LabTutor Teaching Suite 4.2: iPad optimization, new email options and efficient archiving

Version 4.2 of LabTutor Teaching Suite offers great new features for LabTutor Online, LabTutor Server and LabAuthor components - including access to LabTutor Online with Smart Devices such as the iPad.

Educators can give students the option to submit reports by email, or email unfinished (unsubmitted) reports to address/es of their own choice. Using the new 'Archive' feature you can also transition and store data between semesters and courses with ease, as well as delete unwanted data to free up memory on the LabTutor Server.

LabTutor Online

Access via Apple Mobile Devices

Students and educators can now access LabTutor Online through mobile devices such as the iPad. No additional software, apps or downloads are required - all that is needed is the Safari Internet Browser.

Digital learning

iPad is quickly becoming a standard tool in educational and professional settings. A growing number of university courses, including those at Stanford University, Harvard University, UCLA, and University of Adelaide, are replacing text books and notepads in favor of digital learning with the iPad. In particular, medical and nursing schools take advantage of iPad's multimedia features and apps so students can access a diverse range of reference materials with ease.

In the professional setting, 22% of US physicians owned an iPad and used it for clinical practice throughout 2010. The iPad's multimedia features were said to improve communication between doctors and their patients, and also make more time for diagnosis and patient care by assisting in data management. The influence of mobile devices in the professional world is only set to grow, with the FDA recently approving an app for standard use in medical imaging.

LabTutor Online now empowers educators and students alike, by providing an engaging educational experience using one of the world’s most popular devices.

LabTutor Server

Email reports

Administrators can use the new LabTutor Server email feature to let students email LabTutor reports to themselves, peers and instructors. Students can email copies of their report at any time (for completion, study or review), and submit complete reports to instructors via email in PDF format.

LabTutor displays an "email" button at the top of the LabTutor student interface (picture right; top), available both when an experiment is in progress and after an experiment has been submitted.

The "Email to" list in LabTutor is automatically populated with the addresses of experiment participants, however students can enter additional email addresses of their choice (picture right; bottom).

Archive student data

Archiving helps keep LabTutor Server less cluttered by letting you store and delete materials that are no longer needed. It allows clean transition of data out of LabTutor Server between semesters and courses, and can make previously occupied memory available for new data (such as students, courses and experiments).
 

With a simple click, the new “Archive Data” button stores all student report pages for a course as PDF documents. Once archived, report pages are no longer accessible to students, but can be accessed by administrators via the ‘Archives’ tab in the LabTutor Server Administration pages. The LabTutor Server administrator can also allow access to archives via LabTutor Online.

If you want to erase your archives, LabTutor Server displays an error message to prevent deletion of material that is in use.

Access archived content

Administrators can allow access to archived student records on LabTutor Online with a Windows computer. On the Experiment View page, archived reports can be viewed, downloaded in PDF format, and saved to any location (including portable storage devices).

LabAuthor

It is now easier to navigate directly to links by using the hot-key 'Ctrl+K'. The links can direct to a popup, subpage, website URL or lightbox. You can also navigate directly between text-linked materials using the new 'link' button on the 'Text-Format' panel (shown below).