Instructor-led classes in OrasiLabs are used for any training event that will be facilitated by an instructor either in person or virtually. If your class is designed to be taken by students without involvement from an instructor, please refer to creating an on-demand class.

Delivering a class in OrasiLabs will provision lab environments for the instructor(s) and student(s) as defined by the lab templates associated with the class. Instructors will be able to view and take control of student labs as necessary. The steps to create an instructor-led class are described in creating an instructor-led class.

Instructor-led classes mature through an iterative lifecycle. Normally, they start in a Scheduled state, advance to In Session, then are Not In Session, and finally are Finished. For more detail about the class lifecycle, please see the article Instructor-led Class Life-cycle.

To deliver a class, you must first open the class from the Classes list or the My Upcoming Classes widget in the Dashboard. To open from the Classes list, select the class name from the list.

After opening the class, the current status and schedule will be shown. Below are sections that can be expanded to manage the participant labs, the current students, and the libraries for the class.

Open the Class Details to view the class schedule and basic information. These details are established during the Create Class wizard and can be modified using the Edit Class feature.

The arrow at the top of the screen will reveal a control panel with access to the common actions that are typically performed while delivering a class. This control panel is available while on the Classroom, My Labs, or Student Labs tab. For additional details on the Instructor control panel, please refer to the article Using the Instructor Control Panel

To begin the class delivery, select Begin A Session.  You will also have the option to start labs and if applicable, start the conference.  Starting the labs and conference can also be done later - see below.  Beginning a session opens the class for students to access their labs. When a class is Not In Session, any students that login will be able to see the class details but will not be able to access their labs. If any students are waiting when you select Begin A Session, they will automatically be given access to their labs.

Once the class is in In Session, you will have access to the Chat tab if it has been enabled in the class. For additional details on the chat feature, please refer to the article Classroom Chat.

Once the class is started, End This Session will be available (see below). Selecting End This Session will log all students out of the class and lock the class until Begin A Session is invoked again. If this is the last day of the class schedule, Finish Class will also be available to initiate the "pack up" process (see below).

If your class was created to use OrasiLabs integrated conferencing features, additional conferencing options will be available on the Conferencing tab once you select Join Conference.

For additional details on OrasiLabs integrated conferencing, please refer to the article Creating a Class Conference.

Class labs are defined by the Lab Templates associated with the class. Specifically, there will be one class lab for each combination of participant (student or instructor) and lab template. In most cases, there is only one lab template associated with the class, but it is possible to add multiple templates.

If you did not select to start the labs when the session started, they should be started now. To start the labs, open Lab Management and select Start for either all labs (represented by the arrow icon on the lab template heading) or individual participant labs (represented by the arrow icon on the participant row). The time required to start a lab will vary based on the resources included in the template design. If this is the first time the class labs have been started, the labs will be provisioned and might take a few extra minutes to start running. If the labs were previously paused, the labs will start relatively quickly.

Labs can also be started before the class is started. This is often desirable so that students don't have to wait for the provisioning process. In this case, the instructor may choose to start the labs 10-15 minutes before class starts. Also, instructors can schedule labs to start automatically at a specified time by creating a lab schedule. Keep in mind, though, that cloud usage fees start to accrue as soon as the lab is started.

A Library is a named, reusable set of files. Libraries are attached to classes and then used to quickly copy files to participant labs and/or student classrooms. The Libraries section allows the instructor to add or remove libraries from the class labs at will. Most libraries are automatically sent to their intended location, but sometimes the instructor needs manual control over when the libraries are deployed. To deploy a library to the students' labs, select Send (represented as a paper airplane icon) in the Libraries section.

For details on how to deploy or remove libraries from a class, please see the article Deploying Libraries.

Open My Labs to display the instructor lab thumbnail. The instructor lab is typically the machine an instructor will use to deliver class content. This is also often the window being shared in the class web conference.

Also, as with the Lab Template editor and the Student Portal, the instructor lab thumbnail can be resized to Expanded and Full-Screen view. Once expanded, there is also an Options pane available to access the lab clipboard and set a custom display resolution. Show Custom Data (represented as an "i" in a circle") is also available in the Thumbnail and Expanded views.

Open Student Labs to monitor student activity. All of the students enrolled in the class are listed, and the list is divided into Running and Inactive labs. Inactive status includes both paused and stopped labs. As labs start and stop, the list will be updated dynamically.

In addition, there is a login indicator next to each student's name (represented as a shaded circle). This shows whether the student is currently logged into the class and is shaded as follows:

To watch a student's activity, select Add to Watch List next to the student's name. This will open a thumbnail above the student list that shows real-time activity for that student. Multiple thumbnails can be opened at once, and Add All to Watch List can be used to open thumbnails for all active students at once.

Expand Lab will expand the student thumbnail to focus on a single student at a time. This will enlarge the thumbnail to fill the browser pane but retain the browser container margins.

Once the thumbnail is expanded, Unlock (represented as a locked padlock in the top left corner of the expanded thumbnail) will allow the instructor to assume keyboard and mouse control in the student lab. While the session is unlocked, both the instructor and the student can control the keyboard and mouse. Relock (represented as an unlocked padlock in the top left corner of the expanded thumbnail) will then manually return the session to exclusive control by the student.

Use Collapse to return the student view to a thumbnail. If the student session is unlocked when Collapse is selected, the session will automatically be relocked.

Students have a Request Help option in their student interface which will notify all instructors assigned to the class that the student requires assistance. Instructors will get notified in the following ways:

For complete details, please refer to the article Monitoring and Responding to Student Help Requests.

At any time, an In Session class can be changed to Not In Session. Selecting End This Session will automatically prevent students from accessing their labs. Classes are typically changed to Not In Session at the end of each day during a multi-day course or during long breaks where the instructor wants to make sure the students are not accessing their labs.

If you want the students to be able to continue working after class time (e.g., to practice that day's skills or prepare for the next day), you must leave the class In Session.

Note that moving a class to Not In Session does not automatically affect whether the class labs are running.  You will be given the option to stop the labs when ending the session. Labs that are not stopped when the session ends will continue to run unless manually paused/stopped or an inactivity timeout threshold is reached. At any time, you can use the Lab Management options to pause or stop labs, as desired.

On the final day of a scheduled class, Finish Class can also be selected. Prior to the last day, Finish Class will not be available. If selected and the verification dialog is confirmed, Finish Class will begin the "pack-up" process for the class. Specifically, this includes the following steps:

While the pack-up process is running, the class will be unavailable to both instructors and students. Once it is complete, the class can be manually deleted from the Classes list or it will be automatically deleted after two weeks of inactivity.

As a best practice, we recommend that all students are logged off and all labs are manually stopped prior to invoking Finish Class. In fact, it is often a good idea to select End This Session before selecting Finish Class to ensure the students are properly disconnected.

Class Overview
Creating an On-demand Class

Creating a Class Conference

Instructor-led Class Life-cycle

What Should I Tell New Students?

Using the Student Portal

Lab Template Overview
Library Overview