In 2011, IS&T began a community-driven process of re-architecting familiar tools and functionality within Stellar as feature-rich, robust modular service components. All modules are comprehensively beta tested with the MIT community prior to final release in order to ensure delivery of the best possible user experience.
UPDATE: The previously scheduled 2016-17 community rollout of the full LMOD platform with the intent to replace Stellar will be postponed in order to review existing functionality and bolster performance. For information, please visit the IS&T Course Management FAQ.
Summary of Available Site Configurations
Learning Modules (LMOD) system: Every tool on the site will be in LMOD. The course site will still be linked from the Stellar Course Guide.
Hybrid system with classic Stellar & LMOD: A hybrid site uses LMOD Membership, Homework, Materials & Calendar Modules, but retains the legacy Announcements, Forum, and Class/Section home pages.
Classic Stellar: A classic Stellar site uses LMOD Membership, but retains the legacy Materials, Homework, Announcements, Forum, Calendar and Class/Section home pages.
Opt-In Modules
Homework Submission support in Gradebook
Starting in the Summer 2015 term, the Gradebook Module will include support for Homework/Assignment submissions. This new feature will obviate the need for instructors or administrators using the Stellar legacy system to maintain separate tools for collecting online submissions and grading, as assignment creation and assignment submission capabilities will be integrated into the existing the Gradebook Module. Works best in parallel with the Calendar Module.
Assignment creation modal preview
Assignment submissions in Student view preview
Materials Module
Beginning Fall 2015, the Materials Module has been available as a materials management tool, offering course administrators a more flexible method of populating, organizing and displaying course materials, as well as controlling access to copyrighted and/or time-sensitive content. Works best in parallel with the Calendar Module. New features include:
- More flexible material management options
- Various filter and view options
- Clean, contemporary user interface
- Support for embedded video and audio
- Improved tools for materials transfer between Stellar and LMOD
Materials Module preview
Calendar Module
This revamped web service provides a more current and familiar interface for managing and displaying custom-created and time-specific events, as well as those listed on the Institute's academic calendar. Supports subscribing to calendars in external services via Google Calendar (GCal) and Apple Calendar (iCal).
Calendar Module preview
Forums Module
This web service has an updated look and feel, yet maintains the same functionality and discussion capability as the existing forum tool.
Forums Module preview
Course Site
Ties all user-activated modules within a single user interface, providing users with a seamless user experience and obviating the need for users to manage a separate legacy Stellar site. Functionality includes redesigned Course Landing page, at-a-glance Dashboard page, new Student@LMOD student portal and redesigned Course Guide.
Course Landing Page preview
Dashboard preview
Student@LMOD preview (release TBD)
Course Guide preview
Released Modules
Gradebook Module
Gradebook Module offers advanced grade management options, integrated student photos, recitation and section support. It also includes an optional Attendance tracking component which provides a centralized means for tracking and grading student attendance via a customizable calendar. The latest release of the Gradebook Module includes the newly designed Assignments component, which integrates on-demand assignment creation and student submission capabilities within the Gradebook Module interface. For more information, see the Gradebook User Guide.
Membership Service
All of the aforementioned web modules are tied in with a central Membership Service that federates student records, course and section membership, access permissions, etc. consistently across the spectrum of modules. The Membership Module is a service which provides course administrators with a simple and user-friendly method to centralize and manage course membership information sourced from WEBSIS, while providing students with a straightforward interface from which to choose and/or switch sections. In the Summer 2014 term, this module was rolled out to the MIT community as a whole.
Standalone option
This service also provides a new degree of flexibility to course administrators who do not wish to use Stellar, but are interested in utilizing WEBSIS registration data to manage specific access to course-related web content; or course administrators who want to provide access to the Gradebook Module, but do not need any other parts of a Stellar (or other) course site.
For more information about the Membership Service, see the Membership User Guide.