Pepper Quickstart Guide

Recommended Structure

The architecture of a course is intended to support the learner’s journey throughout the course and provide easy access to the different components used in the course. Pepper allows you organize your content as you see fit. We recommend examining your course syllabus as you plan the structure of your Pepper community.

Example

There are several alternatives for structuring a pepper community for your course. One such option is the following:

Folder arrangement in a Pepper community for a course

The folders in the structuure above serve the following purpopouses:

Start Here
Folder Type: Discussion

A folder that serves as the initial contact-point that the students have with the course in Pepper. In this folder, you can add notes for topics such as:

Course information and Syllabus
You can create an instructor bio, add a course description, special notes about the delivery mode and attach a PDF of the syllabus and any other relevant documents.
Tip: Specify the expectation for response time for messages sent by students.
Advice for the students
The Start Here folder is a good place to offer recommendations and general advice for students who are taking this course. You may want to offer advice regarding students’ management of time each week, special notes on consuming content in the course, interaction recommendations, etc.
Evaluation methods
It is generally a good practice to introduce the assessment model, expectations, and relevant rubrics in one of the first folders.
Scheduled activities
Set expectations in advance by providing students with a course schedule, webinar times, due dates for different assessments and times for other activities.
About You (Subfolder)
Create a subfolder where students can post a note describing themselves and what they are currently up to outside of their academic life. If the students know each other well, have them add a fun fact about themselves that few may know, or ask them to post an article or podcast that they enjoy.

(optional) Introduce Yourself
Folder Type: Discussion

It is a good practice to create an “Introduce Yourself” discussion folder so students can learn more about you and each other. The chief complaint about online courses is that they are less social than face-to-face courses, so anything you can do to establish a communal atmosphere is beneficial. An “Introduce Yourself” folder is particularly useful in courses where the students have never met each other before. It offers everyone a way to connect and it humanizes the online space. For students who are new to Pepper, an "Introduce Yourself” has the added advantages of getting them to practice creating and replying to notes.
Tip: This is a more visible alternative to the About You subfolder mentioned in the Start Here section above for students that may not know each other yet from past courses.

Announcements
Folder Type: Announcements

The announcements folder will contain all the general course communications with your students. Notes added to the Announcements will be available for all students in the community (read-only) as well as trigger emails to the students when a new note in this folder is posted.

Tips

Distribute Lecture Slides via Announcements
If you want to ensure that students have access to lecture slides, either before or after class, you can use an Announcement folder to create notes containing the lecture slides and additional documents so that every time those are posted an email will be sent to students. See the Appendix for more details.

Specify the Due Date
Add the due date in the assignment title.

Q&A
Folder Type: Question & Answer

Create a Q&A folder to allow students to post course related questions such as clarifications on assignment submissions, materials, following up on webinars, and other topics.

Topic/Theme/Week/Class Folders
Folder Type: Discussion

Creating a series of folders for each topic/theme/week/class in your course provides an opportunity to organize the readings, slides, additional documents, and relevant discussions in one place.

Example of a weekly/topic folder structure in Pepper

Organizing the course this way provides students with a frame on how the community will work through the course and allows students access to everything they will need for that particular topic/theme/week/class.

Tips

Using Subfolders
You can add subfolders within these main folders, so if you separate students into smaller discussion groups, or if you want to have your materials in one sub folder, and discussions in the main folder, it will allow for a greater (and an appreciated) level of organization.

Assignments
Folder Type: Dropbox

A Dropbox folder is designed to allow students to submit their work privately to the instructor without needing users to set specific permissions. Unlike other folders, students will only see their own submission. As an instructor, you can see all the submitted work from all students organized in alphabetical order.

For group assignment submission, the student generating the note with the submission must add the other students as co-authors to the note. When/if the instructor replies with feedback to the note, be sure to reply to the note and it will by default include all persons co-authored on the original note. You can include the italicized instructions on co-authoring group submissions in a Dropbox type folder for your students in the assignment description of your syllabus.

Tips

Assignment Folder Placement
Depending on the number of assignments in your course or other considerations, you may wish to place assignment folder(s) in between content folders.

Support Videos

There are several video tutorials available for Pepper:

Notes

Notes act as posts in Pepper and can support different functionalities such as supporting responses, attaching files, adding co-authors, private replying, embedding YouTube videos and other types of multimedia, and more.

The note interface has several components:

Title
The title of the note is mandatory.
Public / Private
Determines if the note is meant to be visible by all participants in the course/community or is it intended to be a private note visible only to the author and any co-authors (if selected).
Folder
Lists the location of the note in the folder structure of the course.
Co-Authors
Allows you to add one or more authors for the post enabling them to contribute content to that note and access the content that is already included. This is useful for generating public notes where a group of students have worked together on developing content that they want to make available to others, or if instructors would like to create a student sign-up sheet or informal anonymous feedback on something related to the course. Co-authors are also used for generating private notes that you want to share with select individuals and not the entire community.
Note Body
The message body is editable and supports the development of text, visual, and audio embedded features.
Attach Files
You can add files to a note.
Quit Editing
Cancels the current operation.
Post
Publish the note in the current folder.