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Dealing with Disappearing Images

Floyd Csir

Instructional Support Specialist

Center for Support of Instruction

Published: March-April 2010

Category: » Webtycho » Classroom-setup

You've set up your classroom and everything is ready to go. On the second day of class, a student posts a note in one of the conferences, indicating that he/she cannot see the images in one (or more) of the documents you placed in Course Content. Another student replies and concurs with the first student's note that the images are broken. You check the document(s) in question right in the classroom; the images display perfectly for you. What gives?

An image-viewing discrepancy between what you see and what your students see can occur when you copy and paste text and images (instead of importing the content) from a colleague's course into your own classroom. The problem can also occur when you import a colleague's content if the images being imported were not part of the classroom image library (also know as the "place holder for files" area). Here is an example of an image that is not displaying correctly: 

If your students can't see the images (but you can), then it is likely that the images have a path that points to the original course and/or instructor's media files from which you copied/imported the content. The students can not see these images because they do not have access to the orginal course in which they are located.

To check the image path, access the image in your browser.

• In Internet Explorer, right-click on an image and then select Properties from the mini menu (see image).
• In Firefox, right-click on an image and then select View Image from the mini menu (see image).

If the URL contains an instructor's user name (for example, http://tychousa7.umuc.edu/CSIS999/0909/0004/class.nsf/userMedia/jsmith/$FILE/fcpfhtxp8882985194766913169.gif), then the image was inserted into the document by either pasting the image directly into the content area or by importing the image from the instructor's own computer. The image is then stored as part of the instructor's own (personal) media files within the WebTycho system, not in the classroom's media library. This means that if another instructor imports the content into his/her classroom, the students will not be able to see the images beause they do not have access to your image folder.

Only those images that have been saved in the "place holder for files" media folder can be imported seamlessly into another classroom.

An image that has been placed in a "place holder for files" folder will have a URL similar to this: http://tychousa7.umuc.edu/CSIS999/0909/0004/class.nsf/media/FileHolder/$FILE/2-1.jpg

If you find that the URL of an image in your document resembles this second example—which includes media/FileHolder rather than userMedia in the URL—check the URL to be sure that it has the correct course information (course number, semester, and section—as indicated by /CSIS999/0909/0004/ respectively in the example above) for the class you are currently teaching. It is possible that the URL of the image is pointing to the previous semester's class or to a different section of the class in the current semester. Both of these situations would prevent your students from seeing the image because they cannot access files in a classroom that they have not been rostered into.

If you discover that they image path resembles http://tychousa7.umuc.edu/CSIS999/0909/0004/class.nsf/userMedia/jsmith/$FILE/fcpfhtxp8882985194766913169.gif? Unfortunately, there is no quick, one-step remedy for these image issues. To fix the broken images, you will need to follow all the steps outlined below. (NOTE: Before you begin, you will want to ensure that the Advanced Text Formatting Editor is enabled in your account preferences.)

Part 1: Download the Original Images

1. Open the original course in WebTycho.
2. Click the Course Content link from the left-hand menu.
3. Select an item from the Course Content list that you have copied/imported into your new classroom and whose images do not display properly in your classroom.
4. With the document open, right-click on each image, one at a time, and save them locally to your computer (see image Firefox|Internet Explorer). When saving the images to your computer, it's a good idea to rename them to something meaningful, such as "3-1.jpg" for chapter 3, image 1. This will make things easier for you when you replace the broken images with the new downloaded images.

NOTE: You will need to repeat steps 2–4 above for each document you have copied/imported where the images are not displaying correctly.

Part 2: Upload the Images to Your Classroom's Media Library (aka "Place holder for files")

Once you have downloaded all the necessary images to your computer, you will need to upload them to your classroom's media library. In WebTycho, this is area is named, by default, "place holder for files."

1. Open your current WebTycho classroom.
2. Click the Faculty Center link from the left-hand menu.
3. Select Manage next to Course Content.
4. Select Edit next to place holder for files (see image).
5. Scroll down to the Attach Files area of the page and click the Add Attachments button (see image).
6. Add the newly downloaded image files (up to five) as attachments (see image).
7. Click Submit to add the files to the classroom's media library (see image).

NOTE: Due to WebTycho's five-attachments-at-a-time limit, if you have more than five images to attach, you will need to repeat this process in batches of five.

Part 3: Insert the Images into Your Content

Finally, you will need to add the new images to your content.

1. Click the Faculty Center link from the left-hand menu.
2. Select Manage next to Course Content.
3. Click Edit next to the item you want to work on.
4. Find the broken/missing image in the text box and select it.
5. Press the Delete key on your keyboard to remove the broken image.
6. Click the Insert Image icon on the menu bar (see image)
7. From the Insert Image dialog box, select the Image Library icon. Scroll through the image list to find and select the appropriate image (see image).
8. Click OK to insert the image in the document.

NOTE: You will need to repeat steps 4–8 for each image that needs to be replaced in the document.

When you have finished inserting all the correct images into your content, click Submit at the bottom of the screen to save and publish your work to WebTycho (see image). Your images will now be linked to files stored in the classroom media library, and your students will be able to see them.

Related Resources

• WebTycho Faculty Guide, Class Import
  http://tychousa.umuc.edu/wtdocs/wthelp/html/classimport.html