File Management Skills

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Creating folders When you begin an online course, you may want to create a folder with the name of the course to hold notes, assignments, and any other files you have related to the course. You may want to keep this folder on your desktop so you can access it easily. To create a new folder, go to your desktop, click on the right hand button on your mouse, select New, and Folder. Once the folder appears on your desktop, double-click on the New Folder and type in an appropriate folder name.

 

Saving and retrieving files from hard drive / or disk To keep your work, you need to be able to save it. But you also need to be able to find the file when you're ready to work on it again. You should know how to organize your files so you can find and use them again. This skill can also help you download programs or files from the Internet and to save them where they are easy to locate and retrieve.

Renaming files Being able to rename your files is important in an online course because you can keep copies of multiple drafts of assignments. For example, you are working on a group assignment to analyze a case study. Your group decides to divide the case into different parts and each person takes a part to work on. You are responsible for putting the parts together to submit to the instructor, so the other students e-mail their parts of the assignment to you. To keep track of each person's work, you copy and paste the work into the original document with the case study and rename it to include their name (e.g. casestudyjohn.doc, casestudysusan.doc). To change the name of a file, highlight the current name and then type the new name.

Deleting files It is good idea to delete files you are no longer using so you are not filling up your computer's hard drive with files you don't need. It is a good idea, however, to keep all files related to your course until the course is over.

For PC computers with Windows platforms:

New Perspectives on Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional - Comprehensive, edited by Donna Gridley

This book and others in the New Perspectives series are available from the Thomson Learning website.

For Macintosh computers:

Mac OS 9.0 / 9.X: Visual QuickStart Guide, by Maria Langer. This is a good comprehensive guide to using Macintosh computers.

For the Internet and World Wide Web

Light on the Internet: Essentials of the Internet and World Wide Web, by Wendy G. Lehnert

Check out these books at Chapters Online or at the Grant MacEwan Bookstore.