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SAS® OnDemand for Academics

Getting Started with SAS® OnDemand for Academics

If you are an instructor and you are planning to use SAS® OnDemand for Academics to teach a course, we recommend that you start by reviewing the following reference information. This information is a combination of best practices and feedback from actual users.

Step One: Review System Requirement Information

Time Required: Five minutes

Verify that you and your students can accept the system requirements for the SAS® OnDemand for Academics software application(s) that you plan to use. For example, SAS® Enterprise Guide and SAS® Enterprise MinerTM software clients are incompatible with Macintosh operating systems; this information could impact your course.

For more information, see System Requirements

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Step Two: (Optional) Verify Network Performance

Time Required: Varies

If you plan to teach in a lab or a seminar setting in which many students will access and use SAS® OnDemand for Academics software applications at the same time, then you should verify the performance of the network that you plan to use (Internet bandwidth, wireless router capacity, and so on).

If the network performance is not sufficient, then your students could experience slow or dropped connections to the hosted SAS Servers that are used to perform SAS processing.

You can contact the appropriate network or IT department personnel to request additional information. Share the following information with them to ensure they gather accurate data:

There are also a number of tools available through the Internet that you or the appropriate network personnel can use to check network performance. SAS also offers a tool that might help. To access this tool, perform the following steps:

  1. Go to the following Web site: http://netcheck.sas.com/.
  2. Select Test 3.

Note: If you are not teaching in a lab or seminar setting, then performance is typically not an issue. Each student connects to the hosted SAS Servers to perform processing using their own high-speed Internet connection. If individual students have network connection issues, they can try to use a computer on a different network or contact their Internet Service Provider.

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Step Three: Register as an Instructor

Time Required: 15 minutes

Register as an instructor in order to begin using the software. There is no cost or obligation associated with registration, but it will prepare you to use this offering. It will also give you a general idea of the steps that your students will have to complete (even though student registration is slightly different than instructor registration).

  1. Go to the following Web site: http://support.sas.com/ctx3/sodareg/index.html
  2. Enter your e-mail address and then click Enter.
  3. Follow the steps to register as an instructor. When prompted to enter an e-mail address, be sure to enter an address that you can easily access. As part of registration, an e-mail will be sent to your address and you will have to open it to confirm your registration. If you do not receive the e-mail, please check your junk e-mail folder.

For more information:

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Step Four: Register a Course

Time Required: Five minutes

You must register a course in order to:

When students register, they must select a university, an instructor, and a course. If you invite students to register for SAS® OnDemand for Academics before you have registered a course, they won't be able to select your course. This could lead to confusion and support calls.

To register a course:

  1. Go to the following Web site: http://support.sas.com/ctx3/sodareg/index.html
  2. Log on to the Control Center using your e-mail address and your SAS Profile password.
  3. Click Register a Course and then follow the instructions.
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Step Five: Install and Use the Software

Time Required: One hour (this time could vary based on your internet connection speed)

By installing and using the software ahead of time, you will be able to anticipate possible student issues, develop content that might be specific to using SAS OnDemand for Academics, and have an understanding of how long it should take students to install the software themselves.

To install the software:

  1. Go to the following Web site: http://support.sas.com/ctx3/sodareg/index.html
  2. Log on to the Control Center using your e-mail address and your SAS Profile password.
  3. Scroll to the bottom of your Control Center Home Page. You will see a table that lists the course(s) that you have registered.
  4. Click Download Software or Get Software for the appropriate course and then follow the instructions.

To review step-by-step installation instructions (including screen captures), see Account Setup and Registration.

After the software is downloaded and installed, you can begin using it. There are a number of resources available to help you. Ideally, you should perform this step before you develop your course outline as SAS OnDemand for Academics software applications function slightly differently than their traditional SAS software counterparts.

For more information:

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Step Six: Review and Test Course Materials before the Course Begins

Time Required: 30 minutes to a few days

SAS provides course materials that some instructors might choose to use or you might have course materials from previous SAS courses that you plan to refer to. In some cases, the steps needed to complete certain tasks might be different when using SAS OnDemand for Academics software applications (versus traditional SAS software applications). By reviewing and testing your course materials prior to class, you can prepare yourself and your students for any minor differences.

Note: While it might take 30 minutes or less to review available course information and test the information against SAS OnDemand for Academics, you might have to register for and/or request course materials from SAS (if applicable). This could take a few days. Please plan accordingly.

For more information about course materials from SAS, see Teaching Materials.

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Step Seven: (Optional) Upload Course Data

Time Required: 30 minutes to one hour

With SAS OnDemand for Academics, instructors have the ability to upload data files (such as SAS data sets) to hosted SAS Servers for each course. Once the data files have been uploaded, instructors and students can access the data for their course at any time using custom LIBNAME or FILENAME statements.

This feature is optional. If you plan to use or share data locally, then there is no need to complete this step.

For more information:

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Step Eight: Invite Your Students to Participate

Time Required: One Hour

After you are familiar with how SAS OnDemand for Academics works, you should invite your students to register for the offering and then access and install the software for your course. We recommend that you ask your students to complete these steps prior to the beginning of your course (if possible) or during the first week of your course. Some instructors choose to use the first class of a course to review how to perform these steps.

You can use your own experience with registration and software access and installation to determine how much time you think your students might need. These steps present issues for some students either due to their technical experience or due to issues with their personal computers. Please be prepared to answer installation and configuration questions or to refer students to the SAS OnDemand for Academics Support Site.

While it is up to you to determine how you want to invite your students to participate, we recommend that you send e-mail to the students on your course roster. In the e-mail, it might be useful to:

SAS OnDemand for Academics provides sample student communication content for each course. You can choose to use or modify this content if it is helpful. See Sample Student Communication for details.

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Step Nine: Be Prepared to Help Students

Time Required: Varies

Some students might experience issues while registering for SAS OnDemand for Academics or when accessing and installing the appropriate SAS software application for your course. We recommend that you build time in to your schedule to help these students. The following best practices can help minimize student issues:

For more information:

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