Navigating in Vista

Navigating in Vista -- A Student's Guide

When you select a course title on your My Vista page within Vista, you are presented with the course home page in which you can navigate through your course. This document describes the navigation features of the Course Home Page screen as well as a typical Course Content screen.

Anatomy of the Course Home Page Screen

The Home Page is where the individual components of your course are organized and presented. The home page may contain components, such as a syllabus, learning modules, individual content files, specific discussion topics, chat and whiteboard rooms, quizzes, and assignments. In addition, the home page may contain pages that further group or organize related content together. Click on an icon on the home page to access the content.

Below is a sample Vista course home page, with some of the various navigation links highlighted.

General Links

My Vista

once you have entered other Vista screens, you can click this link to go back to My Vista (this page) where all of your courses are listed.

Help

gives you context-sensitive online help with Vista

Log-out

logs you out of your current Vista session. Log out if you will be idle for an extended period of time and before closing your browser window.

Course Toolbar

The Course Toolbar is the row of icons or tool names that appears in the top frame of the page and contains links to the main page of a tool. From the main page of a tool, you can access any of the available components of the tool for the course that you are in. Note that some tools, such as My Grades, are only available as a link on the course toolbar.

Syllabus

provides you with information about your course. The syllabus can have multiple items, such as resources, course policies, course requirements, and information about the instructor.

My Grades

displays all released grades for your course.

Mail

allows you to communicate with other Vista users via written correspondence -- in text or HTML format -- and file attachments. You can use this mail tool to exchange messages with other Vista users, but you cannot use it to exchange messages over the internet.

Calendar

allows you to view and create entries for campus or personal events. You can view entries for a day, a week or a month.

Drop-down Course Menu

With this drop-down list you can navigate organizer pages, but you cannot access content

Show Course Menu in Frame

This icon will open a frame on the left side of your browser. With this frame, you can navigate organizer pages and access content.

Home Icon

Clicking this icon will return you to the course home page, which gives you access to components, such as a learning module, discussion topic, or quiz.

Links to Components, Organizer Pages and Files

Both content and organizer pages appear as icons and text links.

Anatomy of a Course Content Screen

Course Toolbar

The course toolbar is a row of icons that link to a specific section of your course, such as Syllabus, My Grades, Mail and Calendar.

Syllabus

provides you with information about your course. The syllabus can have multiple items, such as resources, course policies, course requirements, and information about the instructor.

My Grades

displays all released grades for your course.

Mail

allows you to communicate with other Vista users via written correspondence -- in text or HTML format -- and file attachments. You can use this mail tool to exchange messages with other Vista users, but you cannot use it to exchange messages over the internet.

Calendar

allows you to view and create entries for campus or personal events. You can view entries for a day, a week or a month.

Home Icon

Clicking this icon will return you to the course home page, which gives you access to components, such as a learning module, discussion topic, or quiz.

Breadcrumbs

Breadcrumbs are located right under the name of your course and begin with Home. Breadcrumbs tell you where you are in the course site and where you've been. Click any of the breadcrumb links to return to either a specific organizer page or the home page.

Action Menu

The Action Menu, which is located in the top right hand corner of every item in the learning module (see figure below). You can use the Action Menu to navigate through the learning module or access components.

From left to right, the action menu items are:

Bookmarks

Calls up the Bookmark tool, which allows you to mark and gain access to important pages within learning modules. With the bookmark tool, you can add bookmarks, add comments to each bookmark, edit your comments and delete bookmarks.

Create Printable View

Calls up the Create Printable View screen, which allows you to select all or parts of content in a learning module. The printable view can be printed or saved to a file.

Notes

Calls up the Notes pop-up window from which you can enter relavant notes for the content file you are currently in. The Notes pop-up also features a View Notebook command button, which lets you view all of your notes for the course.

Retrace

Allows you to retrace your steps through the learning module

Previous Page

Go to the previous item in the learning module

Next Page

Go to the next item in the learning module.