The following test banks are live as of today, Tuesday, November 26:

• In Practice (Nordell) Access Complete chapters 5-10

• In Practice (Nordell)Excel Complete chapters5-10

• In Practice (Nordell)PowerPoint Complete chapters 4-7

• In Practice (Nordell)Word Complete chapters5 and 12

(Don’t fret — Word Complete chapters 6-11 will be uploaded tomorrow. There were some last-minute fixes that came in from the publisher & we wanted to make sure we added those before uploading.)

EDIT: In Practice (Nordell) Word Complete chapters 6-11 were uploaded this morning (Wednesday, November 27). Happy (American) Thanksgiving everyone!

A HUGE thanks to Chris Bonner at Triad for turning these around so quickly!

SIMbook Chapters

• Skills Approach, Word Complete Chapter 7 : Working with Long Documents and Creating Forms

• In Practice, Word Complete Chapter 11 : Working with Forms and Master Documents

Projects

• Skills Approach, Excel Complete Chapter 6 : Exploring Advanced Functions

• In Practice, Word CompleteChapter 7 : Advanced Tables and Graphics

SIMbook Chapters

• In Practice, Word Complete Chapter 10 : Automating Tasks Using Templates and Macros

• Project Learn, Word Chapter 1 : Introduction to Word

Projects

• Project Learn, Word Chapter 1 : Introduction to Word

SIMbook Chapters

• ProjectLearn, Overview : The Microsoft Office Environment

• ProjectLearn, Excel Chapter 1 : Introduction to Excel

• ProjectLearn, Word Chapter 2 : Writing a Research Paper

• In Practice, Word Complete Chapter 11 : Working with Forms and Master Documents

• In Practice, Excel Complete Chapter 7 : Setting Validation, Creating Forms, Sharing and Protecting Workbooks

• In Practice, Excel, Complete Chapter 8 : Using Decision-Making Tools and XML

*Note : SIMnet mappings for custom lessons, exams, and SIMpaths for these chapters will be available in late December

Projects

• ProjectLearn, Word Chapter 2 : Writing a Research Paper

• In Practice, Excel Complete Chapter 7 :Setting Validation, Creating Forms, Sharing and Protecting Workbooks

We had released an update the morning of Thursday, November 21, 2013 to improve SIMnet’s ability to handle a dropped internet connection on the student’s end while taking an exam.

Previously, there were sporadic reports of students being stuck on the Saving screen while taking an exam when completing a question and moving onto the next one. This was due to the student losing internet connection when the student’s submitted answer was being saved. The student would see have been stuck on a Saving answer… dialog box with an icon resembling book pages turning, similar to this screenshot:

With Thursday’s release when the students lose internet connection during the exam, they will see an error message similar to the one below. The error dialog box also has a Reload Exam button which will restart the exam (provided that the student has regained internet connection) for the students where they had left off with their previously answered questions saved.

In some cases, instructors created a custom rubric for the Projects to adjust points in the rubric such as giving more points to harder steps. This resulted in the total points of the custom rubric being different from that of the original rubric. However, the SIMnet gradebook would still reflect the points from original rubric by scaling the custom rubric points. To eliminate this confusion, we have released a feature that allows you to set the custom rubric points to appear in the SIMnet gradebook.

Once you have a custom rubric set up, assign the Project to the class, make sure that the custom rubric is selected in the Rubric dropdown, and select Custom Rubric for the Based Gradebook Points On setting.

SIMbook Chapters

• In Practice, Word Complete Chapter 8 : Using Desktop Publishing and Graphic Features

• In Practice, Excel Complete, Chapter 6 : Using Advanced Functions

SIMbook Chapters

• In Practice, Word Complete Chapter 7 : Using Advanced Tables and Graphics

• In Practice, Word Complete, Chapter 9 : Working Collaboratively and Integrating Applications (In Practice, Word Complete Chapter 8 will be released next Friday, October 25)

Projects

• In Practice, Word Complete Chapter 6 : Using Custom Styles and Building Blocks

• Skills Approach, Word Complete Chapter 6 : Exploring Advanced Document Features

• Skills Approach, Excel Complete Chapter 6 : Exploring Advanced Functions

Dear Instructor,

We would like to inform you that the SimNet team has successfully corrected an unexpected issue with the SIMnet system that occurred earlier today.

The system experienced a performance degradation from 2:50PM until 3:25PM EDT on 10/22/2013 which caused you and your students to experience slow response times for SIMnet. Between 3:08PM-3:10PM EDT, SIMnet was completely unavailable as the system was being reset.

As of 3:25PM EDT, the SIMnet system is functioning normally again, and our team will continue to closely monitor the system to ensure its performance.

Should you or your students experience any issues, please contact our Customer Experience Group at http://mpss.mhhe.com/contact.php.

We apologize for any inconvenience this caused you and your students today.

Thank you again for your patience and continued support,

The SIMnet Team

SIMbook Chapters

Skills, Word Complete Chapter 6 : Exploring Advanced Document Features

Skills, Excel Complete Chapter 6 : Exploring Advanced Functions

In Practice, Word Complete Chapter 6 : Using Custom Styles and Building Blocks

In Practice, Excel Complete Chapter 5 : Working with Multiple Worksheets and Workbooks

SIMnet Content Mappings

Updated mappings for In Practice Office book chapters and corresponding complete application book chapters

• Updated Excel Chapter 2 SIMnet exam mappings to include questions for the following functions:

• Updated Word Chapter 1 SIMnet custom lesson and exam mappings to include:

• Updated Word Chapter 2 SIMnet custom lesson and exam mappings to include:

• Updated Word Chapter 4 SIMnet custom lesson and exam mappings to include:

The following projects were released October 9, 2013:

In Practice, Word 2013 Complete, Chapter 5

• Word 2013 In Practice – Ch 5 Guided Project 5-3

• Word 2013 In Practice – Ch 5 Independent Project 5-6a

• Word 2013 In Practice – Ch 5 Independent Project 5-6b

In Practice, Excel 2013 Complete, Chapter 5

• Excel 2013 In Practice – Ch 5 Independent Project 5-4

• Excel 2013 In Practice – Ch 5 Independent Project 5-5

In Practice, Excel 2013 Complete, Chapter 6

• Excel 2013 In Practice – Ch 6 Independent Project 6-4

• Excel 2013 In Practice – Ch 6 Independent Project 6-5

The updated help files for the SIMnet student portal were released today. The help topics include videos demonstrating how to use the SIMnet student portal.

To access Help from the student portal, click the question mark icon near the upper right corner of the SIMnet window.

The following fixes and improvements were released today:

• Added new messaging to exam results to help student understand the raw grade (points on the assignment) vs the grade they may see in the gradebook (custom or calculated grade)

• Improved messaging in cases where an in-progress assignment expires

• Fixed display issue with Teach Me additional information buttons

• Fixed issue where an instructor without any assigned classes would be redirected to the Profile page during preview

• Fixedbug where History button would display when grade was delayed

• Fixedbug where project items would appear out of order if one was deleted

• Improved messaging on assignment list when class has no assignments

The test banks for Office 2013: A Skills Approach were released today.

Linda Johnsonius, a SIMnet Digital Faculty Consultant from Murray State University, provided this advice on assigning projects:

I remember the frustration we had when we first implemented the grader. The grader is marking at a level we could never approach and students were suspicious. Gradually, over time, we developed a “system” that works well for us.

First: make sure every Instructor and TA works through every assignmentbeforeassigning it to students. There are places where the grader is very specific and working through it first allows you to head off problems. Knowing, for example, exactly which bullet. Or specifically which approach to setting a page number. Also, as good as the projects are, there are occasional ambiguities in the instructions. Finding these things first allows you head off a lot of problems. Besides, if push comes to shove, you can take 5 minutes (none of them take much longer) to whiz through the assignment in front of the class to SHOW that 100% is possible and not that hard to do.

When we make the assignment, we allow two opportunities. The student then has the grading feedback to re-examine their first attempt, look at the instructions, and figure out what they did wrong. We caution them to start over from scratch for the second attempt as trying to fix what you did wrong in the first attempt file is usually a disaster.

Thanks Linda!

The test bank for Using Windows 8byJaneHolcombe andCharlesHolcombe is now available in SIMnet.

To access these test bank questions, be sure to add the textbook to your account:

1. Log in with an Administrator account

2. Go to Settings.

3. Click Textbooks.

4. If necessary, select your campus.

5. In the Available Textbooks list, scroll down to the bottom of the list and select Using Windows 8and then click the Add button to add the title to the Assigned Textbooks list.

Once you’ve added the textbook, you can create and assign a test bank exam:

1. Log in with a Full Instructor or Administrator account.

2. Go to Exams.

3. Click Create.

4. Expand the Type box near the top of the page, and select Test Bank Exam.

5. Add a title and click Next.

6. Expand the Textbook list and select Using Windows 8.

7. Expand the Test Bank list and select the chapter you want.

8. Add and remove questions until you have the exam you want. Remember, SIMnet saves automatically as you add/remove questions.

9. Click the Exam Preferences tab to verify or modify the exam preferences.

10. Click the Class Assignments or Student Assignments tab to assign the exam.

For more information about creating test banks and test bank exams, please refer to the SIMnet help files.

Chapter 5, Using Templates and Mail Merge, for the In Practice Word 2013 Complete book (Nordell) was released today. If you have access to this SIMbook, the new chapter will appear automatically for you in the Bookshelf in your Library.

Instructors using In Practice Word 2013 Complete may assign the SIMbook and create SIMnet lessons and exams using the by textbook mapping for this chapter.

Did you know there are more than 1,000 simulated Office 2013 questions available in SIMnet today?

Word 2013 : 144 assessment / 144 practice

Excel 2013 : 193 assessment/ 193 practice

PowerPoint 2013 : 120 assessment / 120 practice

Access 2013 : 120 assessment / 120 practice

Office 2013 Overview : 20 assessment / 20 practice

These questions are mapped to chapter-specific content in each of the Office textbooks and the equivalent chapters in the Complete books.To create an exam or practice exam specific to the textbook you are using, use the “by Textbook” filter on the create exam page. Regardless of the textbook you are using, all of these questions are available to you.You can use questions not specifically mapped to a chapter by using the “by Module” filter on the create exam page.

The development team will begin adding Complete-level questions in September. We will post here as each new batch of questions is released.

The McGraw-Hill SIMnet Product team would like to thank you for patience as SIMnet experienced numerous technical issues the week of September 1st. These reported issues have now been identified and resolved, pending the last issue below. Should you have further questions, please contact our Customer Experience Group at www.mhhe.com/support. Thank you and we look forward to your continued partnership!

The following is an overview of the high priority issues that occurred during the week of September 1st, 2013: SIMnetIssueReport-FINAL_9.6.13

We have updated the Library in SIMstudent to include all SIMbooks for the Office 2013 content based on the product that the school’s SIMnet admin enabled. For instructors, the Library in SIMstudent will contain the SIMbooks that you see in the Learning menu and SIMbooks dropdown. If your school has multiple SIMbooks enabled, you will see all of them in your SIMstudent Library. However, in an actual student account, the student will only see the respective SIMbook title that was purchased with the SIMnet Office 2013 with SIMbook code.

– The SIMnet Product Team.

Test banks for theO’Leary Series Microsoft Office 2013 books are now available in SIMnet.

One of your account administrators will need to add the book(s) to your account (Settings > Textbooks). Once the books are assigned, you can create a new test bank or a new test bank exam using the By textbook filter.

We are pleased to announce that SIMbooks and Computing Now are available in the Library of the student portal for students who have purchased SIMnet Office 2013 with SIMbook codes. To view them, log into SIMnet, click on Library in the top menu bar, click on View bookshelf in the upper right-hand corner, and select the respective book. If you do not see it, log out of SIMnet, clear your browser cache, and try it again.

– The SIMnet Product Team

The SIMnet development team released the following content this week:

SkillsWord Complete SIMbook: Chapters 1-5

SkillsExcel Complete SIMbook: Chapters 1-5

SkillsAccess Complete SIMbook: Chapters 1-4

SkillsPowerPoint Complete SIMbook: Chapters 1-4

In Practice(Nordell) Word Complete SIMbook: Chapters 1-4

In Practice(Nordell) Excel Complete SIMbook: Chapters 1-4

In Practice(Nordell) Access Complete SIMbook: Chapters 1-4

In Practice(Nordell) PowerPoint Complete SIMbook: Chapters 1-4

Added SIMnet exam questions for the following Skills chapters

• Access Chapter 4

• Excel Chapter 5

Updated SIMnet lesson and exam mappings for the following In Practice (Nordell) chapters:

• Word Chapter 4

• Excel Chapter 2

• Excel Chapter 3

• Excel Chapter 4

• PowerPoint Chapter 3

Added projects for In Practice (Nordell) PowerPoint Chapter 3

We’ll continue to post updates as new content becomes available. Check back often!

The SIMnet development team released the following content this week:

All Show Me, Guide Me, and Let Me Try exercises for In Practice (Nordell) PowerPoint Chapter 3

New SIMnet exam questions for the followingSkillschapters

• Excel Chapter 5

Updated SIMnet lesson and exam mappings for the followingIn Practice(Nordell) chapters:

• Excel Chapter 2

• Excel Chapter 3

• Excel Chapter 4

Coming soon:

All Show Me, Guide Me, and Let Me Try exercises forIn Practice(Nordell) Access Chapters 3-4 will be released before the end of this week

Google has announced that in August they’ll begin selling and renting textbooks through the Google Play store. This will put the company on par with Apple, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble, all of which have already entered the digital textbook market.

A Google representative said that they will offer “a comprehensive selection of titles” from the five biggest textbook publishers: McGraw-Hill, Pearson, Wiley, Macmillan Higher Education, and Cengage Learning. The books will be accessible on Android and iOS devices, as well as in browser windows.

The textbooks will support highlighting, notes, and bookmark syncing across multiple devices. While they didn’t go into specifics on pricing, they said they will rent and sell books for up to 80 percent off of retail prices.

At the event Google also announced a new tablet and a Chromecast TV dongle, which you can read about .

[Via ]

SIMnet will be unavailable Sunday June 9th, 2013 from 6:00AM – 10:30AM Eastern. We are performing routine maintenance and software upgrades to support SIMnet 2013 pre-release. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Sincerely, SIMnet Product Team

Welcome to the new SIMnet interface!

To help you better familiarize yourself with the new features, please click on the respective documentation links below.

• Instructor Features

• Student Features

We are pleased to announce the Release of SIMnet for Office 2013 on July 21st, 2013.

ALL ACCOUNTS WILL BE INCLUDED IN THE JULY RELEASE. This July release will introduce a newly updated interface, fully refreshed student experience, Office 2013 introductory content, backward compatibility of 2007 & 2010 content and new course management features. All accounts will be receiving the NEW interface but will have continued option of using Office 2007, Office 2010 or Office 2013 content. For more information, please contact your McGraw-Hill representative.

Thank you!

The SIMnet Product Team

We are pleased to offer you these introductory videos on the SIMnet Office 2013 Pre-Release. For those of you who did not opt into the June 9th Pre-Release, these videos will provide you with an overview of the new interface and SIMnet development. Our next release is scheduled for July 21st, and we will be offering additional videos at that time.

To view the videos, please click on the links below.

• SIMnet New Interface Overview

• SIMnet Learning Assignments

• SIMnet Assessments

• SIMnet Course Manager

According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has donated $472 million to fund and shape higher education. The idea they’re pushing is to use technology to turn higher education into a more measurable, results-driven operation. The ultimate goal is to get more Americans to graduate college quickly and cheaply.

All this money comes at a time when several other factors are aiming for similar goals. The Gates Foundation is joined in its effort by the Obama administration, state lawmakers, and other private foundations.

There’s so much money and momentum driving these ideas that critics of the movement are having a difficult time getting their voices heard. They argue that Gates and company are building a system that’s overly focused on short term employment, while ignoring the need for a foundation of general knowledge.

You can read more about the forces shaping higher education in The Chronicle of Higher Education and The Wall Street Journal.

Bill and Melinda Gates

Microsoft has announced that it’s adding a set of business intelligence tools to Office 365. These tools will allow users to crunch data in a number of new ways, some of which are not even available in Microsoft’s stand-alone products. The new service was unveiled at the Worldwide Partner Conference this week in Houston, but no price or release date was given.

Office 365 is a subscription-based suite of office software that customers can access in their web browser. (Think Google Docs, but by Microsoft). The business intelligence tools they’re adding will allow users to access catalogs of data and analyze it in any number of ways using built-in tools.

The data available to users will be determined by an administrator for the company using the product. The data may be internal information provided by the organization, or public data from sources like Wikipedia tables.

The new business intelligence tools have a wide range of possible applications. For instance, you’ll be able to take geographically-coded data and turn it into a data-rich map, with each data point placed at its proper location.

They’re also adding a natural language query engine that will let you ask questions in conversational language, and give you the relevant data.

[Via Cio]

In some cases, instructors may need to extend a learning object’s assignment period for one or more students using the SIMnet personal assignment feature. Previously, personal assignment grade results were not integrated into the original class for which the assignment was intended. To alleviate the burden of transferring grades, SIMnet now offers an assignment transfer feature.

Assignment transfer can be used to transfer Exam, Project, and Resource personal assignment grade results back to the class for which the assignment was originally intended.

The following three conditions are required for the assignment transfer feature to be available:

1. The instructor must be assigned to the class to which the transfer is made.

2. The student must be assigned to the class to which the transfer is made.

3. The transferred assignment must be assigned to the class to which the transfer is made.

The following example screenshots use an Exam learning object as the assignment.

To make a personal assignment grade transfer:

1. From the navigation menu, select either Exams, Projects, or Resources.

2. Select the learning object to be transferred.

3. Expand the Actions menu and select Edit.

Edit the exam by selecting Edit from the Actions list

1. From the edit screen, select theStudent Assignmentstab.

2. Select the student for whom you would like to transfer an assignment and click theAddbutton. Please note that only one student assignment can be transferred at one time.

3. TheExam Assignment Detailspop-up window will open.

4. In the*End Time:*area enter the new end time for theExam.(This will only apply to this particular student.)

5. In theTransfer Resultssection, expand theTransfer student results todrop-down, and select the class to which the student grade belongs.

6. Click theSavebutton to save the changes.

Select the class to transfer the personal assignment grade

The assignment will be available in the student’sMy Personal Assignmentswindow. Once the student completes the assignment, the results will be available in the student’s class gradebook rather than the personal assignments gradebook.

A grade will only be transferred if there are attempts remaining in the class assignment to which the transfer is designated. If the student has already used all attempts in the class, the grade will remain in the student’s gradebook under**My Personal Assignments.**If necessary, you can delete one of the student’s previous attempts for the class assignment, and then transfer the personal assignment grade.

SIMnet ADMINISTRATORS: We are pleased to announce the pre-release availability of SIMnet for Office 2013 on the week of June 9th. The pre-release version will introduce a fully refreshed student experience, Office 2013 introductory content, backward compatibility of 2007 & 2010 content and new course management features. The pre-release version is OPT-IN ONLY. If you’re an early adopter and would like to use the pre-release version starting the week of June 9th, please complete the form referenced in the email sent to your SIMnet administrator email address.

Please note: ALL SIMnet account URLs will be automatically converted to the new version during the week of July 21st for the final release of SIMnet for Office 2013 interface and content. For more information, please contact your McGraw-Hill representative.

If you are using Windows 8 and Internet Explorer 10, you must run Internet Explorer in desktop mode in order to use the Adobe Flash Player (which is required to run the current version of SIMnet).

The SIMnet home page will display the following message at the bottom of the window if you are not in desktop mode:

Click the Open button to switch to Internet Explorer in desktop mode where you can log in to SIMnet as usual.

For more information about running add-ons such as the Adobe Flash Player in Internet Explorer 10, see this page from Microsoft, Manage add-ons for Internet Explorer 10: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/internet-explorer/manage-add-ons#ie=ie-10

Internet Explorer 10 is designed to provide an add-on free experience, and will play HTML5 and many Adobe Flash Player videos without needing to install a separate add-on. Add-ons and toolbars will only work in Internet Explorer for the desktop. To view a page that requires add-ons in Internet Explorer, swipe down or right-click to bring up the Address bar, tap or click the Page tools button, and then tap or click View on the desktop.