CHAR_PLAYER variable and allocating students

[lauramreid]

I've been experimenting with SIMPLE:Tools, creating blueprints, and I think I've got the hang of it.

However, my problem arises when it comes to uploading projects (to the demo version at the moment). I have no idea: how to (in the blueprint creation) dictate that a role is to be played by a student; how to allocate the students to a given role when creating the simulation; or, most importantly, what the CHAR_PLAYER variable is and what to do with it.

Help?

Laura

[mhughes2k]

1) You dictate the role that a student will take on *by* creating a blueprint for that role. There's no further actions required

2) Allocating a student to a given role is actually the process of adding a student to an instance of a simulation (I'll walk through this process further on)

3)The CHAR_PLAYER variable (and any variable that starts CHAR_PLAYER*) is a set of variables that are for holding information that relate to the role that the student is playing. In reality they are no different from any other variable, except that in projects involving multiple-players interacting with each other, their values are not "synced" with other simulations (otherwise EVERY Player-Role would end up being called the same name, have the same e-mail etc). However that's a little bit more complicated and only an issue in multi-player simulations.

Other than this behaviour in the above scenarios CHAR_PLAYER* variables are no different to any other variable. Convention would be to only store information with is relevant to the Player-Role in them e.g. Name of the Player Role in CHAR_PLAYER, Player-role's address in CHAR_PLAYER_address etc.

Also the tools by default set a blueprint property called "projectNameFormat" to "{CHAR_PLAYER}" which means that when an instance of that blueprint is create (a simulation), its name is set to the what every CHAR_PLAYER is set to.

Allocating Students to Roles
(Do all of this as a "super-admin")
1. Ensure you have a user account for the student (this can be managed via the "Manage Users" link). Each student that will be using SIMPLE needs their own account, and you can add additional accounts by clicking on the "Add User" link.
2. Ensure you've uploaded your project to the server.
3. Create a Simulation Instance, by using the "Create Simulation" option next to each blueprint in your project. You now have a simulation representing a role.
4. You can now go in to the "Manage Simulations" tab, and you should find listed under the appropriate blueprint, a simulation, which has an ID number, a name, the blueprint it is based on and the creator.
5. Click on the simulation's name, and you'll be taken to a page which will allow you manage the simulation.
6. Near the bottom of the page there is a "Users" section. This section lists what users can access the simulation and what they can do in the simulation. To add a "normal" student to the simulation to allow them to "play" it, simply click on the "Add User to Simulation" option, tick next to their name and click "Add".

And that's the process for setting up a simulation, and adding a single student user to it.

[lauramreid]

Thank you.

Laura