A Pearson English MyLab. Learn more
As is the case with any good technology, MyCompLab is improving every day. The Pearson Media Team is committed to providing high quality features and content to help instructors teach and students learn. The changes listed below are the result of the feedback we've received from our users—instructors and students alike. Thank you for being part of our team!
Your feedback is valuable to us! Please feel free to email your comments and suggestions to EnglishLabs@pearson.com.
Flexible group management for Peer Review and Collaboration assignments. Instructors will have the flexibility to change groups and move students after the assignment has started. Instructors will also be able to save group settings and use those groups in future assignments.
Enhanced Draft History and Return for Rewrite. The user’s Draft History and Comments will now capture two drafts and include instructor comments for both the student and the instructor. The instructor can use Return for Rewrite twice with each student for each assignment, allowing the instructor to provide feedback and track changes without assigning a grade.
Welcome message for first-time users. A “Welcome” message for instructors and students has been added to help users get started and call attention to popular Resources, including the self-assessment diagnostics.
Deleting MyComments. Instructors can delete from their list of favorite comments (MyComments) in their commenting Toolkit.
Easier assignment creation (all assignment types). Instructors can begin building an assignment without finishing all of the steps. When they want to resume building that assignment, they can simply revisit it and pick up where they left off.
Easier assignment creation (Diagnostics and Skill Building). We have swapped Step 2 (assignment details) and Step 3 (choosing diagnostics or skill-building topics) for Diagnostic and Skill Building assignments so instructors can see the assessments prior to giving the assignment a title.
Enhanced file manager. Instructors will be able to access all functionality in the File Manager as they build assignments.
Enhanced emailing functionality. Ability to add CC, BCC, and file attachments when emailing students.
Notes and announcements. Ability to post notes and announcements to the Calendar directly from the Calendar on the Home page.
Clearer direction lines. For example, we have changed “Draft History” to “Drafts and Comments” to be more accurate and intuitive.
Enhanced multiple choice questions in Grammar topics. We added additional distracters to several multiple choice questions, thereby reducing the potential for students to make “50/50” guesses.
Interactive grammar exercises. We have added grammar application exercises (“Grammar Apply”) to make the assessment of these skills more interactive.
More assignable skill-building sets. We added assignable, self-graded quizzes to each of the Writing Purposes topics.
Updates to APA content. APA-related content now reflects certain updates made in the Sixth Edition (July 2009) of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association.
Model Documents and Sample Papers. In both Resources and Writer’s Toolkit, sample papers have been revised to reflect recent updates to MLA and APA documentation. As well, many papers are now formatted in our interactive iViewer, which includes helpful annotations in context.
Podcasts. We have added podcasts to our series by June Casagrande (author of Penguin’s Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies). New topics include Copular Verbs, Prepositions and Prepositional Phrases, Articles, Capitalization, Apostrophes, and End Punctuation. Students can find these podcasts in the Writer’s Toolkit of their Composing space.
Learning Objectives. Learning objectives will be added for each topic throughout the spring.
Writing in Action videos. Updated Writing in Action videos will be added throughout the spring. These videos demonstrate writing in an electronic environment with an updated design and interface.
New eText options. New eText options. We launched twenty new eTexts for 2010 spring/summer courses.
Comprehensive content review. We continued with our annual content review to ensure our content is accurate and effective.
New composing space. Our new composing space is easier to use, better maintains formatting, includes a word count, and much more. It’s a meaningful improvement all around. Students and instructors are going to love it!
Student summary gradebook report. Our new student summary report allows instructors to see the results of each student’s work on the practice exercises. Instructors can see total time spent on exercises, drill down into specific topics, and even compare each student’s results to the class average.
Resource diagnostics for self-paced practice/assessment. Diagnostics have been added to the Resource section for students who might be using MCL on their own or if instructors want to recommend diagnostics without having to create an assignment.
Relabeling of the To Do section of MCL to Assignments. This change will make it more intuitive for instructors to find where they can create, view, and grade assignments.
Peer Review Tips. A document describing “best practices” for Peer Review assignments has been added to the Assignment Builder. This document gives tips for using the Peer Review assignment effectively.
Clearer direction lines. The direction lines throughout the application have been revised to provide clear and precise instruction to the user, making MyCompLab easier to use.
Integrated “help tips.” Tips for using MyCompLab have been integrated throughout making it easy for users to get help with the most commonly used features.
Print Draft History. Student and instructors can more easily print their drafts and reviews.
Print Assignment Details. Students and instructors can now print assignment details.
Streamlined registration process. We were able to reduce multiple steps in the registration process by changing the way students join a course. Student will now need a CourseID to join a course. Please consult our new registration and getting-started guides for details.
Improved Grammar exercises. We’ve added assignable (Skill Building) exercise sets to twenty grammar topics. (Skill Building exercises are now available in sets of 10 rather than sets of 20, 30, or 40, which allows instructors more flexibility when creating grammar assignments.) Also, instant feedback is now available to students for the majority of grammar sets.
2009 MLA updates. Our eBooks, Resources content (instruction, multimedia, and exercises), Writer’s Toolkit, and model documents have been revised to be consistent with the new 2009 MLA updates.
New CMS content. We’ve added CMS coverage, specifically for endnotes, footnotes and bibliographic notes.
New podcasts. We’ve added to our podcast series by June Casagrande (author of Penguin’s Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies) covering several topics, including Hyphenation, Passive Voice, Plural Possessives, and Stickler Words
New eBook options. We’re launching thirteen eBooks for fall 2009 courses.
Comprehensive content review. We’ve launched our annual content review in an ongoing effort to make sure our content is error-free and effective.
Endless practice exercises. Exercises in the Resource section are now available for students to take over and over without the need for instructors to reset the topic.
Copy assignments. When instructors copy or link a course, all assignments associated with that course will copy over as well.
Delete assignments. Instructors now have the ability to delete assignments.
Shared My Comments. “My Comments” created by instructors will carry over from course to course.
Upload and attach documents. Instructors can upload and attach documents. There is a new section on the instructor Home to post documents, such as a syllabus. Instructors can also upload and attach documents to their assignments. The functionality supports multiple file types. All uploaded files can be shared with students.
Link to topics and Resources from assignments. Instructors can now link to topic pages under Resources from their assignments. This means instructors can more easily recommend or require exercises from the Resource section and complement their assignments with MyCompLab’s instruction and multimedia assets.
Longer calendar notes. The character limit on calendar notes has been increased by 400%.
New eBook platform. Beginning January 1, 2009, all eBook versions of MyCompLab include a new interactive eBook. The new eBook allows instructors and students to customize and personalize their eBook experience with highlighting, note taking and extensive search capabilities.
Test drive assignments. Instructors can now try out their assignments without limitation. If instructors attempt one of their own assignments, MyCompLab will not prevent them from making changes (e.g., adjusting groups or changing Skill Building exercises).
Grading flexibility for Skill Building assignments. Instructors can now grade Skill Building assignments using any value between 0 and 100.
New gradebook options. When clicking on a grade in the gradebook, the user now has the option to open the assignment, view the draft history or change the grade (if applicable).
Late assignments recorded in gradebook. Gradebook now records an “L” if the due date has passed and the assignment has not been submitted. The instructor can then click on the “L” and change the grade (e.g., “0”).
Emailing students. Instructors now have the ability to email all students in their roster at one time in addition to emailing students individually.
Smarthinking Tutor Review alert. Students now receive an alert on their Home page when a document reviewed by a tutor has been returned.
Clearer direction lines. As users move from page to page in the application, the directions explaining what can be done with specific functionality has been edited to be clear and concise.
Revised Multimedia Index. A more robust multimedia index allows users to easily navigate MyCompLab’s video, audio, and interactive resources.
News and announcements. The MyCompLab login page now has a “News and Announcements” section, where the MyCompLab team can post important announcements for our users.
New Skill Building exercises. Assignable Skill Building exercises have been added. There are now exercise sets for all topics.
Interactive Avoiding Plagiarism tutorials. These new animated tutorials use visuals and audio to teach students to avoid plagiarism while writing research papers.
New Chicago Manual of Style coverage. Instruction, exercises, and diagnostic tests covering CMS style have been added to the Research section of Resources.
Additional assignable diagnostics. We’ve added four new assignable diagnostic tests to give instructors more flexibility. These diagnostics are available from the Diagnostic assignment from To Do.
New Audio Lessons. Updated content and newly-designed lessons allow students to download an audio version of key topics or read the text on screen.
New Weekly podcast. Author June Casagrande (www.grammarsnobs.com) provides an interesting and entertaining introduction to writing and grammar topics. The MyCompLab Weekly Podcast is available from the login page accessible from www.mycomplab.com.
New Model Documents. New interactive model documents have been added to the Writing section under Resources, allowing students to click on highlighted portions of each document and read the corresponding annotations.
Comprehensive content review. We’ve launched a comprehensive content review/edit in an ongoing effort to make sure our content is error-free and effective.