102 Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Course ID for myITlab?

You should not be asked for a course ID or instructor ID when setting up myITlab.  If the process asks for a course ID, something has gone wrong.  Make sure you go into myITlab through Brightspace when you sign up; do not go directly to Pearson or myITlab. 

MyITlab doesn't open the assignment!

If you click on the assignment and nothing happens, or it seems to start but then never actually opens the activity.  You may need to set your browser to allow pop-ups or try a different web browser. 

MyITlab won't let me edit the document!

MyITlab is a training program which gives you step-by-step directions to show you how to do various activities in office applications. 

It will give you a series of steps to do, usually on the side or bottom of the screen, with the current step in bold large text.  You need to follow the directions, doing the steps in the order given.  If you try to do anything other than the current step, it will flash up "Incorrect Action" and expect you to try again. 

I don't know how to do the steps in an assignment in myITlab!  What should I do?

The book talks about the overall situation for each assignment, and how to do each instruction.  It also includes how to do many steps that are skipped over by myITlab (myITlab does a lot of the typing for you).

In myITlab, if you click Learning Aids, you can look at Read to see a text explanation of the current step, or Watch a video  that covers the same thing.

Under Learning Aids you can also click Practice, which will take you through the current instruction step by step, showing you exactly where to click.  For most people, the Learning Aids Practice is the most useful thing.

If you come to office hours with a question about a specific part of a specific assignment, we can go over it.  You can also email me specific questions.  (If you don't ask a specific question, I have no way to know how to help you.)

I'm doing what the directions say in myITlab but it keeps saying Incorrect Action!  What should I do?

Usually when this happens, there is some very small thing that myITlab was asking for that hadn't been done.  The creators thought they had made it obvious that they wanted the cursor to be in a certain place, or a certain part of the document selected, or a certain view set, or certain checkboxes checked/unchecked, but their directions didn't make it clear enough to the student.

So the easiest thing to do is just let myITlab show you exactly what it wants you to do.  Under Learning Aids choose Practice, and it will take you through the current instruction step by step, showing you exactly where it wants you to click.

I went through Learning Aids Practice and I'm clicking EXACTLY what it showed me, step by step, and it still says "Incorrect Action"! What should I do?

My first suggestion is to just come in and do that one step on a campus computer (for instance, in the classroom); this has worked in all but one case in the past three years.

If not, it will be very hard for me to figure out what's going wrong by email unless you send me several screenshots, showing step-by-step what you did, and include a lot of text description as well, so office hours are probably your best bet.

Be sure to go through the myLab system requirements to set up your home computer for myLab if it does not seem to be working correctly.

If it still does not work, you can contact Pearson Tech Support by chat or phone (note that this is not a short process; you have to request a contact and they will get back to you which may take several days).

If you get in touch with me and ask this question, the first thing I'm going to ask you is "What did Pearson tech support say and what incident number did they give you?" They are the experts, and they have direct access to the myITlab system and your account that I don't. 

If you talk to Pearson's tech support and they say they could not fix your problem, then I can get in touch with our contact at Pearson if you give me an incident number. 

You should have at least a month of time to do even your very first myLab tutorial, so you will have lots and lots of time to have discovered a technical problem and gotten an incident number and talked to me about it; this will never be a reason for an extension (unless I am changing the due date for the entire class for a general problem that Pearson cannot fix).

I bet I can get through all the myITlab practices in the 14 day trial period they give before you have to pay.  Then I get the credit without paying, right?

If you do not pay for access (opt out of access), grades for any assignments you have finished will be removed and will not be included in the grades I see in myITlab at that point. If your grades are not available when I go to download them from myITlab at the end of the semester, I will not accept them for credit later.

I agree, textbooks cost more than they should. As yet we have not been able to find a free or low-cost package that does all the Microsoft Office training that Pearson offers. myITLab is a really, really complicated system handling the tutorials themselves, the online account system, the e-books, and the grading system, plus working with Brightspace. To do that in such a way that it can handle students from all over the world all working at once required a lot of programmers doing a lot of work. It still costs more than in should, but nobody else is doing anything like it for any cheaper.

Can I do the homework in Office 2007 / Open Office / WordPerfect / Google Docs / etc?

MS Office is officially part of this course. As an HCC student, you have access to online versions of all MS office programs both online and for download and install.