Overview

WebBoard is a conferencing system that can be accessed over the Internet by any computer, using a Web-browser.

At UIC, WebBoard is used for conferences and for conducting classes over the Web. Every course is running on a virtual board enabling students and instructors to interact as a group privately. Access is restricted to registered users of that particular course. Every board can have many conferences running concurrently and the instructor maintains the access rights of students to conferences. The instructor of a course is the manager of that conference board. As a user, you can post new topics, reply to messages within a topic, and also reply privately to the sender of a message via normal email. WebBoard also has a live chat feature.

For questions and problems encountered by students in School of Public Health and our response, check here. You may also submit your questions to your course TA or faculty if you could not find the answer.

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On to WebBoard

To access WebBoard, you need a computer with a World Wide Web browser application that has JavaScript support, preferably Netscape Navigator 3.0 or Internet Explorer 3.0 or higher. You can use the computers in the public ADN computer labs. In order to take full advantage of WebBoard, turn on the "frames" option in your browser. You also need to have cookies and JavaScript enabled to access WebBoard. This is done in Netscape via Edit--> Preferences-->Advanced, and in Internet Explorer via View-->Internet Options--> Advanced & Security.

The steps involved in accessing the WebBoard sites are:

• Start your browser by double clicking on its icon.
• Visit your course home page, and click the WEBBOARD or FORUM button.
• The log-in window will appear:

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The Menubar appears at the top of the screen:

The function of some of these menu options is:

Post: Post a new topic or message to the conference.

Refresh: Update your conference list to indicate any new activity.

Chat: Display the list of available chat rooms and the number of active users (may not be used in all courses).

Search: Open the message search form, which you can use to find specific content in one or more messages and/or topics.

Make All Read: Open up the "mark messages read" menu, which allows you to mark messages read in one or all conferences.

More...: Opens the "More options" menu and some important options are:

• Edit your Profile
• Email notify: receive email notification if there is a new message in a particular conference
• Mailing Lists: subscribe to a mailing list associated with the conference.

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Browsing and Participating in Conferences

All the conferences in the board are displayed in the Conference Menu. The information in WebBoard is set up like a book: the conferences correspond to book titles, topics to chapter titles, and messages to the content of each topic. If the frame option is turned on, the Message window appears on the right side of the screen. The expansion icon (+) to the left of a conference indicates that the conference contains topics. Messages are arranged chronologically with the earliest (original) messages at the top of each topic list.

You may post a new message, reply to a current message, or delete your own posted message from the conferences. You may also send an e-mail reply.

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Edit Your Profile

A user profile is maintained for every user of the WebBoard system. This contains personal and contact information about the user. You can edit your profile to provide more information to other users (like your home page URL). To edit your profile, click on the "More" button and then on "Edit Your Profile" in the right frame.