ella

ella is short for electronic learning arena. It is our collaborative online environment based on a customized deployment of the Sakai Learning Management System. ella provides the Mount Holyoke community with a powerful set of web-based tools for teaching, learning, and sharing all sorts of information.

Quick Facts for Everyone

Anyone in the Mount Holyoke community - faculty, staff or students – automatically has access to ella and a subset of its tools. Log in to ella and check out the section called “My Workspace” to see the tools available to you.
Campus groups including staff committees, official student organizations, and academic departments may request an ella project site to foster collaboration in the community.
For more quick tips on using ella, see the ella Quick Start Guide or jump down to the ella Help Documents at the end of this page.

Quick Facts for MHC Students

Many faculty use ella for announcements, syllabi, readings, discussions, and other activities. Your instructor will tell you if s/he will be using this tool. If your faculty member is using ella, e.g. if you need to get to any E-Reserves, point your web browser to ella. Log in with your MHC username and password.
Please note: not all courses will have an ella course site activated. If you are registered for a course in ISIS and you do not see an ella course site after logging in, you may want to ask your professor whether he or she is planning to use ella.

Quick Facts for Five College Students

You will need to obtain an MHC guest account in order to access ella.
After receiving your MHC account information, give your new MHC username to the faculty member. S/he will then need to add this username to the ella course site so that you have immediate access to course materials.
The five-college registration process is quite slow and may otherwise delay your course access for weeks.

Quick Facts for Faculty

Each semester, an ella course site will be automatically generated for most courses in the current ISIS system. (Exceptions are cross-listed course titles and independent studies, lab sections or tutorials.) These sites can be used for holding course materials, if the faculty member desires, or simply as the access point for the E-Reserves.
Students registered for your course will not see your ella course site until you "Publish" it. You can also replace the generic Home message with a course description and/or contact information. Instructions are available in the Publishing a New Site handout, or just ask your Liaison.
Mount Holyoke students who have registered for your class via ISIS will automatically be added to your ella course site’s roster and automatic roster updates will continue during Add/Drop period. However, there may be situations where you need to add a participant to your class manually, particularly five-college students and auditors. See the ella Access page for further details.

Training Opportunities for Faculty

Preparing your courses for this semester? First time using ella? LITS Liaisons encourage faculty and staff to schedule one-on-one consultations; we'll gear our session to meet your learning goals. Please contact your liaison or email RIS to get started.
E-reserves? If your course has e-reserves, they will be made available to you and your students through ella. If you have not used e-reserves for a course before, the Digitization Center will work with you to prepare materials and load them in your course site.
Prefer to explore on your own? Read on for a variety of do-it-yourself guides to ella.