
To view preloaded tests, or to make them available, you open the Assessment Manager from the instructor Control Panel. After you make a test available, both you and your students will see it in the table of contents on the Course Home page.
On the Course Home page, you will notice a set of buttons to the left. You can click the Course Documents button to display all the preloaded content in the Course Documents folder. The interface is flexible enough to provide multiple ways to find what you want!

How do I add content to my course? Where do I put it, and what kinds of content can I add?
When you open the home page for your course, you see the course as the students see it. When you click the Course Documents button on the Course Home page, for example, you see the same course content that students see when they click that button.
To add content, you open the instructor Control Panel from the Course Home page. There, you select a content area, such as Course Documents. You will see all the existing materials in that content area and can add more materials.
A course includes a number of content areas, represented by navigation buttons on the left side of the page as well as by folders in the course table of contents. You have the flexibility to add content to any of those content areas, as well as to hide a content area or add a new one.
What kinds of content can you add? You can include any standard file type in your CourseCompass course materials, either by attaching the file or entering the content directly. Some of your options include Microsoft Word or PowerPoint files, HTML, JPG or GIF files, Java applets, and video, audio, or animation files.

How do I attach a file?
When you add a piece of content, called an item, CourseCompass usually gives you the option of attaching a file. It's an easy process: you browse to the file you want and click the file name. Any file you attach is copied from its current location into the CourseCompass environment.

How do I customise preloaded course content? How much can I customise?
You customise preloaded content in the same way that you add additional content to your course. First you open the Course Home page, and then you open the instructor Control Panel.
All of the preloaded course materials, except for tests, are stored in the Course Documents content area. After you select that content area in the instructor Control Panel, you can modify or delete any of the preloaded content.
Preloaded tests are initially unavailable to students. To make them available, you click the Assessment Manager in the Control Panel. From there, you can also modify or delete any of the preloaded tests.
How much customisation is possible? As much as you want.

Is there any limit to the number and size of files that I can upload as part of my course's content?
There is no limit on the number of files you upload. However, there is a limit of 15 megabytes (MB) on the aggregate size of the files. This limit refers to content you upload, not to preloaded content.
Multimedia files, audio clips, and video clips tend to be large, while text files are usually no more than a few hundred kilobytes (KB) in size. (Note that 1 MB = 1000 KB.)
To view file sizes:
· On Windows operating systems (95, 98, NT), select Details from the View menu in the Windows Explorer.
· On a Macintosh, open a non-icon view of your files.

How do I create a link to an external web site?
You add a link to an external web site exactly as you do any other kind of course content. As you build courses, you will quickly become familiar with this process! First you open the Course Home page and then the instructor Control Panel. From there, you go to the External Links area and add an item to the list of external links.
External Links is one of the navigation buttons you and your students see on course pages. Clicking this button displays all the external links you have created.

Are there quizzes and tests for every chapter? How do I find them?
Most textbooks provide chapter-specific tests. Some also provide question pools, which are lists of questions that have not been weighted or organised into a test. For each chapter, you can:
· Use the preloaded test.
· Create your own test in CourseCompass, by entering questions from scratch, modifying a preloaded test, or reusing questions from existing assessments or pools.
· Create your own test in the TestGen application using Pearson Education testbanks and import it into CourseCompass (for more information, see the TestGen section of the FAQs).
Initially, all preloaded quizzes and tests are marked as unavailable to students. They do not appear in the table of contents on the Course Home page. To view these tests and select the ones you want to make available, open the instructor Control Panel from the Course Home page. From there, you select the Assessment Manager. With a click of a button, you can make a test available!
You use the same Assessment Manager functionality to create your own tests or to import TestGen tests.

Can I reuse test questions?
Yes, absolutely! CourseCompass is designed to reduce the amount of work required to set up a course, so you can focus on teaching.
As with all content customisations, you start from the instructor Control Panel. From there you select the Assessment Manager. When you either create or modify a test, you have the option of selecting questions from an existing assessment or question pool.

How is course content organised?
The basic element of course content is an item. Preloaded content is made up of items, and you add content by adding one or more items to a content area.
CourseCompass uses the familiar folder concept to organise course material. For example, if you were assigning four tasks at once, you might place descriptions of those tasks in a single folder in the Assignments content area.
You can also place items in a learning unit, which is a folder with expanded features. You can put different types of items, such as lecture notes and a test, in a learning unit. You can also choose whether you want to make students view those items sequentially.

How do I customise the design, or user interface, of my course?
As with all customisations, you customise the design of a course using the instructor Control Panel. From there, you select the Course Options sections.
You can select a graphic as the banner for your course web pages. You can also change button colour or hide buttons for content areas you don't plan to use.
CourseCompass courses include a range of tools, such as Discussion Board and Virtual Classroom, to help students communicate and work together. You can use the Course Options area of the Control Panel to enable or disable these tools for your course. The students will see only those tools you enable.

Do I have to customise a course in CourseCompass?
No, but you probably will want to customise. Preloaded content does not include any tests that are available to students, for example. In addition, there are many content areas in a course that are empty until you choose to fill them with content (or disable the buttons).
Preloaded content represents a huge head start in creating your course. You can customise that content as much as you like, or add new content, to make the course fit your exact curriculum.

How do I save course customisations?
When you create a new course, you have the option of copying an existing course. You should, of course, save all attachments you add to course items for future use.

How do I remove students from the gradebook?
Removing a student from your course removes all data associated with that student as well. You should check with the student first, and then contact Customer Support.

Can I delete content from a course?
All course content is stored as items, and you can delete any item of course content. Remember, though, that you may change your mind about that content at some later point. You should consider simply modifying the content to make it unavailable to students rather than deleting it.

Can I download course materials onto my hard drive for future reference?
You cannot re-circulate Pearson Education preloaded content, which is protected by copyright. But if you have created the course materials, by all means! Being able to save files on your computer or copy files to CourseCompass is essential as you build your courses and work with your course content.

Will the courses I've already created work in the next release of CourseCompass?
Yes! Changes in the CourseCompass environment do not affect existing courses. You can be confident that your work will remain available, even as the user interface improves.

How do students enrol in my course?
First, you must adopt the course in CourseCompass. Students cannot enrol in a course that you are only previewing.
After you adopt the course, enrolling is as easy as 1-2-3!
1. Students buy an access code card at the campus bookstore, either standalone or bundled with a textbook.
2. You give the students the course ID.
3. In their browsers, students go to http://students.pearsoned.com and follow the directions for registering. During the registration process, they will be asked for both the access code and the course ID.
Students need separate access codes for each course in which they enrol.

Where do students go to register?
In CourseCompass, students are registered and enrolled in their first course at the same time. These are not separate steps.
The URL for registering and enrolling is http://students.pearsoned.com. See the previous FAQ for the specific procedure.

Do students always need an access code?
Yes. Each student needs an access code to set up an account in CourseCompass, with a login name and password, and to enrol for a course. After registering, students only need their login names and passwords to log in to CourseCompass and view course materials.
Students need a new access code for each course in which they want to enrol.

Can students share access codes?
No. A student's access code uniquely identifies that student during the registration process. CourseCompass sets up one login name/password combination for each access code. Students are then identified online by these combinations.
For example, when students work together online, CourseCompass includes their names in the messages and replies they send back and forth. In addition, CourseCompass tracks student performance in the gradebook according to unique login name/password combinations. You can see what confusion would be caused by two students sharing the same combination.

What happens if one of my students loses an access code card?
These cards are valuable, just like a phone card or a key pass for a building. Students must replace lost access code cards by buying new ones.

What is the difference between what I see and what my students see in CourseCompass?
When you open a Course Home page, what you see is exactly what your students see - with one significant difference. Below the navigation buttons, you see instructor options, including an instructor Control Panel button. Clicking that button opens the Control Panel, which you use to customise and manage your course.

Can I set up small groups of students and give them individual assignments?
Yes. You can set up small groups of students for specific projects or for semester-long peer work. You can also enable CourseCompass tools, such as Discussion Board and Virtual Classroom, for each group.
Students can display a list of groups by clicking the Communication navigation button. By clicking the name of one of the groups in the list, a student can open that group's pages, with links to the group's special tools.

Is there a way to tell how often my students are using CourseCompass?
Student performance on quizzes and tests is automatically entered in the gradebook. You can tell whether students have completed assigned tests and display statistics on their performance relative to the class as a whole.
In addition, logs are generated from both the Discussion Board and Virtual Classroom sessions. Even if you do not participate in these interactions, you can review how often students participated and the quality of their input.