Best Practices: Set up Your bCourses Account

Choose a profile picture that represents you

How do you want students to see you? Do you prefer they address you in a formal manner? Then you may want to add a professional picture. Do you prefer they relate to you in a more casual manner? Then you may want to add a picture of you engaged in a hobby or activity. There's no right or wrong picture—as long as it's appropriate—but you can use your profile picture as a way to subtly indicate to students how you want to relate to them. 

Receive regular notifications for items related to student communication

You will have your own system for how you read and respond to student communication, but in order to keep on top of everything and respond to urgent questions or needs, it's recommended that you receive either immediately or daily summaries of Conversation Messages (emails sent via the bCourses system and accessed in your Inbox on the Global Navigation) and Discussion Posts. If you are a GSI, it may also be helpful to your work flow if you get immediate or daily notifications of All Submissions and Submission Comment (comments students can add to an assignment they submitted that are only visible to the individual student, GSIs, and instructor).

If you don't check your Berkeley email address regularly, add a different contact method

Do you like to keep your Berkeley email address separate from other email accounts? That's no problem, but since your bCourses notifications are automatically set to go to your Berkeley email address, if you are not regularly checking that account, you will miss those important updates from students. So you don't miss a single comment or question, update your contact method with your preferred email address or opt to get texts to your phone if you know you will see texts more easily. Remember, students cannot see the contact methods you add to bCourses, so you do not risk sharing your personal email or phone number.