Key troubleshooting tips for Glow e-portfolios
Key troubleshooting tips for Glow e-portfolios
This helpsheet explains how to remedy some of the errors which can most
commonly occur when pupils are creating their e-portfolio using a Glow blog. It
also gives solutions for correcting errors that might not be spotted until later,
after the e-portfolios have been created.
The step numbers below tie in with those in the ‘How to create and e-portfolio’
helpsheet which can be found in the National e-portfolio Glow Group.
Possible Issue 1
Step 9 – Clicking OK to create the ‘My e-portfolio’ Glow Group in My Glow and
getting the message ‘A Glow Group with that name already exists or the name
contains unsupported characters’.
Since the pupil is instructed to call the Glow Group ‘My e-portfolio’, this error
should not be because the name contains an unsupported character. The error
typically occurs because the pupil has double-clicked on ‘ok’, causing Glow to try
to create the Glow Group twice, once on each click, and hence gives the message
that a Glow Group of that name already exists.
Remedy:
1. Click the ‘Back to’ link at the top left of the page to go back to Glow Light
2. Click the My Stuff button, then choose My Glow from the menu that
appears
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Key troubleshooting tips for Glow e-portfolios
3. Click Modify Shared Page
4. Click Add web parts,
5. Click Search
6. In the search box, type in Glow Groups, then click Go
7. Click on Virtual Server Gallery
8. Check that Glow groups is highlighted then click Add.
9. The Glow Groups web part will now appear on the page.
More often than not, the ‘My e-portfolio’ Glow Group will be visible in the
web part. Click on it to go to the Glow Group.
The pupil can now continue to follow the notes as normal from step 10 by
clicking the ‘Add to favourites’ link at the top of the Glow Group
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Key troubleshooting tips for Glow e-portfolios
10. If there is no ‘My e-portfolio’ Glow Group visible in the web part, the pupil
can create one now, by clicking on the New Glow Group link
The pupil can now continue to follow the notes as normal from step 8, by
typing My e-portfolio in the Name box.
Possible Issue 2
Step 20 – Clicking OK to create the blog and getting the message ‘A blog already
exists with the path that you have chosen, please enter another path’
This message typically appears if a pupil has double-clicked on ‘ok’.
Remedy:
Frequently, simply clicking on the Back to Noticeboard’ link to go back to the
Glow Group will reveal that the blog has in fact been created, and so the pupil can
simply carry on from there.
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Key troubleshooting tips for Glow e-portfolios
If this is not the case though,
Click Create again in the Blog web part, and repeat the creation process.
If the same issue occurs, click Create again and create the blog with a slightly
different name. For example, add a number to the end of the pupil’s Glow
username. Choose a high number, such as 123, to avoid accidentally using
another user’s actual username.
Possible Issue 3
Step 23/24: When trying to add members, the pupil sees this error message:
This issue occurs when the pupil misses out step 23.
Instead of clicking on Go to Site Administration as instructed at step 23, the pupil
clicks on Manage Users (the instruction for step 24)
Remedy:
Click the Back button in the browser
then follow the notes as normal from
step 23, beginning by clicking on Go to Site Administration.
Author: Glow Team
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Key troubleshooting tips for Glow e-portfolios
Possible Issue 4
Step 47: The link in the e-portfolio Glow Group does not open up the pupil’s
e-portfolio, and an error message is shown, saying that the web page cannot be
displayed eg
This issue occurs if the pupil has not completed step 43, requiring them to delete
the http:// in the URL
box:
Remedy:
1. In the school e-portfolio Glow Group, click on the title of the web part list
where the pupil’s name is displayed.
2. Click the Edit icon next to the name of the pupil whose link is not working
3. Edit the URL to remove the initial http://
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Key troubleshooting tips for Glow e-portfolios
4. Click Save and Close
Check that clicking on the pupil’s name in the web part now opens their- eportfolio.
If the error is not that the http:// has not been deleted, you can check that the
correct URL of the pupil’s blog has been correctly pasted in by following the same
process as above. If the URL is incorrect, delete the one that has been entered
and paste in the correct link. You may need to open up the view of the pupil’s
blog again to copy the link first.
Possible issue 5:
Staff trying to view a pupil’s e-portfolio in the school Glow Group get a message
saying: You do not have sufficient permissions to access this blog
After the pupils have set up their e-portfolios, you may come across a problem if
a pupil has not completed all of the steps correctly, but has not alerted you to this
during the creation process.
One example of this would be that a member of staff clicks on a pupil’s name in
the school e-portfolio Glow Group and gets this message:
Remedy:
This problem occurs if the person trying to access the e-portfolio has not been
added in the membership of the pupil’s My e-portfolio Glow Group. For some, this
may be as intended. However, if the person trying to access the e-portfolio
should have permission to view it, it is often that the pupil has incorrectly entered
the ‘code’ at step 27 in the notes.
The pupil has to log in to remedy this. It cannot be done by staff. They do the
following:
1. Go to the My e-portfolio Glow Group. The easiest way is
to click on Favourites on the Glow Light screen,
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Key troubleshooting tips for Glow e-portfolios
then click on My e-portfolio in the Glow Groups list
2. Click on Advanced Settings
3. Click on Site Settings
4. Click on Go to Site Administration
5.
Click on Manage Users
6. Click Add Users.
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Key troubleshooting tips for Glow e-portfolios
7. Delete the text that is currently in the ‘Choose Users’ box.
8. When the box is empty, type in:
xxxxxxx-teachingstaff;xxxxxxx–nonteachingstaff
where xxxxxxx must be replaced by your school seed code. Make sure
that you’ve not used any spaces or capital letters.
9. Scroll down the page and click in the box next to Administrator.
10. Click Next.
(If you see red error messages, click Back and check the details you entered
in the ‘Choose Users’ box.)
11. Scroll to the bottom of the screen and click Finish.
12. Click Back to Noticeboard at the top left of the screen.
This should now give the member of staff access to view the pupil’s eportoflio.
Possible issue 6:
Pupils delete some of the pages in their e-portfolio.
Remedy:
This can be done either by the pupil, or by a member of staff who has admin
rights in the pupil’s My e-portfolio Glow Group (typically all who have permission
to view the e-portfolio if the notes have been followed correctly when setting up
the e-portfolio)
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Key troubleshooting tips for Glow e-portfolios
1. Begin by going to the Dashboard of the e-portfolio.
Do this by going to the pupil’s e-portfolio and clicking the Edit link on the
All About Me page.
Note: If the All About Me page has been deleted, click on edit on any
page, or any post. For example, on the Latest Posts page, you can click
Edit next to the post title.
2. Once in the Dashboard, click Pages in the left hand menu
3. Click on Trash
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Key troubleshooting tips for Glow e-portfolios
4. Hover over the title of the page that has been deleted and click on
Restore
5. Repeat step 4 for all pages that have been trashed (except for the ‘About’
page, which was deliberately deleted as part of the set up process)
NOTE: If pupils have deleted posts, the above process will restore these.
However, at step 2, click on Posts in the menu bar, rather than Pages, to
begin.
Possible issue 7:
A pupil writes a post and saves it, but only the title saves, not the content.
This issue is generally seen when Compatibility View has not been switched on in
the browser. It is essential when using Internet Explorer 8 and Internet Explorer
9 that compatibility view is switched on before using the e-portfolios (and in fact,
Glow in general).
Remedy:
On your internet browser bar, click once on the grey icon that looks like a broken
piece of paper.
Ensure that it turns blue. Do not double click or this will turn it back to grey.
This should resolve any non-savings issues for posts.
Always get pupils to check that the icon is blue before they use their e-portfolios.
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Key troubleshooting tips for Glow e-portfolios
Possible Issue 8:
The pupil does not have the All About Me page as their e-portfolio welcome page.
This is caused when the pupil does not follow the instructions properly for steps
70-76.
Remedy:
To remedy this, go to the Dashboard of the e-portfolio and follow steps 70-76 of
the pupil notes:
70. At the bottom of the left-hand menu, click Settings.
71. Click Reading.
72. Check that the ‘Reading Settings’ page is now shown.
73. VERY IMPORTANT! Click the button next to ‘A static page’.
74. From the ‘Front page’ menu choose All About Me.
75. From the ‘Posts page’ menu choose My Latest Posts.
76. At the bottom of the screen click Save Changes.
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Key troubleshooting tips for Glow e-portfolios
Possible Issue 9:
A pupil sets the wrong theme.
Remedy:
1.
Go to the pupil’s e-portfolio eg by clicking on their name in the school
e-portfolio Glow Group
2.
Click Edit on the ‘All about me’ page to take you into the Dashboard
3.
Click on Appearance in the left hand menu bar to open the themes section
4.
Look for the blue K2 theme and underneath it, click Activate.
This theme will now appear at the top of the page.
5.
Now look for the correct e-portfolio theme and click Activate underneath it.
The theme will vary from Authority to Authority, but will typically be called
Profiling with Glow and will have your Local Authority logo on it eg
Check with your Glow key contact if you are not sure which theme to apply
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Key troubleshooting tips for Glow e-portfolios
This will set the correct theme. Check the settings are correctly applied,
particularly those from steps 70-80 in the pupil ‘How to create and e-portfolio’
notes.
Author: Glow Team
Page 13 of 13
Ref: GC754