After a new community has been created on Packback, you (as the instructor) will see a button on the community that says "Finish Setup" and see a checklist of remaining steps at the top of the community itself.
Clicking on the "Finish Setup" button will take you through a guided process to set your community up for success.
Guided Setup Process on Packback Community
You can temporarily skip any step so you can be reminded in the future, complete the step, or permanently skip a step if it isn't relevant to your class (e.g. If you do not have TAs, then the "Invite TAs" step will be moot!) The guided setup process includes the following steps:
1. Invite Tas
If you have a TA for the course you are using Packback in, you can invite your TA to Packback from this step! This will automatically create their account, add them to the community for free, and send them an invitation email with resources for TAs.
2. Set Section Small Groups
If you would like to be able to filter the discussion feed by section, or grade Packback by section, you can configure the available "sections" in the community on this step. Students will select their section upon login. If this step isn't applicable to your class, simply skip!
3. Set Grading Requirements
This step allows you to set your weekly deadline, input how much of the final grade Packback is worth, and set the participation requirements. Based on this data, Packback's automated grading system calculates the final assignment score for each student per deadline making grading a snap! To learn more about how to configure grading requirements on Packback, check out this article: Setting Up Your Gradebook and Participation Report
4. Add Packback to the course syllabus
This step allows you to download an automatically customized "syllabus statement" explaining Packback and your requirements for how students will be graded on Packback that can be added to your syllabus.
5. Invite Students
This step allows you to invite students by using their name and email. You can also upload the LMS ID for each student from this step, making grade matching to the LMS easier later. To learn how to invite students, check out this article: Inviting students to your community.
Accessing these setup tools once the community has started
You can access these steps from the Professor Tools panel in your community at any time, found in the sidebar of the community.
If you need any help with setting up your community, please contact our support team at help@packback.co.
That's it! Your new community on Packback is ready for use. So...What's next?
Ready to learn how to get the most value for you and your students out of Packback? Visit our Instructor Usage Guide for tips, best practices, and usage recommendations.