Files Area

To access the Files area for any individual course, use the Files link in the course's Administration block. This link provides access to the file manager for your course site. This is where you will upload resources (such as a Office files, PDF files, html files, images, etc.) for use in your AsULearn course. As in most file managers, you may upload/download, move, delete, rename, and zip/unzip files, and also create new folders. For those of you familiar with WebCT, this is analogous to the My-Files area. LTS recommends the following as best practices for naming files that you intend to upload to AsULearn:

1. Filenames should alphanumeric (letters and numbers only), with no special characters (e.g. &, $, @, ?) and no spaces.
2. Each filename should have one (and only one) dot (.) in it, with a proper extension after the dot (such as .html, .xls, .pdf, .jpg). Take note Mac users! A file called "lecture.doc" is fine; "lecture" and "lecture.class.doc are unacceptable and will create problems.
3. Since linked filenames are case-sensitive, it is a great advantage to use all lowercase letters all the time. That removes the possibility that a broken link involves a case problem, and that's one less thing to troubleshoot.
4. If you wish to have a visual space in a filename, use an underscore (_) instead of a space. A file called "lab_image.jpg" is fine; "lab image.jpg" is unacceptable and will create problems.
5. Try to use filenames that are intuitive, to save yourself the trouble of opening the file to discover its contents in the future. A file called "mass_spectrometer.jpg" is a good deal more intuitive that one called "image1.jpg" -- which you'd have to open or preview to discover its content.
6. Folder naming conventions are the same as file naming conventions, except folder names will never have a dot (.) or an extension.

Creating the directory structure before uploading

1. To upload multiple files at once, you will need to place all desired files/folders in an enclosing folder, and then zip that folder. On your Windows desktop, right click to open the context menu and select New and Folder as indicated in the screen shot below. On a Mac desktop, ctrl-click and select New folder.
2. Name the new folder according to the conventions above (e.g., course_materials).
3. Double-click the your new folder to open it; for the purpose of this example, we'll say your new folder is called "course_materials".
4. Within the course_materials folder, you can create other folders in the same way (see Step 1). LTS suggests a creating folders similar to the ones below:
   
   • syllabus
   • lecture_notes
   • audio
   • images
   • html_files
   • pdf_files
   • microsoft_files
     
   These are, of course, only suggestions. The point is you wish to have a "folder of folders" so that your local files will be organzied when you zip up the enclosing course_materials folder, upload it to AsULearn, and unzip it.
5. After moving your local files into the appropriate folders inside course_materials, you will then zip the folder so you can upload all its contents to AsULearn at once.

Creating a zip folder and uploading it in AsULearn

Once your content is arranged in your folder (we're calling it course_materials), create the zip files on a Windows machine by right-clicking on the folder, mousing over Send To and then left-clicking on Compressed (zipped) Folder as in the screen shot below. A new zipped file named “course_materials.zip” should appear next to the original folder.

Note: You can, of course, zip any existing folder this way. Just be sure that the folder's contents are organized as you wish, and that the enclosed folders and files adhere to the naming conventions outlined above.

1. To upload this zip file to your AsULearn course (again, our example file is called course_materials.zip), go to your AsULearn course and click on Files in the Administration block.
   
   


2. Click Upload a file.
   
   


3. Use the Browse button to locate the zip file you created earlier.
   
   


4. Select the zip file and click Open.
   
   
5. Then click Upload this file.
   
   


6. You will see that the "course_materials.zip" has now been uploaded to the Files area in your AsuLearn course. Click the Unzip link to the right of the file and follow the prompts to extract the zip file.
   

Remember that you may use the Files to upload/download, move, delete, rename, and zip/unzip files, and also to create new folders.