Documents and handouts: Which format
You could get all of your files uploaded now, provide links in your course main page and start letting students in right now if you wanted to. But wait for a moment. We haven't really thought about the kinds of files we should upload.
Some bits of the following section are, by necessity, a little technical. If there is anything you are unsure about then speak to your administrator, technician, or IT help desk, if you have one.
Do you use Microsoft Word to create your documents? Here's why distributing Microsoft Word documents might be a bad idea:
It's wrong to assume that students are going to have Word installed on their PC.
If students have an older version of Word than yours installed on their PC then they probably won't be able to open it. This is especially true if the document filename ends in
.docx. That's the new(ish) Microsoft Word 2007 format which isn't compatible with previous versions of Word. There is free compatibility software available from...
