Nfomedia has a new look! The HOME, BLOG, NFOMAIL, MY SITES and NFOMEDIA menus have been moved to the top of the course home page -- making access to them quick and easy.

Also, professors and course administrators can now add a custom BACKGOUND to their course websites and personal homepages.  Simply click on Site Settings and chose Background.  Features include (1) background color, (2) background image, (3) image alignment, and (4) repeat image.

Professors and students who have created Personal Home Pages can now enable their own personal chat room where they are talk in real time with any registered Nfomedia user. To activate the Chat Room on your Personal Home Page, simply click on ‘Site Settings’ and select ‘Feature Settings & Link Course Sites.’

Nfomedia was asked for an interview a few weeks ago by e-learning expert and author Susan Smith Nash (E-Learning Queen). You can read the interview with Nfomedia founder John Erdner here.

The Drop Box menu option is now available for use with course websites -- providing an efficient way for professors to accept written assignments/papers in any readable document format (e.g. doc, rtf, pdf, etc). Submitted papers are date and time stamped and can only be seen by a student and his/her professor. When papers are submitted a second or third time, all earlier submissions remain visible and intact. Submitted papers can only be deleted by the course administrator.  As with Journal entries, Drop Box assignments are initially labeled ‘new.’  Stay tuned.  Additional Drop Box features are currently under development.

Nfomedia has added a CONTENT search to all course websites. Now users can quickly search an entire site for specific words or phrases. We have also enhanced the search capabilities from the Nfomedia HOME page. By clicking on 'advanced search' users can search content, people, or sites.

To assist professors in the development of their sites, Nfomedia has added an Admin/Student toggle. Admin users can now switch fluidly between the Admin and the Student view without logging out and back in — making course development and in-class demonstrations much simpler.

Automatic enrollment has been added to course sites allowing for another method of connecting students to your course. At the beginning of the semester simply go to the Course Users section, click Auto-Enroll Users, and enter the e-mail addresses of students who will be participating in the course. Now, when each student registers from anywhere on the Nfomedia network they will be automatically added to your course. Additionally, each student is given a place holder in the gradebook for easier course management while late students continue to register.

We're pleased to announce Nfomedia has upgraded it's servers exclusively to Apple Xserve and equipment has been moved to a data center in Dallas TX with bandwidth speeds of 100 Mbps (more than 50x faster than before).

We’re pleased to announce Nfomedia has added personal web pages for both course administrators and students. To begin, click on the link Personal Homepage.

When course administrators create their personal web page, it appears at the top of the My Sites list and can serve as a portal to each professor’s courses by simply changing the URL – for example: http://www.nfomedia.com/janesmith/.  This personal website can include a personal blog, links to all of a professor’s courses, and a range of both personal and professional activities.  

Students can also create personal web pages with links to their courses housed on Nfomedia.  Their sites can also include a personal blog and an array of personal and professional experiences.

Import content from an existing course into another course.  If you are teaching two sections of the same course, you may want to create two Nfomedia course web sites.  Once course content has been developed and entered for one of the two courses, there is no need to enter it a second time.  Simply go to 'Site Settings' and select 'Import Content.'  Nfomedia will provide you with a list of your current courses.  Select the course whose content you want to import and Nfomedia will duplicate the content (including exam question banks) for you.  This process imports content only -- NOT data (e.g. users, grades, exams, blogs, messages, announcements).