Manager Manual
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| Section | User | Teacher | Admin |
| Study area | Access | Access | Access |
| Personal settings | Access | Access | Access |
| Personal groups | - | Access | Access |
| Shared groups | - | Access | Access |
| Any teacher's group | - | - | Access |
| Any teacher's settings | - | - | Access |
| Any teacher's typing tests | - | - | Access |
| General settings | - | - | Access |
| License information | - | - | Access |
With TypingMaster Online/Intra, you can view user progress in the following ways:
The Users page has two display options: Basic view and Advanced view.
Basic and Advanced views have the same structure but Advanced view has some additional filtering tools and displays more user information than the Basic view. To change between the two views, click on the tabs at the top right corner.
Note: The Advanced View is quite wide and you may need to use the horizontal scroll bar to view all information or to be able to click back to the Basic View.
The table below summarizes the user information displayed on the Users page.
| Column name | Description | |
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Users |
List of users in format "Last name, First name". The number in brackets shows the total number of users in the selected Group or All Groups. To view a Detailed report for a user, simply click on the user name. |
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User settings |
Click on the button to view and/or edit user settings (first name, last name, login ID, password and email address). | |
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Email to |
Click on the button to send email to this user. Emailing is done with your default email program. Note that you can only send email to one user at a time. |
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Group |
Shows the group this user belongs to. Note: Creating and renaming groups is done on the Groups page. |
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Total time |
Shows how much time user has spent studying (all courses). Time spent doing the free typing tests, playing the games from the menu (Windows version only) and so on is not included in this time value. Looking at the total time gives the exact time that user spent doing the course material, this better allows to assess their progress in learning touch typing, rather than just the user's time spent with the program open. |
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Login ID |
This is the use's login ID. |
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Last login |
Shows when the user has used the program last (date and time). |
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License (Lic.) |
Green sign with check mark means that this user has taken a license. Gray sign means that the user has not taken a license. In concurrent user licensing, this view shows who is using the program at the time TypingMaster Online/Intra Manager is open. TIP: If you have purchased transferable user licenses, you can free up a license by archiving the user. |
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Course |
Shows the courses this user has taken or started. |
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Status |
Shows the user's progress in the courses started. If a course is completed, the status shows Completed. If a course is in progress, the status shows the number of lessons completed out of total lessons in the course. |
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Course time |
Shows how much time in total the user has spent doing the exercises in this particular course. The time spend doing the free typing tests, playing the games from the menu (Windows version only) and so is not included in this time value. The total time gives the exact time that user spent doing the course material, this better allows to assess their progress in learning touch typing, rather than just the user's time spent with the program open. |
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Net speed |
Net speed is the total typing speed with the errors calculated into the result (more information about typing results in Appendix 1). Without brackets, this is the final test result. If shown in brackets, the course has not been completed and this is the result from the last lesson completed (shown in Status). |
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Accuracy |
Accuracy percentage is the percentage of text typed correctly (more information about typing results in Appendix 1). Without brackets, this is the final test result. If shown in brackets, the course has not been completed and this is the result from the last lesson completed (shown in Status). |
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Gross speed |
Gross speed is the total speed of keying in letters without calculating errors in the result (more information about typing results in Appendix 1). Without brackets, this is the final test result. If shown in brackets, the course has not been completed and this is the result from the last lesson completed (shown in Status) |
The filtering options are found in the blue bar at the top of Users page. Filtering is very useful if you have a large amount of users and you do not want to view every users' details.
Filtering the user view will display user information for selected group or course or according to percentage of course completed or last login time. The different filters will help in reviewing student progress quickly and we recommend that you start using them from the beginning.
NOTE: You can use several filters at the same time. If you find that some user's or group's information is not shown on the page, check that the page view is not filtered. To view all users, set "View users in.." to "All groups" and "View results for.." to "All courses".
This is a very useful feature for quickly arranging user data. If the
column heading is underlined,
user information can be sorted in ascending or descending order by clicking
on the heading. The sorting criteria used in the current view is marked
with a small triangle.
To create
a report
Below is a summary of the different report types that can be created with TypingMaster:
The simple list of users with the following data:
Summary report with the following user data:
Shows detailed user information with course status, time spent and typing results (net speed, gross speed, accuracy). This report displays all available information about the user.
On the Users page you can manage users by adding, archiving and deleting them, assigning them to groups and modifying their settings.
There are two ways to add users to TypingMaster Online/Intra. Users can
register themselves or teacher or administrator can add users in the Manager.
To Add
Users in Manager
When you start adding teacher/administrator accounts considering the following two questions might help you to administer TypingMaster Online/Intra in the most efficient way.
To edit
user settings
Note: When changing an Admin or Teacher user's settings, all changes need to be confirmed by giving your current password.
| Setting name | Description | |
| User ID |
This is the User ID for the created user (4 - 25 characters). This is needed along with a password for the user to be able to logon to the created account. | |
| Password | This is the password that will be requested
from the user when logging on. This password along with the User ID
is necessary for the user to log on. Note: The password is case sensitive (TypingMaster is different from typingmaster). |
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| Re-enter password | This is used to verify the password was typed in correctly. | |
| User Type |
Choose the user type:
For more information on different user types see Chapter 3.1. Note: Administrators and Teachers can change their roles only if "Teacher/Admin Switching" is enabled on the Settings page. |
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| First name | Enter the first name of the user. | |
| Last name | Enter here the last name of the user. This will make following results easier as user data is sorted alphabetically by their last name. | |
| Enter here the email address of the user you are creating. This will make it possible for the administrator to contact the user easily and the user will receive alerts from the program. | ||
| Send Email | This setting appears only when new users
are created. When checked, the program sends the users an email with
their login information to the address given above. Your contact information, such as name and email address, are included in the message. Instructions on logging in are also provided. To view the message template, click on "Click to view message" link. Note: Editing the above message and mass mailing to users from inside the Manager are not features of TypingMaster Online. This is for security reasons as such functionality could easily be used for spamming. |
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| Group | Here you can choose what group you wish to place the user in. If "Group selection" is enabled in the settings tab under "User Login Settings", a user can change what group they are in from their own settings page. |
To move
users to another group
You can also change a user's group in the user settings page.
You can use archive feature to hide inactive/old users from the current view without removing them permanently from the system.
To archive
selected users
Hidden users are moved to group named "Archived users". You can view hidden users by choosing "View group > Archived users". Archived users' study data is kept on the server and they can be restored to active groups if necessary.
If you have purchased transferable user licenses, licenses are freed when you archive users and can be reassigned to new users.
Note: Archived users cannot login the typing tutor while being archived. They will receive an error message informing them of this if they attempt to login.
To recover
archived users
To delete
users permanently
When users are removed permanently, their user data is deleted from the server and cannot be restored.
Note: If you are using user licenses, you cannot delete a licensed user. Instead we suggest you us the Archive User option.
To search
for individual users
TIP: If you've searched for a user and want to return to the list of all users, click on the browser's Back button or empty search field and click on Search.
The Courses page lists all courses that area available in TypingMaster.
Courses are always customized to a group and the page shows courses for
the group that is selected from the drop-down menu at the top. If you
are offering courses in multiple languages, select also the course language
to view courses in that language.
Filtering the courses page view:
Once you have set the filters, this is what you can do:
The table below lists the English courses you can choose from and a brief description of each course. For more information about the study material (lessons, exercise types etc.), see Chapter 5 in the User Manual.
The available course languages are set on the Settings tab under "Language Selections". See Chapter 6.2.4 for more information.
| Course name | Description | |
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Touch Typing Basic Course |
This course will teach the basic touch-typing technique. In each lesson the user will learn two or more keys from the keyboard and then practice the use of these keys with word drills, paragraph drills and typing games. |
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Numeric Keypad Course |
This course will help become a fluent user of the numeric keypad (10-key). All the lessons in this course are available in the trial version as well! |
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Special Marks Course |
This course teaches to efficiently use all the special marks on the keyboard. |
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Typing Test |
Test typing skills with this customizable typing test. The typing test is recommended if you want to arrange a pretest for the users. NOTE: Typing Test always saves the result of the latest test taken if that is better than any previous attempts. |
To edit
course settings
Settings are divided into three categories:
| Setting name | Description | |
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Lesson duration |
Select the lesson duration for the course (25 - 45 min.). The default duration for most of the courses is 45 minutes. If the option "No Time Limit" is selected, users can complete all lesson material in full without time limits. If this option is selected, it is not advisable to use the exercise lock. |
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Allow backspace |
Select whether to allow or prevent the use of backspace to correct typing errors during exercises. Preventing the use of backspace forces users to pay more attention on typing accuracy. If allowed, note that errors in a word need to be corrected before the user hits Space. Once Space is used, the program considers the word final and no corrections can be made to it afterwards. |
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Exercise lock |
When enabled, an exercise is marked completed only if the user has worked on it for the whole duration or has completed all exercise material. Note that in case exercises are not locked, they are marked completed even if the user has opened the exercise and maybe only spent a few seconds in it. When this setting is enabled together with the Lesson Lock, users will need to complete each exercise in full before moving on to the next lesson. |
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Lesson lock |
When enabled, user cannot move on to the next lesson unless all exercises of the current lesson have been completed. When this setting is enabled together with the Exercise lock, users will need to complete each exercise of the lesson before moving on to the next lesson. |
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Keyboard Layout |
Choose keyboard layout for users. TypingMaster courses are designed for the keyboards in common use in the countries the language is spoken in. The Spanish course, for example, works best with the Spanish or
the Latin-American keyboards and is difficult to complete with a
US standard keyboard as it is not possible to type the accented
letters such as ñ or é with the standard US keyboard.
US International should work with foreign languages. |
| Setting name | Description | |
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Required Net Speed |
Required net speed for passing the lesson exams (net speed is the adjusted typing speed with errors calculated in the result). To continue to the next lesson, users will
need to type at a speed greater or equal to this value in the Lesson
Exam at the end of the lesson. Note: If you prefer using CPM/KPM (Characters / Keystrokes per Minute) speed unit, please use the formula provided in Appendix 1. |
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Required Accuracy |
Required accuracy (0-100%) for passing the lesson exams. To continue to the next lesson, users will need to have an accuracy percentage greater or equal to this value in the Lesson Exam at the end of the lesson. |
| Setting name | Description | |
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Test text |
Select the text for the final test. You can also let users choose the text themselves by selecting the option "User choice". |
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Duration |
Duration of the final test. If option "User choice" is selected, the users are free to select test duration from the range of 1-30 minutes. |
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Allow backspace |
Select whether to allow or prevent the use of backspace to correct typing errors in the final test. Preventing the use of backspace forces users to pay more attention on typing accuracy. Note that errors in a word need to be corrected before the user hits Space. Once Space is used, the program considers the word final and no corrections can be made to it afterwards. |
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Pass limit for net speed |
The final test is passed only if a test taker reaches the typing speed set here. Note: If you prefer using CPM/KPM (Characters / Keystrokes per Minute) speed unit, please use the formula provided in Appendix 1. |
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Pass limit for accuracy |
The final test is passed only if the test taker has an accuracy percentage greater or equal to the limit set here. 50% accuracy means that half of the words were typed correctly. Accuracy percentage required from professional typists is usually 98% or higher. |
If you prefer to use similar course settings for several groups you can use the efficient copy tool.
To copy
course settings between groups
Course settings are always group specific, i.e. when you set any settings they apply only for the selected group. The only way to share the settings among more than one group is to use this Copy Settings feature.
Note: Copying settings will also copy whether the course is Active or Hidden to the group.
On the Groups page you can view and edit your groups.
There are two types of groups in TypingMaster:
To create
a new group
To delete
a group
In the Group Settings window, you can change group name and group type. Administrator can also reassign the whole group to another teacher.
To edit
group settings
Admin users can set and modify all general settings. Teacher users can only change their personal settings and no other settings are shown to them on this page.
This is where you change your administrator information such as user name and password. All changes need to be confirmed by entering current password. For more information on user settings see Chapter 3.3.2.
General settings will affect all users, including other teachers and administrators. It is a good idea to have one administrator responsible for the general settings to avoid confusion.
We recommend configuring the General Settings before deploying the typing tutor in larger scale.
| Setting name | Description | |
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Prevent new users |
Prevent new users accounts being created. Select "Enabled" if you want to prevent any new users from logging in or creating accounts. This way only Administrator or Teacher can create new user accounts. Using this function is useful if you want to have strict control over the use of licenses. |
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Require email |
Require an email address from new users. Set to "Enabled" if you want all new users to give a valid email address when signing in to the course. |
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| Group selection |
Let users choose their group. Set to "Enabled" if users can choose their study group themselves when signing in to the course. When set to "Disabled", all new students who create their own account will be put to the default group and you can move them to their correct groups on the users page. You can also place users who create their own account in any group you wish using a special link. Contact us for more details about this feature. |
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Lock user name |
Prevent users from changing their first name, last name and login ID. When set to "Enabled" users cannot change their user name. This is practical if you wish to keep track of individual users, and prevent users from entering an undesired name. |
| Setting name | Description | |
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Free typing tests |
Let users freely access typing tests. When enabled, users are allowed to freely practice typing tests at any time. When disabled, users can only take the final test of the course and cannot complete other typing tests. You may want to disable tests if you do not want users to see and practice with the typing test texts before taking the final test. Note: The results for free typing tests are not kept. |
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Hide Games |
Hides the games section (in ActiveX®). |
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Speed unit |
WPM = words per minute Select speed measurement unit shown to the user, either Words per Minute (e.g. USA) or Characters/Keystrokes per Minute (e.g. Europe). |
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Word length |
Average word length in keystrokes. Specify world length depending on the language of study:
With this setting it is possible to change the effect errors have on the total typing speed. The default value for this setting is 5. If you wish to have errors affect the net typing speed more, increase this value. If you wish for the errors to have less of an affect, decrease this value. |
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Tutor Type |
Choose which type of typing tutor to use:
With this option you can either choose to use Java or ActiveX typing tutor interfaces. ActiveX works only on computers with Microsoft Windows and Internet Explorer 4 or greater. The Java interface is used by other operating systems (such as Linux and Mac OS X) and when using other browsers than Internet Explorer on Windows. The default option (ActiveX and Java) will automatically use the appropriate interface. If you are experiencing problems with the ActiveX version we recommend choosing the "Java only" option. |
The License password is used to control the use of your licenses and protecting your typing tutor from unauthorized use.
When "Require Password" is set to Enabled, the users need to enter a
License Password (defined below in License password) to be able
to take a license.
The License password is a useful tool in controlling the use of your licenses and protecting your typing tutor from unauthorized use.
| Setting name | Description | |
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Date & time format |
Style for all dates and times. Select what format you want the date and time to be shown in.
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Default language |
Select the default language for TypingMaster Online/Intra. If only using one language version, select it from this menu and uncheck all other language options. Setting the default language also sets the default language course for users when they start. If you have more than one active language they will be able to change it, otherwise they will be locked into the default language of your choice. If you really do not need multiple languages, we recommend setting one default language and unchecking the other active course languages. This will make course management much easier. NOTE: Setting the default language to Spanish or French changes only the course language, Manager and Study Area interface will be in English. |
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Active course languages |
Choose the languages in which the courses will be available for users. |
| Setting name | Description | |
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Organization name |
Enter any name that you want to be displayed to users, for example "Our Junior High School" |
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| Login message | This message is shown under your company's
name in the Login page. All people logging in will see this message.
You can for example write here instructions for new users of the program.
Write <br> to add a line break if needed. |
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Teacher/Admin Switching |
Having this enabled allows Teachers and Admins to switch between the roles (done in their Personal Settings page). Teachers, for example, may wish to occasionally access the more advanced settings on the Settings page for example. Having switching set to "Enabled" would allow them to switch to the Admin type giving them full access to such settings. Setting this to "Disabled" means Admins and Teachers are locked into their roles. This allows for a greater level of security and confidentiality as Teachers are unable to change global settings or see and interact with other people's groups and users. |
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| SMTP mail server (TypingMaster Intra Only) |
Entering your organization's mail server here will enable advanced email features, e.g. emailing of forgotten passwords and important license notifications. If uncertain, ask your system administrator for information on your SMTP server address. |
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Support email address |
This email may be shown to users for support purposes (see Show Email setting below). This email address is required in TypingMaster Online.
With TypingMaster Intra this email address must have permission to send emails using the entered SMTP mail server (see above). |
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Show Support email |
If enabled, the administrator's email address will be visible to users. This is useful in case users need to ask questions or require help from the administrator. |
On the Test Texts page you can:
Note that typing tests are arranged in other Manager sections, not on the test texts page, which is used merely to manage the texts.
To view the typing test text in full, click on the test name or the "View text" button.
If there are some test texts that you do not want users to be able to practice freely, you should hide them. This way users can access a part of the texts to better understand how the typing test works but not practice with the texts you want to use as assessment tests.
To hide
a text
Note: In TypingMaster Online the number of test texts you can add is 10, in TypingMaster Intra you can add an unlimited amount.
| Setting name | Description | |
| Title | Name of the test | |
| Author | Author of the test text | |
| Description | Short description of the test text (max. length 115 characters) | |
| Copyright | Copyright information if needed | |
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Language |
Text language. The text is shown only if the language is chosen. |
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Owner |
By setting the text owner you control which users the text is visible to:
This is independent of hiding the text, by setting the owner you control who can see the text when it is not hidden. Tip: If wish to have a shared text visible but another teacher does not, simply change the owner to My Texts. If it is one of the pre-loaded texts where it cannot be changed; add it again as a custom text by copying and pasting the information, then set its owner as My Texts and set the original to Hidden. Note: Teachers see only their own texts and shared texts, whereas administrator can see the texts of all teachers and administrators. |
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Text |
You can easily add text by copying it from any word processor and pasting it in this field.
Tip: If you want to modify an existing text or use only a part of it, you can copy and paste the text here and rename it. |
Note: You can only delete custom test texts.
To delete
a test text
To edit
or rename a text
It is not possible to edit the texts that come with the program. However, there is a workaround that you can use. Simply copy the whole text or part of the text and make a custom text out of it. Copy the text or passage of the needed text, select "Add custom text" and paste it to the custom text window. Remember to fill in other text information as well.
TIP: The test texts included in TypingMaster are fairly long to accommodate typing tests up to 30 minutes in duration. Many times, however, the preferred typing test duration is 10 minutes or less. To add more variety to tests, you can copy parts of the existing texts and add them as Custom Text to the selection.
To enter
a license
Once you have purchased a license the licenses page displays more detailed information on your license. There are two main sets of information, Current Licenses and License Usage.
TypingMaster Intra also provides you with a Tools page that includes some useful features to help with your installation.
This feature can be used when you wish to stop TypingMaster Intra or
the server on which it running on but you do not wish to interrupt any
users currently studying with the program.
To shut down click on the Prepare for Shutdown link. This will prevent
other Admins, Teachers and users from logging in. It will also logout
any user or teacher if they are browsing using the Manager or Study Area.
It also stops the typing tutor from being launched. For those users
that already have the typing tutor open it does not stop them from studying,
it just waits until they close the typing tutor and then logs that user
off.
Once Prepare for Shutdown is clicked on the number or users currently
studying will be shown. This page will automatically update every
couple of minutes. Once all users are no longer studying and have
been logged out a message appears saying it is ready to be shutdown.
To stop the server use the Stop TypingMaster Server option in the Start
Menu > Programs > TypingMaster Intra for Windows users. For Mac
OS X and Linux/UNIX go to the 'bin' folder (OS X: /Applications/tmintra/bin)
and look for the shutdown.command or shutdown.sh.
You do not need to stop TypingMaster Intra if you wish to restart your
server, just make sure all users have logged off so their user information
is saved.
You can stop the shutdown process at any time by clicking the Cancel link.
This will revert TypingMaster Intra back to its normal state.
This allows to to quickly import users into TypingMaster Intra. You can
set a user's name, User id, password, email and setting their group. Please
see the detailed instructions on that page for how to import users.
Once imported users are fully functional and can log in and start using
the program.
This feature simply allows you to see if you have the latest version
of TypingMaster Intra. It also displays you current version number,
please quote this if you ever contact us for support.
Tip: You can see the version
number on TypingMaster Intra and TypingMaster Online by placing your mouse
over the TypingMaster logo in the bottom right hand corner of all Manager
pages.
Typing speed can be measured in Words per Minute (WPM) or Characters/Keystrokes per Minute (CPM).
In TypingMaster, WPM is used by default as it is the more common style. Speed unit can be changed on the Settings tab ( "Settings > Study settings > Speed unit").
TypingMaster follows international industrial standards to calculate typing speed in WPM. For written English, the commonly accepted standard is a 5-stroke standard word, including spaces and punctuation marks. This is the default setting in TypingMaster. In result calculation this means that five keystrokes make one word and - similarly - five keystrokes are deducted for each mistyped word. If needed, the word length can be changed on the Settings tab ("Settings > Study settings > Word length").
In the settings you always have to enter speed value in WPM format. To convert a CPM/KPM value to WPM please use the following formula:
One WPM equals 5 CPM/KPM, unless you have set a different value on the Settings page. For example, if you wish to set the speed limit to 300 CPM, enter 60 WPM (300 divided by 5).
Gross typing speed is calculated as follows:
Accuracy percentage is calculated using the standard word length. Gross hits are the total number of keystrokes typed. Error hits is the number of words typed incorrectly times the word length. Net hits equal gross hits minus error hits. The rate of net hits to gross hits typed gives accuracy percentage.
Net typing speed is the typing speed with errors counted in the result and is calculated like this:
A user completes a typing test with 1750 keystrokes in 5 minutes and 5 incorrectly typed words. The results are:
Only available in TypingMaster Online, these license work so that one license per user and are nontransferable to another user. Once a license has been taken the license is matched to that person and can not be changed. These licenses are fairly low cost and are good when you know the number for people you wish to train.
Available in both TypingMaster Online and TypingMaster Intra, these license again work so that one license per user but once a person has completed their training or no longer needs access you can move that license onto a new person. It requires some maintenance to move the licenses from one person to the other but does not lock you in to a certain set of people as with regular User Licenses.
Available in both TypingMaster Online and TypingMaster Intra, these licenses allow a certain number of users to access the course at one time. Concurrent Licenses offer greater flexibility than Transferable User Licenses as the licenses will automatically shift as different users log in and out.
Available only for K12 schools with TypingMaster Intra. This license limits the number of computers that you run the typing tutor from.
Only available in TypingMaster Intra. License a whole site such as an
entire school, allowing anyone within your site to access the program.