When you do an import it automatically goes into the personal folder for the person importing the design. That way you can look at them, tweak anything you want to tweak for LAMS 2.0 (given that LAMS 2.0 has new options), before copying the design to a shared folder.
So if they are showing up in your personal folder, it suggests that the instructor imported them when logged in as you. At least, LAMS thought it was you.
The My Groups has a folder for each matching "section" on the Blackboard side. Now when I say "section", I can't remember what exactly that matches on the Blackboard side but I think it is "section". On other systems it matches on "course", or maybe "module".
These folders are shared by all users in that section/course/module, so everyone who has authoring access get that folder and can save designs there. So if you talk to the other staff using LAMS in your courses you should be able to find out which folders everyone can see, and then you can use them as shared folders.
Unfortunately the way the integrations work, we have trouble getting a nice name for the folder from Blackboard, so you see those horrible folder names.
If you want to know which folder maps to which section/course/module in Blackboard, try starting a new lesson on the Blackboard side (ie run a learning design). Then look in all the folders in My Groups. Each folder in My Groups should have a subfolder, and in one of them there will be a copy of the learning design that you just started. That will tell you which folder goes with with section/course/module.
This copy of the learning design is actually the version of the design that LAMS uses to run the lesson. That's why you can go back in to authoring and change the learning design in authoring without affecting anybody already running it - LAMS is actually working off a copy.
This is really handy to know if someone runs a learning design with their class, then accidentally deletes their original copy in their personal folder. When they are sitting there all upset as all their hard work is gone, go into authoring, go into the subfolder, find the copy of the learning design and open it up, then do a save as to save it into the person's normal personal folder or a shared folder (or export it to a zip file so you can email it to them). You will be a hero at that point.
Now why don't we document all this? We'll because it sort of is documented but all over the place, and understanding some of the internals of how LAMS works is needed before the explanation really makes sense. And add the Blackboard integration in too and it makes it even more complicated, and the actual words (e.g. section/course/module) I'd use to explain it are probably different for Blackboard (either version), Moodle, .LRN, etc, etc.
By the way, we do want to make those folder names better. It is on the todo list. Its just a long way down the todo list.
Hope this helps!
Fiona
Posted by Fiona Malikoff
