Overview

When you log in to OWL, you will immediately see your Overview area, or your individual workspace in the system. Your Overview displays the Message of the Day, as well as your calendar, course announcements, and message notifications. You will also see links to account utilities, enrolled courses, and other system-wide resources.

The Overview tool contains:

  1. Message of the Day
  2. Calendar
  3. Home Information Display
  4. Recent Announcements
  5. Message Center Notifications
  6. Embedding a Video
  7. Manage Overview

The Overview area of OWL is designed to give you an overview of what is happening in your courses and provide access to your individual account information and preferences.

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What is the Message of the Day?

In the Overview area, you will see announcements from your system administrator under "Message of the Day" (MOTD). The Message of the Day is typically used for system-wide announcements. Most institutions use this space to display messages about scheduled maintenance, system updates, and important dates and events.

  • View the Message of the Day.

    You may customize the appearance of the Message of the Day by selecting Options.

    1. You can choose to view just the subject line or the entire body of the message (default selection) by selecting the appropriate radio button.
    2. You may also use the drop-down menu to select to view All, One, or Two lines of the message body.
    3. You may also specify how many days in the past messages should be displayed. This is useful if you prefer to only see recently posted messages.

    If you make any changes to the default options, be sure to click Update to save your settings.

    View the MOTD.


    Select Options to customize the display. (Optional)

    Select Options to customize display. (Optional)


    Message of the Day Options

    Message of the Day Options
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What is the Calendar?

The Calendar shows all events from all of the sites in which you are enrolled. In addition, you may also create individual, private calendar entries that are only visible to you from your Overview area.

    1. View Calendar.

      You may customize the appearance of your Calendar by selecting  Options.

      Select Options to customize the display. (Optional)

      Click Options to customize calendar display. (Optional)


      Select custom preferences and Update.

      Select custom preferences and Update.


    2. Subscribe to your Calendar from another application.

      If you would like to subscribe to your Calendar from another calendaring application, such as Outlook or Google Calendar, select Publish (Private) to generate a URL that can be used to set up your subscription.

      Subscribe to your Calendar from another application.


      Click Generate.

      Click Generate.


      Copy the URL and use it in your desired calendar client.

      Copy the URL and use it in your desired calendar client.
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What is the Home Information Display?

The Overview may be customized by your institution to display information for all users. The Home Information Display often contains static information, unlike the announcements which may change more often in the Message of the Day.

  • View the information display.

    View the information display.
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What are the Recent Announcements?

The Recent Announcements area in Overview displays announcements from all of the sites in which you are enrolled. You may use the drop-down menu to view all items, public items only, or items sorted by group. (You must be a member of a group in order to see group announcements.)

  • View recent announcements.

    You may select either "All", "Public", or "By Group" from the "View" drop-down menu to customize the display.

    Note: By default, you will only see announcements that have been posted within the last 10 days in this location. (If you wish to see announcements posted within the past year, you should click on the Announcements link in the Tool Menu.)

    View recent announcements.
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What are the Message Center Notifications?

The Message Center in Overview displays the count of Messages and Forums posts for all of the sites in which you are enrolled. New messages are indicated by a number and envelope icon. If there are no new messages or posts, the word "none" will be displayed.

  • Clicking on the title of the site will take you to the homepage for that site.
  • Clicking on the New Messages indicator will take you directly to the Messages Inbox for that site.
  • Clicking on the New in Forums indicator will take you directly to the Forums for that site.

  1. View Message Center.

    View Message Center.

  2. Customize message center display. (Optional)

    You may select Options to customize the list of sites displayed in the Message Center area.

    Select the "Don't Show" box to place a checkmark next to any sites that you prefer not to see in the Message Center list.

    Note: If you have already hidden sites in Preferences, they will not show up in this list.

    Choose sites to hide in this list and then Update.


    Click the Update button.

    Choose sites to hide in this list and then Update.
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What is the Message of the Day?

In the Overview area, you will see announcements from your system administrator under "Message of the Day" (MOTD). The Message of the Day is typically used for system-wide announcements. Most institutions use this space to display messages about scheduled maintenance, system updates, and important dates and events.

  1. View the Message of the Day.

    You may customize the appearance of the Message of the Day by selecting Options.

    1. You can choose to view just the subject line or the entire body of the message (default selection) by selecting the appropriate radio button.
    2. You may also use the drop-down menu to select to view All, One, or Two lines of the message body.
    3. You may also specify how many days in the past messages should be displayed. This is useful if you prefer to only see recently posted messages.

    If you make any changes to the default options, be sure to click Update to save your settings.

    View the MOTD.

    Select Options to customize the display. (Optional)

    Select Options to customize display. (Optional)

    Message of the Day Options

    Message of the Day Options
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Embedding Videos into Overview

Embedding a YouTube Video:

  1. Navigate to the YouTube video which you want to embed and click Share. This will bring up a pop-up window.

    Screenshot of the text window with the cursor where the MP4 will be placed.

  2. Click Embed and copy the YouTube embed code to your computer's clipboard (CTRL-C on PC or COMMAND-C on MAC).

    Screenshot of the toolbar with the Insert/Edit Movie icon highlighted. Screenshot of the text window with the cursor where the MP4 will be placed.

  3. Navigate to the OWL Overview page and click Edit.

    Screenshot of the movie properties pop-up with the Browse Server button highlighted.

  4. Click Source.

    Screenshot of the file browser with the desired video selected and the open button highlighted.

  5. Position your cursor and paste your copied text into the box (CTRL-V on PC or COMMAND-V on MAC).

    Note: where you paste the link determines where the video appears.

    Screenshot of the server popup with a loading bar as the file uploads.

  6. Click Update Options at the bottom of the page in order to save your changes.

  7. The YouTube video should now appear on the overview page.

    Note: you may have to reload the page in order for the video to appear.

    Screenshot of the text window with the cursor where the MP4 will be placed.
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Embedding a Local Video:

  1. Upload the desired video to the OWL resources page in mp4 format and copy the link address (Right click the resources file and select Copy Link).

    Screenshot of the text window with the cursor where the MP4 will be placed.

  2. Navigate to the OWL Overview Page and click Edit.

    Screenshot of the toolbar with the Insert/Edit Movie icon highlighted.

  3. Click Source.

    Screenshot of the movie properties pop-up with the Browse Server button highlighted.

  4. Position your cursor and paste your copied text into the box (CTRL-V on PC and COMMAND-V on MAC).

  5. Copy the OWL video link pasted in step d and use it to replace the text called 'ReplaceThisText.mp4'.

    Screenshot of the text window with the cursor where the MP4 will be placed.

  6. Remove the Extra OWL video link pasted in step d.

    Screenshot of the text window with the cursor where the MP4 will be placed.

  7. Click Update Options at the bottom of the page in order to save your changes.

  8. The video should now appear on the overview page.

Manage Overview

Site maintainers can now control the layout, arrangement, and display of widgets on their site’s Overview page using the Manage Overview option.

  1. Click the Manage Overview button on the right side of the site.

    Click the Manage Overview button.

  2. Customize the arrangement, order and layout of the widgets by selecting the arrows:

    1. Clicking the left or right arrows will move the widget to the corresponding column.
    2. Clicking the up or down arrows will change the order in which the widgets appear on the site.
    3. Optionally, Click the x button to remove a widget you don't want to appear on the site.
    Screenshot of overview layout.

  3.  Click the Save button when finished.

    save button
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