Re: [WWdevel] hiding courses from general view

[Davide P. C. <dp...@un...>]

>> If you look at e.g. http://webwork.rochester.edu/webwork2 you will  
>> see a long list of courses most of which (in my opinion) should be  
>> hidden from general view.  I think in this general location only  
>> courses of interest to students should appear.  Does someone have  
>> in mind a good mechanism to do this?  It could be as simple as  
>> having a directory "hidden" (which shouldn't appear on the list)  
>> and then the URL  http://webwork.rochester.edu/webwork2/hidden/ 
>> old_course would give access to a hidden old course.  Or maybe  
>> there could be a directory "archive" (which maybe would appear on  
>> the list) which would need a password to enter.  Another question  
>> is whether or not the Course Administration course should appear  
>> in such a public place.
>
> The simplest thing I can think of is: if a course directory  
> contains a file named hide_course, hide the course. I would like to  
> support a hierarchical courses directory at some point as well, but  
> that's a whole 'nother problem.
> -sam

At Union, we use a naming scheme for our courses that includes the  
year and term (e.g., 05FA-MTH115-01 is Fall term 2005 Math 115  
section 01).  Our home page only shows the current term (and a custom  
"past courses" page shows past terms).  When the courses for the next  
term are creatd, they automatically show up as the current courses  
and the others are relegated to the past courses without my  
intervention.  Courses that don't match the naming scheme are not  
shown anywhere (they are considered to be "test" courses).  I also  
have special "library" courses that allow our professors to view the  
various libraries more easily, since we don't have all of them linked  
into the main courses.  The is a custom page that lists these as well.

Anyway, it seems to have worked pretty well here.

Davide