The accessibility of downloadable resources has has increased markedly in the new portal. You can actually search for stuff based on criteria as well as browsing for them by modules while still retaining the ability to download them based on your timetable! For geeks like me, that’s almost as refreshing as looking at the schedule board on Monday morning and seeing that Friday week has no lectures scheduled (isn’t that the sweetest feeling?).
The Search and The Browse
These two combined give you very organized access to any resource that has been posted. Let’s say you’re looking for lectures from the Respiratory module. You can access them by narrowing your search in the Search fields or simply by looking at Lectures under Browse. It really depends on the “search question” you’re dealing with. “How do I find all the ethics learning resources?” would be deferred to the Search, whereas “How can I download all the lecture files from Cardio module?” would be more quickly served by perusing Browse. They both access the same stuff.

The Timetable
For those of you who like the older portal’s arrangement of resources, don’t panic. You can simply click on My Timetable, click on the week that you want to check, then the resources corresponding to the schedule should be available in that very frame. Again, it’s all about the “search question”.

I confess that this explanation required you to be a little more familiar with the portal by now. If you would like more detailed instructions on how to use the tools, please post something in the comments so that issues can be addressed.
< Back to Part 3: PBL Triggers | Forward to Part 5: Maximising the New Calendar >
August 5, 2009 at 1:22 pm
hey, is there a way to use downloadthemall to download our weekly resources on the new portal or is that function also a victim of portal cyber crime?
August 20, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Hey, cool site. Have you worked out whether the past exams are accessible through ITL yet? I’ve been looking and not finding…
Cheers,
Kate